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Why We Disagree with The New York Times

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Re: Why We Disagree with The New York Times

#231

Post by wybiral »

naravara wrote: post #180
reitanqild wrote: post #160

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> But I've noticed even with my cousins abroad they've mostly transitioned fully to WhatsApp. I've managed to get my friends and family over to other channel so we are now almost 100% Facebook free except for a few log in with Facebook and the occasional Instagram (also declining I think). (Disclaimer: I trust WhatsApps crypto since a number of cryptographers have audited it but I still do not want them to have my me…

I've been trying to do the same. Most of the communication has moved to WhatsApp and the "here's what's going on in my life" blasts have moved to Twitter and Instagram. It seems like people have reverted back to using plain old email (or Evite) for event invitations (thank God for the former ehhh on the latter). The big impediment left has been Facebook's function as a social space to share photos with all and sundry…

Google Photos isn't bad for making and sharing albums. But then again you're just trading one giant for another.

Re: Why We Disagree with The New York Times

#233

Post by wybiral »

untog wrote: post #105
_red wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Signed agreements do not prevent your information from being used in other ways. That's insane, literally. The real insanity is with the users. FB did the most obvious thing. The user-base somehow magically thought they were providing all those free services because they were nice guys. It was obvious to anyone since the beginning that FB was a clearinghouse for private data trading. How else could the model remotel…

> It was obvious to anyone since the beginning that FB was a clearinghouse for private data trading. I tire of this argument that users should obviously know they are trading their personal information in return for access to a service. They don't know this. It's obvious in a conversation with any (even lightly) tech-illiterate person that nothing about how the modern internet economy works is obvious. Think back to…

Most of the people I've talked to seemed to think that ads were how money was made from services like that. Promoted content that's constantly in their face trying to blend into normal content.

In fact, so much so that it's been hard to get people to realize that the recent issues haven't been related to ads at all. Facebook itself stills seems to be trying to blur the lines between data collection and advertisement.

To me there's nothing wrong with ads. Even content-targeted ads (if I'm reading about gardening then show me an ad for potting soil or gloves). But the push towards creating profiles that follow you around to target ads to you on multiple platforms based on your previous behavior is just creepy and dangerous (when political ads and control over the data comes into play).

Re: Why We Disagree with The New York Times

#234

Post by euyyn »

smallnamespace wrote: post #178
zzzeek wrote: post #177

Earlier quoted context omitted.

unethical science does not deserve to be wrapped in its journalistic language in an effort to detach it from the harm it caused, it deserves to be called out for what it actually is, in this case intentional psychological manipulation of people's moods without their knowledge or consent. One does not grasp the true harm caused by unethical experiments by reading only the documented (published or non-published) scient…

How do you distinguish between unethical science and A/B testing, or even just 'We changed our product, then didn't like the results, and changed it back?'

I think one good discriminant is: Would you want to explain it candidly?

E.g.: "Starting next week, we'll try to affect your mood as part of an experiment". Or "the new version of our product purposefully tries to depress you a bit" followed by "we didn't like the results of it so we've changed it back".

Re: Why We Disagree with The New York Times

#235

Post by rhizome »

smallnamespace wrote: post #178
zzzeek wrote: post #177

Earlier quoted context omitted.

unethical science does not deserve to be wrapped in its journalistic language in an effort to detach it from the harm it caused, it deserves to be called out for what it actually is, in this case intentional psychological manipulation of people's moods without their knowledge or consent. One does not grasp the true harm caused by unethical experiments by reading only the documented (published or non-published) scient…

How do you distinguish between unethical science and A/B testing, or even just 'We changed our product, then didn't like the results, and changed it back?'

There is at least a dense 50 years of research and writing on the topic of scientific ethics, it's a bit naive to pop into a thread and ask, "so what's the deeeeaaaal with human experimentation?"

Re: Why We Disagree with The New York Times

#236

Post by doctorsher »

snowwrestler wrote: post #229
cjhopman wrote: post #217

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> your reply completely fails to grasp the problem, like so many others. That's because you're just making up a problem that doesn't exist. The replies are all talking about what is actually happening, not your fantasy world. As the article states: " friends’ information, like photos, was only accessible on devices when people made a decision to share their information with those friends".

