Facebook Emails Could Show Zuckerberg Knew of Questionable Privacy Practices

Near as I can tell, this is about data in Facebook's databases finding its way to other organizations without the users' knowledge or consent. But the way this happens is pretty benign:

1. User installs Facebook app, and that app phones home with info about user's friends (who did not consent to this). This is what happened in the Cambridge Analytica scandal. People started asking why apps are allowed to see info about the user's friends (who did not install the app). But to a programmer, the answer is obvious: it's the "app inherits owner's permissions" model that's been part of the Unix tradition for decades. Anyway, Facebook has since changed this behavior.

2. User adds some bots as friends (maybe because their profile photo is of a cute girl), and the bots phone home with public info about user's friends. This is an entirely predictable consequence of the "friends of friends" permission model. Facebook users can set "friends only" permissions to prevent this, but most don't bother.

Is it one of these two vectors that's getting people upset, or something else that I'm missing? Keep in mind that advertisers never get to see people's private info. They just make an ad and say something like "show this to people aged 18-25 who are into video games."

What's a reasonable person? Plenty of "reasonable" people drink Coke every day because the system indoctrinates otherwise rational people into believing that sugar isn't a poison comparable to alcohol. One of my friends, who is an attorney, still thinks that snack foods devoid of fat but loaded with sugar are somehow healthier. Speculating how a rational person would respond ideally isn't very useful in this situation because most people, including those who are well educated, are influenced heavily by their environment and, more specifically, peers and authority.

When you have Zuckerberg and journalists touting the end of privacy as being a good thing(there are plenty of articles and quotes from 10 years ago reflecting this sentiment), as well as surveillance gradually integrating into people's lives through convenience, you bet that most people are going to shrug their shoulders at privacy. Does the fact that people comply with invasion of privacy mean that the issue doesn't matter? Maybe it does if you don't think that the behavior of the masses can be manufactured.

I do agree with you that the current media outrage against social media, Silicon Valley, etc., is essentially the same kind of consent-manufacturing as when they were telling us that privacy is gone and that we should accept Facebook as the lesser evil because it "makes us more connected". I happen to agree with the current manufactured outrage, but I don't agree with the intent behind it. (which I suspect has to do with the old-guard media finally realizing that it's dying and it doesn't like the fact that social media has taken their audience and, hence, their money)

As you can see it was downvoted, and the only comment downvoted in the entire thread so I guess it was most likely done to bury it.

And I must say... at first I was shocked to see it getting buried because I am pretty sure most of HN feels the same way about me in regard to this subject.

But reading the article from the WSJ I'm not surprised at all because apparently there was a good reason to bury it.

Some of the decentralized networks are interesting and seem like a good way forward, but they're still far away from being adopted by non-technical users and masses at large.

This seems like it's not only a technical and UI/UX problem, but one of marketing as well. The advertising-based revenue model has certainly become hostile towards user privacy, and we should rethink that too.

Whatever comes after FB, I hope it addresses all of these issues, for the sake of all of us.