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Statement by FTC Regarding Reported Concerns about Facebook Privacy Practices

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Re: Statement by FTC Regarding Reported Concerns about Facebook Privacy Practices

#241

Post by dragonwriter »

panarky wrote: post #48
hodder wrote: post #3

Remember the delete Uber campaign, the Equifax breach, the WFC accounts, the Bank of America suits, the Intel chip vulnerability? The market doesn't. The market has a short memory, and FB is not going anywhere. However, there may be some welcomed changes in data abuse. With that said, I think the stock is a bargain today.

Remember when sexual assault and harassment were routine, and powerful men could do what they wanted with impunity? There was an awakening, the public mood changed, people were energized and emboldened to take action. What used to be an open secret is now taboo and many powerful men have been fired and disgraced. Remember the awakening about the unhealthy effects of sugary carbonated beverages? That wasn't a one-time…

> Remember when sexual assault and harassment were routine, and powerful men could do what they wanted with impunity?

Like, when you could brag about benefitting from that, and still be President? I remember that like it was the day after yesterday...

Re: Statement by FTC Regarding Reported Concerns about Facebook Privacy Practices

#242

Post by fogzen »

tclancy wrote: post #157
fogzen wrote: post #119

How were any of you damaged by Facebook ads, exactly? Why the outrage now and not before, when Obama (and everyone else) used targeted advertising? This whole outrage over privacy is disingenuous. It’s painfully obvious the outrage is about Donald Trump being elected president, not personal information used to target ads.

Hang on, so what is your solution in this strawman scenario? Should we all smile for the panopticon and embrace total surveillance or do we have to wait until Our Team is in power to be able to complain without question of hypocrisy?

I can't talk of a solution because I don't see a problem.

I'm fine with political campaigns advertising for their candidate. If I see an advertisement for a candidate on Facebook, TV, or anywhere else, and I agree with the advertisement's message or call to action (donating), I'm happy I saw it! If I see an ad for a candidate I don't agree with, then at worst I feel my attention was wasted. To the extent advertisers use personal information to target those advertisements, that just means I see less of the ads that I'm less likely to find valuable. Targeted political ads aren't causing a problem for me personally.

So I don't see a problem with political advertising, but I do see a political bent in the outrage at Cambridge Analytica and its connection to Donald Trump.

Re: Statement by FTC Regarding Reported Concerns about Facebook Privacy Practices

#243

Post by dragonwriter »

CamperBob2 wrote: post #237
dragonwriter wrote: post #227

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Even when the accusations are indisputably true and relevant? You can probably construct an argument where the hypocrisy of some speaker advancing the argument would itself actually be relevant to the argument being advanced [0], but that's almost never the case in any real discussion; instead Whataboutism (and then tu quoque fallacy more generally) has the same rhetorical purpose as guilt by association or as homi…

So, in your opinion, moral authority isn't a thing? You can cry "whataboutism" all you want when confronted with examples like these ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_involvement_in_r... ), but don't be surprised or dismayed when no one listens.

> So, in your opinion, moral authority isn't a thing?

Sure, it's a “thing”, specifically a name based on rationalization given to the cognitive filtering mechanism which a number of fallacies, notably as hominem and tu quoque, target.

But it's never relevant to the merits of the argument; targeting moral authority is always an effort to avoid consideration of the merits of the argument.

Re: Statement by FTC Regarding Reported Concerns about Facebook Privacy Practices

#244

Post by CamperBob2 »

dragonwriter wrote: post #243
CamperBob2 wrote: post #237

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So, in your opinion, moral authority isn't a thing? You can cry "whataboutism" all you want when confronted with examples like these ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_involvement_in_r... ), but don't be surprised or dismayed when no one listens.

> So, in your opinion, moral authority isn't a thing? Sure, it's a “thing”, specifically a name based on rationalization given to the cognitive filtering mechanism which a number of fallacies, notably as hominem and tu quoque , target. But it's never relevant to the merits of the argument; targeting moral authority is always an effort to avoid consideration of the merits of the argument.

So, your point is valid, but it only applies to robots, not people. Is that pretty much the right way to view it?

If so, I sympathize. I get that a lot, myself.

Re: Statement by FTC Regarding Reported Concerns about Facebook Privacy Practices

#245

Post by JetSpiegel »

reaperducer wrote: post #240
deepGem wrote: post #217

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Isn't this primarily on Android ? Am quite certain no app can monitor your location in the background on iOS. Regardless What pisses me off is FB not providing evidence to the contrary, that they don't harvest data in the bqckground. Not providing this evidence makes it quite clear that they do harvest this data. The issue isn't about permissions. 'Sir, may I come inside your house, is fine, but ransacking the house…

If Facebook does a background news feed update on your iPhone and notices that your iPhone wifi is on the same IP address as another phone (Android or otherwise) with location enabled, then it can record a correlation. There's probably even better ways of doing it.

Straight up GeoIP is good enough, particularly on WiFi.

On mobile networks I believe the carries will gladly sell the tower-IMEI mapping. They already have to collect that for law enforcement purposes anyway.

