Facebook's seized files published by MPs • Hacker News Board

Re: Facebook's seized files published by MPs

#271

Post by zeeed » Wed, Dec 05, 2018, 5:39 PM UTC

mpweiher wrote: post #238

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…

>> this is their users' data > No, it's not - short of a change in law it is Facebook's data. Er, actually it is. Under GDPR, and under previous data protection rules that lacked meaningful enforcement, users own their data. Companies at most get to "borrow" and/or keep it safe for them. Alas, this fundamental fact seems to not have quite made it everywhere yet.. https://digitalguardian.com/blog/tackling-gdpr-challen…

Does anyone have an explanation as to why parent is downvoted? Is the information they presented incorrect?

Re: Facebook's seized files published by MPs

#272

Post by PavlovsCat » Wed, Dec 05, 2018, 5:39 PM UTC

5trokerac3 wrote: post #203

_salmon wrote: post #175

> "But the facts are clear: we've never sold people's data." What

It's 100% true. They never sold people's data. They sold access to people's data . Slimy, corporate lawyerese 101.

Wow, that seems crazy even for lawyerese.. I mean, if I have an "all you can eat" restaurant, do I sell food, or do I just sell access to food? What about a buffet where a person can fill their plate once, but can pick among many things?

Re: Facebook's seized files published by MPs

#273

Post by shawnz » Wed, Dec 05, 2018, 5:39 PM UTC

interesthrow2 wrote: post #233

echelon wrote: post #213

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Changing these takes next to zero effort. "Blacklist" and "whitelist" are more confusing to new engineers than "allowlist" and "blocklist", since the latter terms speak for themselves. Language changes over time. These are just words. I don't understand why we have to hold onto them like they're our precious children. If we can be more inclusive with the labels we choose, that's a good thing.

> If we can be more inclusive with the labels we choose, that's a good thing. You are claiming these words are "not inclusive" at first place, which is purely a matter of ideology, not semantics. Words have different meaning in different contexts. If you can't understand that, off course you will find everything "offensive". Starting with the word "inclusive" itself which basically is newspeak at that point. You are…

> You are claiming these words are "not inclusive" at first place, which is purely a matter of ideology, not semantics. Words have different meaning in different contexts. If you can't understand that, off course you will find everything "offensive".

But "blacklist" could be seen in a negative light in at least some circumstances whereas that's not possible for "blocklist" in any circumstance. So why not use it? What's the harm?

> There is nothing confusing about "blacklist" or "whitelist". anybody can look up these words in a dictionary, if your "engineers" are incapable of doing that, maybe you should hire better ones.

You're misunderstanding their point. They are not saying "whitelist" is too confusing, just that "allowlist" is equally as good and in some cases maybe even slightly better.

> you are asserting control over others

Just because someone is criticizing something you've done doesn't mean they are "asserting control" over you.

Re: Facebook's seized files published by MPs

#274

Post by netcan » Wed, Dec 05, 2018, 5:40 PM UTC

nradov wrote: post #211

netcan wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree with the conclusion, but I don't think it should be done through the current antitrust framework. Your first point and most of the others others may or may not be illegal. If they are legal, what the MPs need to do is their jobs.. make laws. But, most are not directly related to company size and/or market share. Your second point does sound like a trust and I think you're right to link this to the WhatsApp sa…

ExxonMobil is a huge company. How much market power do they have over the price of crude oil? Not much, because it's a commodity. Other factors matter far more than size.

In theory and on paper.... Making that into a functional legal system, hasn't happened.

In any case, half my point is that pricing power is not the operative definition of market power anymore. If xonmobile can/do have all sorts of influence on governments, job markets and such. They can do tax stuff a restraint can't.

What I am proposing is that the definition of a monopoly is not useable, for policy. It's fine as an economic & academic concept, not as a legal one.

Re: Facebook's seized files published by MPs

#275

Post by decebalus1 » Wed, Dec 05, 2018, 5:41 PM UTC

SirensOfTitan wrote: post #231

I worked at Facebook for 5 years on Workplace and Internal Tools. I am typically very critical of the company nowadays, but even so find the discussion here difficult to digest. People are complex. They are more complex than an action, or even a group of actions. To take a person and alias them into being "good" or "bad" based on an action or a series of actions is to explicitly dehumanize them for the sake of making…

> People are complex. They are more complex than an action, or even a group of actions. To take a person and alias them into being "good" or "bad" based on an action or a series of actions is to explicitly dehumanize them for the sake of making the world simpler.

Correct. But we're not talking about people here, we're talking about a corporate entity as a whole. It's a bit more complex than a person. It has an incentive model and a set of norms (culture) which enables people to do good/bad based on the situation to maximize their personal gains (whichever those are - personal, material, spiritual, you name it).

If this consistently enables people to do what is perceived externally as unethical, we have a problem.

