Users Abandon Facebook After Cambridge Analytica Findings • Hacker News Board

Re: Users Abandon Facebook After Cambridge Analytica Findings

#331

Post by alkonaut » Thu, Mar 22, 2018, 4:12 PM UTC

coatmatter wrote: post #326

alkonaut wrote: post #201

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Same here. I probably gave FB way too much information over the early years, but I can't see what difference a dormant FB account with occasional event planning activity does over deleting it outright. It's not like you can ever "delete" your FB account anyway.

As we say around these parts, "perfect is the enemy of good". I've used Facebook a fair bit over the past decade and only deactivated it two months ago, after Zuckerberg signalled his intentions for 2018. I see a deactivated account as being a precursor to finding a way to test, properly obfuscate and then really delete. So compared to doing nothing, I am in the process of deleting as much as possible. I don't want t…

I agree there are tons of share praxtices here - but there is always the “alternative cost” to consider. For example - would the alternative be just switching to a different social network for “social graph management”? If so - which one? And for Facebook’s many services (calebdar, photo albums, chat) there are numerous alternatives to each - but would the privacy issues of using all those competitors together be worse or better than just staying on Facebook?

There is also the issue of damage done. Facebook knows a lot about me, too much, but the competing service might not. Switching to other services means giving them a lot of the information I already regret I gave Facebook.

So in the end - unless one convinces both one self and all contacts to switch to “traditional” social networking such as a phonebook, a list of email addresses, blogs for photos, secure chat apps - one must consider what the alternative “integrity cost” to Facebook is.

People have to be pulled not just from Facebook but to something else (unless they agree to the phonebook style social network - which nearly no one will). But what?

Re: Users Abandon Facebook After Cambridge Analytica Findings

#332

Post by coatmatter » Thu, Mar 22, 2018, 4:19 PM UTC

qwerty456127 wrote: post #196

rsuelzer wrote: post #68

I am getting a bit annoyed by how shocked people on here are about this. The friends end point in the graph API was hardly a secret. It is an open API. There was no way for Facebook to enforce that data collected from authorized apps wasn't being saved. It's part of the reason the friends API was put under tighter restrictions a few years ago.

> I am getting a bit annoyed by how shocked people on here are about this. Exactly. Didn't people know all the proprietary social networks are spyware+adware? That's the way they earn money. BTW Ghostery says it knows 92 trackers in the social media category.

I tried Ghostery twice and didn't understand it - sites seemed to keep breaking so I go with an alternative method (uBlock Origin + DuckDuckGo extension, and Brave on mobile). Based on this experience, Ghostery is not something I would simply throw on "most people's" computer. I would not for a single moment think that most people (as you implied) understand social networks.

I think we become a part of the problem if we simply assume all users are just like us and know all about the negatives of tech. Facebook evidently didn't anticipate/address it early enough despite all that talent - did they really want this Cambridge Analytica situation to happen? What are we doing to fix this?

Re: Users Abandon Facebook After Cambridge Analytica Findings

#333

Post by ChicagoBoy11 » Thu, Mar 22, 2018, 4:20 PM UTC

confounded wrote: post #154

sumoboy wrote: post #131

If people knew the amount of info collected and sold they would abandon everything. Even 7 months before your born, someone has a profile on you. What CA did leveraging data for targeting is just the beginning, ML applied to data in the future will make what CA did look like amateur hour. Like others have said with elections, this all started long ago with social, CA just happened to do it better this time. Even with…

> ..CA just happened to do it better this time. Even without them, sophisticated targeting can still be developed regardless... I think the thing to take away from all this is that people don’t like it . Our societies have democratic principles; governments can (and have a duty to) prevent sophisticated targeting from non-consensual data collection and if it’s not what people want. You can make an argument that it is…

Not so sure. Remember when the Newsfeed came out? The NYT similarly thought people really did not like it. Facebook certainly didn't get rid of it and we certainly stopped caring.

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/09/10/fashion/10FACE.html

Re: Users Abandon Facebook After Cambridge Analytica Findings

#334

Post by coatmatter » Thu, Mar 22, 2018, 4:24 PM UTC

mark_l_watson wrote: post #244

I don’t care much about what platforms other people use. My preference is paying for services. While I use DuckDuckGo, I am an enthusiastic Google customer for GCP, Google Play books/movies/tv shows, premium music with no ads YouTube. I would like to use Twitter more, but I don’t like the ads. I would gladly pay $50/year for ad free Twitter. I like Gnu Social, but not enough like-minded people to follow. I spend 20 m…

I wouldn't recommend taking up a Twitter habit - it's more addictive than Facebook (because of the wider/deeper talent pool).

However, what ads are you referring to on Twitter? Promoted tweets (DuckDuckGo's comes to mind)? Because apart from that, I don't recall seeing any when using uBlock Origin.

I also can't really recall many intrusive ads when using the official Android app - perhaps I'm already so far in that I don't see them anymore.

To be honest, I wouldn't be upset if all social media and news websites were to become paywalled tomorrow. Perhaps I would then get back into books again (even free ones from the local library).

