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Big brother is here, and his name is Facebook

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Re: Big brother is here, and his name is Facebook

#21

Post by chiefalchemist »

megous wrote: post #15
cisanti wrote: post #4

The 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…

They are delighted. People are being locked up based on content of their social accounts for years. Regime doesn't even need to get cooperation from the social networks themselves that much. They take your phone, make you unlock it and the off with you to a prison. One such example being Turkey.

And if you're arrested and don't have any social presence that's presented in the media as odd, unacceptable, if not antisocial.

Re: Big brother is here, and his name is Facebook

#22

Post by megous »

RobertoG wrote: post #5
goalieca wrote: post #2

I'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 )

One way I know they don't delete stuff is that I cleared my entire history using delete buttons. Unfriended everyone, removed all the events, etc. The account looked clean. I also cleaned the ad categories or how they call it. It's interests they gather from your activity that they use to serve you ads.

When I came back a few days later my ad interests were again filled with stuff obviously deduced from my posts that I deleted. Things I no longer care about, but posted in 2010, and obviously not visited recently, so they have no way of knowing what those interests are.

Facebook is engaging in scummy activities obviously. They call most of those removal buttons "Delete", not "Hide". They just lie left and right. Data take out should instead be called data poop out, because that's the quality of the format you get of the data you provided them over the years.

Actually that may be one of the less legal things they do. If you explicitly ask them to delete particular photo or whatever, they should delete it and not keep it to themselves. There may be for example issue with copyright. What if I posted something I don't have rights to and want to remove it? They obviously don't have right to it either, because I couldn't have given it to them.

Re: Big brother is here, and his name is Facebook

#24

Post by chiefalchemist »

msoad wrote: post #7

I 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.

Which is why phone meta data is a big deal. Once you can cross reference numbers, locations, etc. patterns will emerge.

For example, you meet with someone every Saturday. At some point your colocation isn't a coinsidence, it's a relationship of some sort. Gather enough data and they'll know more about you than you do.

Re: Big brother is here, and his name is Facebook

#25

Post by newscracker »

> In most cases, granting permission is an all-or-nothing affair. This means you cannot cherry-pick the permissions to grant or deny when installing an app. You either accept or decline.

I wish the author had spent a few lines to expand on this one so people would understand it better. This is a huge problem for those using older Android phones (which is a huge number worldwide) with Android 5 and below. With Android 6 (Marshmallow) and beyond, one can control specific permissions post app install (whereas the "all or nothing at installation" model applies to lower versions). AFAIK, this is also a problem on Windows phones, but that's quite a small percentage comparatively.

Those using iOS devices haven't had this issue for a long time because app permissions are granted or denied individually at runtime (this has also improved over time) and not during installation.

> The choices here involve four things:

>...

> Switch to secured and private decentralized social networks

The author mentions Nexus Social, but it still seems like it'll have decentralized storage only later next year. As of now, I don't know of any Facebook or Google+ replacements that are decentralized and help control/preserve privacy. There are simpler platforms to replace Twitter, like Mastodon. But a text-only platform will always remain a niche as far as social networking is concerned. We live in the age of memes, live videos and clips.

I personally would love to see a decentralized, feature rich and easy to use platform that preserves and allows control of privacy by the users (from others and the network), but at this point in time I don't have much hope for the next several years.

Re: Big brother is here, and his name is Facebook

#27

Post by chiefalchemist »

wonder_er wrote: post #8

I 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/…

Having just finished rereading 1984, I say the most compelling attribute was how normalized Big Brother was. His (?) omnipotence was gladly accepted, to the point of (next to) no one noticing. I would say that an accurate reflection of most people's perception of FB, Google, etc.

Re: Big brother is here, and his name is Facebook

#28

Post by newscracker »

Deimorz wrote: post #9

Personally, 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: --- 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…

You have listed all the reasons that make Android very valuable for Google. At the same time, do you believe Google can be as evil as Facebook? I personally believe it isn't and won't be (so it's just the lesser evil).

I wouldn't trust Facebook to not be evil, based on its poor track record on privacy and treating users badly as well as its highly ambitious and callous founder/CEO. I'm also sure that Facebook has been working on dismantling the Google ecosystem or bypassing it wherever possible to control and retain user attention.

Re: Big brother is here, and his name is Facebook

#29

Post by tarr11 »

Deimorz wrote: post #9

Personally, 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: --- 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…

This would make a good Black Mirror episode.

Re: Big brother is here, and his name is Facebook

#30

Post by aphextron »

Deimorz wrote: post #9

Personally, 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: --- 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…

The conclusion I've come to regarding Google is that you just have to accept it for now. The services that they provide are so above and beyond anything from any other provider that to not use them puts you at a great disadvantage. Google search is an order of magnitude above the competition. There is no serious alternative to Google maps. The level of integration that Google Calendar has with practically everything is unmatched. As such I've placed my trust for now in Google and only Google. That's the key. I've decided to collocate all of my privacy concerns to one single company which I feel is at least moderately trustworthy, and which supports an open Web. Because in the end, I do not think that Google is fundamentally evil.

Facebook on the other hand provides absolutely nothing of value to anyone really. The entirety of their service can be replaced with an IRC client and a free image host. The walled garden they have cultivated will be laughed at in the future the same way we see AOL now. I am completely convinced that they are a fundamentally evil company. The sooner the world realizes that it is nothing more than a creepy spying/advertisement platform the better.

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