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Facebook Scans What You Send Other People on Messenger App

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Re: Facebook Scans What You Send Other People on Messenger App

#3
Old news. Facebook has been doing this since at least 2009, I recall seeing an article where Facebook censored all links (including those in private messaegs) to thepiratebay.org [0]

They also crawl links you share in private messages to grab the title, intro, and favicon to generate that clickable widget link thing.

[0] https://torrentfreak.com/facebook-blocks-all-pirate-bay-link...

Re: Facebook Scans What You Send Other People on Messenger App

#4
> "For example, on Messenger, when you send a photo, our automated systems scan it using photo matching technology to detect known child exploitation imagery or when you send a link, we scan it for malware or viruses," a Facebook Messenger spokeswoman said in a statement.

"A Facebook Messenger spokeswoman" who wouldn't put her name to the statement? Ugh. Child porn is terrible, but very few people produce it or want to look at it. On the other hand, opaque and unaccountable algorithmic censorship hurts everyone.

Re: Facebook Scans What You Send Other People on Messenger App

#6
Ofcourse they do. On one hand it’s absolutely surprising that such a piece is considered “news” but on the other hand at least the general public (not just people in CS) are paying more attention to their privacy.

But in this case I think it’s 100% fine, even expected in order to stop bad content (porn, abuse etc) from going through

Re: Facebook Scans What You Send Other People on Messenger App

#9
post #3

Old news. Facebook has been doing this since at least 2009, I recall seeing an article where Facebook censored all links (including those in private messaegs) to thepiratebay.org [0] They also crawl links you share in private messages to grab the title, intro, and favicon to generate that clickable widget link thing. [0] https://torrentfreak.com/facebook-blocks-all-pirate-bay-link...

Yep, very old news. They also blocked URLs to competitors claiming the links were spam. Even if you legit posted the link, Facebook didn't notify you the message didn't send. It just failed silently.

Re: Facebook Scans What You Send Other People on Messenger App

#10
post #3

Old news. Facebook has been doing this since at least 2009, I recall seeing an article where Facebook censored all links (including those in private messaegs) to thepiratebay.org [0] They also crawl links you share in private messages to grab the title, intro, and favicon to generate that clickable widget link thing. [0] https://torrentfreak.com/facebook-blocks-all-pirate-bay-link...

I have the same initial reaction. However, even though we 1% of tech geeks that are paying attention and are aware of these things, how many of us have had people slightly tilt their head sideways in confusion when we try to inform them of this stuff. I'm sure we've all been labeled kooks, conspiracy nut, tin foil hat wearers, etc in the past.

This is one of those situations where the mass populace just didn't want to understand, couldn't understand or combination of both, but the mass populace is finally starting to see just how much of this tracking stuff has been going on. I still think it's not enough, though.

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