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Mark Zuckerberg's Facebook hearing was a sham

theguardian.com

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Re: Mark Zuckerberg's Facebook hearing was a sham

#111

Post by mmd45 »

michaelt wrote: post #55
lwansbrough wrote: post #7

I believe writers from the Guardian would sooner hand over control of the United States to the EU rather than try to understand why the US does things differently; but I think this question bears repeating: ethically, what has Facebook done wrong? Understanding the full context of this hearing is vital to your opinion on the matter. I'm nobody with an outsider's perspective, but to me Facebook has made very few error…

I consented to sharing my data with the 3rd party, which was essentially a license for that party to own that data. Imagine you're not a facebook user. When Facebook sucks up your name and phone number and e-mail address out of your buddy's phonebook, along with all the messages and calls between you, have you consented? What about when you get a 'shadow profile' based on tracking buttons and pixels on other websites…

Is the problem that facebook is just too good at what they do? Lots of companies build profile databases of people for various reasons. Lots of the "people finder" websites scrape or buy data directly from municipalities. I'm no fan of facebook, but why on earth do we allow the DMV to sell their data? I'm more upset about that than granny. It seems as though our culture and laws don't have much of a foundation for respecting any right to data privacy of individuals.

Re: Mark Zuckerberg's Facebook hearing was a sham

#112

Post by droidist2 »

kaitnieks wrote: post #38

Maybe I'm too cynical about politics, but it appears to me that the point of these hearings is not to solve or investigate anything, it's to generate soundbites that voters or potential future voters would like. It's not even that important what the reply is, as long as the politician asks the hard question and demonstrates his concern, and if it makes the news & press, that's victory for them.

Absolutely! It's complete grandstanding. I really wish someone would go Howard Hughes on them.

Re: Mark Zuckerberg's Facebook hearing was a sham

#113

Post by jacquesm »

spacehome wrote: post #5

I was struck that on the surface it looked quite adversarial. Senators were trying to ask fairly pointed questions (despite any technical ignorance). But underneath the surface, the two parties here have fairly well aligned goals -- less freedom on the Internet. The senators want to show that they're doing something, and Facebook welcomes regulation in order to suffocate would-be competitors with it. I'm sure they're…

Facebook never was part of 'the free internet', in fact it is a force strongly against the free internet.

Re: Mark Zuckerberg's Facebook hearing was a sham

#114

Post by nathcd »

wila wrote: post #63
gargravarr wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have NoScript set to blacklist any JS from any Facebook domain. Breaking half the internet by default is worth it to neuter this invasive tracking.

NoScript doesn't stop the tracking. See the noscript tags in the html example of the post you replied to.

This is one of the reasons I really like uMatrix. In addition to giving really fine-grained controls over what you load (by type of asset, by domain given current domain), it gives you really great visibility into what a webpage is doing, and where it's sending data. I have mine set up to act like NoScript by default -- to block first-party JS.

You end up noticing some surprising things. For example, yesterday I read an article (http://www.lowtechmagazine.com/2015/10/how-to-build-a-low-te...) from Low-Tech Magazine, about how to build a "low-tech internet" (an article I really liked, BTW). Happily, the page loaded just fine without any JavaScript, but I still noticed in my uMatrix panel that the page was trying to load various assets from 20-some domains, about half of which uMatrix recognizes as tracking domains. A little disconcerting for a site called Low-Tech Magazine.

Re: Mark Zuckerberg's Facebook hearing was a sham

#115

Post by droidist2 »

notspanishflu wrote: post #24
gaius wrote: post #12

If a person logs out of Facebook, and Facebook continues to track them anyway, then that’s clearly violating consent, and there was a meeting where someone said “we need a way to track people who explicitly do not want to be tracked” and everyone in the room nodded.

Facebook tracks everyone, every time. Tracks users and non users. Tracks even people trying to avoid that company. For example, the infamous pixel code. !function(f,b,e,v,n,t,s){if(f.fbq)return;n=f.fbq=function(){n.callMethod? n.callMethod.apply(n,arguments):n.queue.push(arguments)};if(!f._fbq)f._fbq=n; n.push=n;n.loaded=!0;n.version='2.0';n.queue=[];t=b.createElement(e);t.async=!0; t.src=v;s=b.getElementsByTagName(e…

Which sites is that on? When webmasters use Facebook comments or authentication that gets inserted?

