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Facebook's seized files published by MPs

bbc.co.uk

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Re: Facebook's seized files published by MPs

#191

Post by michaelt »

athrowaway3z wrote: post #48
danarmak wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How do you force a split when one part (Whatsapp) may not have enough revenue to sustain itself?

I can't answer your question but i think you should be more specific. Your phrasing obviously comes with the interpretation that if a split-up would bankrupt a part, it shouldn't be done. Why should this be taken into consideration? Secondly. It has value. A different party could invest and keep it going. Why is it important that it sustains itself?

If the objective is to increase competition, by making WhatsApp into the Facebook competitor they currently aren't, you need them to stay in business.

Of course, if you just wanted to punish facebook by destroying shareholder value, or you're certain WhatsApp users will move to an FB competitor rather than to FB itself, you might not care if WhatsApp stays in business post-breakup.

Re: Facebook's seized files published by MPs

#192

Post by wbl »

anticensor wrote: post #148
ddalex wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> is not Facebook's data Look at the T&Cs sometime. Once you upload something, it's theirs. Once they sniff something off your phone, it's theirs. Once you look at something in another tab while FB is open, it's theirs.

> Once you upload something, it's theirs. Once they sniff something off your phone, it's theirs. Once you look at something in another tab while FB is open, it's theirs. According to Facebook TOS, you own the data but grant them an open-ended licence to use said data.

Ownership is a fuzzy word. Are we talking copyright? What do I sell if I sell you data?

Re: Facebook's seized files published by MPs

#193

Post by interesthrow2 »

echelon wrote: post #141
jerf wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"White" as symbolizing purity or goodness and "black" for contamination or evil is used by a wide variety of cultures around the world, only a minority of which happens to consist primarily of people with un-melanined skin. If you think "whitelist" and "blacklist" is racist, just wait until you find out about Yin and Yang.

We're changing instances of whitelist and blacklist to "allowlist" and "blocklist" similar to the conversion of master and slave to "primary" and "replica". Edit: it's interesting that I'm being downvoted. What a weird world this is.

> We're changing instances of whitelist and blacklist to "allowlist" and "blocklist" similar to the conversion of master and slave to "primary" and "replica".

Are you going to change the whole dictionary as well? blackout? blackhole? dark energy? dark matter? dark side of the moon? and what not? Might as well deem the whole english language offensive since its the language of slavers?

Maybe you should focus on real problem instead of slacktivism Silicon Valley style? And I say that as an African descent: The great majority of us don't care about master/slave dichotomy in a source code. Stop being offended on our behalf, there are real problems in the real world that needs fixing and this is not one of them.

Re: Facebook's seized files published by MPs

#194

Post by manfredo »

johnnyfaehell wrote: post #178
manfredo wrote: post #153

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Let's remember this is not Facebook's data, this is their users' data. No, it's not - short of a change in law it is Facebook's data. Facebook collected, maintained , and analyzed the data. It's their data, the fact that their users allowed Facebook to collect it does not change that fact. GDPR allows users to view the data Facebook collected about them. If users want manually request their data from Facebook and p…

> If users want manually request their data from Facebook and provide it to competing apps they can. Actually, for a lot of it they can't. The GDPR downloads are incomplete and are missing lots of data like many other GDPR downloads. And in some cases these aren't competing, they just aren't making Facebook money so Facebook denies them access and tells them what they need to do to add Facebook to process so they can…

The requirement to make GDPR downloads available was never well thought out. For instance, say you requested a log of your Facebook chat logs. Should Facebook provide this without redaction of the recipients' identities? I'd say no, providing this data without that redaction is a violation of the recipients' privacy. Especially for a service that is all about networking and sharing, it's difficult to walk the line between giving the user the data they requested, and respecting the privacy of other users.

The ability to tell Facebook to delete your data does not grant you ownership of that data. You do not have the right to tell Facebook to let some 3rd party to access it using Facebook's infrastructure (which seemed to be the claim made by the original comment I responded to). The fact that the government forces companies to abide by certain regulations does not mean that the company is not the owner of the things that are regulated. A company might have it's interview records audited to investigate discrimination. Does that mean the company does not actually own or possess these interview records?

