Anonymous: you're begining to piss me off

This post will either be ignored, or subject my internetings to severe harassment. Probably the first since nobody reads this blog.

I can certainly sympathize with this group as they bring awareness to problems on the net. Internet censorship, protection of privacy, these are important issues. None of this forgives their methods. Their utter disrespect for private property and free choice is disgusting.

Anonymous, or at least a splinter group, announced last month that it will target Facebook over privacy concerns. Since I can't say for sure who it is, let's just call them the perpetrators.

Let's get something straight, Facebook has access to your private information that you give them. They use that information for profit and potentially to gain favor with other agencies.

Thank the Lord for our great Internet protectors for saving us from the evils of our own free choices. Save us from posting our private information on the Internet after agreeing to EULAs that we don't read. Save us from our own stupidity.

For people who claim to oppose censorship, there seems to be a good number who wish to censor it themselves.

Free speech requires platforms. If you want to broadcast on the radio, you need a radio. If you want to hang a banner, you'll probably want a printing press. If you want to communicate on the Internet, you'll need some kind of service for it. These services do not come without a cost. They require programmers, moderators, graphic designers, servers, data service, power, and real estate.

This stuff costs money. It must be funded in some way. There are several models available.

Model 1: Paid service. Would you pay to use Facebook? I can't go a week without getting spammed with some kind of petition to protest against an imagined plan to do just that.

Model 2: Sell adspace and use personal information to target that marketing. Pretty sure that's what they're doing now.

Model 3: Grants and donations. I'm sure the authoritarian ideal is to have it funded by the government. As a frequent user of government communication systems, I can assure the uninitiated that they suck. Even the government realizes that their systems are not that effective, which is why every federal agency has a Facebook presence.

I am reluctant to use this term, but the plan to "destroy" Facebook is pretty much terrorism. What will the end result be? Do you expect FB to change it's policies? Best case is that you convince all companies to remove their presence altogether. That will leave us with what? What is the alternative service that the activists will allow us to use?

If you don't like the current model, don't use it. Build an alternative (P2P OSS social networking would be awesome). Denying others from making the election is censorship, no matter how noble your intentions. Do not depose the corporate tyrant to replace it with an anonymous one.