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“How do I choose not to share my account information with Facebook?”

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Re: “How do I choose not to share my account information with Facebook?”

#181

Post by gavinpc »

derekp7 wrote: post #167
ed312 wrote: post #157

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is email not sufficient to communicate with family, work associates, etc.?

I've thought about building something that gives a social network type experience that is built on top of email. Any status update would get sent out to an email list of your connections, and all the emails could be put in a specific mail folder using standard rules. A front end app would then scan that folder and give you a personalized page that represents the latest status based on what it sees in that folder. The…

I love this idea (if only for the motivation behind it).

How would your "normal" mail client filter out the messages that are for this app? People have lots of different mail clients which they might not be able (or willing) to configure. Or would you expect a dedicated address.

Re: “How do I choose not to share my account information with Facebook?”

#183

Post by huskyr »

0xmohit wrote: post #68
kristianc wrote: post #63

This is an incredibly ugly dark pattern. The 'share information with Facebook' nugget is hidden behind a toggle at the bottom of the screen, and will be guaranteed to be missed by the 99% of users who just want to talk to their friends. Then, once you've agreed to the terms and conditions, you've got a completely arbitrary 30 days to read an online article which tells you what you've signed up for before WhatsApp is…

Most don't like hearing this: if you don't want your personal information to be shared, don't use these "social media" tools. I suspect that you'd be familiar with LinkedIn dark patterns [0] too. [0] https://medium.com/@danrschlosser/linkedin-dark-patterns-3ae...

This argument is become less and less valid as social media accounts become more and more indispensable for leading a normal modern life.

Sure, you can still e-mail, call, sms or heck, even visit your friends and family IRL. But not having a social media account sure makes it more inconvenient. All your friends use these networks.

In a couple of years not having a social media account will be seen as equivalent to not having a bank account, or a passport, or a phone number. Sure, it's possible to live like that. But it sure is inconvenient.

Aside from that, as others have mentioned in this thread, even if you don't have an account Facebook, Google, LinkedIn, etc. have your data already. You can be sure one of your friends has uploaded their contacts to WhatsApp, including your phone number and mail address. Facebook has detected your face in a photograph your cousin uploaded. Google has all of your self-hosted mails because all of your friends use Gmail.

If you don't want your personal information to be shared, you need to live like a hermit.

Re: “How do I choose not to share my account information with Facebook?”

#184

Post by cJ0th »

CodeMichael wrote: post #58

I'm trying to find more info about https://wire.com They would seem to be doing all the right things, such as OTR and not rolling their own protocols, but I've only been able to find a couple of opinions and nothing concrete. The fact that they've made effort to open source it and are letting people write their own clients for it is encouraging, but not proof that it's a solid system.

Just made an account. Looks pretty good so far. A huge plus, imo, is that they don't require a phone number at all.

However, I am afraid I won't be able to convince anyone to use it :(

Re: “How do I choose not to share my account information with Facebook?”

#185

Post by geofft »

bad_user wrote: post #159
geofft wrote: post #104

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> charge everyone to licence it What? The protocol is publicly described. They've blogged about it. I can imagine people being able to reconstruct it from memory. The first Google result for "signal protocol license" is https://whispersystems.org/blog/license-update/ , clarifying that it's under GPLv3 (i.e., patent grant) with an exception for the App Store. Has anyone paid money to license the protocol? Has Signal a…

GPLv3 is cool as open source goes, but is pretty restrictive. Basically you can't link to it and distribute your app without it being open source. A company like Google can probably not use it.

What I meant with GPLv3 is "and they are even willing to grant any patent rights to the general public". I don't know if they hold patents on it, but if they either don't, or are willing to license them freely, then you can implement the protocol from the public documentation of it.

Re: “How do I choose not to share my account information with Facebook?”

#186

Post by jlarocco »

treebeard901 wrote: post #147
0xmohit wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Most don't like hearing this: if you don't want your personal information to be shared, don't use these "social media" tools. I suspect that you'd be familiar with LinkedIn dark patterns [0] too. [0] https://medium.com/@danrschlosser/linkedin-dark-patterns-3ae...