Re: Users Abandon Facebook After Cambridge Analytica Findings

#335

Post by coatmatter » Thu, Mar 22, 2018, 4:26 PM UTC

RcouF1uZ4gsC wrote: post #26

What's interesting is that of the 5 people the article profiled, only 1 seems likely to have voted for Trump. Based on location and occupation, I would guess the others were not Trump voters. My impression of this whole scandal, is that where you are on the political spectrum affects how you see it. I think a lot of the anger at Facebook is not because of what they did, but what they people see as the consequence fro…

> What's interesting is that of the 5 people the article profiled, only 1 seems likely to have voted for Trump.

And what's the proportion who would still vote for Trump today?

Re: Users Abandon Facebook After Cambridge Analytica Findings

#336

Post by hoptop » Thu, Mar 22, 2018, 4:48 PM UTC

wpasc wrote: post #285

First, I think what happened with Facebook/Cambridge Analytica is appalling. With that said, I think this article is silly and emblematic of poor technology coverage in the media. I think it would be awesome if users really did delete their facebook accounts if they thought these actions crossed some line. But the article cites ~50,000 #deletefacebook mentions. Come on, 50k hashtag shares is evidence of "Users Abando…

When news organizations publish investigative stories, they often follow-up with further coverage highlighting what the industry calls "impact." Then, during prize season (think Pulitzers, but there are many others), editors can point to these follow-up stories and say, "see, we weren't just farting into the wind. We were changing the world."

Re: Users Abandon Facebook After Cambridge Analytica Findings

#337

Post by paws » Thu, Mar 22, 2018, 5:10 PM UTC

paws wrote: post #294

wpasc wrote: post #285

First, I think what happened with Facebook/Cambridge Analytica is appalling. With that said, I think this article is silly and emblematic of poor technology coverage in the media. I think it would be awesome if users really did delete their facebook accounts if they thought these actions crossed some line. But the article cites ~50,000 #deletefacebook mentions. Come on, 50k hashtag shares is evidence of "Users Abando…

Ian Betteridge[1] called for you. More seriously though, it's not unusual for newsroom editors to modify or even completely rewrite article headlines. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Betteridge%27s_law_of_headline... ("Any headline that ends in a question mark can be answered by the word no.")

For future readers of this comment, there was previously a parent post here about the overly broad headline for this article.

TIL on HN, if a someone deletes a parent comment, the children get promoted to the top.

Re: Users Abandon Facebook After Cambridge Analytica Findings

#338

Post by mxuribe » Thu, Mar 22, 2018, 6:31 PM UTC

tunesmith wrote: post #174

mr_spothawk wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

this is already a grey comment for me, but I think your message is relevant. People need "friends" and they get them where they can. As a society, we deserve and owe our selves better than this. There are FOSS alternatives which are nearly as good. This is as fine a time as any to turn up the pressure on our friends, and to work for solutions that don't/can't sell us out (intentionally, or accidentally).

What are the alternatives again? So far I'm hearing mastodon (more twitterish), riot/matrix (more slackish), diaspora, email, and starting a blog.

There are also gnu social, hubzilla, friendica, movim, pleroma, postactiv, etc. And, oh by the way, before you think these different alternatives don't interact...well, they do actually can and do interact with each other...some of the interactions are not 100%. As an example, gnu social, pleroma, postactiv all interact seamlessly 100% with one another...and they all interact a bunch with mastodon, though a little less than 100%. But still there is interactivity, just like emails that can easily cross different systems. And, you can join a server for any of the above for free! The only exception would be if YOU choose to manage your own server - which entails server monthly fees, and your administration time...Otherwise, if you only wish to be a user on someone else's server, that's free. So, you see, you really don't need facebook (or twitter or instagram or snapchat, etc.).

Re: Users Abandon Facebook After Cambridge Analytica Findings

#339

Post by patrickdavey » Thu, Mar 22, 2018, 7:36 PM UTC

alkonaut wrote: post #204

patrickdavey wrote: post #160

Anyone on here is probably one of the tech influencers for their family group. I've just started the work of trying to get people to move onto using Signal. I really really like the ethos of the organisation. I don't see how there's any downside (other than the time of getting people to switch). Wouldn't it be great if, as a start, everyone moved to a secure not-going-to-sell-your-data organisation for instant messag…

> I've just started the work of trying to get people to move onto using Signal. The first question my friends would ask is "I tried signal but I couldn't see a way of posting photos and getting likes...or planning an event. It doesn't look like facebook at all, just a chat app! Facebook the platform is so extremely large and so useful to so many. Most people (including me!) would struggle to set up a photo album from…

I wrote my initial comment too quickly. I specifically think that moving people to use signal instead of WhatsApp is a relatively straightforward drop in. I totally agree that signal is not a replacement for Facebook.

Re: Users Abandon Facebook After Cambridge Analytica Findings

#340

Post by patrickdavey » Thu, Mar 22, 2018, 8:31 PM UTC

cx1000 wrote: post #259

patrickdavey wrote: post #175

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Absolutely, that's why people like you and me (who care) should put in the effort to try and influence those around them. Once enough people do it, and once it's cool to do it, it'll happen.

We should also make them all switch to Ubuntu and vim too, right?

Heh, no, fair point (and not what I was suggesting). I just think that Signal is a drop in replacement for WhatsApp and it can start a conversation about privacy and what happens with data.

I didn't say initially that I meant Signal more as a straight replacement for Whatsapp, not FB.