Re: Mark Zuckerberg's Facebook hearing was a sham

#116

Post by return1 »

chiefalchemist wrote: post #48
listenallyall wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

+1. Zuckerberg should have pointed out exactly who voted for the renewal of the FISA surveillance program in Jan. "Look, if an American citizen is angry enough and chooses to never share any more data with Facebook, s/he has that right and the ability. With the NSA/CIA/FBI/TSA/Homeland Security/traffic cameras/license plate readers/stingrays, there is no opt-out. Period."

In theory yes. It would be entertaining. The reality is, he'd be screwed. Nor can we discount FB isn't a favored front of sorts for various "data collection agencies." p.s. I find it (sadly) funny how so many are upset with ZM and FB, but are completely unaware about Snowden, Obama's expansion of the Patriot Act, etc. FB is the obvious scapegoat. It currently has to play the role, even if it hates doing so. But for h…

> But for how long?

usually hype cycles last a few months, until the next outrage takes over to keep people busy.

Re: Mark Zuckerberg's Facebook hearing was a sham

#117

Post by aje403 »

dvfjsdhgfv wrote: post #40
aje403 wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Those two things are positively correlated

Not necessarily. The ultimate aim of each business is to crush the competition and become a monopoly. If they succeed, and we do have some de facto monopolies now, they can do whatever they want and users/customers have little or no choice. Regulations limiting the power of companies are designed do counteract that.

I don't disagree with you. That is why I said positively correlated, rather than perfectly. My comment intended to concur with the parent comment: "the two parties here have fairly well aligned goals -- less freedom on the Internet. The senators want to show that they're doing something, and Facebook welcomes regulation in order to suffocate would-be competitors with it."

We most likely will not see any trust-busting as you're describing here. We'll more likely just see more side-effect legislation like the net neutrality repeal or FOSTA/SESTA that will just consolidate power for a few parties and the government at the expense of small businesses.

Re: Mark Zuckerberg's Facebook hearing was a sham

#118

Post by ataturk »

simias wrote: post #85
spacehome wrote: post #5

I was struck that on the surface it looked quite adversarial. Senators were trying to ask fairly pointed questions (despite any technical ignorance). But underneath the surface, the two parties here have fairly well aligned goals -- less freedom on the Internet. The senators want to show that they're doing something, and Facebook welcomes regulation in order to suffocate would-be competitors with it. I'm sure they're…

>Facebook welcomes regulation in order to suffocate would-be competitors with it Sounds like a libertarian conspiracy theory to me, especially when we still don't know what these hypothetical regulations would look like. For instance if they make it easier to access your data, download and delete it they might somewhat weaken the lock-in effect of Facebook and level the playing field somewhat. Beyond that and even if…

It's not a conspiracy theory. Ever since the Internet came into widespread use it's anarchic and free-wheeling style has driven the social engineers mad. The media also hates the Internet with an even more raging passion because they want to control the narrative forever and always. The world is "1984" and/or "Brave New World."

Oh, you and your hateful anti-free market analogies. You want to be safe, but being safe means not being free. Sure there's middle ground, but we just watched a bridge collapse in Miami and that bridge was inspected by government wasn't it? So giving up that freedom gave us nothing but hollow promises. I'm with you, though. I want building codes, just not "Agenda 21."

Re: Mark Zuckerberg's Facebook hearing was a sham

#119

Post by the-dude »

throw2016 wrote: post #93
diasp wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In diaspora* you own your data. You don’t sign over rights to a corporation or other interest who could use it. https://diasporafoundation.org

Written in ruby, difficult to install. Have a look at the install requirements. Like all ruby apps you need a full build environment and tons of dependencies, and if by chance a specific gem fails to compile you are toast in dependency hell. Given the goal of the project an easier to install and use stack would have helped them.

I installed it a couple of weeks ago to see if it might be a fit for a volunteer org I am part of.

It is not difficult to install. What is wrong with Ruby? I like Ruby.

I was underwhelmed with what Diaspora actually is though.

Re: Mark Zuckerberg's Facebook hearing was a sham

#120

Post by ataturk »

ilovetux wrote: post #81
dvfjsdhgfv wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

On an unrelated note: I always wonder how people nowadays identify the Internet with WWW. There are so many ways to use the Internet in a way not even remotely related to the current power struggles between greedy businesses and duped users, with incompetent governments meddling in from time to time.

I couldn't agree more, the world wide web is definitely just a piece of the internet. I remember the battles over chat protocols, the scourge of p2p protocols and even the move from email to webmail and back again. The web has always been a bit contentious for instance the browser wars are still being fought in some way even today. The problem is that the web is where developers were able to build without concern ove…

While Trump's team may have paid for the data, Clinton's was GIVEN the data.
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