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Dear Mozilla, please stop spamming

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Re: Dear Mozilla, please stop spamming

#111

Post by alyandon »

C4K3 wrote: post #74
alyandon wrote: post #3

In a similar vein, I'd appreciate it if Mozilla would stop using updates to Firefox as a mechanism to re-enable misfeatures I've explicitly disabled like Pocket integration and the "recommend X feature|extension while you are browsing but don't forget we totally respect your privacy!" settings. :-/

user.js files are awesome for Firefox. You just specify a list of preferences which then are applied every time you start Firefox. (And here's a popular preconfigured user.js https://github.com/pyllyukko/user.js )

Thank you! I'll definitely be using that going forward.

Re: Dear Mozilla, please stop spamming

#112

Post by who_what_why »

ripdog wrote: post #96
who_what_why wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Brave. And what's wrong with Chromium?

It reinforces Google's control of the internet, and helps convince webmasters that the only browser they need to test for is Chrome.

Chromium is open source much like Android and Linux are open source.

Re: Dear Mozilla, please stop spamming

#113

Post by jnurmine »

mnutt wrote: post #68
baby wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

pocket is such a useful tool that I have a hard time understanding this comment.

I eventually disabled Recommended by Pocket on my new tab screen because the recommendations were typically clickbaity and being on the new tab screen, it would many times divert me from whatever more important original action I meant to take. The creators probably had good intentions, but Recommended by Pocket seems almost like a dark pattern.

Since not all of the links are interesting, I'd like Recommended by Pocket to be able to learn from my input. I want to punish the uninteresting links and reward the interesting ones, so that I see more of something that I like.

Re: Dear Mozilla, please stop spamming

#114

Post by eridius »

jrochkind1 wrote: post #105
eridius wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I hadn't heard of this before, so I just dug up the original NYT story. At least one person from New Knowledge was involved in a small experiment designed to explore how the sorts of tactics used by the Russians worked, which attempted to convince Republicans that Mr. Moore was receiving Russian help, but it was designed to be too small to actually affect the outcome of the election (as the goal was to explore how th…

Really? Even just your version of the story above sounds AWFUL to me. No, it's not okay to 'experiment' with effecting the outcome of an election, even if they say it did not effect the outcome.

If the experiment was designed to be small enough to not affect the outcome of the election, then they're not experimenting with affecting the outcome, they're investigating and learning about tactics that, on a larger scale, could be used to affect the outcome of the election.

I did say it was a bit shady, but I'm not really sure how to do this sort of research in a way that doesn't potentially affect the real world, because the whole point is to see how this sort of thing affects real people. Doing it in simulation doesn't help because that only tests your simulation.

I'm taking it as a given that this kind of research is important to be able to identify and combat actual interference of this kind from malicious entities in the future.

Re: Dear Mozilla, please stop spamming

#115

Post by eridius »

terryd wrote: post #93
lilyball wrote: post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> New Knowledge's objective was to deceive voters. From reading the article, the group's¹ objective wasn't to deceive voters, it was to research how these tactics worked. Are you suggesting that a single $100k research project was sufficient to alter the course of an election with a $51M advertising budget? As near as I can tell, that's just how the right-wing media is trying to spin it. Certainly if I were to actual…

> ...the group's¹ objective wasn't to deceive voters... "The report does not say whether the project purchased the Russian bot Twitter accounts that suddenly began to follow Mr. Moore. But it takes credit for “radicalizing Democrats with a Russian bot scandal” and points to stories on the phenomenon in the mainstream media. “Roy Moore flooded with fake Russian Twitter followers,” reported The New York Post." Deceptio…

> Deception.

They were researching a tactic already used in the wild that involves deception, yes. But the end goal of the experiment wasn't to deceive voters, which is what you claimed. The goal was to learn about how this tactic, a tactic that involves deception, works, presumably to help identify and combat it in the future.

> What, you didn't know that this politically motivated organization with an agenda was asked to inform the Senate about Russian interference in US election?

So what you're saying is an organization doing research into Russian interference was asked to inform the Senate about Russian interference? When you put it like that, it sounds like they have an excellent reason to conduct this sort of research.

> When you say "limited spread" do you actually mean "completely unrestrained"?

No I don't, which is why I didn't say that.

In any case, it sounds like this discussion has run its course.

Re: Dear Mozilla, please stop spamming

#116

Post by jrochkind1 »

eridius wrote: post #114
jrochkind1 wrote: post #105

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Really? Even just your version of the story above sounds AWFUL to me. No, it's not okay to 'experiment' with effecting the outcome of an election, even if they say it did not effect the outcome.

If the experiment was designed to be small enough to not affect the outcome of the election, then they're not experimenting with affecting the outcome, they're investigating and learning about tactics that, on a larger scale , could be used to affect the outcome of the election. I did say it was a bit shady, but I'm not really sure how to do this sort of research in a way that doesn't potentially affect the real worl…

Did they have the informed consent of the people they experimented on? (rhetorical question, i assume not).

It's just not okay for so many reasons.

Re: Dear Mozilla, please stop spamming

#117

Post by thatguy0900 »

bromuro wrote: post #103
eridius wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Every one of the requests that 43920 listed in a request in service of you, the user. The first is to detect captive portals, which is something you'll find very important if you're behind a captive portal. The second is for OCSP certificate validation, which helps ensure your safety while browsing. The third is checking for updates, which again is for your benefit.

Every request is a way for tracking you. We don’t want to be tracked when we open Firefox.

Then turn those off? These things are a tradeoff for usability, Firefox is trying to be competitive for the masses, I have a feeling your ideal Firefox would feel pretty clunky to someone who's not familiar with tech.

Re: Dear Mozilla, please stop spamming

#120

Post by atomical »

jasonlotito wrote: post #75
atomical wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's also Brave browser.

No. Brave is collecting money on people's behalf without their consent.

Most of the BAT being donated is coming directly from the User Growth Pool.

Do you block ads without the publisher's consent? If so, you are in a much more morally precarious situation.

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