On Wednesday 21. June 2017 12.22.30 Erik Albers wrote:
Now I would be interested what you think? Do you think that - although the use of proprietary platforms is ethically not supportable - the chances of convincing new people to use and further Free Software are worth the punishment? Or do you think that our message should not occur on platforms like Facebook or Twitter at all, because it contradicts our efforts in getting people to use decentralized services, run with Free Software and therefore potentially harm us in the long run?
Although I can see the benefit in publishing information in as many channels as necessary to get the message across, mostly because people unfortunately do not cultivate multiple sources of news and information, extreme care must be taken to not legitimise certain sources by lending them a presence. Admittedly, this is a more obvious problem with news outlets that have a specific agenda rather than supposedly general communications services.
It is worth noting that recent political trends have made advertisers more aware of the costs of being associated with dubious information outlets, but had there been no cost to them, they might not have been too concerned about being complicit in sustaining those outlets. We should exercise social responsibility and consider all such factors, not just the ones that affect us and our own immediate interests.
Remember also that by participating in certain social networks, one enables the surveillance and behavioural analysis of those networks' participants, opening them up to manipulation and exploitation [1]. People need not publicly express an affiliation to FSFE, for example, but their habits and preferences will be monitored and such information used to target them should the operators of those networks see a possibility of profiting from it. This could even be used to undermine the work of the FSFE, thus creating a situation where the FSFE effectively undermines itself.
Paul
[1] https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2017/may/07/the-great-british- brexit-robbery-hijacked-democracy