“How do I choose not to share my account information with Facebook?” • Hacker News Board

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

#261

Post by harry8 » Fri, Aug 26, 2016, 5:26 AM UTC

nostrademons wrote: post #220

CamperBob2 wrote: post #212

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've thought about posting some really over-the-top shock/porn imagery to my Facebook wall, basically making it look like it was hacked. Maybe then they'll cancel my account, like I've asked them to do several times.

Random evil thought: could you sell your Facebook account to hackers? You've built up a multi-year reputation as a "known good" account; that'd be incredibly valuable to someone trying to generate cross-correlations between your interests and their product. After all, the whole reason Facebook is worth $300B is because they have all this data on their users; since it's your data to begin with, shouldn't you be able m…

More likely the hacker would rather use it to steal your identity and f. you over very, very hard. Much more lucrative than spoofing with a "known-good" account, right? So you'd really, really better trust those hackers you're selling to.

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

#262

Post by harry8 » Fri, Aug 26, 2016, 5:30 AM UTC

oldmanjay wrote: post #214

treebeard901 wrote: post #147

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"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…

You said a whole lot but never actually articulated your point. I'm assuming it's something about how it's not fair that you find Facebook to be useful. Could you clarify?

You don't have to find facebook useful or like it to be coerced into using it. If your friends and family organise everything by facebook because they find it useful, you have to use it or you'll miss out. Much like if you don't use gmail and hate it, google still have enough of your mail to put you in prison because at least half the people you're emailing do use it.

It's like opting out of electricity - pretty theoretical. So we regulate it so it doesn't f. us over too badly. This is what needs to happen here.

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

#263

Post by harry8 » Fri, Aug 26, 2016, 5:34 AM UTC

I wonder how Moxie feels about being used in what looks to be a pretty spectacular privacy bait-and-switch.

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

#264

Post by Qantourisc » Fri, Aug 26, 2016, 6:01 AM UTC

I cannot wait on Matrix protocol, I just hope it will be used.

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

#265

Post by throwawayReply » Fri, Aug 26, 2016, 6:02 AM UTC

nashashmi wrote: post #230

I am reading the opt out agreement as far too specific. It says do not share info with Facebook for improved ads experience. MEANING SHARE info WITH FACEBOOK anyways, even if you are not interested in ads. I don't want any of my info shared. Yet there is no way to opt out of it.

FTA

> The Facebook family of companies will still receive and use this information for other purposes such as improving infrastructure and delivery systems, understanding how our services or theirs are used, securing systems, and fighting spam, abuse, or infringement activities.

So you can't not share.

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

#266

Post by calgoo » Fri, Aug 26, 2016, 6:25 AM UTC

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…

Happened to me this morning, needed to check a whatsapp message, some stupid new terms update so i just hit ok so i can access my account.

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

#267

Post by skrebbel » Fri, Aug 26, 2016, 6:35 AM UTC

Phlarp wrote: post #24

skrowl wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There was a serious FUD campaign started by one of the developers of now competing app Signal a few years ago. Now if you mention Telegram on Reddit you're immediately bombed with "OMG TELEGRAM CRYPTO IS BROKEN!" even though 0 people on earth have ever provably decrypted a Telegram message. They even offered a $300K bounty where you could act as the server... no takers.

Somehow, I don't think you are going to find more sympathy for Telegram's broken crypto (or Signal's "FUD" campaign) here on HN. At the end of the day, for many nerds looking at these two pieces of software and their developers-- Moxie comes out looking a lot more serious about privacy and more experienced with crypto than Nikolai and Pavel. To say nothing of Telegrams closed source cloud app model, questionable fina…

> questionable financing strategy or debatable ties to the Russian intelligence apparatus.

Soo you counter FUD with FUD. Great strategy!

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

#268

Post by thewhitetulip » Fri, Aug 26, 2016, 6:36 AM UTC

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…

>This is very obviously not the WhatsApp that promised not to fuck with its users when Facebook bought it out.

Exactly my point, when whatsapp was bought, they said all these things, that whatsapp doesn't sell out customer information, that whatsapp will never have calling facility because they want to focus on texting alone.

I think they should remove the "why we do not sell ads" too, there is no point in this two faced behaviour.

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

#269

Post by voidz » Fri, Aug 26, 2016, 6:42 AM UTC

nostrademons wrote: post #203

krisa wrote: post #173

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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've heard that rather than deleting your FB account, it's better to turn it into a piece of obviously-fictitious performance art. Don't try to remove your data from the Internet (which is futile; you know Facebook still has it on some archive somewhere anyway). Instead, replace it with nonsense. Set your interests to your competitors so that you get notifications everytime they release a new feature, and full inform…

Why not just post a nipple?

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

#270

Post by thewhitetulip » Fri, Aug 26, 2016, 6:45 AM UTC

iklos89 wrote: post #79

zaidf wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For me, Telegram's small user base is actually what got me on it. My whatsapp is full of way too many groups that I can't leave without negative social consequences. So the one group that I cared about the most (a group with my siblings), we all decided to move to Telegram and haven't looked back since! It's awesome to just have the few closest people on an app and not having to fear that you'll accidentally send a m…

Regarding negative social consequences ... Today I switched phones and wanted to transfer my Whatsapp contacts to the new phone. What Whatsapp did: Somehow they managed to delete me from each and every group I had been in, deleted every chat and I cannot access this anymore. I already had to explain to three friends why I left our group as they were furious because we had talked about important things in those groups…

This happens because whatsapp stores all the information in your phone itself. On the server side, at least before FB bought it, they didn't store your info. this is the reason their team was so small despite the billion users, because they just need to store data on a need basis, since they were a paid messenger.

The moment you switch phones, all the data is lost, because they do not have it in the cloud! This is the reason your phone needs to be connected to Internet when using whatsapp web or whatsapp desktop, because they literally stream your data i.e. chats from phone to desktop!

Telegram is a cloud messenger, data is stored in the cloud and loaded everytime in your devices, ironically this makes whatsapp better than telegram :D at least before facebook bought it.