Big brother is here, and his name is Facebook • Hacker News Board

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

#51

Post by cisanti » Sat, Aug 12, 2017, 5:28 PM UTC

Micoloth wrote: post #34

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…

I more than agree with you. The only thing, why do you assume that only people "on the left" could be intrested in using these tools? Sure it's people "on the left" that are creating them and control them now, and yet thought control is DEFINITELY not a thing right parties have ever had problems using lol. Am I wrong?

Absolutely, the reason I wrote left is that for the past decade it's the left I'm afraid of. Of course, the right can use them for evil too. But seeing how American media behaves, scandals around people who don't agree with the left narrative, is very much frightening and reminds me the Soviet past. When I call it out, people say something along the lines "freedom of speech is not freedom from consequences", after social and regular media (that is left, let's face it) doxx and destroy a person.

I know plenty of people who are afraid to speak out. Even having a little bit different opinion can destroy your career. But you have family and kids. What is more important?

The Google Memo guy is a brilliant example. It doesn't matter what he wrote, people wanted to destroy him and they did. No freedom from consequences...

We had a similar saying over here too. It meant a crime against the state/society. That is a reason my grandmother was not able to go to the university. Her father used to own a small two-man brick factory and by being a capitalist he committed a crime.

Your universities are filled with ignorant, blinded radical people, who don't teach thinking but dogmas. Looks like the KGB work started to take effect a little too late.[0]

People reading it I'm a republican nutjob, but believe me, having once lived in that kind of society they are pretty close to the truth on that. Wrong on many other things.

[0]:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5It1zarINv0

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

#52

Post by swaggyBoatswain » Sat, Aug 12, 2017, 5:30 PM UTC

codyb wrote: post #31

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…

It's pretty incredible. Search history and e-mail alone almost certainly reveal staggering amounts of personal information about most people. I try to "spread" my data. Apple for maps/messaging/photos, Signal, DuckDuckGo, Gmail, and primarily private tab web surfing. I also use different browsers for different concerns. And of course ad blockers although I'm not sure I've installed them everywhere. With my lack of so…

I use 5% cashback card from my amazon card (chase bank) and one of its disclaimers when you sign up is that it sells your product purchases to advertisers

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

#53

Post by SubiculumCode » Sat, Aug 12, 2017, 5:30 PM UTC

"Passively Listening"

I will say this. The frequency of occasions is increasing where I've mentioned to my wife or son a product or service out of the blue only get served an ad with that product within the next 24 hours. Sure, it could be coincidence. I could be that the product was suggested subliminally to me via a campaign, etc. But some of these things are very specialized (plastic mold press), and not related to what I'm typically interested.

What I've not done is stage experiments where I randomly select products, intentionally mention said product near our family's cell phones, and make note of ads targeted at me in the next 24 hours.

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

#54

Post by zipwitch » Sat, Aug 12, 2017, 5:31 PM UTC

RobertoG wrote: post #33

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…

Lately, I'm getting even more paranoid with Google. I have the location in my Android inactive and everytime I open google maps I get the message: "To continue, let your device turn on location, which uses Google's location service. cancel - ok" I have to click cancel every time. I think the language is disingenuous, because if you click cancel you can use the maps anyway. I suppose I should stop using Google Maps. I…

You may want to check out OpenStreetMap.

http://www.openstreetmap.org/

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

#55

Post by fao_ » Sat, Aug 12, 2017, 5:32 PM UTC

dannysu wrote: post #35

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…

Facebook is like a Casino. They'll try to maneuver to keep you engaged and contain you in their bubble. However, if you're able to leave or cut your usage, they extend no influence whatsoever. (Don't have mobile apps installed, block their trackers, don't use Facebook login, etc) There are lots of ways to communicate outside of Facebook, including other messaging apps that help you form social networks outside of it.…

Roads are pretty benign, and they don't steal your location data and store it in their database

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

#56

Post by dTal » Sat, Aug 12, 2017, 5:34 PM UTC

aphextron wrote: post #30

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…

Neither is "fundamentally evil", and also both are. They are both corporations attempting to keep you in their ecosystem, using similar methods, that fundamentally make their money from targeting ads to you. There's no evil overlord at the top of either company (I hope) - their evilness must be judged by how likely each of them are to lead us into a techno-dystopia. And the more you consolidate to Google, the closer they become to The Corporation from every dystopian sci-fi ever.

Also, Facebook does provide something of value, though the cost is too great: they are the centralised provider of the One True Social Graph, and by extension your True Identity, which has numerous uses and no decentralised competitor. It's increasingly popular to use Facebook login on third party sites, because it mitigates to some extent the creation of throwaway accounts, which was hitherto considered a largely intractable problem.

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

#57

Post by williamle8300 » Sat, Aug 12, 2017, 5:35 PM UTC

Don't forget about Google. It's less of a salient problem... but all the data collection is created to be monetized. In a few years, we'll end up seeing really interesting ways that data will be sold (not just for advertisers).

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

#58

Post by fao_ » Sat, Aug 12, 2017, 5:37 PM UTC

lobotryas wrote: post #32

newscracker wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 bee…

> Google can be as evil as Facebook Personally I believe Google _IS_ much worse than FB for one simple reason: it's much easier to avoid FB than Google. With FB the story is simple. You'll miss out on some news/invites from FB-centric friends, but it's pretty easy to go without (or to even find new friends who aren't as hooked on FB as needed). "Avoiding" Google in your daily life is much, much harder. Their free mai…

Some personal recommendations from a random Hacker News:

For mail I recommend: inventati.org (And if you use them please donate to them!)

For search I recommend: duckduckgo.com (Spend some time using the bang syntax-- such as !w for wikipedia pages --it makes life about 10x easier!

For maps I recommend: openstreetmaps.org

There are more on https://www.privacytools.io/

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

#59

Post by giancarlostoro » Sat, Aug 12, 2017, 5:39 PM UTC

intopieces wrote: post #42

Big Brother is here, but his name is not Facebook. It's WeChat. https://www.nytimes.com/video/technology/100000004574648/chi... WeChat has the tracking capability that Facebook could only dream of, and it does not even hide it.

https://chinachannel.co/who-really-owns-wechat-wechat-essent...

The company that owns WeChat also owns QQ which is much more popular it seems.

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

#60

Post by SubiculumCode » Sat, Aug 12, 2017, 5:44 PM UTC

cisanti wrote: post #51

Micoloth wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I more than agree with you. The only thing, why do you assume that only people "on the left" could be intrested in using these tools? Sure it's people "on the left" that are creating them and control them now, and yet thought control is DEFINITELY not a thing right parties have ever had problems using lol. Am I wrong?

Absolutely, the reason I wrote left is that for the past decade it's the left I'm afraid of. Of course, the right can use them for evil too. But seeing how American media behaves, scandals around people who don't agree with the left narrative, is very much frightening and reminds me the Soviet past. When I call it out, people say something along the lines "freedom of speech is not freedom from consequences", after so…

I'm generally liberal, but am a strong believer that much more power needs to be vested locally. There are a number of problems in the US that stem from power concentration in the hands of 1%ers that live far away. With Trump, more liberals are also starting to think in this direction. Concentrated power scares them.

Concentration of power into international corporations that know everything about everyone is dangerous also, not least because of the potential for blackmail against any that oppose some action those corporations wish to take.

That said, while some of your criticisms of the left ring true, you seem quite unaware of similar authoritarian monoculture tendencies in the right wing.