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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

#41

Post by AlexandrB »

austincheney wrote: post #18

It is the very nature of online advertising to stalk usage behavior akin to spyware and be completely opaque about it. It is horribly subjective to single out Facebook for it when all online advertisers are basically doing the very same things. The only difference between Facebook and other ad agencies is that Facebook has a structured system in place inviting better PII and relationship data submitted directly by th…

> It is the very nature of online advertising to stalk usage behavior akin to spyware and be completely opaque about it.

No, it's not. Online ad space is like any other ad space, and advertising has existed for decades with only minimal information about who views it. The only difference with online advertising is that there are no longer technological limitations to tracking everything. Something that's much harder to do with a billboard or a newspaper ad. Since Since this is the case, it's up to voters to insist on legal limits on tracking instead. But advertising will be fine either way.

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

#42

Post by bad_user »

sciurus wrote: post #30
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/…

That extension is really cool, unfortunately I have to disable my ad-blocking to see it in action

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

#43

Post by austincheney »

AlexandrB wrote: post #41
austincheney wrote: post #18

It is the very nature of online advertising to stalk usage behavior akin to spyware and be completely opaque about it. It is horribly subjective to single out Facebook for it when all online advertisers are basically doing the very same things. The only difference between Facebook and other ad agencies is that Facebook has a structured system in place inviting better PII and relationship data submitted directly by th…

> It is the very nature of online advertising to stalk usage behavior akin to spyware and be completely opaque about it. No, it's not. Online ad space is like any other ad space, and advertising has existed for decades with only minimal information about who views it. The only difference with online advertising is that there are no longer technological limitations to tracking everything. Something that's much harder…

Just because online advertising is different from billboards in that billboards don't stalk me doesn't in any ways redeem online advertising.

I have worked that business before and written that code for Travelocity. I created Travelocity's most successful advertising code before they were consumed by Expedia (an annoying popunder that achieved click-through rates of 14%). I later worked as the developer on their analytics team and worked hand-in-hand with their media (advertising) team. The name of the game is experimentation and analysis. The more data you have on a user the more accurate and targeted your decisions can be about that user. Spyware is absolutely the name of the game.

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

#44

Post by darkpuma »

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.

My hate for facebook borders on the irrational, but if Mozilla has money worries then maybe they should trim some of the fat and focus on making a web browser instead of burning resources playing vigilante against Facebook, fake news, and other internet villains.

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

#45

Post by austincheney »

wtmt wrote: post #19

This was Facebook's statement to Propublica [1]: > “We regularly improve the ways we prevent unauthorized access by third parties like web browser plugins to keep people’s information safe,” Facebook spokesperson Beth Gautier said. “This was a routine update and applied to ad blocking and ad scraping plugins, which can expose people’s information to bad actors in ways they did not expect.” Seriously, after all the sc…

> it's clear that Facebook will do something if and only if it benefits from it.

Like any other business. Facebook is not a charity.

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

#46

Post by rock_hard »

bad_user wrote: post #35
wtmt wrote: post #19

This was Facebook's statement to Propublica [1]: > “We regularly improve the ways we prevent unauthorized access by third parties like web browser plugins to keep people’s information safe,” Facebook spokesperson Beth Gautier said. “This was a routine update and applied to ad blocking and ad scraping plugins, which can expose people’s information to bad actors in ways they did not expect.” Seriously, after all the sc…

I understand the privacy concerns, the problem being that Facebook's ads targeting has no transparency, which is very problematic for issues of public interest. For elections for example I'd like to be able to see what parties or what politicians are paying for Facebook ads, what demographics are they targeting and with what ads. If Facebook exposed this data, it wouldn't be a privacy issue.

They actually make that data you mentioned publicly available already.

With an archive that allows you to go back 7 years or something

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

#47

Post by darkpuma »

toper-centage wrote: post #26
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.

This is probably also the reason we have "Facebook Container" from Mozilla (https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/facebook-cont...) but not "Google Container" (it exists, but it's not from Mozilla: https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/google-contai...) And if if you're feeling cynical, it might also be why the UX of Multi-Account Containers remains so lackluster; confusing enough to ensure that most firefox users will not use it.

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

#48

Post by rock_hard »

dalbasal wrote: post #37

Political advertising is something that FB should have tackled closer to the stem. First, they should have considered banning it entirely. I'm sure they had such conversations around (eg) tobacco, arms, alcohol, medicines and such. FB are far from immune to the fiduciary imperative, but they are very profitable. They were in a position to turn away potentially problem-making revenue. In hindsight, IMO, that would hav…

Political ads are not inherently bad though. Ads in general are not actually.

Ads help political candidates to get the word out...i think that’s useful and I think it’s awesome that Facebook didn’t go the route of less resistance (banning political ads) here and rather is trying to get this right!

Political ads a a tiny slice of FBs revenue...so I don’t believe they are profit motivated here.

$1B was spend on digital ads in the 2016 presidential runs and Facebook has a 19.6% market share so probably pulled in about $196M which is about 0.35% of their annual revenue...so I don’t think they are in it for the money at all

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

#49

Post by cmurf »

In the U.S., Facebook is allowed to lie, and to propagate lies of others. On what basis is Facebook required to be any different than the National Enquirer? The limitation is defamation, but in a political context defamation doesn't apply.

Mozilla's letter is to the European Commission, and as such I recognize different laws between the U.S. and E.U. are relevant.

However, the most simple test for double standard is to flip the narrative around: imagine a truth that makes many people angry to hear, and imagine that unpopular truth being put into an ad, and imagine the people arguing for ad targeting methods to be revealed are people who want to protect people from truth in order to allow them to keep on believing lies.

I appreciate the importance of developing tools to fight disinformation campaigns. But on what basis can any person or company be compelled to reveal their advertising methodology? What is public interest in a political ad campaign context where literally everyone involved is claiming moral high ground?

I think regulating speech is a trap, and people need to consider the double standard. What happens when your truth becomes difficult or impossible to disseminate, because it makes most people angry to hear? You really think all angry people need their emotional state coddled? Why protect them from becoming angry? This is why we need to do better in school teaching coping skills, and critical thinking.

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