Comments on: Is Facebook Really Censoring Search When It Suits Them?

By: jeffery dower

jeffery dower — Fri, 19 Dec 2008 14:45:04 +0000

walk away from facebook forever, join the group ‘Suicide from facebook in 2009!’, let s do it now before it s too late.

By: SteveStreeting.com » Re-democratising the Internet

SteveStreeting.com » Re-democratising the Internet — Mon, 12 May 2008 11:59:20 +0000

[...] often harsh and unilateral (particularly if Viacom took a dislike to you) and it has plagued most of the big names at one time or another. It’s because there’s a fundamental conflict of [...]

By: Le vilain Facebook « Le monde change…et pourquoi pas?

Le vilain Facebook « Le monde change…et pourquoi pas? — Sun, 04 May 2008 02:32:38 +0000

[...] Ce n’est pas tout. Facebook a été soupçonné de censurer de ses moteurs de recherches les groupes de pression qui lui sont trop hostiles. [...]

By: Motstånd mot Facebook Beacon « Early October Sweden AB

Motstånd mot Facebook Beacon « Early October Sweden AB — Wed, 06 Feb 2008 23:09:28 +0000

[...] annan intressant postning är hos TechCrunch där man visar på vad som kan vara försök från Facebooks sida att mörka det hela, även [...]

By: Dan

Dan — Mon, 10 Dec 2007 06:56:06 +0000

They are banning ‘Ron Paul’ now. I can search for anyone else, and any other candidate, but not Ron Paul. Talk about censorship.

By: sagDrarty

sagDrarty — Tue, 27 Nov 2007 11:09:20 +0000

Hi, hello, privet toyota truck wrongdoing

By: Tim LePes

Tim LePes — Sun, 25 Nov 2007 06:13:57 +0000

So… Does what happens in the Facebook STAY in the Facebook? I seriously doubt it…

I suppose it is possible that this search snafu has resulted in much ado about nothing. Perhaps. It is not _completely_ unthinkable…

But regarding Facebook, privacy, and the trust of the Facebook community, perhaps some of you would be interested to know some of the financial backing behind Facebook and the eyebrow-raising links back to government. *I* certainly don’t trust Facebook, or Myspace for that matter. Someone got curious about the $13 million infusion of cash that Facebook got and did some research. Let’s see… A CIA-front venture capital firm (In-Q-Tel), BBN, DARPA, Office of Information Awareness (Total/Terrorist Information Awareness, remember TIA?), etc… All very scary in an Orwellian sort of way. Facebook seems to be the PERFECT application for something like the big-brother OIA, getting the people to fill their databases for them. Look at the objectives of the OIA and the sorts of data Facebook collects. All ur infos r belong to BB.

But, then, anyone truly internet-savvy knows that NOTHING is private on the internet. The NSA has been tapping the trunks at AT&T co-location facilities, for instance. Even encryption is hard to trust after the Hushmail gaff and the back-door(s) found in the NIST reference cryptography algorithms.

Presentation:
http://albumoft...y.com/facebook/

Article:
http://www.comm...php/t34949.html

Peace!
Tim

By: LGR

LGR — Sat, 24 Nov 2007 23:45:32 +0000

If Google can do it why can’t Facebook? It is their system and their business. No one cries foul when Google censors their search results. Facebook is a business and can return whatever it wants to search results. Is it right? Probably not but that is life.

By: Still waiting for whistle blowers

Still waiting for whistle blowers — Sat, 24 Nov 2007 20:30:03 +0000

Is MA going to get away with a hit and run again? We are waiting to hear who those sources are (besides Adam Green) and what led MA to come to such an unlikely conclusion… So far most of us in this thread don’t seem to buy it.

By: Ian Lotinsky

Ian Lotinsky — Sat, 24 Nov 2007 17:27:04 +0000

I’ve searched for people before and gotten the “Search is currently unavailable” message. I would immediately try the search again and get results. Are these people sure it wasn’t just a temporary outage or unhandled exception?

