Why I’m sitting at home crying on a Saturday afternoon • Hacker News Board

Re: Why I’m sitting at home crying on a Saturday afternoon

#41

Post by jonesb6 » Sun, Oct 04, 2015, 3:06 AM UTC

baby wrote: post #40

> Facebook’s account security is apparently based on its users knowing what every one of of its friends looks like (do you?) … Well yeah. You're supposed to be able to recognise your friends in that test if it's really your account. I don't see what is the problem? I've passed these tests several time, you are presented with 6 different pictures for each friend (so it's hard to fail) and you can re-pass the test seve…

To be fair it went on several tangents. I find it an interesting phenomenon that posters here who show support for the author/article gloss over the 80% that is a tangent about LGBT issues, migrant issues, sexism issues, and act as if this is a serious article and not just another tumblr rant.. I mean look at the title for crying out loud. I think I'm going to drop in a to all my posts so I get more upvotes and less criticism from now on.

Re: Why I’m sitting at home crying on a Saturday afternoon

#42

Post by MichaelGG » Sun, Oct 04, 2015, 3:06 AM UTC

hugh4 wrote: post #33

awakeasleep wrote: post #8

I'd like to see a wiki documenting the harm that comes from Facebook, sort of like how https://reddit.com/r/gunsarecool documents mass shootings. Violet Blue is lucky because she has a platform and her problems will get notice. Everyone else just deals with their life quietly, and we the public don't get a good grasp of the problem.

> Everyone else just deals with their life quietly And it works out great for most of us. Want to deal with facebook? Use facebook. Don't want to deal with facebook? Don't use facebook. Not that tricky.

Nah, it's beneficial for people to publicly complain about things like this. So long the claims are true or reasonable it's good to pressure companies into changing bad policies.

Only thing I'd question is that she's had to "bury" a lot of people due to FB and that there's such a dangerous threat to her safety from this. It could be true (especially in years past or in shitty countries) just seems extraordinary and should have citations. I'd be surprised if FB tricked users into revealing personal information, got them killed, and wasn't sued like crazy.

Re: Why I’m sitting at home crying on a Saturday afternoon

#43

Post by MichaelGG » Sun, Oct 04, 2015, 3:07 AM UTC

jonesb6 wrote: post #41

baby wrote: post #40

> Facebook’s account security is apparently based on its users knowing what every one of of its friends looks like (do you?) … Well yeah. You're supposed to be able to recognise your friends in that test if it's really your account. I don't see what is the problem? I've passed these tests several time, you are presented with 6 different pictures for each friend (so it's hard to fail) and you can re-pass the test seve…

To be fair it went on several tangents. I find it an interesting phenomenon that posters here who show support for the author/article gloss over the 80% that is a tangent about LGBT issues, migrant issues, sexism issues, and act as if this is a serious article and not just another tumblr rant.. I mean look at the title for crying out loud. I think I'm going to drop in a to all my posts so I get more upvotes and less…

United we stand against Facebook?

Re: Why I’m sitting at home crying on a Saturday afternoon

#44

Post by baby » Sun, Oct 04, 2015, 3:10 AM UTC

danellis wrote: post #39

MichaelGG wrote: post #28

I've no idea why she's put up with FB for long. I've none of the issues she has with Facebook, I just hate it on privacy reasons. So... I don't use it. But if she's gotta use it just submit fake ID. Scan your license or passport, and edit information. This works fine and there is nothing wrong with it. Complaining about their security policies... Eh I'm gonna guess that FB engineers probably want to protect user acco…

> FB is a private company Facebook is a public company. I'm surprised anyone reading HN would have missed their rather high profile IPO.

public means government owned

Re: Why I’m sitting at home crying on a Saturday afternoon

#45

Post by JoshTriplett » Sun, Oct 04, 2015, 3:12 AM UTC

MichaelGG wrote: post #34

jonesb6 wrote: post #25

"This is reality. This is not theory. This is not assertions on Hacker News about how you must have something to hide if you want to keep something private. This is not about a man in a position of power and influence, who has industry privilege and respect for his wealth and status, at Google or Facebook saying that anonymity, or multiple online identities, demotes a 'lack of credibility’. We don’t care of you belie…

That link is strange. Person is using Facebook. They then voluntarily send Facebook their birth certificate and are bewildered and upset that Facebook used that info and corrected (read: edited) their profile? I really dislike Facebook but come on, you signed up for this. If you don't like Facebook's policies (and you shouldn't), then don't use it. What gives anyone the right to use someone else's service, then dicta…

> corrected their profile

You're either unintentionally or deliberately making the extremely offensive implication that Facebook knows better than their user about what identity they want to show to the world. Facebook has no business "correcting" any field of a user's profile based on a birth certificate. They have no business asking for a birth certificate. And they wonder why people refuse to send them "government ID" when that's what they do with it.

Without even the slightest bit of hyperbole: this kind of screwing around with people can and does ruin lives.

Re: Why I’m sitting at home crying on a Saturday afternoon

#46

Post by asuffield » Sun, Oct 04, 2015, 3:13 AM UTC

baby wrote: post #40

> Facebook’s account security is apparently based on its users knowing what every one of of its friends looks like (do you?) … Well yeah. You're supposed to be able to recognise your friends in that test if it's really your account. I don't see what is the problem? I've passed these tests several time, you are presented with 6 different pictures for each friend (so it's hard to fail) and you can re-pass the test seve…

It works well for the way a lot of people use facebook, and very poorly for the way some people use facebook. There's a baked in assumption that you only "friend" people who you can identify from their photos.

