Facebook Figured Out My Family Secrets, and It Won't Tell Me How • Hacker News Board

Re: Facebook Figured Out My Family Secrets, and It Won't Tell Me How

#91

Post by will_brown » Sat, Aug 26, 2017, 7:34 PM UTC

I have a Facebook account With literally zero friends (created only to create business pages). On 08/05 I was randomly kidnapped at gunpoint when out of town and wouldn't you know Facebook recommended friending my kidnapper (and some of his family members). Because he took my iPad and connected it to wifi he was located and arrested only 1 day later, before the friend suggestions, but I'd love to know if sans iPad location I would have gotten the recommendation from FB and been able to identify him that way.

Separately I'm getting all kinds of people from that town, I can only imagine why, but it's pretty damn scary. And of course I have to wonder who I'm being recommended to and/or my family is being recommended to.

Re: Facebook Figured Out My Family Secrets, and It Won't Tell Me How

#92

Post by killerpopiller » Sat, Aug 26, 2017, 7:40 PM UTC

nebabyte wrote: post #77

> It was not a very convincing excuse. Facebook gets people to hand over information about themselves all the time; by what principle would it be unreasonable to sometimes hand some of that information back? You are not "handing" them anything with an expectation of reciprocity, you (in most cases) willingly give up information about yourself to them in exchange for their free service. They don't need an "excuse" - y…

What about shadow profiles?

I am not used by FB but it most certainly maintains an account of me.

Additionally, handing over data does not give FB full usage rights to it. At least in the EU, data subjects enjoy the basic right of informational self determination. FB may have to answer in a more comprehensive manner with the GDPR coming into effect.

Re: Facebook Figured Out My Family Secrets, and It Won't Tell Me How

#93

Post by philovivero » Sat, Aug 26, 2017, 7:44 PM UTC

AndrewKemendo wrote: post #57

dredmorbius wrote: post #45

The history of Jews in the Netherlands during the Nazi Holocaust, many of whom were identified through census records, comes to mind. https://ww2gravestone.com/holocaust-in-the-netherlands/ For contemporary instances, consider that the present U.S. administration openly supports racist, neo-Nazi, White Supremecist, and similar organisations. Social-graph association of undocumented immigrants, Muslims, gang- (or non-…

While I can see how someone could draw similarities in the aggregation of user data, I disagree about that being a comparable system for many reasons. Namely that they aren't government systems, and the political environment doesn't reflect, nor are projected to reflect a state of genocide. This falls into the same line of thinking as "I need my assault weapon to fight the government when it becomes tyrannical." It's…

Whether you listen to the left or the right, everyone agrees the landscape is, if at all different, worse than ever, and requiring assault weapons to defend from government tyranny. Literally, the left is calling the right Nazis, and the right is calling the left Nazis. Would you prefer the citizenry is unarmed against the Nazis?

If you're in the center, like me, then you recognise there are credible reasons the landscape is similar enough. Any nation can turn fairly quickly as the political tides shift. History is replete with examples. It is usually only a matter of months.

Boy, this got off-track fast.

Re: Facebook Figured Out My Family Secrets, and It Won't Tell Me How

#94

Post by gaius » Sat, Aug 26, 2017, 7:45 PM UTC

josephjrobison wrote: post #40

Perhaps it's well known in the HN circle, but essentially all FB users are just free labor, helping give signals to the machine learning algorithm.

This is what ReCaptcha is too

Re: Facebook Figured Out My Family Secrets, and It Won't Tell Me How

#95

Post by superobserver » Sat, Aug 26, 2017, 7:50 PM UTC

Facebook is a monolithic threat by inducing the world into accepting the relinquishment of privacy for convenience. The abiding thought that all should remember is it is a marketing (ad) platform. Furthermore, given it limits social outreach to 5000 "friends" (with no such limits on "follows", which still prove difficult to utilize), it is assuredly not intended to facilitate social outreach.

Re: Facebook Figured Out My Family Secrets, and It Won't Tell Me How

#96

Post by krallja » Sat, Aug 26, 2017, 7:52 PM UTC

Well, if Facebook won't tell you how, you need to go figure out the connection you have with the other N thousand people it recommended to you. You might be able to find the common links, and do some valuable reporting in the process.

Re: Facebook Figured Out My Family Secrets, and It Won't Tell Me How

#97

Post by mathrawka » Sat, Aug 26, 2017, 7:53 PM UTC

If you search for a person and look at their profile, you will show up on their PYMK list.

I've noticed that, but not sure if the author of the article had it that way as the other person said she didn't know her.

Re: Facebook Figured Out My Family Secrets, and It Won't Tell Me How

#98

Post by mathrawka » Sat, Aug 26, 2017, 7:55 PM UTC

will_brown wrote: post #91

I have a Facebook account With literally zero friends (created only to create business pages). On 08/05 I was randomly kidnapped at gunpoint when out of town and wouldn't you know Facebook recommended friending my kidnapper (and some of his family members). Because he took my iPad and connected it to wifi he was located and arrested only 1 day later, before the friend suggestions, but I'd love to know if sans iPad lo…

"Keep your friends close, keep your enemies closer" in real life, thanks to FB.

Re: Facebook Figured Out My Family Secrets, and It Won't Tell Me How

#99

Post by kdot » Sat, Aug 26, 2017, 7:58 PM UTC

phkahler wrote: post #28

I would imagine Facebook keeps placeholders for people you know that are not on Facebook. His father had made a contact with one of the relatives not on FB but with the other name. Perhaps the great aunt had him in her contacts as well. A name and/or phone number can represent a person in the graph without being a FB user. Why they made a suggestion so many degrees away is a little curious, but I think they mix those…

No way to remove PII data that your friends gave to Facebook? I see a lawsuit somewhere in here.

This means a person can never really be "off Facebook"

Re: Facebook Figured Out My Family Secrets, and It Won't Tell Me How

#100

Post by oelmekki » Sat, Aug 26, 2017, 8:09 PM UTC

Facebook is going way too far in many ways.

The other day, I had a couple of friends at my place. At some point, we decided to order pizzas. We did so online, at my usual pizzeria. 30 minutes later (not sure of the delay, but it was before pizzas were delivered), one of my friend check her facebook on her mobile and see ... an ad for that pizzeria. She said she's never seen the ad before, nor ever ordered at that pizzeria.

The best I could guess about it would probably make use of phones gps, detecting we were close and what I was doing on the net, through social share buttons tracking. Anyway, that's outrageous. Facebook use of personal data is that creepy thing we were all afraid Google would do. It really feels like having a glass of wine in your sofa, and the telephone rings and someone unknown says : "cheers!".