Hi Jonke, I can't help but feel this is a PR stunt from Mozilla. Facebook recently had a privacy scandal, but Facebook is the same it has always been. Asking them to reform their business is pointless because they make money tracking users, so they can't stop tracking them. Also, at the end of the message, Mozilla asks people to use Twitter instead and while Twitter does not ask for photos of users and names and such, it is still able to track users through the web. So in my opinion, Mozilla is not all that serious here.
On a sidenote, I think Facebook is a symptom of a privacy issue we as a society have, but one that is currently starting to fail. Not because people realized it tracks them, but because they are choosing to be tracked by someone else. A lot of young people do not use Facebook anymore, they use Snapchat and the likes and that is why Facebook had to buy Whatsapp - to stay relevant. Regarding your implied question of whether the FSFE should have a Facebook account, my answer is still yes, under certain conditions. First of all, the FSFE is an organization, not a person (and no, corporations are also not people!), so being tracked has completely different implications. The FSFE as a legal entity is not entitled to privacy or any other human rights so our information is mostly public anyway (and should be). What we should not do is tell other people to sign up for Facebook. That is why it is important for us to always clearly state (on Facebook or whichever privacy-troubled platform) that we do not support the platform and that people should not sign up for it. That way, we make clear that our presence on the platform is not a stamp of approval. We also need to make sure there is never any content from us on those platforms before it is also on other platforms so people always have a privacy respecting source available. If we meet those conditions, I think we can gain from being on platforms like Facebook because we can reach people that we would not reach otherwise and hopefully, in the process, they will become more aware of Facebook's privacy issues. I think we should have a voice of dissent on a platform we find problematic instead of leaving it to voices of approval. Or to put it another way: If you want to warn people about the dangers of X, you need to talk to people who use X (and X can be anything: non-free software, drugs, Facebook, Twitter, etc.). I didn't arrive at this position lightly: I want the FSFE to be a beacon of freedom and privacy. I want the FSFE to always bahave in accordance with its principles. For a long time, that made me think we should not be on platforms like Facebook, but then I realized the different implications if we as an organization are on Facebook or we as a community: I think the former can be done in accordance with our principles, but not the latter. Happy hacking! Florian _______________________________________________ Discussion mailing list Discussion@lists.fsfe.org https://lists.fsfe.org/mailman/listinfo/discussion This mailing list is covered by the FSFE's Code of Conduct. All participants are kindly asked to be excellent to each other: https://fsfe.org/about/codeofconduct