(This one isn't a fake account, it's a "professional" account, so she's "friends" with a lot of people that she only emails for work purposes and has never met)

For a hilarious example of how this can fail, a guy I used to work with has a facebook account for his pet bird. It is friends with the pet birds of lots of other people. I was present on the occasion when he forgot the password to this account, and spent quite some time trying to guess the names of birds from their photos.

Facebook has a fallback authentication mechanism of showing them some government-issued ID (which could have worked for Violet Blue, and not for my colleague's bird).

Re: Why I’m sitting at home crying on a Saturday afternoon

#47

Post by danellis » Sun, Oct 04, 2015, 3:14 AM UTC

baby wrote: post #44

danellis wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> FB is a private company Facebook is a public company. I'm surprised anyone reading HN would have missed their rather high profile IPO.

public means government owned

Public company.

Re: Why I’m sitting at home crying on a Saturday afternoon

#48

Post by jellicle » Sun, Oct 04, 2015, 3:16 AM UTC

powera wrote: post #22

iandanforth wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I suggest that the measures are largely security theatre to begin with. Consider the attached accounts of determined identity thieves (1,2). Facebook needs to inconvenience children, but also needs to acknowledge its own theatre in serious situations. Consider that many of the mechanisms that government issued ID use to prevent forgery are impossible to verify unless you're in physical possession of the ID. It also n…

The security questions might be done wrong, I'm more saying that "a real person on the inside who can personally verify your identity" is in fact a key part of the security process.

Surely not everybody can be expected to know a senior Facebook employee?

Re: Why I’m sitting at home crying on a Saturday afternoon

#49

Post by wanorris » Sun, Oct 04, 2015, 3:19 AM UTC

MichaelGG wrote: post #34

jonesb6 wrote: post #25

"This is reality. This is not theory. This is not assertions on Hacker News about how you must have something to hide if you want to keep something private. This is not about a man in a position of power and influence, who has industry privilege and respect for his wealth and status, at Google or Facebook saying that anonymity, or multiple online identities, demotes a 'lack of credibility’. We don’t care of you belie…

That link is strange. Person is using Facebook. They then voluntarily send Facebook their birth certificate and are bewildered and upset that Facebook used that info and corrected (read: edited) their profile? I really dislike Facebook but come on, you signed up for this. If you don't like Facebook's policies (and you shouldn't), then don't use it. What gives anyone the right to use someone else's service, then dicta…

The birth certificate was not the only form of ID that person sent. Facebook outed the past name of a transgender person -- that's never ok, and it's a problem taken very seriously in the transgender community.

And yes, if you want, you could say that, well, trans people just shouldn't use Facebook, but given the position Facebook occupies in our society in practice, that's quite a statement.

Just as important, in cases like this, the damage has already been done -- potentially quite serious -- be the time the user might choose to abandon Facebook over the problem.

Forcing trans people to provide a bunch of ID to use the site, outing them to the world, and then saying whoops, sorry, but you can quit the site if you don't like it -- that's not ok.

And your basic attitude seems to be that trans people's own fault for being different from most people, so of course they should expect to see problems or to just stay off of common services if they don't like those problems. This attitude is part of the problem -- basic human empathy seems like it would require a more considerate attitude than that.

Re: Why I’m sitting at home crying on a Saturday afternoon

#50

Post by mindslight » Sun, Oct 04, 2015, 3:20 AM UTC

phaemon wrote: post #11

That was weird. I stopped using Facebook a few years ago (don't remember when), because something trivial about the site annoyed me (don't remember what). The author seems to have written many accounts of what a terrible company Facebook is, how LGBT people are treated appallingly by them, how they're starting in on refugees and how they're ruining privacy for everyone. And then jumped through every possible hoop in…

I too can't help but mentally shout "Stop using Facebook!!" after reading every paragraph.

But obviously Violet finds it more beneficial to use rather than not. I know she has long had a web presence, so it's not that she's lazy (although this post is on tumblr? sigh...). Presumably being a writer/blogger/etc, there is a huge audience of people who will "follow" her since it's already in their "workflow", yet won't expend the effort to check a proper blog or learn about RSS.

But what she needs to do instead of crying, or perhaps after crying, is to get angry. Productively angry. This is the state of established webcrapps in 2015. This has been the inevitable result ever since "web 2.0" became a thing. This is why concerned hackers have been telling people to avoid webcrapps the whole time. Of course, many others sold their morals in lieu of money and social acceptance - it's so easy to use, even your parents can opt in to extra surveillance!

The tide is starting to turn as more and more people realize what they're actually giving up by living under the yoke of proprietary software 2.0. And it is going to take people who are "in it" to reverse the trend. Assuming she is willing to start putting in more effort, how exactly can she replace all these "convenient" sharecropper "apps" she's gotten used to with self-administered technology that preserves her autonomy - while still engaging the lazy people who haven't learned how to use a personal computer, and even encouraging them to make the jump to the free world?

One possible solution that comes to mind is publishing authoritatively on one's own platform, then syndicating to facebook/tumblr/whatever. Perhaps delayed by hours/days so that it's clear that the walled gardens are second class citizens. Make Facebook want your content more than you need them - similar to how unknown AOL keywords just redirected to .com.

For text this actually seems pretty straightforward. Other types of media (mobile pictures etc) are going to be harder because thorough development and advertising take money, and investors (especially VC) obviously aren't looking to fund anything that isn't a trap ready to be monetized. But that is what freedom costs - the alternative is to continue to abdicate your autonomy one polished UI hipster crapp at a time.