Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Facebook retracted Zuckerberg’s messages from recipients’ inboxes

techcrunch.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

51–60 of 134 posts

Re: Facebook retracted Zuckerberg’s messages from recipients’ inboxes

#51

Post by flukus »

_jal wrote: post #38
jerkstate wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I disagree, privacy-conscious people have been warning that Facebook has been doing these things since forever, so people (especially here on HN) can't claim that they didn't know these things were going on. This is just the same old story: people being upset about the consequences of what they were warned about many many times.

I, too, wish for a better quality of collective decision-making on the part of humanity, but this seems to be how "we" do these things. "What, me worry?" is probably the central recurring theme of history, if you're inclined to look at things a certain way.

We also used to accept that negative reinforcement was part of this learning process, but now it's called victim blaming.

Re: Facebook retracted Zuckerberg’s messages from recipients’ inboxes

#52

Post by TangoTrotFox »

alphakappa wrote: post #8

I think it's clear from nearly a decade's worth of Facebook's trysts with privacy issues that it is a company that doesn't have a fundamental stance that's in favor of user privacy. Over and over again it has either intentionally built features that disregard privacy, or put in wrong defaults, or simply brushed off criticisms when others have misused Facebook. At this point we should be asking ourselves why we expect…

I think you answered your own question. The reason people expected Facebook to change is because people don't seem to understand that the general rule is that when a large company makes a statement it is invariably based around public relations. They will say whatever they think it is that will receive the most positive response from the population, regardless of the truthfulness of that statement, at least so long as it cannot open them up to legal counter action.

Facebook's behavior is not going to change with a humbler set of leaders. Their entire fundamental business model is based around collecting sensitive information. And they're starting to reach the absolute extremes of market saturation meaning that the only way they can continue to grow is to offer more effective advertising which relies on harvesting even more data from their users. If you want a social media service that respects users' privacy and rights then it would need to be either a non-profit decentralized service, or a for-payment service. The former would suffer from lacking the funds to reach a critical mass, and the latter would fail because nobody's going to pay to join a small social media service - let alone the subscription model that would be necessary.

Re: Facebook retracted Zuckerberg’s messages from recipients’ inboxes

#53

Post by siquick »

ryanlol wrote: post #25

I recently saw the name @Mat available on instagram, I registered it. Twice. Both times the name was taken from me by a Facebook employee and eventually given to this Mat Henley guy from Uber. Screenshots of Facebook staff forcefully resetting the account names: https://i.succ.in/WuwuV1IH.png https://i.succ.in/WuMMtKTr.png (The revert button does nothing, just offers to change your password) It seems like FB employee…

This needs to be made more of an issue.

Re: Facebook retracted Zuckerberg’s messages from recipients’ inboxes

#54

Post by jamesmiller5 »

alphakappa wrote: post #8

I think it's clear from nearly a decade's worth of Facebook's trysts with privacy issues that it is a company that doesn't have a fundamental stance that's in favor of user privacy. Over and over again it has either intentionally built features that disregard privacy, or put in wrong defaults, or simply brushed off criticisms when others have misused Facebook. At this point we should be asking ourselves why we expect…

All I need is a better chat app, that Facebook won't buy. I can now text, voice record, send photos/selfies and video messages easily to my social circles. Connecting to second degree connections is fast and everyone I know has an account.

I want to leave Facebook but I can't give up such an amazing chat experience that keeps me connected to my family and close friends. Even if I got my immediate family to use a different app, I'd have to keep Facebook for old friends :( .

(edit, spelling)

Re: Facebook retracted Zuckerberg’s messages from recipients’ inboxes

#55

Post by dx034 »

jamesmiller5 wrote: post #54
alphakappa wrote: post #8

I think it's clear from nearly a decade's worth of Facebook's trysts with privacy issues that it is a company that doesn't have a fundamental stance that's in favor of user privacy. Over and over again it has either intentionally built features that disregard privacy, or put in wrong defaults, or simply brushed off criticisms when others have misused Facebook. At this point we should be asking ourselves why we expect…

All I need is a better chat app, that Facebook won't buy. I can now text, voice record, send photos/selfies and video messages easily to my social circles. Connecting to second degree connections is fast and everyone I know has an account. I want to leave Facebook but I can't give up such an amazing chat experience that keeps me connected to my family and close friends. Even if I got my immediate family to use a diff…

Only using whatsapp without other facebook accounts should still be fine. Whatsapp has end2end encryption (unlike FB messenger) and if you don't use other FB products they can't use your data for ads. Obviously not as good as an independent messenger but will cause the same revenue loss for FB.

