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WhatsApp co-founder tells everyone to delete Facebook

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Re: WhatsApp co-founder tells everyone to delete Facebook

#51
post #26

I don't get what changed? We've knows Facebook tracks everything, we've known Google does the same thing. If you've ever developed anything in messenger even today, it's amazing how much information is given. We know all these sites track everything you do outside of Facebook too. Everyone has been trying to get them to stop, we know it's illegal to build a profile on someone but Facebook gets around that by building…

> We've knows Facebook tracks everything Not disputing this, but when you say 'we' I think you mean the The rest 95% either don't know, or could care less even if they know. I've told my non-techie fam and friends about data harvesting, privacy, and how facebook tracks everything, only to be ignored or outright ridiculed ("Oh you techies are so paranoid"). Many of my friends in India (where I was raised) and elsewher…

Yep. I’ve been explaining this stuff to friends for years. Even the most intelligent and rational dismiss it as paranoia or say, “I don’t care, I have nothing to hide anyway.”

Re: WhatsApp co-founder tells everyone to delete Facebook

#52
post #26

I don't get what changed? We've knows Facebook tracks everything, we've known Google does the same thing. If you've ever developed anything in messenger even today, it's amazing how much information is given. We know all these sites track everything you do outside of Facebook too. Everyone has been trying to get them to stop, we know it's illegal to build a profile on someone but Facebook gets around that by building…

To be honest, if things like this has to happen, I think Google should be the first.

https://qz.com/520652/groundwork-eric-schmidt-startup-workin...

Re: WhatsApp co-founder tells everyone to delete Facebook

#53
post #26

I don't get what changed? We've knows Facebook tracks everything, we've known Google does the same thing. If you've ever developed anything in messenger even today, it's amazing how much information is given. We know all these sites track everything you do outside of Facebook too. Everyone has been trying to get them to stop, we know it's illegal to build a profile on someone but Facebook gets around that by building…

How do you know Google does the same thing? What can you get out of Google by writing an app? Off the top of my head, I don't think Google even has most people's friends lists (outside Orkut back in the day, and Google+, which isn't so popular). They do have contact lists in Gmail, which is a bit different. There is address book spamming via mobile apps, but again, there are permissions. How good are they? It seems l…

Google absolutely harvests all info they can get. They scan gmails, they monitorig everything on all Android phones, even when you disable something [1].

It's just that Google maybe be a bit hesitant to sell data to 3rd parties, since they abuse them themselves :)

(and this is the price of a 'free' service).

[1]: https://gadgets.ndtv.com/apps/news/google-tracking-user-loca...

Re: WhatsApp co-founder tells everyone to delete Facebook

#54
post #48

Jan Koum Is entertaining. He was a frequent flyer and wanted to build an app that could tell people what time zone the person they are talking to was in, that they were on a flight, etc He posted on flyertalk about it and got a "meh, you have to install something? Why bother?" response 5 years later, as a frequent flyer he was into collecting miles and using them on tickets, and he had managed to get business class f…

Hahaha, I love some of the replies when he revisted the thread 4 years later: " Isn't this one of the apps that take all your contacts from your device and upload them to a remote server? Since I have many non-contact entries in my address book (e.g. a contact card with DOB's, passport numbers, etc.), I'm reluctant to use such an app since it would indiscriminately take all this personal information and store it on a…

It's really funny when you look now at what are the default app permissions in a standard consumer configuration of Windows 10 Home. And what Microsoft by default allows Skype to use. It's basically fully enmeshed with peoples' contact lists, and for business users, whatever other features of Office365 they keep squeezing skype into.

Re: WhatsApp co-founder tells everyone to delete Facebook

#55
post #42

Will deleting Facebook actually remove your data though? I’ve deleted mine a few times and then inevitably have had to use OAuth for some random site I’d auth’d to and lo-and-behold it works and all my data is back. Last time I went through that flow was maybe a year ago. I always assumed they did some sort of paranoid delete or “anonymized” the data.

Nope

The only way to win is not to play

Re: WhatsApp co-founder tells everyone to delete Facebook

#56
post #42

Will deleting Facebook actually remove your data though? I’ve deleted mine a few times and then inevitably have had to use OAuth for some random site I’d auth’d to and lo-and-behold it works and all my data is back. Last time I went through that flow was maybe a year ago. I always assumed they did some sort of paranoid delete or “anonymized” the data.

Nope The only way to win is not to play

Not even. They create shadow profiles for non-users.

Re: WhatsApp co-founder tells everyone to delete Facebook

#57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How do you know Google does the same thing? What can you get out of Google by writing an app? Off the top of my head, I don't think Google even has most people's friends lists (outside Orkut back in the day, and Google+, which isn't so popular). They do have contact lists in Gmail, which is a bit different. There is address book spamming via mobile apps, but again, there are permissions. How good are they? It seems l…

Google absolutely harvests all info they can get. They scan gmails, they monitorig everything on all Android phones, even when you disable something [1]. It's just that Google maybe be a bit hesitant to sell data to 3rd parties, since they abuse them themselves :) (and this is the price of a 'free' service). [1]: https://gadgets.ndtv.com/apps/news/google-tracking-user-loca...

Isn't selling or just giving data to third parties what we're talking about today?

Re: WhatsApp co-founder tells everyone to delete Facebook

#58
post #26

I don't get what changed? We've knows Facebook tracks everything, we've known Google does the same thing. If you've ever developed anything in messenger even today, it's amazing how much information is given. We know all these sites track everything you do outside of Facebook too. Everyone has been trying to get them to stop, we know it's illegal to build a profile on someone but Facebook gets around that by building…

What's more, I suspect that if this exact same thing had been done by a company working for Obama's or Hillary's campaigns, nobody would have batted an eyelash.

PS - the reason that the regs wont happen during the trump years has nothing to do with the collusion investigation. He's put a mandate in place that for every reg to go into the federal register, two have to come out. His administration is in general very anti-regulation. Therefore, yes, absolutely no way he would ever regulate it ... but not for the reason you hypothesized.

Re: WhatsApp co-founder tells everyone to delete Facebook

#60

If we use Twitter to announce that people should #deletefacebook, what social network do we use in the event that it becomes necessary to #deletetwitter?

It's the wrong question. Social networks are nothing more than a reflection of our society. Blaming Facebook and Twitter is easy but the hard part is dealing with the polarisation in politics, the intransingence of Russia, the inability of people to know who to trust and what is real or not and the slow disintegration of our institutions. The real question is how do you fix society ?

I think both questions are good.

People ask for tools and then the tools shape them.

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