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

Re: Facebook's seized files published by MPs

#491

Post by arethuza » Thu, Dec 06, 2018, 11:06 AM UTC

stordoff wrote: post #471

ryanwaggoner wrote: post #351

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Seems like a pretty dangerous road to go down, personally. Looking at some of our politicians in the US, I don't really want them to have unfettered power to misuse the law and their elected position to destroy any person or organization who raises their ire. Even if I don't like that person or organization and want to see them destroyed.

FWIW, the UK Parliament already has unfettered power , so we're already well down that road.

I believe Parliament has decided to limit its own powers - the Human Rights Act, membership of the EU, devolution of powers to Welsh and Scottish parliaments etc.

Of course these can be changed by Parliament... ;-)

Re: Facebook's seized files published by MPs

#492

Post by rajacombinator » Thu, Dec 06, 2018, 11:14 AM UTC

Keep in mind this is all punishment by tptb for Facebook execs getting out of line and thinking they had a seat at the table. Not enough dues paid yet.

Re: Facebook's seized files published by MPs

#493

Post by tobylane » Thu, Dec 06, 2018, 11:17 AM UTC

oska wrote: post #479

Lio wrote: post #448

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I am definitely no fan of Zuck but on the subject of Elon Musk, this is the same guy who tried to use his high media profile to call an innocent man a pedophile just because he would follow Musk’s crazy plan.[1] So that another one off the “CEO billionaire but not a sociopath” list. [1] https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2018/jul/15/elon-musk...

I'd suggest you find a better source than The Guardian for news about Elon Musk. They have run a relentless smear campaign against him for years now. Just one more reason to loathe that publication, in my book.

Can I read about this somewhere? Did the Observer write about it?

Re: Facebook's seized files published by MPs

#494

Post by pornel » Thu, Dec 06, 2018, 12:53 PM UTC

ryanwaggoner wrote: post #308

hkt wrote: post #73

Sometimes, even amidst the Brexit madness, I love our Parliament. Publishing and seizing documents like this is a move that proves politicians have the spine to look after people's interests. Time to get serious, act on this, and break up Facebook forever.

Seizing documents for a valid inquiry is one thing. But does that follow that publishing them is OK too? From the outside, it looks like these politicians are frustrated that a foreign CEO ignored their demand to appear before them (because he has no legal obligation to do so), and have decided to retaliate by releasing embarrassing private internal documents obtained during an investigation in the hopes that Faceboo…

By doing business in the UK, Facebook has agreed to UK's Privacy Policy.

Re: Facebook's seized files published by MPs

#495

Post by basch » Thu, Dec 06, 2018, 2:12 PM UTC

Mahn wrote: post #299

AlexandrB wrote: post #95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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".

There's nothing that Facebook did here than any other company, in tech or otherwise, wouldn't have done. And for the record, Facebook did not "share data with Cambridge Analytica for shady research purposes". A rogue third party developer created one of those shitty quiz apps for Facebook, and then proceed to get users to signup for it; several million did, which allowed said developer to harvest data thanks to the v…

The "permissive api" is facebook changing what words mean over time. People signed up, shared things, and then facebook changed default behaviors without communicating the change WELL.

http://mattmckeon.com/facebook-privacy/

In April 2010 basically everything a new user posted to facebook was public by default. They didnt "care deeply about peoples privacy."

Re: Facebook's seized files published by MPs

#496

Post by ionised » Thu, Dec 06, 2018, 2:29 PM UTC

ryanwaggoner wrote: post #181

ionised wrote: post #163

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, you're a fundamentalist if you stick to an ideology (e.g. trickle-down) in spite of all evidence suggesting it is highly flawed. > It's impossible to have a discussion about anything if some things are not taken as axiomatic. You mean you personally find it impossible to have a discussion with someone who disagrees with you on the axioms of economics because it means you can't frame the argument in your own terms…

You don't actually know my views or what I'd espouse, so I'm curious about your hostility here :) My only point was that you may have better success railing against the conventional wisdom by providing an actual argument that it's wrong, not by ranting and raving about the existence of prevailing wisdom itself, and demanding that everyone provide a detailed proof every time they reference it. You should check out the…

I'm very aware of Friedman's work and I think it's time we all stopped listening to the words of that fascist-apologist hack.

