Ask HN: Invited by Facebook for privacy roundtable. What questions should I ask? • Hacker News Board

Re: Ask HN: Invited by Facebook for privacy roundtable. What questions should I ask?

#121

Post by Balgair » Tue, Jul 09, 2019, 4:30 PM UTC

iaml wrote: post #101

Balgair wrote: post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Aside: Interesting use of the pronoun 'she' in this comment. FB's behaviour is totally due to Zuck, as he owns 53.3% of the voting shares of the company. FB is Zuck, for all intents and purposes.

I see this use of 'she' from time to time and also curious about motivation here. Also, I'd say even though Zuck is practically face of facebook (heh), company is still genderless and should be referred to as it. In my opinion, of course.

To really get off-topic: The use of 'she' is likely in immitation of the female-gender pronouns that are used to refer to ships and other watercraft or like nation-states, as is common in English. Likening FB to a large ship or country is not unreasonable in terms of how big corporations can be, and I think it may be applicable to larger firms like GE, Ford, Shell, etc that do not have majority voting control by one person. However, as FB is totally controlled by Zuck (an edge case in public companies,for sure), I think that refering to FB like a large ship or micro-state is not apt.

FB is Zuck.

Re: Ask HN: Invited by Facebook for privacy roundtable. What questions should I ask?

#122

Post by kypro » Tue, Jul 09, 2019, 4:44 PM UTC

cardimart wrote: post #113

Ask why they lied to the EU when they said they couldn't merge WhatsApp's data with Facebook's data. When they knew they could.

What's the point in asking them what they could do, there's plenty they could do but shouldn't.

Re: Ask HN: Invited by Facebook for privacy roundtable. What questions should I ask?

#123

Post by thwythwy » Tue, Jul 09, 2019, 4:45 PM UTC

jjmorrison wrote: post #79

> Some people advised me not to go there because it would only do harm to my name and brand, but I think I should We need more people who are willing to try and solve problems, not just be critical. Thanks for being willing to have a conversation with them. You're making the right call whether you are able to have an impact or not.

>impact or not

Willing to solve problems is not the same as willing to be a prop for a problem.

Re: Ask HN: Invited by Facebook for privacy roundtable. What questions should I ask?

#124

Post by School-Cotton » Tue, Jul 09, 2019, 4:45 PM UTC

Balgair wrote: post #121

iaml wrote: post #101

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I see this use of 'she' from time to time and also curious about motivation here. Also, I'd say even though Zuck is practically face of facebook (heh), company is still genderless and should be referred to as it. In my opinion, of course.

To really get off-topic: The use of 'she' is likely in immitation of the female-gender pronouns that are used to refer to ships and other watercraft or like nation-states, as is common in English. Likening FB to a large ship or country is not unreasonable in terms of how big corporations can be, and I think it may be applicable to larger firms like GE, Ford, Shell, etc that do not have majority voting control by one…

As a native English speaker, I have always been irritated by that usage (which I’ll be the first to admit is not really rational) and I’m pleased that it seems to be dying out.

Re: Ask HN: Invited by Facebook for privacy roundtable. What questions should I ask?

#125

Post by 1shooner » Tue, Jul 09, 2019, 4:46 PM UTC

If social media platforms do not legally provide an expectation of privacy, as Facebook has recently claimed in US court[1], why should users expect otherwise?

[1]https://www.nytimes.com/2019/06/18/opinion/facebook-court-pr...

Re: Ask HN: Invited by Facebook for privacy roundtable. What questions should I ask?

#126

Post by jddayley » Tue, Jul 09, 2019, 4:52 PM UTC

Start with them defining, "What is privacy?" - Privacy is the ability of an individual or group to seclude themselves, or information about themselves, and thereby express themselves selectively. - source https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Privacy

- How does the average customer know they have achieved "privacy". I have a feeling that they have many privacy features, but turned off by default.

- If you start with the end in mind. What does success look like?

Re: Ask HN: Invited by Facebook for privacy roundtable. What questions should I ask?

#127

Post by OliverJones » Tue, Jul 09, 2019, 4:53 PM UTC

Privacy settings:

Would FB be willing to work with a neutral third party group of user experience designers? Let's call them the PWHUX Board for Privacy White Hat User Experience. (Or maybe something else, PWHUX sounds a bit rude in English.)

This PWHUX Board would create standardized user interface conventions for disclosing and controlling personal privacy settings. This same group might work with other datahoovering businesses to establish multi-vendor standards.

Re: Ask HN: Invited by Facebook for privacy roundtable. What questions should I ask?

#128

Post by doctorpangloss » Tue, Jul 09, 2019, 4:56 PM UTC

jjmorrison wrote: post #79

> Some people advised me not to go there because it would only do harm to my name and brand, but I think I should We need more people who are willing to try and solve problems, not just be critical. Thanks for being willing to have a conversation with them. You're making the right call whether you are able to have an impact or not.

> We need more people who are willing to try and solve problems, not just be critical.

New Sincerity is exactly the reactionary politics in which Facebook thrives.

Re: Ask HN: Invited by Facebook for privacy roundtable. What questions should I ask?

#129

Post by Voxoff » Tue, Jul 09, 2019, 4:59 PM UTC

sasasassy wrote: post #112

School-Cotton wrote: post #105

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But Facebook doesn’t let advertisers query their database of private data. I agree that if they did, it would not be very different from selling data, but they don’t.

But.. they do, though. You can (and people do) make a very targeted ad, then query what users matched with it, and so on until you've sufficient data for your purposes. Plus you can use their public APIs to then match their ad data with the users public information. Facebook knows this, and does not prevent it (by hiding user identifiers for instance) because it's part of their strategy.

Ah now this is sneaky. Is this widespread? Any sources?

Re: Ask HN: Invited by Facebook for privacy roundtable. What questions should I ask?

#130

Post by wojonatior » Tue, Jul 09, 2019, 5:03 PM UTC

doctorpangloss wrote: post #128

jjmorrison wrote: post #79

> Some people advised me not to go there because it would only do harm to my name and brand, but I think I should We need more people who are willing to try and solve problems, not just be critical. Thanks for being willing to have a conversation with them. You're making the right call whether you are able to have an impact or not.

> We need more people who are willing to try and solve problems, not just be critical. New Sincerity is exactly the reactionary politics in which Facebook thrives.

Can you rephrase that without grabbing a pair of buzzwords out of the air?