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Facebook Sued by Investors Over Voter-Profile Harvesting

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Re: Facebook Sued by Investors Over Voter-Profile Harvesting

#101

Post by lsh123 »

downandout wrote: post #40
oldcynic wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Correct me where I'm wrong but did it not used to be the case that facebook apps could access almost as much info about your friends as they could about you? So where is the consent? Fred gives consent to run a personality quiz and its associated data gathering - Fred's 180 friends didn't.

That consent is contained in the TOS that you and all of your friends agreed to when you signed up for Facebook. Further, the access to friend data has always been more limited than you imply here, and more recently, it’s become so limited that using apps for data collection about friends is almost a pointless endeavor.

“... the planning charts and demolition orders have been on display at your local planning department in Alpha Centauri for 50 of your Earth years, so you’ve had plenty of time to lodge any formal complaint and it’s far too late to start making a fuss about it now. ...“

Re: Facebook Sued by Investors Over Voter-Profile Harvesting

#102

Post by rtpg »

downandout wrote: post #92
rhizome wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The Trump case complicates "dramatically worse," since the issue is that the data was sold to third parties who ultimately affected the election with it.

the issue is that the data was sold to third parties Afaik, there has been no allegation that Facebook sold this data. Rather, someone created an innocuous looking quiz app that then used its access tokens to gather data on people through the Facebook Graph API. The app was called "thisisyourdigitallife". who ultimately affected the election with it. I've seen zero evidence that any of the psychobabble being touted b…

This is more of an aside, but given that Clinton lost by so little, _very many things_ caused her to lose. Because of such a small margin, for almost any X: "X had little effect" and "X caused Clinton to lose" can be simultaneously true.

If you lose by only one vote, then every vote caused you to lose.

(Of course if you're running a campaign, going after things that are bigger issues is more useful, but when we're talking about billion dollar operations, you can go after everything in theory)

Re: Facebook Sued by Investors Over Voter-Profile Harvesting

#103

Post by mistermann »

vanilla_nut wrote: post #74
mistermann wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The world would be a much better place if people weren't so utterly ignorant of their personal bias.

I fail to see how this comment is at all constructive to the situation at hand. What personal bias are you talking about here? Would it really be that hard to elaborate? Instead of acting like you're better than the grandparent poster, it would be far better to either a) engage him in a conversation or b) not comment at all.

Constructive conversation on certain topics is sometimes not possible when in a forum that leans too far to the right or the left. There is a common mentality among many people where they know they are right, such that no response to differing opinions is even necessary, a downvote will do (which is doubly useful, because it censors the downvoted person for some period of time). And if you do not support the narrative, you will be downvoted. Respect is a two way street, or at least it used to be.

I'm happy to engage in a debate any time, finding someone else willing to participate is a problem when everyone is only interested in discussing the nuances of how they agree with each other.

I'll also disagree that it's not better to comment at all - voices of dissent are valuable in a democracy, silencing them is the actually dangerous path to take, but that seems to be the path that's been chosen, so we'll see how it works out.

Re: Facebook Sued by Investors Over Voter-Profile Harvesting

#104

Post by Tempest1981 »

_xczx wrote: post #67
ppbutt wrote: post #64

So when is everybody going to band together to bury Facebook and all these other insidious tech companies?

Dunno. I just deleted mine, was sort of annoying not being able to find mobile phone numbers or emails for people I'd like to stay in touch with. I think that it'd be good to have a script that scrapes facebook id's, names, mobile numbers etc from your friends list, or some automation to prepare for deleting your account.

This?

How can I download a copy of my Facebook data?

https://www.facebook.com/help/302796099745838

Re: Facebook Sued by Investors Over Voter-Profile Harvesting

#105

Post by TheOtherHobbes »

bigphishy wrote: post #77
downandout wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Once again, your friends agreed to the possibility of this happening when they agreed to the TOS. I’m on my mobile phone right now, so I won’t be combing through the TOS looking for the specific clause atm. Maybe in an edit later. But it’s there.