Re: Facebook's seized files published by MPs

#195

Post by kodablah »

steve_gh wrote: post #180
kodablah wrote: post #121

So, FB gave some companies preferential access after removing it for devs, they surreptitiously collected phone data after given permission to, used cross-business analytics for M&A or competition info, was choosy and chatty about who got what data and its value. I agree there are clear immoralities at play, especially with collecting phone call info, but not sure that it is worthy of a government inquiry of such siz…

WRT doing business in the UK. You need to understand that this is a highly unusual situation. Part of the UK Parliamentary system is that there are "Select Committees"on MPs, whose job is to review and hold to account the performance of government bodies and departments. They may also review areas of national interest within their remit, and invite witnesses to give evidence to them. For example, there have been sign…

I can understand it's highly unusual. I don't have an absolute fear or no fear of doing business in the UK, it just ups my "riskometer" I mentioned. Surely it is clear that a vindictive government raiding a visitor and publishing confidential business documents should give one pause about the government's ideals? And I think we can make judgements about how decisions are reached instead of assuming that the exact steps that led to the decisions are the only reason they may go to such lengths. It is common for those dismissing chilling effects to say certain situations are special, but the effects are about ideals of the powerholders as much as their actions.

Re: Facebook's seized files published by MPs

#196

Post by merrywhether »

arminiusreturns wrote: post #118
fosco wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

holy smokes... >Michael LeBeau – ‘He guys, as you know all the growth team is planning on shipping a permissions update on Android at the end of this month. They are going to include the ‘read call log’ permission, which will trigger the Android permissions dialog on update, requiring users to accept the update. They will then provide an in app opt in NUX for a feature that lets you continuously upload your SMS and c…

Now remember that Facebook has made agreements with phone manufacturers to have fb installed by default and made un-uninstallable , with all the default permissions to share the users data whether they ever log in and use the app or not! Sidenote: I've noticed via umatrix that Netflix on pc, during a show, is attempting to load fb js... Netflix wtf!

fb.js is Facebook’s standard JS base, with things like polyfills/ponyfills to ensure certain features in a browser environment. It’s imported by React, Relay, etc.

So this might be what you’re seeing, but normally it’s included in a precompiled JS application bundle.

Re: Facebook's seized files published by MPs

#197

Post by emiliobumachar »

fosco wrote: post #116
mikejb wrote: post #103

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> This is huge, doesn't this make google guilty as well? I'm not sure I follow. An app can request permissions, and the user can allow or deny them. I don't understand how this puts guilt on Google. Can you elaborate?

this seems like a hole in their design, additional access is being granted without the user really knowing what is going on and they are deliberately keeping the user out of the loop. at least, that is how I am interpreting it, it seems that the functionality of their software is not functioning in the 'spirit' of what it is suppose to be doing.

In essence, Android permissions system have (had?) a vulnerability that Facebook exploited, and Google is responsible to a small extent as the maintainer of the vulnerable software.

Re: Facebook's seized files published by MPs

#198

Post by andrewingram »

notacoward wrote: post #159
nakedrobot2 wrote: post #3

Good for them, thank you! The sooner facebook is controlled and broken up into pieces, the better. They are a massive net negative on civilization. Do you work at Facebook? Shame on you.

Yes, I do work at Facebook. I'm not going to get into some protracted argument about whether that makes me a bad person, or already was, but I'd like to give you something to think about. Let's say, for the sake of argument, that we can neatly divide tech workers into good and bad. Likewise for companies. All categories are non-empty, and certain to remain so. What's the optimal assignment of workers to companies? Is…

I think it's going to boil down to whether a good person going to work at a bad company is actively working to change it for the better. In my experience, people who do this don't tend to last long.

If there are people who've found a good strategy for changing companies for the better without being exceptionally senior, i'd love to hear about it.

Re: Facebook's seized files published by MPs

#200

Post by 0db532a0 »

echelon wrote: post #141
jerf wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"White" as symbolizing purity or goodness and "black" for contamination or evil is used by a wide variety of cultures around the world, only a minority of which happens to consist primarily of people with un-melanined skin. If you think "whitelist" and "blacklist" is racist, just wait until you find out about Yin and Yang.

We're changing instances of whitelist and blacklist to "allowlist" and "blocklist" similar to the conversion of master and slave to "primary" and "replica". Edit: it's interesting that I'm being downvoted. What a weird world this is.

It really isn't interesting at all. It's actually quite banal at this point. I suppose you're one of the types that thinks that the word "blackboard" is racist too. People like you make the internet experience and life in general an absolute ball-ache to be a part of. Seeing a racial issue in words like "blacklist" and "blackboard" is like seeing an issue of decency in a woman breastfeeding, the commonality being that it is your problem alone.
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