Facebook Now Allows You To “Download Your Information” • Hacker News Board

Re: Facebook Now Allows You To “Download Your Information”

#21

Post by lwhi » Wed, Oct 06, 2010, 6:46 PM UTC

Perhaps some people need to realise that using Facebook involves creating data, in the same sense that creating documents in MS Word or Excel creates files.

This might be an important step in educating people to think differently about what Facebook is and what the implications of using it might be - for instance, not many people like the idea of a stranger gaining access to the files on their local hard disk. In many ways, the privacy implications involved in using Facebook are similar.

Re: Facebook Now Allows You To “Download Your Information”

#22

Post by mp3jeep01 » Wed, Oct 06, 2010, 6:50 PM UTC

This seems pretty interesting - it's a good opportunity for sites like Flickr and the like to allow 'Facebook Zip' uploads and they'll automatically parse out your photos and store them in your account.

Re: Facebook Now Allows You To “Download Your Information”

#23

Post by skbohra123 » Wed, Oct 06, 2010, 6:51 PM UTC

waiting for that download button to appear.

Re: Facebook Now Allows You To “Download Your Information”

#24

Post by jacquesm » Wed, Oct 06, 2010, 6:52 PM UTC

moultano wrote: post #18

Kudos. This fixes my biggest criticism of Facebook. I'm going to be a lot more comfortable using it now. The moving target privacy policies are a bit of an issue still, but I'm willing to give them a half pass on that as the price of innovation.

I think you are living proof their PR department is on top of their game again.

Re: Facebook Now Allows You To “Download Your Information”

#25

Post by moultano » Wed, Oct 06, 2010, 6:54 PM UTC

jacquesm wrote: post #24

moultano wrote: post #18

Kudos. This fixes my biggest criticism of Facebook. I'm going to be a lot more comfortable using it now. The moving target privacy policies are a bit of an issue still, but I'm willing to give them a half pass on that as the price of innovation.

I think you are living proof their PR department is on top of their game again.

If their PR department influences their engineers to implement features that I want, good for them. I'm not inclined to care which part of the organization made the proposal.

Re: Facebook Now Allows You To “Download Your Information”

#26

Post by marknutter » Wed, Oct 06, 2010, 6:57 PM UTC

So all those donations to the Diaspora project seem to have paid off, but not in the way we expected. Instead of it spawning an alternative to Facebook, it put sufficient pressure on Facebook to compel them to allow users to easily download and port their data any time they want to. The internet works in mysterious ways, doesn't it?

Re: Facebook Now Allows You To “Download Your Information”

#27

Post by jacquesm » Wed, Oct 06, 2010, 6:57 PM UTC

moultano wrote: post #25

jacquesm wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think you are living proof their PR department is on top of their game again.

If their PR department influences their engineers to implement features that I want, good for them. I'm not inclined to care which part of the organization made the proposal.

I think it's simple, facebook needed a good strategy because of all the shit that hit the fan in the recent past, so they put a fresh new face on it and spread the love of openness where they can afford it.

I'm fine with it, download or not it doesn't change my view of them. Any company that has that kind of information at its disposal is to be treated with caution.

Re: Facebook Now Allows You To “Download Your Information”

#28

Post by xelipe » Wed, Oct 06, 2010, 6:59 PM UTC

I'm glad Facebook did this. I've wished for a long time that Google had this feature since I care about my Google Mail and Google Docs a lot more than my Facebook Status updates. This is a step in the right direction for people like me that backs up my twitter updates because Twitter is sometimes does not give you access to your entire history. More services should implement similar features, I'm sure that companies like will create import tools for this data.

Now, if only Facebook simplified it's process to delete an account...

Re: Facebook Now Allows You To “Download Your Information”

#29

Post by lwhi » Wed, Oct 06, 2010, 7:04 PM UTC

moultano wrote: post #25

jacquesm wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think you are living proof their PR department is on top of their game again.

If their PR department influences their engineers to implement features that I want, good for them. I'm not inclined to care which part of the organization made the proposal.

I think Facebook probably is trying to quell critics, rather than become more culturally open on a wider scale.

A disingenuous response is usually designed as a full stop, rather than way to carry on a conversation.

If they're truly into the idea of promoting user-ownership of data, there will be more done to allow it (i.e. this will be first step).

Re: Facebook Now Allows You To “Download Your Information”

#30

Post by [deleted] » Wed, Oct 06, 2010, 7:05 PM UTC

moultano wrote: post #18

Kudos. This fixes my biggest criticism of Facebook. I'm going to be a lot more comfortable using it now. The moving target privacy policies are a bit of an issue still, but I'm willing to give them a half pass on that as the price of innovation.

[deleted]