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Mozilla Raises Concerns Over Facebook’s Lack of Transparency

blog.mozilla.org

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Re: Mozilla Raises Concerns Over Facebook’s Lack of Transparency

#21

Post by lvh »

SiempreViernes wrote: post #9
bad_user wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Any legitimate reasons for not allowing access to raw data? Could it violate people's privacy for example?

I'm sure it could, but of course you can always anonymise data first. In any case it seems a bit rich for facebook to restrict access due to privacy concerns, in reality the issues is likely that reason is simply that academics can't pay as well as ad agencies.

Data anonymization is an incredibly complex problem and de-anonymization is an entire subfield. I’m by no means a Facebook apologist, but “we don’t trust our ability to deanonymize data so it would be suitable to publish” rings true.

Re: Mozilla Raises Concerns Over Facebook’s Lack of Transparency

#22

Post by xfitm3 »

fxfan wrote: post #17

As a fan of Firefox (see username) and user since 2006, and as someone who doesn't like fb- maybe Mozilla should start by being more transparent about: 1) why they don't install ublock origin by default 2) why they install pocket by default 3) why they keep doing ad-experiments? Mozilla needs to stop pretending they are some saints. But thanks for calling fb out.

Mozilla is trying to find a way to sustain itself outside of Google. I don't fault them for that. They need money just like any other company.

Re: Mozilla Raises Concerns Over Facebook’s Lack of Transparency

#23

Post by fxfan »

peteradio wrote: post #20
fxfan wrote: post #17

As a fan of Firefox (see username) and user since 2006, and as someone who doesn't like fb- maybe Mozilla should start by being more transparent about: 1) why they don't install ublock origin by default 2) why they install pocket by default 3) why they keep doing ad-experiments? Mozilla needs to stop pretending they are some saints. But thanks for calling fb out.

Is Mozilla right or wrong in their callout? Where did this idea come from that unless you are saint-like you have no business in calling out bad behavior? Newsflash everybody has their sins and everybody needs to be called out on their shit. And behavior needs to change. Why should Facebooks bad behavior be shielded by Mozillas infractions?

I already said they are right in calling them out very clearly.

Re: Mozilla Raises Concerns Over Facebook’s Lack of Transparency

#24

Post by jopsen »

xfitm3 wrote: post #22
fxfan wrote: post #17

As a fan of Firefox (see username) and user since 2006, and as someone who doesn't like fb- maybe Mozilla should start by being more transparent about: 1) why they don't install ublock origin by default 2) why they install pocket by default 3) why they keep doing ad-experiments? Mozilla needs to stop pretending they are some saints. But thanks for calling fb out.

Mozilla is trying to find a way to sustain itself outside of Google. I don't fault them for that. They need money just like any other company.

Mozilla is a non-profit, not like any other company!

That said I strongly support their work... Disclaimer: I used to work at Mozilla.

Re: Mozilla Raises Concerns Over Facebook’s Lack of Transparency

#25

Post by detaro »

bad_user wrote: post #5
pmyteh wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Maybe, maybe not. But I have a number of academic colleagues working on marketing/news/misinformation on online platforms, and Facebook has always been a problem for analysis. It's next to impossible to get raw data unless you're Facebook, which makes investigating these questions very difficult. For comparison, Twitter is comparatively easy to work with (though getting harder as time goes on) and Reddit is very open…

Any legitimate reasons for not allowing access to raw data? Could it violate people's privacy for example?

That's certainly something to be careful about. Although one would think that in at least some data about advertising could be made available without much risk - outside of specific targeting lists, how much personal data is gonna be in there?

Re: Mozilla Raises Concerns Over Facebook’s Lack of Transparency

#26

Post by toper-centage »

fxfan wrote: post #17

As a fan of Firefox (see username) and user since 2006, and as someone who doesn't like fb- maybe Mozilla should start by being more transparent about: 1) why they don't install ublock origin by default 2) why they install pocket by default 3) why they keep doing ad-experiments? Mozilla needs to stop pretending they are some saints. But thanks for calling fb out.

If Firefox would add ublock by the fault they could kiss bye bye to default search engine provider money.

Re: Mozilla Raises Concerns Over Facebook’s Lack of Transparency

#27

Post by wil421 »

Elections were the breaking point for me on Facebook. I didn’t post much myself but my family and friends do. After seeing the amount of blatantly false information being passed by both political sides I finally had enough. This was 2016, after what I’ve learned last year I really what to delete my account instead of having it deactivated.

Re: Mozilla Raises Concerns Over Facebook’s Lack of Transparency

#28

Post by peteradio »

fxfan wrote: post #23
peteradio wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is Mozilla right or wrong in their callout? Where did this idea come from that unless you are saint-like you have no business in calling out bad behavior? Newsflash everybody has their sins and everybody needs to be called out on their shit. And behavior needs to change. Why should Facebooks bad behavior be shielded by Mozillas infractions?

I already said they are right in calling them out very clearly.

And yet you focused nearly your entire comment on calling them out.

Re: Mozilla Raises Concerns Over Facebook’s Lack of Transparency

#29

Post by RandallBrown »

wil421 wrote: post #27

Elections were the breaking point for me on Facebook. I didn’t post much myself but my family and friends do. After seeing the amount of blatantly false information being passed by both political sides I finally had enough. This was 2016, after what I’ve learned last year I really what to delete my account instead of having it deactivated.

Are you saying that Facebook should decide which news is false or that you're just done with using social media to find news in general?

Re: Mozilla Raises Concerns Over Facebook’s Lack of Transparency

#30

Post by sciurus »

bad_user wrote: post #2

> It also prevents any developer, researcher, or organization to develop tools, critical insights, and research designed to educate and empower users to understand and therefore resist targeted disinformation campaigns. Is Mozilla building some sort of visualization tool for the marketing done on the upcoming EU elections?

In October Mozilla released "Ad Analysis for Facebook. It shows you why you were targeted, and how your targeting might differ from other users... The extension also displays a high-level overview of the top political advertisers based on targeting by state, gender, and age. You can view ads for each of these targeting criteria — the kinds of ads you would never normally see."

https://blog.mozilla.org/netpolicy/2018/10/18/getting-seriou...

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