The opt-out illusion: how we have acquiesced to losing our privacy • Hacker News Board

Re: The opt-out illusion: how we have acquiesced to losing our privacy

#21

Post by mjevans » Tue, Mar 10, 2020, 4:22 AM UTC

yjftsjthsd-h wrote: post #16

mjevans wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do it like they did in the good old days when JS was new and couldn't be relied upon to exist. Don't rely upon it to exist. Serve up well marked content, CSS that might format it nicely, and JavaScript that allows some types of per-validation to happen client side but only as a means of making a page nicer. The server side should STILL perform all data validation, normalization, and verification (assume someone will…

No, Twitch specifically. It's an interactive chat and live video streaming application that happens to be built out of web tech. If you don't have AJAX, you could maybe-kinda-sorta kludge it together out of forms and video elements, but it'd degrade hard , and need to be built completely different from the normally-interactive version.

I was thinking of Twitter for some reason.

Twitch could be done with a native app... the phone versions SHOULD be done with such if they aren't.

Re: The opt-out illusion: how we have acquiesced to losing our privacy

#22

Post by JarlUlvi » Tue, Mar 10, 2020, 5:09 AM UTC

> They are not watching us for political dissent but for our “behavioral surplus”, the crumbs of data about what we do, where we go, what we look at, what we buy.

That is a falsehood, they are definitely censoring/demonetizing/deplatforming/cancelculturing those that do not adhere to their puritanical Coastal Groupthink, while selling our information.

FB does it. Twitter does it. Google does it. Apple meanwhile, pretends not to do it, while selling us down the river too.

Re: The opt-out illusion: how we have acquiesced to losing our privacy

#23

Post by mc3 » Tue, Mar 10, 2020, 5:10 AM UTC

Ironically this page sent a payload to a domain call permuative.com, without my permission.

This payload contains user events e.g. how long I read the article, a user identity guid (presumably a fingerprint of my browser), my isp name

Re: The opt-out illusion: how we have acquiesced to losing our privacy

#24

Post by optymizer » Tue, Mar 10, 2020, 5:51 AM UTC

Iv wrote: post #19

JumpCrisscross wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I have been mulling cancelling my Facebook account for a while now Going cold turkey is never easy. If you're having trouble withdrawing, consider what I did over the past few years: 1. Turn off notifications for the Facebook app on your phone; then 2. Turn off notifications for the Facebook Messenger, Instagram, et cetera apps on your phone; next 3. Delete the Facebook app from your phone; then 4. Delete the Faceb…

I know very well why I am still using FB: there is a single group that I am working with that uses it as its main channel of communication. And I don't want to invest the effort to make them switch right now. What I did was an alternate plan that can work for many: - Don't install the Facebook app, but the FB Messenger lite app. No access to the walls. - Mute channels you don't want to be pinged about (most of them e…

Out of curiosity, have you tried messenger.com to answer the pings?

Re: The opt-out illusion: how we have acquiesced to losing our privacy

#25

Post by Polylactic_acid » Tue, Mar 10, 2020, 6:07 AM UTC

JumpCrisscross wrote: post #11

jgacook wrote: post #7

I have been mulling cancelling my Facebook account for a while now. Today as I was browsing I saw several Scientology ads. I know Facebook doesn't have an agenda per se - you have the money, they have the adspace - but I was still struck by the brazenness of advertising something whose ethical dubiousness has been so thoroughly publicized. Facebook will never change unless they are forced to. We have signed away perh…

> I have been mulling cancelling my Facebook account for a while now Going cold turkey is never easy. If you're having trouble withdrawing, consider what I did over the past few years: 1. Turn off notifications for the Facebook app on your phone; then 2. Turn off notifications for the Facebook Messenger, Instagram, et cetera apps on your phone; next 3. Delete the Facebook app from your phone; then 4. Delete the Faceb…

I still have a facebook account for the sole purpose of messaging those people I only contact once a year. Honestly never really used facebook for anything more than a IM platform. I never felt comfortable posting anything since all family members would be seeing it. And I never liked consuming content on it because I found it all to be low quality shitposts and blog spam.

Re: The opt-out illusion: how we have acquiesced to losing our privacy

#26

Post by thaumasiotes » Tue, Mar 10, 2020, 6:17 AM UTC

TheOperator wrote: post #8

>But the pop-up won’t let us pass without clicking “agree”. Opting out is an illusion. I mean this is a weird way to phrase it but you definitely cannot participate in modern society without hindering yourself in various meaningful ways if you do not "opt-in" to giving up your privacy. "Opt-in" requirements have consequently struck me as "privacy theatre" which mostly irritates. I don't see any solution for the curre…

>> But the pop-up won’t let us pass without clicking “agree”. Opting out is an illusion.

You can generally just delete the popup from the DOM.

Re: The opt-out illusion: how we have acquiesced to losing our privacy

#27

Post by raxxorrax » Tue, Mar 10, 2020, 6:18 AM UTC

TheOperator wrote: post #8

>But the pop-up won’t let us pass without clicking “agree”. Opting out is an illusion. I mean this is a weird way to phrase it but you definitely cannot participate in modern society without hindering yourself in various meaningful ways if you do not "opt-in" to giving up your privacy. "Opt-in" requirements have consequently struck me as "privacy theatre" which mostly irritates. I don't see any solution for the curre…

I think it is widely believed but you don't actually loose that much with opting out. It requires a lot of effort though and it probably shouldn't.

Re: The opt-out illusion: how we have acquiesced to losing our privacy

#28

Post by JensRex » Tue, Mar 10, 2020, 6:19 AM UTC

smichel17 wrote: post #18

JumpCrisscross wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I have been mulling cancelling my Facebook account for a while now Going cold turkey is never easy. If you're having trouble withdrawing, consider what I did over the past few years: 1. Turn off notifications for the Facebook app on your phone; then 2. Turn off notifications for the Facebook Messenger, Instagram, et cetera apps on your phone; next 3. Delete the Facebook app from your phone; then 4. Delete the Faceb…

When I deleted my account, I went through one additional step: 6. Delete your account. Create a new account under a pseudonym. Add a single friend, who can add you to group chats. At this point, you should have a near-empty news feed; Facebook is only for staying in touch with the group (eg, not missing out on social events) until people have gotten used to texting you to invite you to things. You won't be able to co…

>Create a new account under a pseudonym.

I've not been on Facebook for years, and I tried doing this recently. It was relentless in pestering me for a phone number for "security reasons". It would not accept any of the online SMS services I found. I ended up abandoning it.

Re: The opt-out illusion: how we have acquiesced to losing our privacy

#29

Post by lisper » Tue, Mar 10, 2020, 6:23 AM UTC

JensRex wrote: post #28

smichel17 wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When I deleted my account, I went through one additional step: 6. Delete your account. Create a new account under a pseudonym. Add a single friend, who can add you to group chats. At this point, you should have a near-empty news feed; Facebook is only for staying in touch with the group (eg, not missing out on social events) until people have gotten used to texting you to invite you to things. You won't be able to co…

>Create a new account under a pseudonym. I've not been on Facebook for years, and I tried doing this recently. It was relentless in pestering me for a phone number for "security reasons". It would not accept any of the online SMS services I found. I ended up abandoning it.

Sounds like a job for a burner phone.

Re: The opt-out illusion: how we have acquiesced to losing our privacy

#30

Post by titzer » Tue, Mar 10, 2020, 6:32 AM UTC

wackget wrote: post #2

Is that... a loading screen for a text-based news website? Christ.

...aaand now we're distracted by a completely irrelevant annoyance of technology instead of discussing the content of the article and some very serious issues...