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

the-tls.co.uk

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

#121

Post by nemo »

stronglikedan wrote: post #120
nemo wrote: post #112

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Why does your goal of trying to limit their "manipulation" have more validity than their goal of limiting yours?" Because Scientology's views aren't held in good faith and claims about society should be assumed to be pretexts used to justify the quoted excuse for predatory behavior. Scientology has a history of fraud, kidnapping, extortion, and other extreme exploitation and don't deserve any benefit of the doubt. T…

I personally think they are kooks, and their views are less valid to me, but I also realize that it's just my subjective opinion. They also have the subjective opinion that their views are valid to them, and our views have less validity. No way to say who's "right", so they should be allowed to advertise until we agree on laws (still subjective) to possibly invalidate their views.

They are not mere kooks. They are an organized criminal enterprise. They've engaged in arson, kidnapping, extortion, attempted assassinations, money laundering, and other criminal acts. They are actively malicious and that's as realistic a line for dividing who is and isn't right there is.

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

#122

Post by heartbeats »

yakireev wrote: post #117
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…

Nope, that won't work. Facebook will ask you for a phone number and for a selfie. It will then match both against their databases, and ask you for an ID if there is none. You can get a "burner" phone number and even a physical phone (that's what I do for whatsapp), but you can't have a burner face to make selfies. ...so now I don't have a FB account at all, and it is very inconvenient.

Since when? I've never been asked for a selfie.

If you must, it doesn't seem like a big problem still. Go to thispersondoesnotexist.com, hit F5 a few times to find a nice portrait, then Google "driver license template" and apply basic Photoshop skills.

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

#124

Post by markovbot »

andrepd wrote: post #114
markovbot wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why would someone buy a whole new phone just to use a shitty advertising network they explicitly did not want to use?

You can get a free SIM, but even if you have to pay 5$ or whatever... many people still need to use facebook messenger to get in touch with some people, for instance.

and then what, run the spyware on my main phone, so it can have all of my data and my friends data?

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

#125

Post by jdeibele »

yakireev wrote: post #117
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…

Nope, that won't work. Facebook will ask you for a phone number and for a selfie. It will then match both against their databases, and ask you for an ID if there is none. You can get a "burner" phone number and even a physical phone (that's what I do for whatsapp), but you can't have a burner face to make selfies. ...so now I don't have a FB account at all, and it is very inconvenient.

You can try using a picture from https://www.thispersondoesnotexist.com/.

If a lot of people do that, then maybe Facebook moves to requiring pictures with a code written on them, like Reddit does.

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

#126

Post by hutzlibu »

SkyBelow wrote: post #109
jwr wrote: post #49

Oh, the irony of this article slamming me in the face with a sleazy "We need your consent" dialog with intentionally confusing options and sub-dialogs... My "consent" is being forced out of me so that roughly ~100 (at a first glance) "partners" can invade my privacy and learn about my browsing habits. By the way, if you are a programmer and you implement those sleazy dialogs, think about your life choices.

>By the way, if you are a programmer and you implement those sleazy dialogs, think about your life choices. I think the logic underlying this sentiment is never consistently applied. Do we call out the people working on Tor or encryption because of how it is used by some to cause harm? Do we call out the other negative results of a person's job (tax money going to a war machine is pretty common for those in the US)?…

" Do we call out the people working on Tor or encryption because of how it is used by some to cause harm? "

I am pretty sure, they thought alotabout the pros and cons of their work and decided a long time ago that the positive outweight the negative a lot. But what is the social positive in intentional programming dark pattern UI? I don't see any.

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

#127

Post by Macha »

markovbot wrote: post #124
andrepd wrote: post #114

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can get a free SIM, but even if you have to pay 5$ or whatever... many people still need to use facebook messenger to get in touch with some people, for instance.

and then what, run the spyware on my main phone, so it can have all of my data and my friends data?

m.facebook.com for the social network

mbasic.facebook.com for chat

No apps needed

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

#128

Post by markandrewj »

zimpenfish wrote: post #119
markandrewj wrote: post #116

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It should also be a law that customers can not be opted-in by default, or through consent buried in a 100 page TOS agreement. There should be a requirement that the question is presented to the user in a clear way.

https://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/TXT/?qid=15288746... Article 7 is the key bit, specifically entry 2: "...the request for consent shall be presented in a manner which is clearly distinguishable from the other matters, in an intelligible and easily accessible form, using clear and plain language." (edited to remove superfluous GDPR reference)

GDPR unfortunately doesn't apply in North America. I know there may be other clauses in American, or Canadian law (I am Canadian), but this is in no way enforced. I can think of multiple services, where the first thing I have to do after creating an account, is go and toggle opt-out in all the places the setting has been buried.

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

#130

Post by bismuthMaze »

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 had a similar bad habit of mindlessly visiting sites I consider time sinks from the browser. I learned I could edit my hosts file to override the DNS lookup from a comment on HN. Just be sure to cover variants of the url you wish to block, otherwise if you're anything like me you'll start prepending 'www.' to bypass the block.
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