Nice spin on it, but Facebook is still a bad actor (despite what you say). I held this opinion since the beginning, before all the leaks and all the scandals but nobody believed me. Very smart people were incentivized to join using the entourage (come work with other smart people) and money, then slightly brain-washed in a cult-like manner (us vs them, wartimes, etc..). This enabled them to ignore blatant unethical behavior. I've seen all of these first-hand and it's bad. Bad bad bad.

Re: Facebook's seized files published by MPs

#276

Post by spunker540 » Wed, Dec 05, 2018, 5:41 PM UTC

soared wrote: post #236

dreamdu5t wrote: post #225

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Again. Hyperbole. We’re adults here. Who are you trying to convince with that crap? No, Facebook is a website. They aren’t involved in genocide. They aren’t why Trump is president.

By that logic, any website that hosts cp isn't involved. Any website where you can buy slaves isn't complicit.

That means that any site that allows two people to communicate can be complicit -- be it forums, discussion boards or chat/messages. Criminals can easily adopt code words, or encrypt their plaintext communications in ways that a website would be unable to police. How about email? Are email providers also required to detect all criminal activity occurring in their emails?

Ultimately it's a massive burden placed on companies if they are required to read and sort through all communication occurring on their platform and it also necessarily removes any and all privacy from every communication platform. Do we do the same thing for cell phone manufacturers or telecom providers? What about monitors that display the messages or keyboards that let people type the messages soliciting illegal activity?

Re: Facebook's seized files published by MPs

#277

Post by 0db532a0 » Wed, Dec 05, 2018, 5:42 PM UTC

shawnz wrote: post #262

0db532a0 wrote: post #200

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 tha…

No, that's much different. "Blackboard" means a board which is black. "Blacklist" means a list of things that are bad (black being a metaphor for bad).

You’re right regarding the meanings. They are two valid uses of the word black. Neither invokes any association to skin colour, but you choose to. Am I banned from falling upon dark times, because some people also have dark skin?

Re: Facebook's seized files published by MPs

#278

Post by shawnz » Wed, Dec 05, 2018, 5:46 PM UTC

0db532a0 wrote: post #277

shawnz wrote: post #262

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, that's much different. "Blackboard" means a board which is black. "Blacklist" means a list of things that are bad (black being a metaphor for bad).

You’re right regarding the meanings. They are two valid uses of the word black. Neither invokes any association to skin colour, but you choose to. Am I banned from falling upon dark times, because some people also have dark skin?

No, and I don't think anybody is suggesting you should be banned or that it's a grievous sin to use such an analogy. The point is just that it's something which could conceivably be seen negatively in some circumstances and it's also only a small amount of work to adopt different language.

Re: Facebook's seized files published by MPs

#279

Post by drewblaisdell » Wed, Dec 05, 2018, 5:46 PM UTC

decebalus1 wrote: post #275

SirensOfTitan wrote: post #231

I worked at Facebook for 5 years on Workplace and Internal Tools. I am typically very critical of the company nowadays, but even so find the discussion here difficult to digest. People are complex. They are more complex than an action, or even a group of actions. To take a person and alias them into being "good" or "bad" based on an action or a series of actions is to explicitly dehumanize them for the sake of making…

> People are complex. They are more complex than an action, or even a group of actions. To take a person and alias them into being "good" or "bad" based on an action or a series of actions is to explicitly dehumanize them for the sake of making the world simpler. Correct. But we're not talking about people here, we're talking about a corporate entity as a whole. It's a bit more complex than a person. It has an incent…

> Nice spin on it, but Facebook is still a bad actor (despite what you say).

This needs to be a conclusion, not a premise. I do not have a firm belief about whether or not this is true, but I keep seeing people list bad things about FB and draw a straight line to “thus it is evil”. Ideally, we would list the good/bad it does and assign weights to these points to determine if it is net harmful.

I want to be convinced, HN, but when I read comments like the ones in this thread (FB has no positive value whatsoever for its users, FB sells users’ data), it makes it hard for me to appraise.

Re: Facebook's seized files published by MPs

#280

Post by kodablah » Wed, Dec 05, 2018, 5:47 PM UTC

soared wrote: post #232

kodablah wrote: post #195

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 ste…

> vindictive government raiding What? OP literally just described how skipping a request for info is comparable to skipping a court summons in the US. If you skip a court summons 4 times, the government comes after you. How is this situation different? > publishing This certainly does raise questions. > government's ideals Investigating companies who might be implicit in crimes? (Gov is investigatng fake news, most o…

Why leave off the part of the quote that said "and publishing"? I assume an accident, buf if you include that in the quote, you will understand how the situation is different. The concern about ideals is how they chose the target and what they are doing with the documents. So many people naively get caught up in the overarching issue of guilt that they are eager to overlook improprieties by the investigators.