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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

#391

Post by mindslight »

drewblaisdell wrote: post #384
mindslight wrote: post #335

Earlier quoted context omitted.

At its foundation, Faceboot is a man-in-the-middle attack dressed up to attract users. The standard "web 2.0 defense" was that these companies would remain benevolent in the interests of their users to maintain their own profits. The onus was really on them to demonstrate that trusting third parties with our communications is a reasonable thing to do. The more time passes, the more blatant the evidence gets that this…

> The onus was really on them to demonstrate that trusting third parties with our communications is a reasonable thing to do. In general, I agree, but the context here is dozens of HN commenters claiming that FB is a bad actor/net negative for the world. These commenters cite lists of gripes about the company, many legitimate, some illegitimate, but get hand-wavy when someone asks about the "net" in "net negative". I…

The metric of "net (negative)" is nonsensical on a multidimensional question, due to varying utility functions.

Faceboot directly optimizes to increase time spent on their site, wasting human potential.

Faceboot also provides an effortless way to check in with loved ones after a disaster, easing human suffering.

Two people will look at both of these facts, value each one differently, and come up with a different "net".

Furthermore, it is not appropriate to give Faceboot all the credit for either facet! People could check in with text messages, and people would be in dopamine loops even with software purely under their control.

So the only thing we can really do is discuss each facet independently, in the context of first principles / morals.

I personally think much of what is wrong with Faceboot is due to the conflict of interest from a third party mediating social relationships, and the inhuman scale of centralization. But the more that comes out about inherent social media narcissism, I also see that there is no silver bullet.

Re: Facebook's seized files published by MPs

#392

Post by mpweiher »

detaro wrote: post #357
zeeed wrote: post #271

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

Possible reason: It is actually intentionally avoided to use the concept of "ownership", since those advocating for "data ownership" generally mean things like "if people own their data, that means they can give it to companies and then that company can do what it wants with the data, since it is its property", which is more or less the opposite of what the goal of this privacy regulation is. The term is used sometim…

So in that particular sense, it is even stronger than ownership, at least in terms of preventing facebook from ever becoming the owner. (Not in the sense of having all of the rights usually associated with ownership, which include selling)

Re: Facebook's seized files published by MPs

#393

Post by kazen44 »

ryanwaggoner wrote: post #311
natch wrote: post #210

Just to underline the obvious point the lawmaker is making, perhaps if Zuckerberg would show up to hearings that lawmakers invite him to, then he would be able to provide the context that Facebook says is missing.

Translation: if you turn down our "invitation", we'll misuse our legal power to seize your internal documents and then publish them to embarrass you. Accurate? To be clear, I'm not saying that they can't seize and investigate or even punish if the law was broken. That's the job of government. But this just seems like a petty attempt to embarrass. However, I'm American and haven't been following the story closely, so…

they cannot misuse their legal powers, as parliament is Sovereign in the UK.

Facebook took the risk by not complying with the wishes of a sovreign state, and that state then takes legal action against facebook.

facebook arrogance in this matter is staggering, and by some could even be seen as a direct confrontation with parlaiment.

If parliament did not respond, it would look weak and in some sense even delegitemize its sovereignity. If they backed down on facebook's apperent arrogance, what is stopping other companies from trying the same.

Let's not forget mark zukerberg was summoned before the parliament. Ofcourse he could decline (mainly because he is not a UK citizen), but being summoned is quite a big deal considering they (uk parliament) is literally asking you to come over and explain what your doing..

don't be suprised there are rammifications when a state asks for your presence, and you arrogantly decline it.

Re: Facebook's seized files published by MPs

#394

Post by kazen44 »

sangnoir wrote: post #390
ryanwaggoner wrote: post #311

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Translation: if you turn down our "invitation", we'll misuse our legal power to seize your internal documents and then publish them to embarrass you. Accurate? To be clear, I'm not saying that they can't seize and investigate or even punish if the law was broken. That's the job of government. But this just seems like a petty attempt to embarrass. However, I'm American and haven't been following the story closely, so…

> I'm American [...] I may be missing context. You are missing context: look up "Parliamentary Privilege" and "Parliamentary Sovereignty" which do not have US equivalents. The "invitation" was effectively a subpoena.

Didn't the fact that is not a UK citizen also basically safe him from being dragged to Parliament by the police?

