Live data from Hacker News

Facebook is able to identify music and TV when writing status update

facebook.com

21–30 of 126 posts

Re: Facebook is able to identify music and TV when writing status update

#21
post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As long as it's opt-in I don't find it that creepy to be honest.

Facebook has a history of starting with opt-in and then making it opt-out and then over time making it harder to opt-out. It is a well established pattern.

Do you, or someone, have any data to back this up?

Honest question, I don't use Facebook so I can't tell from experience.

Re: Facebook is able to identify music and TV when writing status update

#23
post #14

Android is in desperate need of allowing users to change permission for app. It's ridiculous that the application decides what it has access to (and android it is not making it easier with a bad permission granularity). And I believe this functionality was in some pre-release 5.0 versions. They removed it because apps would just crash if permissions were removed. However, there are apps that solve this (for rooted ph…

I am currently running Android 6 (Marshmallow), the official version pushed to my phone as an OTA update, and I am able to turn on and off individual permissions for apps. When installing a new app, it initially has zero permissions enabled.

Let's see how this works in practice, but so far I am hopeful that this is in fact solved in Android. (Modulo actually disseminating the fix)

Re: Facebook is able to identify music and TV when writing status update

#24
post #15
post #3

Is it just me or is it _beyond_ creepy ? Location, sound ... soon they will be collecting biometric data as well, "just to get room temperature, promise".

Look, I know that nowdays it's popular to pay attention to security and privacy, and I understand that it's important. But can we for once not immediately assume ill intentions? I mean come on, do you seriously believe that programmers at facebook are rubbing their hands and laughing at how smart they are, figuring out how to turn on your mike for 15 seconds? Is that really what you believe is going on? Or is it just…

I don't believe the programmers at Facebook have evil intentions - I think they're just trying to build something that's technically cool. The problem is the MBAs will trying to build something businessy out of it and won't care whether it requires evil if it might possible make them some money.

There can also be a temporal factor. Today there might be no evil intentions but in a couple years someone might find that "we have this whole data set we could do X with".

Re: Facebook is able to identify music and TV when writing status update

#25
post #15
post #3

Is it just me or is it _beyond_ creepy ? Location, sound ... soon they will be collecting biometric data as well, "just to get room temperature, promise".

Look, I know that nowdays it's popular to pay attention to security and privacy, and I understand that it's important. But can we for once not immediately assume ill intentions? I mean come on, do you seriously believe that programmers at facebook are rubbing their hands and laughing at how smart they are, figuring out how to turn on your mike for 15 seconds? Is that really what you believe is going on? Or is it just…

It reminds me a bit of http://wiki.lspace.org/mediawiki/Leonard_of_Quirm from the Discworld series by Terry Pratchett. A brilliant engineer who is absolutely naive as to the harm that could be wrought using his inventions. So I'd agree the engineers in Facebook aren't rubbing their hands and laughing but this doesn't mean they aren't part of a larger more ominous trend of technological advancement and privacy invasion.

Re: Facebook is able to identify music and TV when writing status update

#26
post #14

Android is in desperate need of allowing users to change permission for app. It's ridiculous that the application decides what it has access to (and android it is not making it easier with a bad permission granularity). And I believe this functionality was in some pre-release 5.0 versions. They removed it because apps would just crash if permissions were removed. However, there are apps that solve this (for rooted ph…

This is in Android Marshmallow (6.0). Unfortunately, it will take a couple of years before the majority of Android users has this :/.

Re: Facebook is able to identify music and TV when writing status update

#28
They introduced similar feature with football (soccer) this weekend, or earlier and I didn't notice.

When one of the teams I like is playing a match, the placeholder for post status is replaced with something asking my opinion about the match and a football icon is added.

Which is a decent idea to get more people updating their statuses and posting more.

Regarding privacy, etc. Eh, damn, it gets boring when so many comments are about how facebook is stealing your data and what not for every post like this. Yes, we all know that and no need to remind about it every time.

Re: Facebook is able to identify music and TV when writing status update

#29
post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Facebook has a history of starting with opt-in and then making it opt-out and then over time making it harder to opt-out. It is a well established pattern.

Do you, or someone, have any data to back this up? Honest question, I don't use Facebook so I can't tell from experience.

Facebook Messenger vs the main Facebook iOS app, for example?
Post reply on HN