Facebook's tentacles reach further than people think • Hacker News Board

Re: Facebook's tentacles reach further than people think

#151

Post by a2decrow » Sat, May 27, 2017, 7:26 AM UTC

TazeTSchnitzel wrote: post #97

bipr0 wrote: post #23

Facebook is the new NSA inside the flesh of a social media site. And that's scary.

They might be worse. The NSA, after all, is at least ostensibly only after terrorists and such.

"First they came for the Socialists, and I did not speak out— Because I was not a Socialist.

Then they came for the Trade Unionists, and I did not speak out— Because I was not a Trade Unionist.

Then they came for the Jews, and I did not speak out— Because I was not a Jew.

Then they came for me—and there was no one left to speak for me."

Re: Facebook's tentacles reach further than people think

#152

Post by AnonymousPlanet » Sat, May 27, 2017, 7:31 AM UTC

Waterluvian wrote: post #111

thr0waway1239 wrote: post #93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Unethical: lacking moral principles. Moral: of, relating to, or concerned with the principles or rules of right conduct or the distinction between right and wrong I think it is "clearly wrong" that Facebook creates shadow profiles, because it is violating the freedom of people who have not signed up for their service, in the same way that it is clearly wrong for me to take away your favorite pet for ritualistic sacri…

I can't claim it's wrong because I'm not a good ethicist. But I can say anecdotally that I feel upset and disgusted by the idea that even though I don't have Facebook, they may have a dossier on me. Simply because friends use my name or share photos including me. It's upsetting because I don't know what I can do about it. How do I protect my privacy in this world? Do I stop having friends? Do I wear a mask everywhere…

It's like finding out that the Stasi had an extensive file on you, even though you never travelled to the GDR or were an interesting target. The only connection is that friend of your's who once visited their uncle on the other side.

The difference is, the GDR is gone and none of this has any consequences anymore. However, the consequences of Facebook et al. are yet to be seen.

Re: Facebook's tentacles reach further than people think

#153

Post by omnimus » Sat, May 27, 2017, 7:36 AM UTC

cconcepts wrote: post #133

It annoys me how much I want to leave Facebook (if only to stop them gathering MORE data on me - I can't erase what they have) but don't because of the convenience of getting in touch with or finding out more about whoever I meet in meatspace. The fact that they try to force me to install their messenger app by making messaging through a mobile browser difficult is particularly infuriating and reveals how much they h…

I did it two years ago. Never been a problem. Sms and calling still exist. People started to write me nice emails. The feeling you are missing something is gone arter two weeks.

Actually only thing that is somehow annoying are events. Its facebook secret sauce. They limit the api (you cant add events through api > no automatic repost) so every event around me ends up only on fb. I am talking about public events, concerts, lectures etc. Venues are using fb as calendar so much that many of them dont even put it on their own site anymore.

Re: Facebook's tentacles reach further than people think

#154

Post by baddox » Sat, May 27, 2017, 7:38 AM UTC

AnonymousPlanet wrote: post #145

tzs wrote: post #126

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I doubt that he doesn't understand what "unethical" means. The question is how does what Facebook is doing qualify? You've said it is because it violates the freedom of people Facebook is making inferences about who are not users of Facebook's services. That just shifts the question to how does it violate their freedom? That is not at all obvious to me. (NOTE: this does not mean that I'm saying it is OK...just that I…

You would be more like Facebook, if you 1) would publish your observations or otherwise provide it to third parties 2) sit at nearly all streets all the time, e.g., observing whatever those house guests are up to the rest of their time. Imagine, you share your observations with, say, a PI who was hired by a paranoid spouse or by someone's employer. Facebook is like a vast and far reaching network of nosy neighbours o…

I'm a little surprised. Do people think that sharing that info with a private investigator would be unethical?

Re: Facebook's tentacles reach further than people think

#155

Post by AnonymousPlanet » Sat, May 27, 2017, 7:41 AM UTC

qyv wrote: post #94

ghughes wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nothing will change until the law cracks down on this. The people who work on these systems are smart enough to comprehend the wider consequences, but they do it anyway because money. Without significant external pressure, there will always be a long line of engineers willing to dial their cognitive dissonance up to 11 and build software that is clearly unethical in exchange for a fat paycheck.

