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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

#191

Post by pmlnr »

thr0waway1239 wrote: post #108
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…

SoftGooFace: We can easily double your current salary. Engineer: Oh SoftGooFace: You don't have to worry about employment ever after Engineer: Oh Soft: We are so powerful, we can dump unwanted OS upgrades on people Goo: We are so powerful, people are terrified of linking to other sites Face: We are so powerful, even heads of state better watch out before criticizing us Engineer: Uh.. SoftGooFace: Every time someone m…

> open source everything

Sure. Like they open sourced their Blu-Ray cold storage system. Oh, wait, if they do that, people will realize they should be sued for using the word "delete", since you can't remove data from Blu-Ray.

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

#192

Post by pmlnr »

caconym_ wrote: post #12

> Facebook Doesn’t Tell Users Everything It Really Knows About Them I've been saying this for years. It's pretty clear that if Facebook told regular users just how much they knew, those users would be seriously creeped out (though, these days, probably not creeped out enough to do anything about it). I expect that another example of this would be the ability of their facial recognition system and the breadth of the d…

> if Facebook told regular users just how much they knew, those users would be seriously creeped out

The sad truth: they wouldn't. They'd simply ignore it, because it would shatter their current beliefs.

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

#193

Post by lithos »

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…

The US doesn't have the privacy parts is WWII in memory. Where govt workers had to scramble to destroy what data they could before it was seized, where fire fighters let document storage burn as long as possible because it had census data, where others where forced to go through govt. Data to sentence neighbors to death, and similar hero/horror stories.

I feel that the IT world is irresponsible in its collection of data, and doesn't treat it as the liability it is.

(What's the proper word for old data/information before computers)?

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

#194

Post by deliridude »

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…

In the end, it all boils down to persons and personalities, and most important uglyness and shortcomings. Part of their surface pretends to think it's noble, their real self know how they are inside, they live with themselves 24/7, and they know it's the shriek of a ghoul scrambling away from the light. They want a glove to interact with the world, not because the world is dirty, but because they are, and cannot face themselves. So we will make them for them.

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

#196

Post by j_s »

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…

Uber seems to be in a similar boat; HN comments from employees 100% defended the company:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13085098

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

#197

Post by j_s »

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…

The Circle is due to be released as a movie in April.

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt4287320

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

#198

Post by nojvek »

Taek wrote: post #156
quadrangle wrote: post #118

I know this is too late to get noticed much, but here's the truth: This is a race-to-the-bottom. Everyone in this whole area has to compete with whoever is the scummiest exploiter unless they really go out of their way to sell their service with privacy and ethics as the top feature. So, some ethical niche services can exist, but meanwhile, everyone else is screwed, and network effects make any niche thing stay prett…

I agree that it's a race to the bottom but not that regulation is a way out. There are too many services employing too many engineers, and furthermore governments benefit from this massive surveillance. They pay for the results, and the direction in government today is towards less privacy, not more. And if you do win the regulation battle, you only win it for the current generation of tech. There will be more, and e…

The way I see it is until someone truly hacks Facebook and the data is used for really malicious purposes. Killing actual humans/ destroying bank accounts there is not enough of an incentive.

If US didn't bomb Japan, the general public would not have the same fear of nuclear weapons that we have today.

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

#199

Post by olejorgenb »

frik wrote: post #153
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…

Facebook will censor/shadow-ban such a "good bye" post. It won't show up at most of your friends news feed. You also cannot advertise a competiting social network. The same goes fr private messages to more than a few people. Even if you try to write a seperate message to everyone, if it contains the same link or a similar text body, most of your friends will never see te message you wrote. That's all automatic. And f…

Source for some of the parents claims: http://money.cnn.com/2015/11/05/technology/facebook-tsu/

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

#200

Post by austinhutch »

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…

lmao the mental olympics needed to arrive at the conclusion "data collection to improve advertising efficiency" is noble.
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