Mark Zuckerberg Refuses to Admit How Facebook Works • Hacker News Board

Re: Mark Zuckerberg Refuses to Admit How Facebook Works

#81

Post by fixermark » Thu, Apr 12, 2018, 3:42 PM UTC

cryptoz wrote: post #54

fixermark wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How does such a practice differ morally from consumer credit reporting agencies?

You sign up for those when you get a credit card. You don't sign up for Facebook, they just start tracking you. You don't even have to go online for it to happen. They'll do it from your friend's profiles. It's quite different.

Ah, quite correct. I meant to say "Consumer reporting agencies" and let "credit" slip in there as a side-effect of my personal experience. :)

https://files.consumerfinance.gov/f/201604_cfpb_list-of-cons...

... but I think you answered the relevant question, which is that you consider opt-in to having your behavior tracked (even when that behavior interacts with third parties, e.g. visiting someone's website or buying a product from someone's company) morally key. I think the CFPB document I linked above indicates that this is not a universally-accepted principle.

Re: Mark Zuckerberg Refuses to Admit How Facebook Works

#82

Post by fixermark » Thu, Apr 12, 2018, 3:44 PM UTC

phinnaeus wrote: post #76

ameister14 wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's not what the question was. The man asking the question wasn't technically sophisticated enough to ask about using cookies, and if he were, he would not have asked that question anyway. The question was, does Facebook collect data on non-users? What that means is, if I have not signed up for facebook, are you tracking my behavior anyway through the like button and other methods?

Do you mean the like button simply being present on pages or actual clicking of the like button? My understanding is clicking on the like button is pointless unless you're actually signed in to facebook.

The like button actually being present means that your client makes a request to FB to fetch the relevant image resources and JS to display the button.

When that occurs, FB has some limited ability to get information on your browsing habits based on what that like-button JS is allowed to see of your current session (which given browser fingerprinting techniques, can be enough to unify your behavior with high probability across multiple disparate "blips" of signal).

Re: Mark Zuckerberg Refuses to Admit How Facebook Works

#83

Post by PeterisP » Thu, Apr 12, 2018, 3:45 PM UTC

inlined wrote: post #33

mfoy_ wrote: post #12

I think the biggest thing is the HUGE disconnect with what people think Facebook is doing, and what Facebook is actually doing. I think the whole point of this is to raise awareness about of the scope of Facebook's data collection-- It's unfathomably enormous. If more average people had a better understanding of what Facebook was tracking, they'd be outraged. Zuckerberg's goal in this was to keep the wool pulled over…

And what's worse is that privacy controls explicitly don't control ad targeting. Years ago I had a long term relationship end. We hid our relationship status and only ended the status a year later. Immediately after changing a status marked "only me" in privacy settings I got bombarded with dating ads. I complained that this was a huge privacy violation and they said "we didn't share your relationship status with the…

Well, but ad targeting (if it's done in-house) can be done without violating privacy.

I mean, if FB would sell a service "show an ad to 10000 people born on 13th April 1998", and then doing so is perfectly compatible with keeping birthdays private as long as they don't tell the advertiser which people got shown that ad. A setting marked "only me" can be reasonably used to affect content that's shown only to you, e.g. targeted ads - assuming that you know your birthdate and relationship status, nothing that's shown to you is a privacy issue as long as no information is given to others. Such ad-targeting may be unwanted and intrusive, but that's not disclosing any private information. The upcoming EU GDPR law would likely require your consent for such usage of private data, though.

Re: Mark Zuckerberg Refuses to Admit How Facebook Works

#84

Post by carapace » Thu, Apr 12, 2018, 3:45 PM UTC

mfoy_ wrote: post #12

I think the biggest thing is the HUGE disconnect with what people think Facebook is doing, and what Facebook is actually doing. I think the whole point of this is to raise awareness about of the scope of Facebook's data collection-- It's unfathomably enormous. If more average people had a better understanding of what Facebook was tracking, they'd be outraged. Zuckerberg's goal in this was to keep the wool pulled over…

Yeah, this. I mean, "technical debt" doesn't begin to cover it.

As the overlap in the Venn diagram of "people who give a crap" and "people who understand what FB actually is" inevitably gets larger I have no doubt that we'll reach a pitchforks-and-torches tipping point.

By getting up in front of Congress and stonewalling (or outright lying) he's jammed his public perception over towards the "Martin Shkreli" zone.