In the US if you are unable to enter a legally binding agreement if you are intoxicated... Users who aren't reading anything, just ticking a box with a mouse click and hitting next defeats the purpose of a legally binding agreement. If both parties aren't all committed or informed, this is simliar an intoxicated person entering a legally binding agreement.

In practice, clicking “I agree” is legally worthless unless backed up by case law with explicit supporting judgements.

FB and other big data corporates need to be reminded of this.

Re: Facebook Sued by Investors Over Voter-Profile Harvesting

#106

Post by TheOtherHobbes »

JimmyAustin wrote: post #99
bunderbunder wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The modern approach to consent in these things arguably immoral, and indisputably awful. Most adults simply don't have the ability to understand the dense legalese that these contracts are written in, so they don't. Asking people to take an hour or two to properly read and digest it just to sign up for a website is ridiculous, and expecting them to actually do so is like something out of a Terry Gilliam movie.

The provision that allows this is ~460 words into the TOS, and is written in pretty easy to understand english. At some point you need to hold yourself accountable for agreeing to this stuff.

Perhaps you can point to the clause which makes it explicit that the data you provided in a personality test app can be used to swing elections.

Or was FB expecting users to be “accountable” enough to work out that part for themselves?

Re: Facebook Sued by Investors Over Voter-Profile Harvesting

#107

Post by Xylakant »

JimmyAustin wrote: post #95
mancerayder wrote: post #90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Great. So far so good. Where was the part where I agreed they could harvest my profile information because a friend filled out a quiz/questionnaire/etc.?

From https://www.facebook.com/terms.php , item 2.3 When you use an application, the application may ask for your permission to access your content and information as well as content and information that others have shared with you. We require applications to respect your privacy, and your agreement with that application will control how the application can use, store, and transfer that content and information. (To le…

The whole point is that you cannot meaningfully consent to give out information about your friend since they’d have to consent to that. Even acknowledging they exist and are your friends is already information. To make matters worse, the v1 API would happily hand out information about your friends, such as their likes without _their_ consent. Not your privacy is breached - theirs is. And there’s no way user A can meaningfully consent to have user B’s information exposed.

Re: Facebook Sued by Investors Over Voter-Profile Harvesting

#108

Post by Xylakant »

JimmyAustin wrote: post #96
looeee wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When I click a button that says I agree to share my data with a third party app, I am also clicking it on behalf of all of my friends. Where in the TOS does it say that?

I'm not sure what the HN rules around reposting your own comment are, but: From https://www.facebook.com/terms.php , item 2.3 When you use an application, the application may ask for your permission to access your content and information as well as content and information that others have shared with you. We require applications to respect your privacy, and your agreement with that application will control how the ap…

How can you give consent to share with a third party what I have shared privately with you? Just because the TOS says so doesn’t make you exposing my private Information consentful.

Look at the example of what LinkedIn and WhatsApp and all its ilk does: I don’t want to be on those platforms. But friends upload their address books all the time, so I’m fairly sure they all have a full view of my social connections. How and where did I agree to that? How can my friends meaningfully consent to that on my behalf?

Re: Facebook Sued by Investors Over Voter-Profile Harvesting

#109

Post by underwater »

OrganicMSG wrote: post #93
downandout wrote: post #24

"...defendants made false or misleading statements and failed to disclose that Facebook violated its own data privacy policies by allowing third parties access to personal data of millions of Facebook users without their consent..." The "without their consent" part is BS, as is this lawsuit. When you use Facebook platform apps, you have to consent to the disclosure of your information to the developer, and have to ag…

> The "without their consent" part is BS, as is this lawsuit. When you use Facebook platform apps, you have to consent to the disclosure of your information to the developer, and have to agree to allow whatever special permissions the developer is asking for. As for friend data that apps may have access to, when you sign up for and use Facebook, you agree to the terms and conditions, which allow this behavior. As far…

For reference, here’s the permission dialog from 2010 (https://soundbid.files.wordpress.com/2012/05/fig_03.jpeg). Sharing data and friends lists is not hidden at all.
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