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As Facebook Raised a Privacy Wall, It Carved an Opening for Tech Giants

nytimes.com

41–50 of 205 posts

Re: As Facebook Raised a Privacy Wall, It Carved an Opening for Tech Giants

#41
post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why would RBC even expose themselves to this liability? What was the point? With every single one of these companies I am...baffled, that anyone thought this was a good idea, but in this situation especially it makes zero sense. All that liability for what possible upside?

I think this was intended to be a customer support channel and they had to be able to delete the messages containing bank info after a certain amount of time. I had read something about it, I don't think carte blanche access to users' messages was sought or given, it was just support conversations. I didn't use it so this is like my memory of 2nd hand info.

I used to work in Social Media customer support using a well known platform, in a large telecommunications company.

We could only access the private message history containing the conversations we had had with the individual, nothing else.

You think people care about their personal data, you should see what type of information they provide through private messaging platforms. Including through public posts, it's shocking.

Re: As Facebook Raised a Privacy Wall, It Carved an Opening for Tech Giants

#42
A basic principle of PR is that you should trickle out good news, and get all the bad news out in one dump. Because when bad news trickles out, and the public reads a fresh bit of bad news every day, it does more damage.

One wonders at Facebook's very passive strategy here. They're not controlling the narrative at all, and we're reading a fresh bit of bad news almost every day.

Re: As Facebook Raised a Privacy Wall, It Carved an Opening for Tech Giants

#43
post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Shared under NDA with business relationships is not “public” for the common use of the term. Although I agree with your sentiment, your statement isn’t really accurate. Otherwise I would be able to read Spotify users’ facebook DMs, and I can’t.

You’re kidding, right? If I send a “private” message, but everybody from law enforcement to my bank has access to it, it’s not private. It’s public knowledge as far as any background checks or loan applications are concerned. By contrast, if my bank worked out a deal with Bell where they get to record my all phone conversations they would still be committing a felony in almost all jurisdictions, NDA or not. That’s a…

You have a very good point, and in an ideal world that's what one would expect. Unfortunately our mindset has to change and we have to be way more suspicious on what companies do with our "private" data.

Re: As Facebook Raised a Privacy Wall, It Carved an Opening for Tech Giants

#44
“Facebook also allowed Spotify, Netflix and the Royal Bank of Canada to read, write and delete users’ private messages, and to see all participants on a thread — privileges that appeared to go beyond what the companies needed to integrate Facebook into their systems, the records show.”

Wow...that’s scary

Re: As Facebook Raised a Privacy Wall, It Carved an Opening for Tech Giants

#45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

One possibility would be that Facebook users were supposed to be able to read, write, and delete their own chat messages via custom chat clients built by Spotify, Netflix, and so on. If so, the New York Times is throwing shade on Facebook basically for not being enough of a walled garden. I hope their journalists are not that confused?

That would grant the app access to those permissions, not the companies. Oh hey, would you look at that: https://www.theverge.com/2017/8/14/16143354/facebook-messeng...

I'm a bit worried that some journalists (and some readers) no longer care to make any distinction between an app having access for legitimate reasons that respect users' intentions and the whole company having access to do whatever they like. At least, they don't explain it well.

Re: As Facebook Raised a Privacy Wall, It Carved an Opening for Tech Giants

#46
post #6

“Among the revelations was that Facebook obtained data from multiple partners for a controversial friend-suggestion tool called “People You May Know.” The feature, introduced in 2008, continues even though some Facebook users have objected to it, unsettled by its knowledge of their real-world relationships. Gizmodo and other news outlets have reported cases of the tool’s recommending friend connections between patien…

I’m always puzzled by the need people have to try to dispel the notion that Facebook listens to ambient audio or conversations.

They are the bad guys. They didn’t need to steal Android phone logs either, but they did.

Re: As Facebook Raised a Privacy Wall, It Carved an Opening for Tech Giants

#47
post #42

A basic principle of PR is that you should trickle out good news, and get all the bad news out in one dump. Because when bad news trickles out, and the public reads a fresh bit of bad news every day, it does more damage. One wonders at Facebook's very passive strategy here. They're not controlling the narrative at all, and we're reading a fresh bit of bad news almost every day.

One possible explanation is that they are sitting on so much potential bad news it would be a disaster to release all at once.

Re: As Facebook Raised a Privacy Wall, It Carved an Opening for Tech Giants

#48

It is absolutely obscene how much of a breach of trust and decency these are. Facebook still hasn't fully come clean because they knew they were doing unsavory activities and just wanted to not get caught and keep getting away with it.

I’m sure Zuck will offer a heartfelt apology.

10 DO heartfelt_apology GOTO 10

Re: As Facebook Raised a Privacy Wall, It Carved an Opening for Tech Giants

#49
post #42

A basic principle of PR is that you should trickle out good news, and get all the bad news out in one dump. Because when bad news trickles out, and the public reads a fresh bit of bad news every day, it does more damage. One wonders at Facebook's very passive strategy here. They're not controlling the narrative at all, and we're reading a fresh bit of bad news almost every day.

Occam's Razor might suggest this interpretation:

Facebook is as bad or worse a company as its strongest critics suggest. There's not some dump of bad news, there's horrific practices everywhere you look, so every investigation uncovers more bad stuff since it's the norm for the company rather than the exception…

Re: As Facebook Raised a Privacy Wall, It Carved an Opening for Tech Giants

#50
Deleted my Facebook nearly 6 months back. Never missed it

Deleted my Instagram three weeks back because my feed was 1 ad for every 3 posts. Haven't missed it.

If I could only get rid of Whatsapp, I would never need to use anything from this awful company

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