Regardless, I do think Facebook needs to go to an opt-in model. See my little scare at http://ianlotin...ted-my-privacy/

By: James

James — Sat, 24 Nov 2007 12:49:29 +0000

Facebook just got done editing their search function as well. If you do a search for privacy, you’ll see new keyword identifiers that point to other pages on their site. As a developer, I never pull a page down completely, just disable the functionality that we’re working on. More than likely, this was run when a server farm was being updated…

Also…what are they giving to advertisers that’s revealing? Your age, college, gender? Even at that point, they aren’t “giving” it away, they’re segmenting advertising…it’s smart and every other site does it as well…none of them have opened up their advertising to everybody like this though…it’s smart…very smart.

By: Anyone

Anyone — Sat, 24 Nov 2007 09:15:15 +0000

Even if Facebook can defend itself this time with a buggy search (hmm, since when is incompetence a virtue?), it’s very likely members of the network will revolt something or the other sooner or later – see this for example: http://constitu...l-facebook.org/

As a side note, I’ve seen this sort of thing happening in another web-based social network (a non-profit one, no less!) and seeing the parallels is quite scary.

By: Kikerberg

Kikerberg — Sat, 24 Nov 2007 08:50:00 +0000

I do what I want on my own property. STFU

By: anton

anton — Sat, 24 Nov 2007 08:02:34 +0000

Holly crap, I noticed the exact same thing when searching for the group or trying to view it. I thought it was suspicious, but dismissed it.

By: Kyle Guzik

Kyle Guzik — Sat, 24 Nov 2007 05:06:26 +0000

I was recently deleted from facebook. they do censor as it suits them. i wasn’t violating their policies. they are just ultimately anti free expression

By: Move along.

Move along. — Sat, 24 Nov 2007 03:56:37 +0000

These aren’t the droids you’re looking for.

By: www.CARversation.com

www.CARversation.com — Sat, 24 Nov 2007 01:05:01 +0000

WOW

By: ed

ed — Sat, 24 Nov 2007 01:04:04 +0000

Your search is only looking for groups that originated in your network that have the word privacy in them.

And facebooks search isn’t reliable enough for it to be called censorship.

-Ed

By: Steve Ballmer

Steve Ballmer — Fri, 23 Nov 2007 22:10:17 +0000

Everybody does it!
There are some pretty scummy people out there and we don’t them finding all of the scummy stuff they want!
http://fakestev...er.blogspot.com

By: Bill

Bill — Fri, 23 Nov 2007 21:54:26 +0000

This doesn’t surprise me in the least. You can get a sense of a company from using it’s products. Facebook is not your friend. They’re not in it for you, they’re in it for themselves and the money. That’s not bad in itself (most are) but it matters how you achieve that goal and how you’re prepared to treat your customers to achieve that goal. Facebook will happily roll right over you to get where they want to be.

By: link to adsense linkfarm

link to adsense linkfarm — Fri, 23 Nov 2007 21:24:16 +0000

Inane filler comment with horrible grammar and empty threats to unsubscribe to TechCrunch, referring to Silicon Valley power players by first name from the border of irrelevance in Eastern Europe. link to my shitty blog

By: Anon

Anon — Fri, 23 Nov 2007 21:01:59 +0000

Zuckerberg’s role model is Gates, you can expect Microsoft-like behavior from Facebook, its corporate culture is much closer to M$ than it is to Google. Proprietary, closed, and to some extent manipulative. You can expect more of the same, just as you do from M$. Zuckerberg is playing from M$’s gamebook. Win at all cost!

By: Mel

Mel — Fri, 23 Nov 2007 18:57:54 +0000

Please stop writing so bamn much about FB. MA — my sense is that you write disproportionately too much about FB. I will no doubt unsubscribe from the TC newsletter if TC becomes just a FB blog. We know what FB is. Discover something else, please.

By: Mark Suckerberg

Mark Suckerberg — Fri, 23 Nov 2007 18:40:24 +0000

In case you don’t know my generation of Millennials, here’s an informative segment on 60 minutes
http://www.cbsn...in3475200.shtml

By: Mark Suckerberg

Mark Suckerberg — Fri, 23 Nov 2007 18:38:46 +0000

Stop it, stop all these bashing. I am a millennial, don’t you know what that means? It means I can’t take criticism and I am a winner no matter what I do. You should expect a call from my parents on how mean you all are to me.