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Facebook Security Chief Said to Leave After Clashes Over Disinformation

nytimes.com

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Re: Facebook Security Chief Said to Leave After Clashes Over Disinformation

#291

Post by ineedasername »

jbooth wrote: post #271
daodedickinson wrote: post #196

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not an "exploit". This stuff was freely given to Obama back in 2012. My best friend was a canvasser and before going into each house, the iPad they used told canvassers what to talk about and not to talk about. It knew who was pro-life so you wouldn't bring up abortion. It knows who's pregnant and who's recently had an abortion (you can get this through knowing what purchases someone has made and not made). Ther…

That's not facebook data, that's DNC/Obama data, accumulated over time by other canvassers including your friend. They've done that since before Facebook even existed. Facebook's product is not selling that data, it's selling ads using the data. You can only sell the data once, you can sell the ads forever.

Well, yes & no: Facebook doesn't sell the data itself, but they do give it away when a user agrees when using an app or service mediated by Facebook. That seems to be what happened here: Users took a personality survey, and their data along with the data of their friends made its way to CA.

Re: Facebook Security Chief Said to Leave After Clashes Over Disinformation

#292

Post by briandear »

cratermoon wrote: post #78
jstalin wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Who remembers how the Obama campaign's social media analytics and strategy were breathlessly praised ?

[flagged]

Interesting how whataboutism became a common use term recently -- when people started pointing out hypocrisy, suddenly we care about whataboutism?

Hypocrisy is what I care about and there's enough of it to repave the entire Interstate system. When someone criticized Obama or Democrats, the first words in response was some variation of "Bush..." Blame Bush was a competitive sport. Whatabout that?

Re: Facebook Security Chief Said to Leave After Clashes Over Disinformation

#294

Post by chii »

beachy wrote: post #265
traek wrote: post #229

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I very much doubt that most employees at Facebook share your viewpoint that Facebook is a net negative for society. It’s almost a tautology—people who feel that way won’t seek employment there.

Some employees probably feel that they can help move things in a better direction.

surely then there ought to be nobody who willingly works at a tobacco company!

Re: Facebook Security Chief Said to Leave After Clashes Over Disinformation

#295

Post by Nition »

nullbyte wrote: post #238
oflannabhra wrote: post #170

My greatest hope with all of the noise surrounding this, is that the engineers and employees at Facebook realize that Facebook and Zuckerberg’s vision does not line up with reality. Zuckerberg believes that Facebook will connect people and change the fabric of society and communities for good in a way that was heretofore impossible. Between Facebook’s political issues and the happiness-depressing effects of its use,…

> "heretofore"

Heretofore is a fairly uncommon word but it's not an incorrect one. It means "before now".

Re: Facebook Security Chief Said to Leave After Clashes Over Disinformation

#296

Post by closeparen »

RpFLCL wrote: post #92
fooey wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because the "breaches" and "abuses" aren't breaches or abuses, it's Facebook's business model working as intended.

This fact has me more confused than anything. What did most people think Facebook was doing... Keeping all the data locked away an never letting anyone make use of it? The interest in that data by political entities should have been especially obvious. Additionally, this information about Cambridge Analytica came out months ago. I remember first hearing about it on a podcast that was mostly focused on the personality…

>Keeping all the data locked away an never letting anyone make use of it?

Using the data internally to target ads. Once you let it out the door, you no longer have an exclusive asset on which to charge rent.

Re: Facebook Security Chief Said to Leave After Clashes Over Disinformation

#297

Post by EdgarVerona »

mancerayder wrote: post #276
oflannabhra wrote: post #170

My greatest hope with all of the noise surrounding this, is that the engineers and employees at Facebook realize that Facebook and Zuckerberg’s vision does not line up with reality. Zuckerberg believes that Facebook will connect people and change the fabric of society and communities for good in a way that was heretofore impossible. Between Facebook’s political issues and the happiness-depressing effects of its use,…

I don't disagree with these sentiments, but the hope that engineers/IT staff will leave is wishful thinking. I speak from my own experience which my differ from others in other industries/regions/countries but, I find people who work in tech to be generally dispassionate with regards to the downstream effects of their contributions. I think that's because: a) We're often small cogs ... b) ... working on often interes…

This is, sadly, 100% true. I know because I've been there. I've been that engineer who was so interested in the technical problems of what he was doing that he didn't think about what it was being used for, which I think is the gist of (B) at the least. The banality of evil is very much real.

Re: Facebook Security Chief Said to Leave After Clashes Over Disinformation

#298

Post by oflannabhra »

traek wrote: post #229
oflannabhra wrote: post #201

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I was referring to employees in the last paragraph. I agree that users will probably not leave, unfortunately.

I very much doubt that most employees at Facebook share your viewpoint that Facebook is a net negative for society. It’s almost a tautology—people who feel that way won’t seek employment there.

Yes, and I’m hoping that these “scandals” make people reevaluate their previously held beliefs.

Re: Facebook Security Chief Said to Leave After Clashes Over Disinformation

#299

Post by georgemcbay »

javajosh wrote: post #194
oflannabhra wrote: post #170

My greatest hope with all of the noise surrounding this, is that the engineers and employees at Facebook realize that Facebook and Zuckerberg’s vision does not line up with reality. Zuckerberg believes that Facebook will connect people and change the fabric of society and communities for good in a way that was heretofore impossible. Between Facebook’s political issues and the happiness-depressing effects of its use,…

Why would people leave? Facebook knows your buttons and pushes them just right. In aggregate this is terrible for society, but individually it feels good.

I'd argue that in the pursuit of upping engagement, they've shifted to pushing our buttons too much over the past year or so. Or at least that's true for MY buttons.

Over the past year my view of Facebook has shifted from "I kinda don't like the privacy implications, but it is very useful for following what my extended family (most of whom live literally across the country) and friends are up to" to "why is this fucking thing sending me all these useless notifications all the time? (rhetorical question, I know why it is...) am I getting enough benefit out of it to be worth all of this or should I delete it?"

YMMV.

Re: Facebook Security Chief Said to Leave After Clashes Over Disinformation

#300

Post by DrScump »

danso wrote: post #97
daodedickinson wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Exactly, and sites like Reddit make money on the same sort of thing. It wasn't controversial when Facebook and Google became arms of the Obama and then Clinton campaigns, but now more people are turning on Facebook after learning that their info was sold to the Trump campaign and companies and so on through companies like CA.

Here's a Twitter thread by someone who worked on Obama's campaign talking about her firm's use of Facebook data. It was tweeted by Julian Assange so I'm assuming it's one of the more damning examples of the Obama campaign using social media data: https://twitter.com/cld276/status/975564499297226752 https://twitter.com/cld276/status/975568130117459975 This person asserts that people from Facebook gave them their bless…

  people who signed up for the app knew they would be explicitly 
  allowing this Obama-connected app access to info/friend data.
But the targeted friends had no say in the matter and gave no consent to being isolated and targeted.
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