I think it is more likely that the market corrects this well before the law. How much longer can the status-quo of online advertising remain intact? Do these targeted ad's really work? There is a ton of time and talent being poured into hyper-advanced targeted advertising systems, how long can this be sustained?

We're talking about a monopoly and you think market forces have any fundamental effect here? The data exists. Facebook is not going to abandon this trough just because they can't monetize it right away.

Re: Facebook's tentacles reach further than people think

#156

Post by cJ0th » Sat, May 27, 2017, 7:47 AM UTC

jgalt212 wrote: post #112

jacquesm wrote: post #4

The bigger problem for me is how facebook tracks and identifies even people who do not have a facebook account. They simply infer such a person exists from photograps, contacts and other one sided activity and can start to track that person, tie all this information together and then target them with ads even though they never signed up for Facebook. Such shadow profiles are a much larger problem to me than people wh…

you basically hit the nail on the head. And if Obama did nothing about it, you can sure expect Trump to follow suit with inaction as well. The consumer's only hope here is the EU.

> The consumer's only hope here is the EU.

Sometimes they do the right thing but I most certainly wouldn't bank on it! If we want change there has to be grass roots movements I think. If tech people would find a way to use word of mouth to convince people not to use FB then FB would collapse. Something along the lines of "Won't somebody please think of the children!" might do the trick ;)

Re: Facebook's tentacles reach further than people think

#157

Post by codyb » Sat, May 27, 2017, 8:11 AM UTC

I've posted it before, and I'll post it again. I've never been a big fan of facebook, having deleted it for years after I started dating my first girlfriend, but unfortunately it is the only way to access Tinder now that we are broken up.

Facebook is addicting. I would scroll, like, and get into political arguments. They knew how to play me.

About five months ago I went in and unfollowed literally every single person on my facebook. I deleted every post I'd ever made. I locked down every privacy setting I could.

Since then, besides messenger, I have spent probably a total of an hour or two on facebook (in five months!). I can not heartily enough recommend doing the same to every person who might so read this.

Social media has done some amazing things in terms of coordination of people's who might not otherwise be able to connect. But their addictive algorithms which concentrate and sell information on billions of human beings are presumably a threat to us all.

I am not sure what to do.

Re: Facebook's tentacles reach further than people think

#158

Post by zby » Sat, May 27, 2017, 8:17 AM UTC

I think this should be analyzed in connection with Uber's GreyBalling (https://www.google.pl/search?q=greyballing), and maybe also with the diesel emission cheats. Corporations are gaining power and sooner or later they'll start disregard the law - because states will not be able to enforce it.

Re: Facebook's tentacles reach further than people think

#159

Post by shinypotatoe » Sat, May 27, 2017, 8:19 AM UTC

cconcepts wrote: post #133

It annoys me how much I want to leave Facebook (if only to stop them gathering MORE data on me - I can't erase what they have) but don't because of the convenience of getting in touch with or finding out more about whoever I meet in meatspace. The fact that they try to force me to install their messenger app by making messaging through a mobile browser difficult is particularly infuriating and reveals how much they h…

On Android there is the app Metal, which is basically a browser that shows the facebook page. It has a few tweaks to improve the user experience and because its a browser facebook cannot access contacts, gps etc. Messaging works. It's great.

Re: Facebook's tentacles reach further than people think

#160

Post by rayday » Sat, May 27, 2017, 8:19 AM UTC

"All of us, when we are uploading something, when we are tagging people, when we are commenting, we are basically working for Facebook,"

Tapping, scrolling and even just having the app with Location Services installed means we are actively working for Facebook, and Facebook is actively working on us.

We are effectively lab rats to this self-perpetuating Orwellian superbeing. Nothing will stop it. It will use any means necessary to increase its yield of attention spend. Increases in HCI bandwidth will only extend its tentacles, eventually digging an orifice into our brains, Matrix/Neuralink-style, to run tests on us about how to better harvest us.

Before that, some of us will already be living on Planet Oculus.

The next Trust has earned that status like 5 years ago, yet here we are, still just gathering data.

The resource it trades in is intrinsically more valuable to Man than Oil. How much do you value your time, considering that is how you measure life? 2B users, people. How many lifetimes are spent a second on Facebook?

I fear we may regret this in the future.