Re: Mark Zuckerberg Refuses to Admit How Facebook Works

#85

Post by thaladred » Thu, Apr 12, 2018, 3:46 PM UTC

TekMol wrote: post #24

Is lying in front of congress a crime? If I was a senator, I would have asked these two questions: When I look at a product in an onlineshop like Amazon, afterwards I see adverts for this product on Facebook. How does this work? When I visit a physical store, afterwards I see adverts for this store on Facebook. Even on my desktop computer. Even though I don't have any facebook apps on my phone. How does this work? If…

1. Since Amazon uses Facebook for advertising, they can feed their data to both Google and Facebook ads. It's easy to do with cookies.

2. If you don't have Facebook app on your phone or if you did not open your Facebook app when you are in store, you won't see ads for that store. Unless you have a loyalty program with the store or the store decides to target advertise you based on your payment info, etc. In any case, it is the physical store that shares those information.

Re: Mark Zuckerberg Refuses to Admit How Facebook Works

#86

Post by kerng » Thu, Apr 12, 2018, 3:47 PM UTC

phinnaeus wrote: post #76

ameister14 wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's not what the question was. The man asking the question wasn't technically sophisticated enough to ask about using cookies, and if he were, he would not have asked that question anyway. The question was, does Facebook collect data on non-users? What that means is, if I have not signed up for facebook, are you tracking my behavior anyway through the like button and other methods?

Do you mean the like button simply being present on pages or actual clicking of the like button? My understanding is clicking on the like button is pointless unless you're actually signed in to facebook.

The loading of the Like button will give Facebook information about your user agent - it's like a tracking pixel. It's been shown that user agent information together with IP pretty much uniquely identify a user. You dont have to click anything

Re: Mark Zuckerberg Refuses to Admit How Facebook Works

#87

Post by thaladred » Thu, Apr 12, 2018, 3:48 PM UTC

shmerl wrote: post #64

fixermark wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's if you're already approaching it from the point of view that it's a bad thing. I believe that question is unsettled.

It's pretty much settled that exploiting lack of privacy is a bad thing. Potential of such practice misuse was clearly demonstrated in the recent history.

Can you give us the specific case in history that you are referring to? You can get back to met later if you don't have that information with you right now.

Re: Mark Zuckerberg Refuses to Admit How Facebook Works

#88

Post by zAy0LfpBZLC8mAC » Thu, Apr 12, 2018, 3:49 PM UTC

redleggedfrog wrote: post #73

Okay, I guess I'm the contrarian here, but I'm not sure why any of this is surprising, or even a problem. Facebook users signed up for a free service that allows them to communicate with other people in an enjoyable manner. Facebook even went so far as to make it so enjoyable it's addictive. Free online crack. Facebook users, you're having your fun. What would you expect Facebook to do to finance all this? They're se…

Yeah, I can't figure it out either ... what could possibly be wrong with giving drugs to an addict? They agreed to becoming an addict, so why shouldn't I profit from their inability to protect themselves?

Re: Mark Zuckerberg Refuses to Admit How Facebook Works

#89

Post by babygoat » Thu, Apr 12, 2018, 3:49 PM UTC

redleggedfrog wrote: post #73

Okay, I guess I'm the contrarian here, but I'm not sure why any of this is surprising, or even a problem. Facebook users signed up for a free service that allows them to communicate with other people in an enjoyable manner. Facebook even went so far as to make it so enjoyable it's addictive. Free online crack. Facebook users, you're having your fun. What would you expect Facebook to do to finance all this? They're se…

You're clearly satisfied with yourself for not being a Facebook user, but your comment has no bearing on the article. Do you have an opinion on Zuckerberg refusing to admit any of this?

Re: Mark Zuckerberg Refuses to Admit How Facebook Works

#90

Post by bogomipz » Thu, Apr 12, 2018, 3:49 PM UTC

mfoy_ wrote: post #12

I think the biggest thing is the HUGE disconnect with what people think Facebook is doing, and what Facebook is actually doing. I think the whole point of this is to raise awareness about of the scope of Facebook's data collection-- It's unfathomably enormous. If more average people had a better understanding of what Facebook was tracking, they'd be outraged. Zuckerberg's goal in this was to keep the wool pulled over…

>"hat's why he kept conflating post-visibility settings with privacy / tracking settings."

Indeed and if Congress had bothered to bring in some subject matter experts they would have been able to him out on these disingenuous answers and deceitful statements.

I'm sure Zuckerberg believes he may have won here but I think he lost in the court of public opinion. I think his testimony did him a lot of damage as it shows just how disingenuous and dishonest he really is.

I hope a lot of FB employees were able to tune in to these hearing so they could see their leader for who and what he really is. His scripted and willfully misleading testimony was fundamentally no different than the big banking or big pharmaceutical CEOs that get called to Washington during a crisis.