Facebook supports horrible proposed Internet bill CISPA

CISPA, the pending US cybersecurity bill, is a terrible law, with many of the worst features of SOPA -- surveillance and domain seizures and censorship and so on. What's more, it is being supported by one of the largest Web companies in the world: Facebook. DemandProgress is asking its supporters to write to Facebook and ask them to withdraw their support.

What is Facebook thinking? They've signed on in support of CISPA -- the new bill that would obliterate online privacy, give the military crazy new abilities to spy on the Internet, and potentially let ISPs block sites and cut off users accused of piracy.

Tell Facebook: Withdraw Your Support For CISPA

I write books. My latest is a YA science fiction novel called Homeland (it's the sequel to Little Brother). More books: Rapture of the Nerds (a novel, with Charlie Stross); With a Little Help (short stories); and The Great Big Beautiful Tomorrow (novella and nonfic). I speak all over the place and I tweet and tumble, too.

MORE: cispa • facebook • petition • politics

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The Snowden Principle

Leafworth

Facebook is like an old pair of shoes that have been worn to point they are no longer comfortable and need to be thrown out.
- bklynchris
  
  I know, once they went public I screamed “Over, its over” in my best Portlandian Fred Armenson voice. Of course, I knew this the year previous when I deleted my account.
- steveboyett
  
  Which is pretty much what Facebook thinks of the notion of privacy.
- Cowicide
  
  Agreed, it’s been time for a long time to put Facebook out to pasture. I’d like to see a list of social network website alternatives that don’t support this kind of crap.
  
  Facebook is run by a scumbag. Why give scum all your private info?
That_Anonymous_Coward

*pulls out the tinfoil*
Maybe they are supporting it so that what they are already doing becomes legal.
- EH
  
  I would imagine more that it serves to solidify a move towards a walled garden model, just like their recent proposal to enforce quasi-trademark control over the word “book” in FB app names.
Nimdae

It seems every day I see something that validates my decision to not only stop using Facebook, but also request my account be deleted.

I know, I know, it’s not really deleted. But, at least nothing I had on there is publicly accessible.
- Paul Renault
  
  Next step: Add http://www.facebook.com (and all the various other-named FB sites) to your ‘hosts’ (or equivalent) file so it points to the bit bucket.
  
  See, if you click on the link on my machine, nothing happens.
http://excelsior-station.wikidot.com Sarge Misfit

Since when has FaceBook ever cared about privacy? Another very good reason why I don’t go near the site.
http://www.facebook.com/people/Jason-Farrar/100000847725195 Jason Farrar

They support CISPA over SOPA because CISPA moves the burden of enforcement from the private company to a government entity. What people need to understand about the industry being against SOPA is that they were against it because the onus of enforcement was up to the private company and private companies also could face punitive damages, with CISPA this is no longer the case, they just have to hand over requested information when asked. The situation isn’t any better for citizens than SOPA was.
- niktemadur
  
  CISPA moves the burden of enforcement from the private company to a government entity.
  
  Yet another government handout to corporations, at taxpayers’ expense.
  
  The people reject it, and only two months later back it comes in a nastier incarnation, just to spite the people, it feels like. Or is this what they wanted all along? This is not going to stop, goddamit.
  - ponzicar
    
    Public outrage is hard to start, and hard to keep going. They’re just going to keep throwing SOPA like bills out until one is able to pass.
http://twitter.com/OrwellUpgraded Orwell Upgraded

Time to organise a user blackout on set day by disabling facebook accounts simultaneously? They might worry if users threaten to disappear. After all, your not producing them the goods they need.
Sutra

“What is Facebook thinking?”

cha-ching, that’s what.
- Shashwath T.R.
  
  I don’t even see a cha-ching opportunity here…
- newbedave
  
  No more competition cha-ching It’s hard to count how many times their privacy settings and policies have changed. without informing users.
http://twitter.com/fossilfuels Funk Daddy

Yeah I’ll def take our biz off Facebook and our personal FB too if they don’t not only not support CISPA but also oppose CISPA. You do what you can, besides, the FB isn’t much more than a hassle for either. Real networking FTW.
$16228947

Should this come as a surprise to anyone?
scythenoire

Now that Facebook is corporate scum, should this come as any surprise? All they care about it making money off of idiots who give them their information for free.
http://thebeatdown.disqus.com Franklin

Most interesting is if you post links to this petition or any other anti-CISPA links on facebook, it gives you a bold “spammy link” warning before connecting to the site. Oh, the irony…
- morgaen
  