"Don't use these tools if you value privacy" is not that far off from "If you have nothing to hide, why are you afraid of surveillance?" An observed life is not a free life. Many people have to use social media to communicate with family, work associates, etc... In many cases, facebook messaging has replaced methods of communication that did not rely on the content or metadata of messages for profit. All that really…

That's completely wrong.

There is not, and has never been, an inalienable right to use somebody else's property (aka Facebook's network) to communicate. You are not entitled to coerce Facebook into building their product to work the way you want. On the contrary, it's Facebook's right, as the owner and creator of their platform and network, to handle all of the network traffic that you are voluntarily sending them however they want.

There are more communication methods available today than ever before. If a person you are trying to contact has stubbornly refused to use all of them except Facebook, that is not Facebook's problem, and it doesn't make them obligated to you in any way whatsoever.

If you don't like it then send an email, send a text message, call them, write them a letter, visit them, hire a courier, fax them, use another social network, etc.

Re: “How do I choose not to share my account information with Facebook?”

#187

Post by igivanov »

0xmohit wrote: post #68
kristianc wrote: post #63

This is an incredibly ugly dark pattern. The 'share information with Facebook' nugget is hidden behind a toggle at the bottom of the screen, and will be guaranteed to be missed by the 99% of users who just want to talk to their friends. Then, once you've agreed to the terms and conditions, you've got a completely arbitrary 30 days to read an online article which tells you what you've signed up for before WhatsApp is…

Most don't like hearing this: if you don't want your personal information to be shared, don't use these "social media" tools. I suspect that you'd be familiar with LinkedIn dark patterns [0] too. [0] https://medium.com/@danrschlosser/linkedin-dark-patterns-3ae...

Huh? I don't use facebook, and yet it knows about me because I am in other people's contacts and some of those people had to share their contacts with facebook.

Fuck facebook a thousand times over.

Re: “How do I choose not to share my account information with Facebook?”

#188

Post by icantdrive55 »

krisa wrote: post #173
kristianc wrote: post #63

This is an incredibly ugly dark pattern. The 'share information with Facebook' nugget is hidden behind a toggle at the bottom of the screen, and will be guaranteed to be missed by the 99% of users who just want to talk to their friends. Then, once you've agreed to the terms and conditions, you've got a completely arbitrary 30 days to read an online article which tells you what you've signed up for before WhatsApp is…

When you will try to actualy delete your fb account (at least when i did it some time ago). Its a minefield of dark patterns. First you need special link, because you can only deactivate from settings. Then you will have to go through pile of emotionaly draining photos of friends with claims that they will mis you and you wont be able to see what they are doing with their lives. Then few traps with agreeing about del…

I deactivate all the time. Hit "I don't find Facebook useful.", and its just two click away from deactivation.

Re: “How do I choose not to share my account information with Facebook?”

#189

Post by softawre »

gavinpc wrote: post #181
derekp7 wrote: post #167

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've thought about building something that gives a social network type experience that is built on top of email. Any status update would get sent out to an email list of your connections, and all the emails could be put in a specific mail folder using standard rules. A front end app would then scan that folder and give you a personalized page that represents the latest status based on what it sees in that folder. The…

I love this idea (if only for the motivation behind it). How would your "normal" mail client filter out the messages that are for this app? People have lots of different mail clients which they might not be able (or willing) to configure. Or would you expect a dedicated address.

The problem, of course, is who builds/maintains this, how do they get paid, and how do you pay the server fees.

Re: “How do I choose not to share my account information with Facebook?”

#190

Post by krisa »

throwanem wrote: post #177
krisa wrote: post #169

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Please be careful about rationalisation of things. Its easy to build up argument for why you need to have Facebook. We all know how dark the waters of Facebook are (with all the tech knowledge, monetising schemes and smelly dark patterns). Yet very few actualy at least try to do something about it. Its part addiction, part fear and well i dont know what. I think that least everyone here should do is to think about th…

Yeah, hey, thanks, that's all great advice except I never had a Facebook account in the first place. I mean, I'm sure whoever you imagine yourself to be talking to would find all that super useful, though.

Good. It was worth it anyway. I was replying to rationalisations of the situacion. That can be seen everywhere.
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