I understand why my iPhone needs access to my Facebook friends' info, in order to display it to me. I don't understand why Apple Inc. needs access and permission to download and store my friends' data on Apple Inc. servers . That is what the NY Times reported, and Facebook has not directly denied it here. Edit to be clear: I'm just using Apple as an example company.

Unfortunately, the NYT article is vague on how each of the approved device makers were using the data -- they only say "some partners" stored the data. But it doesn't seem like Apple in particular used the API in that capacity. From the article: "An Apple spokesman said the company relied on private access to Facebook data for features that enabled users to post photos to the social network without opening the Facebook app, among other things. Apple said its phones no longer had such access to Facebook as of last September."

Re: Why We Disagree with The New York Times

#237

Post by s73v3r_ »

JumpCrisscross wrote: post #61
dominotw wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Signed agreements do not prevent your information from being used in other ways. Why is this, though? How is it different from any other legal agreements?

> How is it different from any other legal agreements? Suppose I tell you a secret. You promise only to share it with others who will keep it a secret. You share my secret with Bob. Bob promises he won't share my secret. Bob shares my secret. You broke your promise. You tried not to break it. But break it you did.

Right. And they should be punished harshly for it, so that everyone else is much more careful about who they share that stuff with in the future.

Re: Why We Disagree with The New York Times

#238

Post by s73v3r_ »

gist wrote: post #189
jacobsheehy wrote: post #2

It reads like a long defensive argument, "how else did you expect us to make huge sums of money"? It is exactly as tone-deaf and legalese as you would expect. There is no new information here; Facebook says legal contracts actually protect your data so it can't go anywhere, "just trust us", etc. > These partners signed agreements that prevented people’s Facebook information from being used for any other purpose than…

> how else did you expect us to make huge sums of money Your tone is as if to imply that nobody but the company benefits from making 'huge sums of money'. There are employees, vendors (selling goods and services), stockholders (retirees?), governments (taxes) and so on. Why the idea that earning money is somehow not the purpose of a company? It is at the core.

But none of us care if they make huge sums of money or not. I fail to see why I should accept them being shitty because "they created shareholder value."

Re: Why We Disagree with The New York Times

#239

Post by s73v3r_ »

cjhopman wrote: post #224
jessaustin wrote: post #93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So long as we don't have to log onto to FB to file our taxes or something, how much harm can the regulator really inflict on the general public? Assume it ends up being a regulator that's really talented at harming the general public, like FCC...

> how much harm can the regulator really inflict on the general public? They can make regulations on social networks that are infeasible to comply with for any company not making 10s of billions of dollars a year, effectively cementing facebook as the only legal social network. Whether you consider that a harm or not is up to you.

I think that's an insane stretch of what's really happening.

Re: Why We Disagree with The New York Times

#240

Post by ddingus »

TulliusCicero wrote: post #220
zzzeek wrote: post #190

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I would assume a core tenet of ethics and deciding if something is unethical is if it has the potential to harm people. Inducing depression to indiscriminate masses is pretty high on the list. It's not valid to compare the emotional impact of Facebook on millions of its addicted users to something like the color of a box of laundry detergent.

Selling cake has the potential to harm people, a moral framework needs a bit more subtlety than that to be sensible.

Well, including laxative to judge how much people can tolerate before they get the shits isn't far off the mark from inducing depression.

FB - A little negative = meh

FB - More negative = major downer

FB - Totally negative = woah, look at the sorry state they are in now.

Cake - A little laxative = mmm this cake is special somehow

Cake - More laxative = nice cake, special, where is the roll of extra TP?

Cake - Dump it in = people home for days, the shits.

In both cases, not telling them is the ethics problem.

Basically the public trust boils down to people expecting others not to harm them. Depression can become chronic. The shits could damage someone requiring medical help.

Both are clear risks people would very likely avoid, if they knew.

FB - We want to run a depression test. Plz volunteer your feed and see if you get depressed.

Cake - We have a laxative that tastes great, but you might get the shits, plz have some cake.

See the problem?

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