131–140 of 275 posts
There must be many HNers who work at Facebook. Anyone willing to make a throwaway account and tell us how it feels from the inside for Facebook to be one the wrong side of so many ethical issues? It just seems like in so many dimensions they've been caught saying wrong things or appearing to outright lie, and I'm curious how developers who work for them think about aiding a company that seems to be so compromised at…
Yes the NSA takes privacy very seriously. The NSA spies on everyone else but doesn't spy on Americans, period. Oh, well yeah of course we collect data from Americans but if we find out we are looking at an American's data we're supposed to throw it away immediately.
Throw in a harmless joke about "big scary NSA" to lighten the mood. Nice salary, nice benefits. Most of the students ask for applications after class, it's a career forum for area studies majors and this is by far the most lucrative job presented in the semester.
It's honestly pretty easy to make a deal with the devil, especially if you're smart enough to argue that he's not the devil.
Is there anyone out there making a paid, zero advertising/data collecting social network? What if this service allowed you to buy access for 50 of your closest friends and family? I would think if it was executed properly and you provided a standard "I'm deleting Facebook and here is why, apply to join my paid for network group" post people would consider making the jump. I know there's a lot to Facebook and I wouldn…
[1] https://ello.co/
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> If Facebook were only gathering information necessary to improve the experience of its users, and were not selling that information or lying about it, I don't think you'd see the same backlash. Facebook doesn't sell information, it sells ads. That's not the same thing.
They sell ads by offering this information in the form of targeting.
The companies that try to sell those types of profiles, by IP or cookie syncing or whatever, seemed to get it wildly, wildly wrong - but the role of accuracy/auditing in the ads business is another discussion. FB seems to be buying a different sort of data than we were, since they know so much more (first/last/birthdate, etc).
Anyway, this is a problem that doesn't start or stop with FB, and the brokers are the dangerous part.
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It's easy to forget on HN, but there is far from universal buy-in for the notion that having or collecting data on people is unethical. Some may even consider it noble to optimize and perfect the world and its institutions (including commerce, via efficient advertising) using large-scale personal data. The impulse to make something better by applying a database engine that you might feel for business processes, can j…
Seconded. I would gladly hand over my personal data if it means improved FB/search experience. I think there's a large number of people who share my viewpoint. If someone is concerned about protecting their online privacy they have the option of not using those services. (I know about trackers on third-party websites. It's pretty trivial to block them.)
It's creepy how much companies know about you. When I got married my husband pretty much immediately showed up as my spouse on my transunion credit report as my spouse. How did they know that? Our names are different. At the time we didn't have any loans together. We lived together but so do siblngs and roommates. We didn't register for any wedding registries or send out any announcements. Our wedding consisted of si…
I don't know why you think this would be a creepy thing, social security and credit scores are stongly connected to the legal and taxation system. Its only obvious that the information gets connected. If tomorrow you were to divorce and claim alimony/child support the wages and tax return of your spouse would be garnished, How would that be possible without linking SSN.
1. Of course! 2. It's not too late to delete your account. Go for it! 3. Block it all! https://github.com/jmdugan/blocklists/blob/master/corporatio...
Unfortunately, one should not believe that deleting your account removes the underlying data. The actual operation is probably more like, "set a bit that prevents anyone from logging in to this profile."
There must be many HNers who work at Facebook. Anyone willing to make a throwaway account and tell us how it feels from the inside for Facebook to be one the wrong side of so many ethical issues? It just seems like in so many dimensions they've been caught saying wrong things or appearing to outright lie, and I'm curious how developers who work for them think about aiding a company that seems to be so compromised at…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
It isn't your data. It is their data about you, which is a very important distinction. Facebook and Oracle aren't the bad actors here, if you think there is a bad actor. The baddies are the people giving Oracle (and others) that data about you. (And now I have to hang my head in shame for saying something that sounds like it is a defense of Oracle. They're baddies for many, many other reasons, just not this one)
If you’re an EU citizen, by law, all data about you is owned by you, and only by you. That includes personal data, but also any intellectual property you create, and is irrevocable (you can sell usage rights, but never the ownership rights). So, yes, they have a legal responsibility to not have that data about you, and you can at any point require any company to delete any and all data they have about you, or created…
But if the ownership right to your data is centered on the information itself, and not the company part, that raises issues. I can't simply destroy the memory of reading the message you wrote - is someone to cudgel me until I do? If I write in my diary that I saw xyz person walking down the street and they had blue hair, could they demand that I destroy the entry? Would they have to know about the diary entry before they could make such demands, or could they simply say, "destroy all information regarding me"?
Further, as I understand it, municipal security cameras are in wide use, particularly in European cities. Could I demand that the city/town/council/etc delete all footage of me ever? Could I deny them permission to make those recordings?
And last but not least, how on earth would this stance on data ownership not ruin data retention? E.g. this would seem to open up a pretty big hole where I could commit fraud or launder money, and then demand that my bank destroy the evidence.
These are all awkward questions that come up when you try to protect very broad definitions of privacy. Privacy is a thoroughly unnatural concept; In the physical world, it takes a lot of work to do anything in private, and even then, you're just making it easier for people to avoid stumbling on what you're doing.
So what exactly was the problem? She doesn't have a driver's licence?