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Facebook is terrifying

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Re: Facebook is terrifying

#41
post #30
post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That age old "I have nothing to hide" argument. AKA "they're nice people, what could go wrong". This is not the point. The point is: Information in the wrong hands can become dangerous , period. People change. Companies change. You have no guarantee Facebook will preserve the vision they have right now. You have no guarantee their new CEO won't have a different opinion... (wont be a "Trump"). Also you have to realize…

Not OP but even if the next Hitler would get all my Facebook data I still don't care personally. Am I naive? I do understand why people have a problem with it though.

> Not OP but even if the next Hitler would get all my Facebook data I still don't care personally. Am I naive?

Do you have Jewish ancestry?

Of course the next "Hitler" probably won't be after Jews. Next time it would be Muslims or immigrants or Stalinist purges of anyone who disagrees with the administration.

You don't know today what opinions would get you put on a list tomorrow.

And if you've never said anything that anyone could ever find objectionable, you're probably doing something wrong.

Re: Facebook is terrifying

#42

I've been using Facebook since college (circa 2005). Never "hidden" my profile from anyone or the public. Never deactivated anything or deleted a post. Recruiters and acquaintances look up my profile all the time. Still, I have never had the data I've given them come back to haunt me. I still trust Facebook leadership very much in this regard. Maybe it's because I trust myself and how I utilize the technology. Or may…

In fact, I would wish Facebook to contract with and take over identity management systems (ie. social security, drivers license) away from local and federal government - not to dictate policy but just to dictate infrastructure.

Is it "fear-mongering" to bring up this episode again?

Zuck: Yeah so if you ever need info about anyone at Harvard

Zuck: Just ask

Zuck: I have over 4,000 emails, pictures, addresses, SNS

[Redacted Friend's Name]: What? How'd you manage that one?

Zuck: People just submitted it.

Zuck: I don't know why.

Zuck: They "trust me"

Zuck: Dumb fucks

https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Mark_Zuckerberg

Re: Facebook is terrifying

#43
post #30
post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That age old "I have nothing to hide" argument. AKA "they're nice people, what could go wrong". This is not the point. The point is: Information in the wrong hands can become dangerous , period. People change. Companies change. You have no guarantee Facebook will preserve the vision they have right now. You have no guarantee their new CEO won't have a different opinion... (wont be a "Trump"). Also you have to realize…

Not OP but even if the next Hitler would get all my Facebook data I still don't care personally. Am I naive? I do understand why people have a problem with it though.

That's because you don't have anything to hide right now. But you never really know what class will be targeted next. Maybe you don't care because you're not Jewish, or not a Muslim, or not a right-winger, or not a feminist... but whatever class you are part of could be the next one everyone hates.

Re: Facebook is terrifying

#44
post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Still, I have never had the data I've given them come back to haunt me. Are you sure? Facebook has a patent on lowering your credit score based on who is in your friends list[1]. They also feed data to credit score companies who directly examine your posts and use it to tweak your credit score yet further[2]. It's totally possible that your use of Facebook has affected your ability to buy a car or house, or get a jo…

> The lifetime cost of your mortgage could be $20,000 higher than it need be due to your use of Facebook. Or it could be $20,000 cheaper if you're actually low-risk and their algorithms are better than the status quo... > Maybe you got passed over for that job that would have been in the perfect place for raising your new child, due to your posting. How would you know? If you didn't have Facebook, how would you know…

>Or it could be $20,000 cheaper if you're actually low-risk and their algorithms are better than the status quo...

I'm sorry, are we now living on bizarro-earth where companies work with each other to develop new, exciting opportunities to make less money?

Re: Facebook is terrifying

#45

What is the proposed recourse? Ban Facebook from analyzing data that users give it? I use Facebook's automatic tagging because I find it useful. Should it be illegal for me to use this feature because someone might unintentionally be identified in a photo that I took? Is the argument that Facebook--or any other company--should never be allowed to develop software that could process data that could identify folks, eve…

The alternative is that when you share something with your friends, it goes from you to your friends without being decrypted by anyone in the middle.

> If I can legally take a photo, should I not have the right to have a company analyze that photo on my behalf?

They have algorithms analyzing your photo. The solution is to run the algorithms on your computer.

