Big brother is here, and his name is Facebook
thenextweb.com
Big brother is here, and his name is Facebook
1–10 of 308 posts
Re: Big brother is here, and his name is Facebook
#2I've closed my Facebook account but as the article mentions, delete the app and use the browser interface if you must. Your battery will also thank you.
Re: Big brother is here, and his name is Facebook
#3This article states all the reasons I don't use the Facebook app, the Messenger app, nor do I ever use Facebook as an authentication mechanism. Why stick a "kick me" sign on your own back?
Re: Big brother is here, and his name is Facebook
#4The authoritarian regimes' secret police would be delighted at something like this. People actually (well, not all of us) give them information themselves, and those who don't, sure do get tracked across the web.
"Thoughts control" is very much a real problem, as the Google Memo scandal showed us. People dug out the irrelevant donation of Brendan Eich. Think about the power FB has, they know exactly who is the enemy of the state using the word from good old Soviet Union where I happened to born in.
People on the left dangerously remind me the fanatic pioneers, who only think one way is right and preach false tolerance. Some are even so stupid that they hold a hammer and sickle in one hand and rainbow flag in another. Knowing the possibility of the power and the capabilities these people would have if in power. I would say we live in dangerous times.
Re: Big brother is here, and his name is Facebook
#5I've closed my Facebook account but as the article mentions, delete the app and use the browser interface if you must. Your battery will also thank you.
If you close your account, do they delete the information that they have about you? if not, is there any way to force them legally?
It seems to me that would be a "right to be forgotten" that makes sense instead of the current interpretation.
Re: Big brother is here, and his name is Facebook
#6I've closed my Facebook account but as the article mentions, delete the app and use the browser interface if you must. Your battery will also thank you.
If you close your account, do they delete the information that they have about you? if not, is there any way to force them legally? It seems to me that would be a "right to be forgotten" that makes sense instead of the current interpretation. ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Right_to_be_forgotten )
They do not fully delete the information about you, you can request it - and you can request a copy of your account mailed to you on DVD, if they still do this, but I don't trust that it will truly be deleted in the sense that FB or GOV cant get historical records of your past, should they choose to...
Re: Big brother is here, and his name is Facebook
#7I heard form someone at Facebook that they use location data to figure out who you are with.
If a group of friends go to a restaurant and nobody checks in Facebook will know you are together because all of you opened one of their apps in the same time frame and location.
Re: Big brother is here, and his name is Facebook
#8I can't quite believe the argument that Facebook is Big Brother, because the first suggestion the author suggests is "stop using Facebook".
In 1984, I believe the most compelling attribute of "Big Brother" was that he/it could not be willfully turned off.
So, for this to be an appropriate analogy, Facebook would need to be able to legally compel you to have the app on your phone, and if you illegally removed the app/ignored FB, you could be thrown into jail.
Facebook is huge, but all the big tech companies cannot actually imprison you.
Seems like a useful distinction.
Re: Big brother is here, and his name is Facebook
#9Personally, I think Google is just as terrifying, possibly more.
As an example, just take a fairly normal life situation like going out for dinner with some friends, and think about how much of it goes "through" Google:
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One of your friends sends an email to 6 others, to ask if everyone's free for dinner on Friday. 5 of the 7 people involved use gmail or a google apps address.
You've never heard of the restaurant they're suggesting, so you search for it on Google to see what kind of food it is.
You click to the restaurant's site. It uses Google Analytics, so even though you're no longer on Google, it still knows the exact path you take through the site while you're "outside".
You decide the restaurant looks good, and enter the dinner into Google Calendar.
On Friday, you use Google Maps to get to the restaurant, so Google knows exactly where you were before, what time you left, and the route you took. While you're driving, maybe you send a couple of text messages using the Google voice assistant.
At the restaurant, it turns out your friend Doug is there, even though he wasn't part of the emails. During dinner, you're all trying to remember the name of that movie where Shaq plays a genie, so both you and Doug grab your phones and google for phrases like "shaq movie genie" at about the same time. Even though Doug wasn't included in any of the planning, Google now knows that you're almost certainly together, and what you're talking about.
You finish your meal and pay via the restaurant's Square system, which emails the receipt to your gmail address. Google now knows exactly what you ate, and how much you paid for it.
You use Google Maps again when leaving, telling Google exactly how long you stayed at the restaurant and where you're going next.
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I didn't even push that very far. There are multiple other things I could have easily added, and you can do this with almost any situation. It's quite insane how much Google knows about what people are doing all the time, and the level of detail they can get by combining these things.
Re: Big brother is here, and his name is Facebook
#10Brave New World not 1984.