Re: Facebook retracted Zuckerberg’s messages from recipients’ inboxes

#56

Post by needToSay »

ryanlol wrote: post #25

I recently saw the name @Mat available on instagram, I registered it. Twice. Both times the name was taken from me by a Facebook employee and eventually given to this Mat Henley guy from Uber. Screenshots of Facebook staff forcefully resetting the account names: https://i.succ.in/WuwuV1IH.png https://i.succ.in/WuMMtKTr.png (The revert button does nothing, just offers to change your password) It seems like FB employee…

Wow, the FB workers are disgusting as Zuck and the company itself.

Re: Facebook retracted Zuckerberg’s messages from recipients’ inboxes

#57

Post by JumpCrisscross »

jamesmiller5 wrote: post #54
alphakappa wrote: post #8

I think it's clear from nearly a decade's worth of Facebook's trysts with privacy issues that it is a company that doesn't have a fundamental stance that's in favor of user privacy. Over and over again it has either intentionally built features that disregard privacy, or put in wrong defaults, or simply brushed off criticisms when others have misused Facebook. At this point we should be asking ourselves why we expect…

All I need is a better chat app, that Facebook won't buy. I can now text, voice record, send photos/selfies and video messages easily to my social circles. Connecting to second degree connections is fast and everyone I know has an account. I want to leave Facebook but I can't give up such an amazing chat experience that keeps me connected to my family and close friends. Even if I got my immediate family to use a diff…

> that Facebook won't buy

Facebook will buy because it’s profitable to buy. Monopoly power is a known mode of market failure. (Note: you don’t need 100% of a market for the deleterious effects of monopoly power to manifest.)

The only solution is blocking future acquisitions and breaking up Facebook.

Re: Facebook retracted Zuckerberg’s messages from recipients’ inboxes

#58

Post by JumpCrisscross »

jerkstate wrote: post #22
CodeMage wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

On the contrary, everyone's willingness to accept this kind of behavior as normal indicates how far the Overton window has moved when it comes to the trustworthiness of our digital services. We need a collective effort to shift things back where they belong.

I disagree, privacy-conscious people have been warning that Facebook has been doing these things since forever, so people (especially here on HN) can't claim that they didn't know these things were going on. This is just the same old story: people being upset about the consequences of what they were warned about many many times.

> privacy-conscious people have been warning

Saying. And what was said was obviously not heard. Tangibility helps any pitch. We shouldn’t fault people for agreeing later versus sooner; at the end of the day, agreement trumps the alternative.

Re: Facebook retracted Zuckerberg’s messages from recipients’ inboxes

#59

Post by mirkules »

chx wrote: post #32

The problem with any regulation curtailing Facebook is it's practically guaranteed to hurt Internet freedoms. A lot.

Thank you! I feel like I'm watching this trainwreck in slow motion by myself, as we used to inch - but now barrell - towards regulating the internet into oblivion. This is ironic, of course, because the internet is meant to be decentralized and deregulated, and the very people pushing for regulation are the same ones that oppose legislation in other aspects (e.g. encryption). It's a very short hop from wanting Facebook to comply with some law, to compelling Facebook to turn over user data to verify the law has not been broken.

Re: Facebook retracted Zuckerberg’s messages from recipients’ inboxes

#60

Post by colordrops »

alphakappa wrote: post #8

I think it's clear from nearly a decade's worth of Facebook's trysts with privacy issues that it is a company that doesn't have a fundamental stance that's in favor of user privacy. Over and over again it has either intentionally built features that disregard privacy, or put in wrong defaults, or simply brushed off criticisms when others have misused Facebook. At this point we should be asking ourselves why we expect…

> We should also be asking ourselves whether an organization that has the power to be so influential in the destinies of nations should be run by executives who see every issue as a PR issue to be dealt with, rather than ones that should teach them fundamental lessons.

That's an extremely insightful statement but unfortunately also describes the DNC and RNC, which are already in control of the US.

Post reply on HN