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Get your loved ones off Facebook

salimvirani.com

81–90 of 310 posts

Re: Get your loved ones off Facebook

#81

For those interested in archiving their FB content, note that FB's download tool supplies only a subset of the content available in the activity log (namely only the content linked to your timeline). I've been working on a sustainable way to export all activity log content and will post updates here: https://github.com/IonicaBizau/reset-your-facebook-account/i...

Your current script name seems to imply that it only helps delete everything one has posted/shared. But you mention exporting as well. Is it going to be anywhere close to the paid/subscription product digi.me [1], except for not being in a proprietary format? Digi.me allows export of one's content from groups and pages too.

[1]: https://www.digi.me/

Re: Get your loved ones off Facebook

#82
post #40
post #5

Golden quote: Don’t confuse privacy with secrecy. I know what you do in the bathroom, but you still close the door. That’s because you want privacy, not secrecy. (From I have nothing to hide. Why should I care about my privacy? : https://medium.com/@FabioAEsteves/i-have-nothing-to-hide-why... )

This. The military has secrets, but should have no privacy. Same with the government. Privacy is the opposite of transparency. We can have secrets while we know exactly what we are keeping secret, such as Private Keys and passwords. Secrets do not hinder transparency.

Privacy is required for secrecy, but secrecy may not (per the upthread distinction) always come along with for privacy. (Though I think the second part is dubious; yes, you have an idea of what I might be doing in the bathroom, but you don't actually know and moreover you don't know exactly what I look like doing it, and that is because privacy always requires some measure of secrecy.)

> Secrets do not hinder transparency.

Sure, they do. Secrets on matters that aren't the subject of concern don't hinder transparency on the subject of concern, but that's not because secrets don't hurt transparency but because the specific secrets at issue are outside of the area where you are looking for transparency.

Re: Get your loved ones off Facebook

#83
I loathe Facebook, and I appreciate the author putting as much effort into warning about it as he once put into endorsing it.

But Facebook has Ne10 users. I suspect this kind of blowing in the wind has the perverse effect of (edit normalizing this by) raising awareness of a problem that people are going to continue not changing (but knowingly). It's a kind of cognitive dissonance that seems (IMHO) to be one of America's main manufactures these days.

Re: Get your loved ones off Facebook

#84
post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No it only blocks cookies, but not the javascript code from facebook that gets loaded on the pages you visit. If you want to get rid of that, install a browser plugin like Ghostery (0). 0: https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/ghostery/mlomiejdf...

But wait... can they still identify you that way? I'm not on facebook, so maybe it's moot in my case. But are you saying that blocking third-party cookies is not enough to keep facebook from tracking your other browsing activity?

Every time you go to a website with the Facebook like button, they see your IP address and the website you're on. Go to enough websites from that IP address and they can get a good idea of what you like. In addition, it is very easy to get your real address from your IP address, or at least your general area. Combining these gives them a good idea of who you are.

Re: Get your loved ones off Facebook

#85
post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No it only blocks cookies, but not the javascript code from facebook that gets loaded on the pages you visit. If you want to get rid of that, install a browser plugin like Ghostery (0). 0: https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/ghostery/mlomiejdf...

But wait... can they still identify you that way? I'm not on facebook, so maybe it's moot in my case. But are you saying that blocking third-party cookies is not enough to keep facebook from tracking your other browsing activity?

Technically Facebook can by using the requests your browser sends for their ubiquitous sharing widgets on many websites. Your browser very probably has a unique fingerprint¹, so you might want to block those widgets as well (Privacy Badger does this).

Because Facebook's profits come from advertising and that understanding our browser habits is a requirement for their core business, it is not too far-fetched to believe that they track non-users as well.

1: https://panopticlick.eff.org/

Re: Get your loved ones off Facebook

#86

Unfortunately, none of my friends and family members who are on Facebook really care, and the reasons cited in this article aren't going to sway them. They don't take privacy seriously, and view people who worry about privacy as paranoid kooks. They also see Facebook as the way to stay in touch with their own friends and family, and that's probably the biggest draw to staying on. Until that changes, I don't see them…

> and view people who worry about privacy as paranoid kooks.

Or Luddites, or perverts, or criminals, etcetera…

Re: Get your loved ones off Facebook

#87

I have a question regarding this: "tracking everything you read on the internet" I recently disabled third party cookies in Chrome and it's had no negative effect. Can someone tell me if this will block the Facebook code that's embedded in nearly every web page from reading my Facebook cookie and identifying me?

A better and more holistic approach, IMO, which I use with Firefox (sorry, I don't use Chrome as often, and in my limited experience I haven't seen it having as many extensions), is to use FB with these browser extensions:

1. Privacy Badger (from EFF)

2. Clean Links (removes all the redirect links from several sites, including FB)

3. Self-Destructing Cookies (destroys cookies when tabs of a particular site are all closed; default time to delete after tab closure is 10 seconds, which I reduce on my installations)

4. uBlock Origin (blocks ads and trackers)

5. BetterPrivacy (deletes "super-cookies" from things like Flash)

I don't use Ghostery because its business model depends on advertisers. Same goes for Adblock and its cousins too.

Even with all of the above, FB may still be able to track because there are many ways apart from cookies to do it. There could be browser fingerprinting [1] using various other indicators.

[1]: https://panopticlick.eff.org/

Re: Get your loved ones off Facebook

#88

For me, these are the biggest concerns that motivate me to consider deleting my account (which I don't use actively, only occasionally): - Facebooks creates false endorsements for products from you to your friends without revealing this to you. - Facebook filters out your posts based on whether or not people will use Facebook more if they don’t see it. I don't mind/can put up with the rest, but those two things reall…

You can't delete your account. You can disable it, and the moment you log back it, it's as if you have never left.

Re: Get your loved ones off Facebook

#89

Unfortunately, none of my friends and family members who are on Facebook really care, and the reasons cited in this article aren't going to sway them. They don't take privacy seriously, and view people who worry about privacy as paranoid kooks. They also see Facebook as the way to stay in touch with their own friends and family, and that's probably the biggest draw to staying on. Until that changes, I don't see them…

I too find it very difficult to dissuade people away from FB or to convince people about the value of privacy and why it's important for us as a society to function better and retain more freedom. Almost everyone I know values what FB offers them, and don't care much about how we all are paying for it.
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