Ex-Facebook insider says covert data harvesting was routine
theguardian.com
Ex-Facebook insider says covert data harvesting was routine
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Re: Ex-Facebook insider says covert data harvesting was routine
#2The cool thing? This "whistleblower" already spoke publicly with an op-ed on the NYT months ago.
Again, this is just the top of the newscycle. Let's see what happens in three months from now. My guess: Facebook revenue will go up. This is a PR shitshow, and a great piece of advertising for Facebook's ad department.
A lot of marketers right now are thinking "wait, we could do that with all that Facebook data we have?!"
Re: Ex-Facebook insider says covert data harvesting was routine
#3What's utterly horrifying about this whole thing is how the media is acting as if this is some sort of surprise. Like what did you think was happening at a company collecting data about billions of people? Especially at a company that has a CEO who is famous for calling its own users dumb fu * * s? A company that experimented on at risk teens. Like come on.
--edit---
Or lordy, didn't expect this comment to blow up this much. Do forgive me if it sounded a bit smug, that was not my intention. But the fact of the matter is this was something we were all warned about, we were shown countless examples of exactly this, not just us nerds, everyone, people like Edward Snowden risked their lives telling us about how all this data was being used against all of us. and yet everyone kept giving more and more, you were looked at like a tin foil wearing nutter when you told people not to give away so much information about themselves so easily.
At the end of the day, this is not really 100% facebook's fault, this is our fault, the fault of everyone who so readily made their information available without giving much thought to who sees it and what happens to it. And no just because you are not a techie you are not off the hook for not caring enough about your own privacy. I mean what level of technical knowledge is needed to know that once you post something online others can see it?
Funny thing is, this would all blow over after a few months, and everyone will go back to the usual habbits.
Re: Ex-Facebook insider says covert data harvesting was routine
#4Oh man this is bad.
>the platform operations manager at Facebook responsible for policing data breaches [...] warned senior executives at the company that its lax approach to data protection risked a major breach
>One Facebook executive advised him against looking too deeply at how the data was being used, warning him: “Do you really want to see what you’ll find?”
>They felt that it was better not to know. I found that utterly shocking and horrifying.
Re: Ex-Facebook insider says covert data harvesting was routine
#5What's utterly horrifying about this whole thing is how the media is acting as if this is some sort of surprise. Like what did you think was happening at a company collecting data about billions of people? Especially at a company that has a CEO who is famous for calling its own users dumb fu * * s? A company that experimented on at risk teens. Like come on. --edit--- Or lordy, didn't expect this comment to blow up th…
It's not a surprise to most readers of HN, but most people are not readers of HN, and take things at face value, where face value is what they see in advertisements and hear from their friends.
People still have an expectation of privacy, even when, from an HN perspective they should be extremely skeptical about having such an expectation.
Re: Ex-Facebook insider says covert data harvesting was routine
#6Regulator asleep at the wheel.
Re: Ex-Facebook insider says covert data harvesting was routine
#7What's utterly horrifying about this whole thing is how the media is acting as if this is some sort of surprise. Like what did you think was happening at a company collecting data about billions of people? Especially at a company that has a CEO who is famous for calling its own users dumb fu * * s? A company that experimented on at risk teens. Like come on. --edit--- Or lordy, didn't expect this comment to blow up th…
Fascinating to watch - it shows how much power media has to put a topic on the global agenda if it fits into their preferred narrative.
Re: Ex-Facebook insider says covert data harvesting was routine
#8Can we not let this become framed as a "breach"? No systems were compromised. Nothing of Facebook's was accessed that wasn't supposed to be accessed. This was data intentionally exposed by Facebook, just exfiltrated and given to an entity whom Facebook hadn't authorized.
This is simply the extent to which we've permitted these Internet giants to collect information about us. It's business as usual.
Edit: To clarify, this is indeed worse than if the data were taken from Facebook without consent. What it means is that not only does Facebook have access to vast troves of personal information, but so does everyone tangentially connected to someone with a Facebook developer account.
Re: Ex-Facebook insider says covert data harvesting was routine
#9Oh man this is bad. >the platform operations manager at Facebook responsible for policing data breaches [...] warned senior executives at the company that its lax approach to data protection risked a major breach >One Facebook executive advised him against looking too deeply at how the data was being used, warning him: “Do you really want to see what you’ll find?” >They felt that it was better not to know. I found th…
Isn't that just part of FB's culture? Didn't the Zuck start out by scraping Harvard's student registry?
Re: Ex-Facebook insider says covert data harvesting was routine
#10What's utterly horrifying about this whole thing is how the media is acting as if this is some sort of surprise. Like what did you think was happening at a company collecting data about billions of people? Especially at a company that has a CEO who is famous for calling its own users dumb fu * * s? A company that experimented on at risk teens. Like come on. --edit--- Or lordy, didn't expect this comment to blow up th…
Surely you understand the difference between the media reporting on facts vs. general public speculation.