Re: Facebook is terrifying

#46

I've been using Facebook since college (circa 2005). Never "hidden" my profile from anyone or the public. Never deactivated anything or deleted a post. Recruiters and acquaintances look up my profile all the time. Still, I have never had the data I've given them come back to haunt me. I still trust Facebook leadership very much in this regard. Maybe it's because I trust myself and how I utilize the technology. Or may…

Fear mongering?

Consider yourself lucky if you or your loved ones haven't been harassed or stalked because of information you've posted about yourself or your family online.

Some have not been so fortunate, and don't want to make themselves or their families any more vulnerable than they already are.

Re: Facebook is terrifying

#47
post #30
post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That age old "I have nothing to hide" argument. AKA "they're nice people, what could go wrong". This is not the point. The point is: Information in the wrong hands can become dangerous , period. People change. Companies change. You have no guarantee Facebook will preserve the vision they have right now. You have no guarantee their new CEO won't have a different opinion... (wont be a "Trump"). Also you have to realize…

Not OP but even if the next Hitler would get all my Facebook data I still don't care personally. Am I naive? I do understand why people have a problem with it though.

You probably never lived under communism. Often people got in trouble not because they were dissenting, but merely being associated with somebody that was a political dissenter.

The usual term of accusation was called: "Agitation and propaganda" for the imperialist/capitalist regimes.

So, why you might have been squeak clean, if your friend, or your cousin was not, then you were considered a problem just by association. When somebody got in jail, their whole family got 'interned' (means, they uproot the family and send them in some remote village). Doctors had to work farm fields, etc.

If you were just a cousin, or close friend then you were marked as a problem with not a clean history or biography. If you wanted the nice job, or good education, you would be rejected for it.

It seems like a far fetched distant dystopian reality, but during 1950-1990 was reality in half of Europe. Also, a reality in the US the 50s with McCarthyism: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/McCarthyism

Re: Facebook is terrifying

#48

I've been using Facebook since college (circa 2005). Never "hidden" my profile from anyone or the public. Never deactivated anything or deleted a post. Recruiters and acquaintances look up my profile all the time. Still, I have never had the data I've given them come back to haunt me. I still trust Facebook leadership very much in this regard. Maybe it's because I trust myself and how I utilize the technology. Or may…

Statistically speaking, the apple only ever falls so far from the tree. Imagine if we had Face-book in the since the 1920s. Imagine if DHS could use FB info to figure out who's parents gave them alcohol as infants when they wouldn't STFU or hit them when they swore. I bed they'd start showing up at schools and randomly questioning kids the way young people crossing the border get searched "randomly"

You might not have anything to hide now but you might in the future and even if you don't that doesn't mean you won't be harassed because you "might" have something to hide.

Immigrants from japan/germany/italy in the US during WW2. Those people all had nothing to hide on Dec 6th.

Re: Facebook is terrifying

#49
I deleted my Facebook account in 2010 after appearing in the Times regarding technology addiction. It was my most time consuming social media application at the time. For the article, they had me install an application tracker to see how much time I spent in focus on a particular app. I was alarmed at how often I checked Facebook chat.

Today, after much investigation, I've come to a hypothesis that technology's purpose is to gently erode the concept of "self" as it grows in power and scope. We drive this growth, but at the same time more than a few of us worry about how the growth is affecting our "right" or "natural state" of privacy to be who we want to be without blame or for someone speaking (in aggregate) to what our actions may hold in the future. It seems obvious privacy is a good thing, because as long as privacy exists someone can't take your information and do things in private with it as they see fit. The more tech they have, the more they can do with your data and the more they can "invade" your privacy.

Facebook's accumulation of information is concerning, not so much from the standpoint of the addiction that causes us to contribute to the quantity of data, but from the standpoint of collective thinking that arises from it.

I don't want to be part of a collection or be told to think with the collection. I want to be me and think about things that are important to myself. I want to do that without anyone else telling me how to think about it or speaking for what I know at a later date without knowing me.

Re: Facebook is terrifying

#50
If only there were some way to avoid Facebook's nightmarish hellscape of intimate monetization. Hmmm, I can't think of any, guess that's it let's just throw in the towel boys.
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