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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

#401

Post by isostatic »

ttul wrote: post #103
isostatic wrote: post #16

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…

I overheard a billionaire say he got worried when the market for his primary stockholding dipped by 20%. “I lost $200M. I actually started worrying I might go broke. Then I realized I still had $1.2B...”

I suspect people who transition from working class (and I mean it in a sense that you have to work to earn an income to keep a roof over your head, be that $30k/yr or $300k/yr) to capital class (meaning their assets fund their dynasty without sweat, in good times and bad, $100m+ type people) struggle to realise what it actually means to not have to worry about money, and that money is just a way of keeping score.

Likewise a lot of the wealthy people have no real concept of the fact if you don't work, you don't eat. Maybe you've got savings that tide you over for a year or two, or even a 401k that keeps you going for the rest of your life, but that's not really the same thing.

Re: WhatsApp co-founder tells everyone to delete Facebook

#402

Post by hycaria »

ramphastidae wrote: post #51
justboxing wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.”

I don't put that much data out, but I don't mind being profiled. I like being suggested music that I'm susceptible to like based on other people. I think it's fine if one can infer out of my lifestyle that I would be interested in x or warn for risks of y.

What is wrong with it ? I'm probably no statistical anomaly, I don't mind being part of some artificial cluster somewhere, helping having a more accurate portrayal of a type of people. I am not interesting enough that anyone will come for me specifically anyways.

And from time to time, I see worried and lamenting people like here, and I still don't get it.

Re: WhatsApp co-founder tells everyone to delete Facebook

#403

Post by glogla »

skybrian wrote: post #47
propman wrote: 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 has contact lists, call logs, real-time location and possibly texts from most used smartphone OS. Google has communication graphs and contact lists from the most used email platform. Google has the search logs from your internet searches. Google has web logs from the most used web analytics platform.

Google knows a lot.

Re: WhatsApp co-founder tells everyone to delete Facebook

#404

Post by kabes »

ramphastidae wrote: post #51
justboxing wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.”

When people say "I have nothing to hide anyway." ask them about their weirdest sexual fantasy and their credit card number. Usually then they realize they might have somethings they want to keep private.

Re: WhatsApp co-founder tells everyone to delete Facebook

#405

Post by 3ribal »

propman wrote: 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…

>"developed anything in messenger even today"

I have developed several, your statement is misleading. Messenger user profile API gives,

first_name, last_name, profile_pic, locale, timezone (non precise), gender, is_payment_enabled, last_ad_referral,

Which IMO is much safer than using direct Facebook Graph API. My point being Messenger apps are in-fact better than apps which uses Facebook login when it comes to privacy i.e if you have to use Facebook platform.

Re: WhatsApp co-founder tells everyone to delete Facebook

#406

Post by B1FF_PSUVM »

samstave wrote: post #137
walrus01 wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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"). pretty much exactly my experience with Canadian and American family. People didn't give one iota of a fuck when the Snowden revelations came out because they just…

It’s a socioeconomic awareness. If you’re worried about food you don’t care. Facebooks 99% are the poorest and least educated. I’ve always wondered why face book, a platform which could unify teachers from mit with the poorest students across the globe has never done shit to do so. They claim to “connect the globe” but the haven’t connected anything. Where is the teacher hosting a class where any single person from f…

> educational foundation

Well, that was the original hope with print, radio and TV.

So we mostly get scandal sheets, soap operas and reality TV.

"What we learn from history is that we don't learn from history", as some wag put it.

Re: WhatsApp co-founder tells everyone to delete Facebook

#407

Post by qaq »

propman wrote: 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…

One thing I am confused with all the data collection that is going on (and it obviously costing them $ and some reputational risks) is not really helping them to produce decent ad targeting. I am not even surprised by how bad FB ads are most of the time but even Amazon that has 20 years of my purchase history is amazingly bad: I already bought 4 Elixir programming books and looking to buy new books when they come out and yet if I search for Elixir it will keep showing me guitar strings WTF? In 20 years I've never bought a single music related item and I bought a ton of programming books and yet ...

Re: WhatsApp co-founder tells everyone to delete Facebook

#408

Post by CannisterFlux »

switch007 wrote: post #387
LeoPanthera wrote: post #321

My extended family is "well distributed", living in three different countries around the world. Facebook has been an essential tool for keeping in touch and keeping track. What do I tell them all to use instead? Migrating to anything else, even if we all agreed, would be a huge pain.

For keeping in touch and keeping track, what's wrong with e-mail?

I used to think this way, but I've realised that email is crap! It's the minimum, but it has so much friction.

People click "reply" instead of "reply all" so others get cut out of the conversation, attaching photos on a phone is a pain. You have to fill out all those fields (subject, To, CC). The subject is always garbage ("Hi" or just empty). Then you have the message buried 2 clicks in, with random chunks of quoted reply appearing again - and this is with everyone on gmail, that mostly clears up the quoted text problem. And if someone dares to change email address, forget it. That's it, you may as well give up trying to contact them because you'll never get the right address any more. And there's all this old-skool formality that people expect with email ("Dear Mother, ..., regards, Derpface"). Emojis don't always render correctly, it depends on the email client on the other end.

I don't use Facebook, but I do have a couple of Whatapp groups, and whenever my parents can't update Whatsapp because their ancient Android phone is out of space, and Whatsapp requires the update due to some protocol change, they end up going back to email... and it is like the stone age again.

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