  How is this irony??
tyrantasaurus

Luckily Facebook is the forum where anti-CISPA sentiment will be spread most thoroughly and effectively…
- neurogami
  
  People who use Facebook don’t care about privacy or else they wouldn’t be using Facebook.
  - niktemadur
    
    Vague and nebulous concepts of privacy may fail to stir people up, but SOPAPIPA and the blackout was something people could latch on to, so it did create an intense buzz on Facebook a few months back.
Angryjim

The Fourth Amendment to the United States Constitution provides that:The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and Warrants shall not be issued, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.If any of these bills passes let’s take it to the supreme court. (Not that they are politically unbiased themselves.)
- http://vertigo25.tumblr.com/ vertigo25
  
  “Quit waving the Constitution in my face. It’s just a piece of paper!”
  
  Seems we haven’t come all that far from those days, does it?
Drabula

If I wasn’t separated by an ocean from all my friends I would have quit FB yesterday. But as it is I just don’t see alternatives for communicating. Me and my 3 best friends have a ‘private group’ on there in which we ruthlessly entertain each other from afar. Email just isn’t a substitute for the fun we have in our profane little corner of FB. But I have my limits….
koko szanel

What are they thinking? Maybe that they can do it because even people like You Cory are in love with bookface and facial networks and will keep spamming sites with bookface LIKE spyware buttons no matter what.
You criticize them while at the same time making them money.
benher

“What is Facebook thinking?”

They have never given a flying zuck about their users and they aren’t about to start. Why should they? They have an unprecedented userbase and are basically peaking. Making a powerplay to subdue the last of our ever eroding freedoms on the Internet by cooperating with government regulators is only part of their larger goal to ensure some sort of hegemonic control over the majority of users.

Zuck and co have never been ones to repent for their sins.
robdobbs

My name is Robb and I’m a Facebooker. I’ve been clean now for 23 months, 10 days.
SoItBegins

“We know… everything about you.”
http://vertigo25.tumblr.com/ vertigo25

What I want to know is… how did we get to a place where lawmakers are petitioning corporations for their support of bills? And… more importantly… how do we get out of here?
- http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=735217273 Jeffrey Pritz
  
  It’s not easy but STOP USING THEIR PRODUCTS!!! That’s how we get out of here.
suburbanhick

I have never had a Facebook account. Or Twitter. Or any other of those idiotic lame-excuse-for-real-communication-with-people antisocial media platforms. I keep in touch with my friends and family daily thru emails, texting, phone calls and – gee, whaddaya know – TALKING TO THEM FACE-TO-FACE. That makes me a happy dinosaur.
rsk

Spammer Mark Zuckerberg will support anything that makes him money. Doesn’t matter what it is — if he can get away with it and profit, he’ll do it. No limits of any kind. So, clearly, he has calculated that supporting CISPA better helps reach that goal than opposing CISPA. (He’s a thoroughly evil person, but he’s not stupid.)

Petition? Worthless. If you want to make the Internet a better place, close your Facebook account, blacklist their domains, and firewall out their network allocations at your network perimeter. We did just fine before Facebook came along, we’ll do just fine when it’s just a bad memory.
- newbedave
  
  Zuck: Yeah so if you ever need info about anyone at Harvard
  
  Zuck: Just ask.
  
  Zuck: I have over 4,000 emails, pictures, addresses, SNS
  
  [Redacted Friend's Name]: What? How’d you manage that one?
  
  Zuck: People just submitted it.
  
  Zuck: I don’t know why.
  
  Zuck: They “trust me”
  
  Zuck: Dumb fucks.
Cheryl Nessman

Ugh, was thinking of deleting my account anyway (just don’t “get” the new timeline interface)…now it’s a done deal.
http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=735217273 Jeffrey Pritz

The CISPA 28′s

H.R. 3523 – 28 Corporate Letters of Support

http://intelligence.house.gov/hr-3523-letters-support
CognitiveDissident

SOPA and PIPA and ACTA and T(i)PPA
CISPA and P-NAC* and CLEAN-BREAK and PAT-ACT
GITMO and N-DAA** and OP-OIL*** and IRAQ

These are a few of my least favorite things

When the taze zaps, when the spray stings
I simply remember my least favorite things
And then I do feel real mad!

* Project for the New American Century
**National Defense Authorization Act (“enn-dahh”)
***Operation Iraqi Liberation
hostile_17

And how do you speak to Facebook exactly? They don’t want to hear from the hordes.