Im pretty sure, if you are an UK citizen and they summon you, they will eventually just grab you and put yourself in front of Parliament.

Re: Facebook's seized files published by MPs

#395

Post by joshvm »

fosco wrote: post #65
Trill-I-Am wrote: post #2

Here is a direct link to the files themselves: https://www.parliament.uk/documents/commons-committees/cultu...

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…

> Facebook had been aware that an update to its Android app that let it collect records of users' calls and texts would be controversial. "To mitigate any bad PR, Facebook planned to make it as hard as possible for users to know that this was one of the underlying features," Mr Collins wrote

So did this change? I installed Messenger recently and this is pretty much the first thing it requests (no thanks). It also asks to let people search for you by number (no thanks) and to sync with your contacts (no thanks, smells like LinkedIn).

I have zero permissions enabled for Messenger, so I guess it would then ask before uploading my call logs?

Re: Facebook's seized files published by MPs

#396

Post by NeedMoreTea »

chrisseaton wrote: post #344
NeedMoreTea wrote: post #268

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think you'll find under the British constitution, and according to Erskine May, the definitive guide to Parliamentary practice, that it does. "any act or omission which obstructs or impedes either House of Parliament in the performance of its functions, or which obstructs or impedes any Member or officer of such House in the discharge of his duty, or which has a tendency, directly or indirectly, to produce such res…

I think the consensus is that those powers are inoperable https://www.consoc.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2012/06/Select-... https://www.google.co.uk/amp/www.theweek.co.uk/93679/can-mps...

It's unclear. Trouble is none of the powers seem to have been necessary in about a century, so it probably needs exploring in court.

Or formalising powers in some new legislation, which will eventually result if people start to treat committee summons as optional. This is probably well overdue. :)

Re: Facebook's seized files published by MPs

#397

Post by yspeak »

fosco wrote: post #65
Trill-I-Am wrote: post #2

Here is a direct link to the files themselves: https://www.parliament.uk/documents/commons-committees/cultu...

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…

[dead]

Re: Facebook's seized files published by MPs

#398

Post by PaulHoule »

Hell yeah.

I have been involved with companies that have wanted to do things with Facebook non-personal data (eg. pages) and could never get anybody to talk. Some of these were little companies in the "flyover" states, one of these was pretty good sized in L.A.

When you see them playing favorites you see another thing that S.V. will struggle with for years.

One reason NYC is so important for finance is that people go have lunch and trade insider information without leaving a paper trail.

In the same way S.V. companies circle jerk each other giving each other special privileges, staging fake acquisitions so sons of investment bankers can make it look like they were successful startup founders, etc. Sometimes they even get a stooge to come in from a place like Saudi Arabia or Japan to buy them out so they can tell the people who put money in their fund that they made money. Those folks will lose a lot of their A.U.M. but they probably get paid off in some other way.

S.V. doesn't have any problems that wouldn't be solved by opening offices in the flyover states. But there are two things about those people.

They don't listen They won't listen

Re: Facebook's seized files published by MPs

#399

Post by cjhopman »

AlexandrB wrote: post #95
tpush wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Really interesting stuff in there. > Facebook email 24 January 2013 > Justin Osofsky – ‘Twitter launched Vine today which lets you shoot multiple short video segments to make one single, 6-second video. As part of their NUX, you can find friends via FB. Unless anyone raises objections, we will shut down their friends API access today. We’ve prepared reactive PR, and I will let Jana know our decision. > MZ – ‘Yup, go…

What's really striking is how user-hostile this conversation is. Forget about whether the user wants to share their data or not - it's all about what Facebook wants to do. In this case, that's snuffing competition by denying access, in the case of Cambridge Analytica, it's sharing data for purposes of shady data "research".

Yeah, that seemed unexpectedly flippant/dismissive. But a couple things:

1. If you look at the docs, that's from Exhibit 44 which indicates that it's actually an excerpt from a messenger discussion, not email 2. Twitter had previously blocked both Instagram and Tumblr in the same way 3. Facebook had previously blocked Twitter in the same way 4. In some of the other docs here, you can see that there was much more discussion about what their policy should be around reciprocity and apps competing with facebook's features 5. The first line of that indicates that there was likely discussion/planning about this before that conversation

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