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Facebook Doesn’t Tell Users Everything It Really Knows About Them

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Re: Facebook Doesn’t Tell Users Everything It Really Knows About Them

#161

Post by aub3bhat »

creepydata wrote: post #145
aub3bhat wrote: post #136

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Marriage is a legal agreement, the fact that you "signed some paperwork at City Hall" is not at all a minor thing. The records are of course made available to credit reporting agencies. 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 a…

I don't know why you believe I am somehow confused about the legal agreement I entered into with my husband. I am not, I know what civil marriage is. I mentioned it to illustrate that we didn't have a venue or wedding planner so they couldn't have made a newspaper announcement for us. Transunion is a private for-profit company; it has nothing to do with Social Security or the legal or taxation systems. Transunion get…

I think you misunderstand just how tightly integrated the credit reporting system is with government. The fact that "Transunion is a private for-profit company" is immaterial. or that it "only" gets information via "voluntarily reports to it, as a business arrangement, (credit card companies, mostly) pulled from publicly available sources" is plain wrong.

Just because some information is not "publicly available" does not means Government wont share it with third parties, especially credit bureau.

As far as information coming from Facebook posts thats just ridiculous.

Re: Facebook Doesn’t Tell Users Everything It Really Knows About Them

#163

Post by kayoone »

closeparen wrote: post #84
ForrestN wrote: post #39

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…

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…

It's not even just unethical, it's also illegal in many places. Facebook (and Google and many others) are constantly violating European privacy laws and hide behind the Irish government who protects them against the rest of the EU. As an example, in Germany, data privacy is a basic human right and in theory things like the FB Like Button or Google Analytics just collecting data in the background without a user knowing is illegal. In theory, any site using Social Plugins/Google Analytics would need users to opt-into the data collection, but of course nobody does this and going against FB/Google for these kinds of things is near impossible right now. See http://europe-v-facebook.org/ for more information and examples.

The current EU data privacy guideline will be replaced by a regulation in 2018 and Safe Harbor has just been replaced by Privacy Shield for EU->US data transfer, but it will probably not change much.

Compared to the EU, in the US data privacy is hardly existent but people seem to accept it.

edit This is not even touching on the fact that all the data these US companies mine of European citizens is also accessible by the NSA in one form or another (no, Privacy Shield does not effectively prevent this) and the implications that arise from this.

Re: Facebook Doesn’t Tell Users Everything It Really Knows About Them

#164

Post by vixen99 »

kuschku wrote: post #102
nxc18 wrote: post #69

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…

Perhaps someone in the EU bears this in mind: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IBM_and_the_Holocaust The 'Final Solution' was facilitated by knowing who everyone was and where they could be found. The technology at that time happened to be the Hollerith Punched Card system.

Re: Facebook Doesn’t Tell Users Everything It Really Knows About Them

#165

Post by zippoxer »

allemagne wrote: post #132
ForrestN wrote: post #39

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…

NSA recruiters came to a class I had in college. I imagine Facebook employees would have the same sort of party line drilled into them. 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 harmle…

I never got why HN are angry at NSA since they spy on Americans. Spying on me (non-American) is okay, but spying on an American is wrong?

I feel just as violated as any American by the thought of NSA spying me.

Re: Facebook Doesn’t Tell Users Everything It Really Knows About Them

#166

Post by vincnetas »

rimantas wrote: post #160
pipio21 wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It is not wrong when you benefit from it. This is a human trait, people do not see the wrong on the things you benefit from. For example, did you ate beef or fish lately? When was the last time you thought about the animals that were killed in order for you to eat them. Have you seen the sacrifice of an animal needed for eating it. In Mongolia or Middle East nomads will sacrifice the animal in front of you before eat…

> When was the last time you thought about the animals > that were killed in order for you to eat them. I don't think of them often but I grew on the farm so I could witness (and sometimes particpate) in the whole process. I see nothing wrong with that. I could even see more wrong in the attitude where people become veg(etari)ans for "ethical reasons". That's some fucked-up ethics, if you ask me.

Why it's fucked-up? If i feel bad eating an animal and i can live without eating one, what's wrong with that? (Hello from LT.)

Re: Facebook Doesn’t Tell Users Everything It Really Knows About Them

#167

Post by playeren »

closeparen wrote: post #158
api wrote: post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Surveillance could indeed have many beneficial uses in a benevolent, voluntarist sort of society. Unfortunately we don't live there. The world is still largely run by warlords, narcissists, and sociopaths.

The "standard" counterargument here is that warlords, narcissists, and sociopaths can only operate effectively in private, and their capabilities would be severely limited in a world where secrets are hard to keep.

I understand you don't necessarily buy into that argument, but allow me to offer a counter-counter.

That argument relies on the collected data being closer to the truth, than the absence of it. I think that may be true for (statistically) normal people. But for narcissists and sociopaths, it may also be a helpful tool for someone creating a fake alter ego of benevolence and 'harmlessness'.

Re: Facebook Doesn’t Tell Users Everything It Really Knows About Them

#168

Post by nihonde »

maverick_iceman wrote: post #116
SomeStupidPoint wrote: post #90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The problem I have with it is that Facebook decides what "improve" means -- it tries to groom me like cattle rather than ask me how I want to experience it or who I want to be "optimized" in to being. And that's okay, so far as they're open about it. But I don't think they are, especially the sophistication of their psychology research (and experimentation).

If you don't like Facebook, don't use Facebook.

Actually, if you don't like Facebook, litter it with disinformation until it becomes an unreliable and undesirable source.

Re: Facebook Doesn’t Tell Users Everything It Really Knows About Them

#169

Post by BjoernKW »

allemagne wrote: post #132
ForrestN wrote: post #39

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…

NSA recruiters came to a class I had in college. I imagine Facebook employees would have the same sort of party line drilled into them. 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 harmle…

> The NSA spies on everyone else but doesn't spy on Americans, period.

Ah, so that's settled then. So, spying on normal people and prying into their private lives is ethical - as long as they aren't American?

What about American expats? How does the NSA distinguish between them and non-Americans?

What about the Five Eyes? Perhaps the NSA doesn't read about your juicy personal life but GCHQ does because the NSA handed Americans' private data over to them?

You'd have to be pretty blind to not see they in fact are the devil.

Re: Facebook Doesn’t Tell Users Everything It Really Knows About Them

#170

Post by beefield »

zippoxer wrote: post #165
allemagne wrote: post #132

Earlier quoted context omitted.

NSA recruiters came to a class I had in college. I imagine Facebook employees would have the same sort of party line drilled into them. 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 harmle…

I never got why HN are angry at NSA since they spy on Americans. Spying on me (non-American) is okay, but spying on an American is wrong? I feel just as violated as any American by the thought of NSA spying me.

What astonishes me the most is the absolute double standards US government has on this issue. you are US government and it is perfectly fine spying and collecting data from people and organizations outside US jurisdiction. You are a person outside US jurisdiction and have an unauthorized look on US government data, and US government tries to get you extradicted to US and to face charges?!?[1] That just makes morally zero sense to me.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lauri_Love

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