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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

#171

Post by kuschku »

vixen99 wrote: post #164
kuschku wrote: post #102

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Well, the go-to example is usually the Netherlands (they had a central registry of all Jews, so the Nazis invaded, and managed to eradicate almost all in mere weeks), but yes.

And the StaSi, with constant surveillance of everyone in East Germany, also is still in collective memory, and another reason why no one wants that much surveillance (although acceptance for surveillance went up since the Berlin attacks, quite a bit, actually).

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

#172

Post by FabHK »

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.

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

And don't use any site with the Facebook "Like" thumbs-up thingy, which is tracking what sites you visit.

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

#173

Post by anexprogrammer »

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…

Most likely simply don't think about it in enough depth to form a view either way. Collecting data to make the app make connections better is the "acceptable" view. The artificial bubbling is probably widely known - as it's recently hit mainstream thanks to all the fake news.

The implications and other uses and data transfers are not talked, or often known about. Just like when you look into food production or global supply chains you find many inconvenient truths there too. As age is so often correlated with cynicism it's probable that many tech applicants (to FB or anywhere) are simply not adequately cynical yet. There's quite a few cases of high profile techies suddenly and surprisingly (well according to reportage anyway :) becoming rather anti.

btw I thought The Circle far too gentle, and simplistic, about the criticism.

Perhaps it's the "cynical Brit" perspective as I felt very much the same about Black Mirror after arrival at Netflix.

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

#174

Post by chriswwweb »

It's funny that a newspaper criticizes Facebook's data mining practices ... but when I opened the article on their website, my privacy badger addon told me that 16 scripts had been blocked (facebook!, twitter, google analytics, chartbeat, outbrain, pardot, ...). Then I read through the article and half way down they throw me a huge banner in the way telling me to like their page on Facebook :/ So basically they preach something and do something else, they are really a bunch of hypocrites!

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

#175

Post by 2sk21 »

j2bax wrote: post #54

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…

The problem is that even if its completely subscription based and has no native advertisements of its own, your data remains very valuable so there is an incentive for the company to sell your data.

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

#176

Post by moonshinefe »

Chronic2h wrote: post #95
maglavaitss wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Everyone is doing it" sounds wrong on so many levels.

Go ahead and take the moral high ground here. No one is stopping you. But you'll be broke as hell if you do (or run out of funding).

Fatalism.

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

#177

Post by petre »

FabHK wrote: post #172
maverick_iceman wrote: post #116

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

> If you don't like Facebook, don't use Facebook. And don't use any site with the Facebook "Like" thumbs-up thingy, which is tracking what sites you visit.

I blocked those pesky buttons using Ublock no social list.

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

#178

Post by woerking »

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…

Why is it Facebook's responsibility to discuss what your credit card will happily sell to literally anyone?

This story is utterly baffling.

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

#179

Post by slau »

majormajor wrote: post #134
underdown wrote: post #117

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They sell ads by offering this information in the form of targeting.

I've worked at an ad-serving company. Clients couldn't get our data out , it's behind the scenes to them. Business-wise, it would be undermining our own product to offer anyone's personal information. There are other companies that do this focusing just on the collection side, which sounds like what FB is buying - but for FB to protect their position they're going to try to keep lids on that. The companies that try t…

I worked for a few years at a company that provided a SaaS IVR product. Think call centre call routing, and PBX features on any dumb phone.

As people shy away from phone calls, and with the competition of VoIP, we gradually saw the erosion of the price per minute we could charge (roughly 40% drop over the course of 5 years).

The company tried to shift by looking at the data we had available. Millions of phone calls, and we knew exactly what kind of service was being called. Banks, airlines, airports, sex lines, restaurants, customer support, whatever. We could see when people called most, for how long, and we even knew which service inside the call centre they were talking to.

It wasn't long before the company wanted to exploit this, and they started working on the ability to play ads while people were waiting to get in touch with a service representative. Targeted ads.

Based on phone habits, we could tell whether the person calling was a stay-at-home parent, retiree, teen, young professional, etc. We could also tell their gender, in 60-70% of cases.

Because of the technology, we had access to actual phone number, even when people called with restricted identity. It's just how it works when you are registered as a "network operator".

This shift from "let's provide an amazing service" to "let's mine the crap out of everyone" definitely contributed in my leaving the company.

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