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

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

#81

Post by aphextron » Sat, Aug 12, 2017, 6:32 PM UTC

dTal wrote: post #56

aphextron wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

> There's no evil overlord at the top of either company (I hope)

We'll have to disagree here. I think Zuckerberg is an evil, amoral person to his core. This hardly needs reposting, but I can't recall Brin or Page ever going on the record calling their users "dumb fucks".[0]

[0] http://www.businessinsider.com/embarrassing-and-damaging-zuc...

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

#82

Post by creaghpatr » Sat, Aug 12, 2017, 6:35 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.…

The book Addiction by Design is really good for understanding the science of casinos and how social media may or may not be using those tactics. Not hard to spot the coincidences

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

#83

Post by creaghpatr » Sat, Aug 12, 2017, 6:35 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.…

The book Addiction by Design is really good for understanding the science of casinos and how social media may or may not be using those tactics. Not hard to spot the coincidences

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

#84

Post by DenisM » Sat, Aug 12, 2017, 6:36 PM UTC

AndrewKemendo wrote: post #67

fao_ wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

I hate to break it to you but the state police and most toll road authorities have put an entire network of cameras on every major interstate and road system to be able to track cars.

If that were true would there still be a need for amber alert?

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

#85

Post by mejin » Sat, Aug 12, 2017, 6:36 PM UTC

newscracker wrote: post #25

> 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…

> With Android 6 (Marshmallow) and beyond, one can control specific permissions post app install

There are a lot of apps that will simply refuse to open if you do not grant them permission for a list of unrelated permission.

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

#86

Post by ams6110 » Sat, Aug 12, 2017, 6:36 PM UTC

SubiculumCode wrote: post #53

"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 t…

More likely your other recent online activity pointed to that product as something you might be interested in. An awful lot of what we talk about these days are things we've seen or heard about online, either by searching or just browsing the news, etc.

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

#87

Post by kwhitefoot » Sat, Aug 12, 2017, 6:42 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…

> use cash

Don't forget that notes have serial numbers so there is potential for tracking there too even though it would be slower and less precise.

Better use coins (real ones not block chain ones).

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

#88

Post by Animats » Sat, Aug 12, 2017, 6:42 PM UTC

I just can't see running the Facebook app. Facebook on the desktop, sure, but why on a phone? Other than checking in once a day or so to see what my friends are doing, Facebook has nothing I want.

I don't use Gmail. I have a Google account, but it's only used for updating browser add-ons. Last login was over a year ago. Mail comes from a IMAP server. Android's standard mail client does IMAP just fine. All my desktops and laptops use the same IMAP server, so it all syncs.

I don't have much Google stuff from my Android phone. When I bought the phone, uninitialized, it asked for a Google login. I clicked "later", and then deleted Google First-Time Login so that wouldn't come up again. After a while, voice dialing broke due to some update at Google, so I deleted more Google services. Location services come from ZANavi. (That uses unassisted GPS, so it takes a while to get a fix.)

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

#89

Post by neuro_imager » Sat, Aug 12, 2017, 6:49 PM UTC

"Old George Orwell got it backward. Big Brother isn't watching. He's singing and dancing. He's pulling rabbits out of a hat. Big Brother’s busy holding your attention every moment you're awake. He's making sure you're always distracted. He's making sure you're fully absorbed. He's making sure your imagination withers. Until it's as useful as your appendix. He's making sure your attention is always filled. And this being fed, it's worse than being watched. With the world always filling you, no one has to worry about what's in your mind. With everyone's imagination atrophied, no one will ever be a threat to the world." Chuck Palahniuk

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

#90

Post by dTal » Sat, Aug 12, 2017, 6:49 PM UTC

aphextron wrote: post #81

dTal wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

> There's no evil overlord at the top of either company (I hope) We'll have to disagree here. I think Zuckerberg is an evil, amoral person to his core. This hardly needs reposting, but I can't recall Brin or Page ever going on the record calling their users "dumb fucks".[0] [0] http://www.businessinsider.com/embarrassing-and-damaging-zuc...

Sure. And former Google CEO Eric Schmidt famously remarked on the subject of privacy, "If you have something that you don't want anyone to know, maybe you shouldn't be doing it in the first place."

Whatever you think of the people, corporations are not people and their behaviour is only partially directed by them. The most reliable predictor of their direction is their bottom line, and the intelligence of the people they hire to improve it.

Bear in mind that Google was so self-aware of the abuse potential of their position that they adopted "Don't be evil" as a corporate motto - until they dropped it on the grounds that it was underspecified, which strikes me as a quintessential example of corporate amoralism - evil, if you will.