Re: Facebook's seized files published by MPs

#497

Post by zepto » Thu, Dec 06, 2018, 3:13 PM UTC

rmc wrote: post #488

Mahn wrote: post #299

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's nothing that Facebook did here than any other company, in tech or otherwise, wouldn't have done. And for the record, Facebook did not "share data with Cambridge Analytica for shady research purposes". A rogue third party developer created one of those shitty quiz apps for Facebook, and then proceed to get users to signup for it; several million did, which allowed said developer to harvest data thanks to the v…

Maybe the problem is profit-driven companies...

Yeah - if everyone was assigned a job by the government we wouldn’t have this problem.

Re: Facebook's seized files published by MPs

#498

Post by Lio » Thu, Dec 06, 2018, 3:20 PM UTC

tobylane wrote: post #493

oska wrote: post #479

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'd suggest you find a better source than The Guardian for news about Elon Musk. They have run a relentless smear campaign against him for years now. Just one more reason to loathe that publication, in my book.

Can I read about this somewhere? Did the Observer write about it?

Yeah it was really widely reported, not just in the Guardian if you don't like that paper.

Here's 4 other sources. There are many more on DuckDuckGo News.

https://eu.usatoday.com/story/news/world/2018/07/18/elon-mus...

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-44870303

https://www.nbcnews.com/news/world/elon-musk-apologizes-blam...

https://www.cnbc.com/2018/07/18/elon-musk-apologizes-to-brit...

From CNBC:

> The apology comes after the spelunker, Vern Unsworth, who was involved in the early days of efforts to save the now-rescued boys’ soccer team, threatened legal action against the billionaire executive over the comment.

> Musk said on Twitter late Tuesday that he had made the claim out of “anger” because Unsworth had criticized his idea to rescue the boys with a “mini-submarine” made out of a SpaceX rocket part.

Re: Facebook's seized files published by MPs

#499

Post by SirensOfTitan » Thu, Dec 06, 2018, 4:15 PM UTC

flohofwoe wrote: post #389

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…

Not sure what point you're trying to make about Napoleon, he wasn't exactly someone to look up to. He was directly responsible for millions of deaths, basically a 19th century version of Stalin (and the other "great leaders" of the 20th century).

I would recommend educating yourself on a contemporary Napoleon biography (I really loved Napoleon: A Life) before making such a strong claim. Napoleon is a very complex figure and your kind of blanket statement here is the kind I was rebelling against in my original comment.

The issue here is that writing a good account on Napoleon is very difficult. His enemies disseminated nonsense about him, and he was very careful about his public image even as a very young man.

I could get into the history: but Napoleon was fighting feudal leaders who aimed to restore the monarchy in France. They declared war on him many more times than he on them. The Napoleonic Code is one of the most influential documents in history and through it and Napoleon's influence helped spread the ideals of the French Revolution throughout Europe. Of course there are many negative things to say about Napoleon, but he is a very interesting person who deserves a look.

https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/we-better-off-napoleo...

Re: Facebook's seized files published by MPs

#500

Post by rmc » Thu, Dec 06, 2018, 4:21 PM UTC

paganel wrote: post #7

> Facebook used data provided by the Israeli analytics firm Onavo to determine which other mobile apps were being downloaded and used by the public. It then used this knowledge to decide which apps to acquire or otherwise treat as a threat > there was evidence that Facebook's refusal to share data with some apps caused them to fail Stuff like this should trigger the EU Commissioner for Competition to withdraw the aut…

> A fine (no matter how big) will be seen by FB and its investors just as “cost of doing business"

Depends how big you think. FB had revenues of $40bil. So let's fine them $50 billion.