Re: Statement by FTC Regarding Reported Concerns about Facebook Privacy Practices

#246

Post by JetSpiegel »

Xixi wrote: post #128
philipodonnell wrote: post #100

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For public companies in the US, they are mostly incapable of making decisions like this as if can be shown to negativity effect enterprise value they can be sued by shareholders that do not have the same moral issues.

I read these kind of comments all the time, yet I'm still to see one actual court case showing that this is true. Are you really sure that this is true?

Smarter shareholders will just get the CEO ousted. An inside job, much cleaner than mud slinging through the courts.

A distinction without a difference.

Re: Statement by FTC Regarding Reported Concerns about Facebook Privacy Practices

#247

Post by JetSpiegel »

Lionsion wrote: post #129
darpa_escapee wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Most likely the latter. Facebook is for "old people" according to younger family members. However, they're all over Facebook's other properties.

> Most likely the latter. Facebook is for "old people" according to younger family members. However, they're all over Facebook's other properties. However, all those were acquisitions. I think Facebook's doomed if it's ever prevented from buying rival social networks. I think trend cycles can throw a wrench in network effects, and Facebook's too established to really innovate in this category.

> I think Facebook's doomed if it's ever prevented from buying rival social networks

Yeah, good luck electing FDR (or even a lite version) in the USA for the next decades.

Re: Statement by FTC Regarding Reported Concerns about Facebook Privacy Practices

#248

Post by JimDabell »

deepGem wrote: post #217
lumberjack wrote: post #68

>Foremost among these tools is enforcement action against companies that fail to honor their privacy promises This is the crux of the issue. The problem is that when Facebook asks for "location information", the consequences of this are not being conveyed to the user. The user might think, "ah they want my location for the weather recommendations and event suggestions in my neighbourhood". They do not realise how som…

Isn't this primarily on Android ? Am quite certain no app can monitor your location in the background on iOS. Regardless What pisses me off is FB not providing evidence to the contrary, that they don't harvest data in the bqckground. Not providing this evidence makes it quite clear that they do harvest this data. The issue isn't about permissions. 'Sir, may I come inside your house, is fine, but ransacking the house…

> Am quite certain no app can monitor your location in the background on iOS.

Any application can do this on iOS, with a few caveats:

- iOS prompts you to grant permission when the application requests it for the first time. If you refuse, the application cannot keep prompting you.

- After a few days, it reminds you that the application has been accessing your location in the background and asks you if you want to keep allowing it or revoke access.

- There is an indicator in the status bar to let you know when an application is tracking your location.

- You can see which applications have access and which applications have used that access recently by going to Settings > Privacy > Location Services.

- You can revoke access at any time in the same place or by going to Settings > App Name.

- You can also only grant applications access to your location while you are using the application, as long as the application supports that.

- If an application doesn't intrinsically need location services to function and the developer tries to force users to grant permission by disabling functionality, the application is unlikely to be allowed in the App Store.

As others have mentioned, there are also other ways in which applications may be able to infer your location indirectly.

Re: Statement by FTC Regarding Reported Concerns about Facebook Privacy Practices

#249

Post by DesiLurker »

joering2 wrote: post #142
simias wrote: post #130

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Digg and IE "died" because there was a real practical incentive to move towards alternatives. This Facebook thing is mostly ideological at the core, in terms of day-to-day user experience it's no better or worse than it was a month ago. Digg also never was more than a small speck of dust compared to Facebook, even at the apex of its popularity. Facebook's huge network effect is hard to overcome. If you want Facebook…

> My guess is that if you manage to do all of that you'll just end up bought by Facebook anyway. Of course.. unfortunately you can't say no when some behemoth wants to buy you. /s

unless the privacy protections are codified in the company charter from day one with some poison pill type mechanism. last I heard a social network called ello was trying to do that. lately they have rebranded themselves into a 'artist social net'. IMO still worth the switch if moving with close friends.

Honestly if fb were to just take the money from me and leave me alone i'd be happy to pay that ransom for my friends.

Re: Statement by FTC Regarding Reported Concerns about Facebook Privacy Practices

#250

Post by unprepare »

parthdesai wrote: post #231
dragonwriter wrote: post #224

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> By refusing to answer upon the clear hypocrisy pointed out in your argument My only argument in this subthread was that the charge of Whataboutism was correctly made, and cannot be rebutted with a claim of pointing to hypocrisy, since Whataboutism is exactly the fallacy of pointing to hypocrisy to avoid the topic of debate.

And you aptly ignored the context of the argument. Person i replied to clearly uses whataboutism in negative manner and dismisses valid points of use of extended unauthorized data by OFA (Obama for America). "What Obama did was unethical as far as I'm concerned, as is most modern marketing. (I will say one campaign was selling hope and progressive change while the other was fear mongering and spreading divisiveness.…

Do you see how you have continued to pry the topic away from how to fix this issue that everyone agrees should be fixed? This is the desired outcome of whataboutism. Do you have any input of how to address the issue at hand other than commenting on the details of why people care today or when this problem started?
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