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Facebook Accused of Watching Instagram Users Through Cameras

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Re: Facebook Accused of Watching Instagram Users Through Cameras

#41

Post by izacus »

Saint_Genet wrote: post #29
can16358p wrote: post #9

Don't want to be the devil's advocate here but just because camera is on doesn't mean anything is being recorded. As an iOS developer who worked with apps that access camera frequently, I can confidently say that it's just a UX optimization. Starting the camera takes a brief few hundred milliseconds which is easily noticable from a user perspective. By keeping the camera ready, they are making the experience smoother…

If you keep doing malicious things, you no longer get to enjoy the benefit of doubt.

It's one thing to enjoy benefit of doubt, it's another to just make up utterly unbelievable fringe crap that can be explained by hundreds of other explanations.

Re: Facebook Accused of Watching Instagram Users Through Cameras

#42

Post by Frost1x »

drcongo wrote: post #19
jjbinx007 wrote: post #16

Even if this was true, which I doubt, what would Facebook actually gain by doing this? They'd see a person's face from an unflattering angle with an unflattering expression. Or they'd see whatever the front camera sees at the time, which in my case right now is the back of my phone case or possibly the floor. I don't see that as valuable data to mine.

Really? One of the largest facial recognition databases in the world has nothing to gain from pictures of people's faces?

I really don't know how people can continue to actively use their services, especially with an OS native app.

Re: Facebook Accused of Watching Instagram Users Through Cameras

#43

Post by bitL »

mtgx wrote: post #5
dvfjsdhgfv wrote: post #4

Conditi will have a hard time proving it wasn't a bug and the data was actually being used in the way she describes it.

This thing where Facebook collects a lot of data in ways to which most people would object for years and years, and then when they get caught they claim it was a "bug", is getting really old. To make matters worse, they usually tend to re-introduce the "bug" as some kind of feature a few years later, as their way of saying "yes, we really do thing our users are that stupid to not realize what we've done, why do you a…

Google started it with the WiFi collection "bug" and offline location collection "bug".

Re: Facebook Accused of Watching Instagram Users Through Cameras

#44

Post by te_chris »

izacus wrote: post #40
tchalla wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> As an iOS developer who worked with apps that access camera frequently, I can confidently say that it's just a UX optimization. Here's what Facebook does once you give access to the iOS Photos app. Every time you open the Facebook app, it asks you - "Would you like to post these photos on Facebook?". Basically, they are reading the Photos library repeatedly to scan for recent (or past) photos along with their meta…

Or, more likely, it's an engagement optimization to have people post more photos and keep those metrics up. These bizarre over-the-top conspiracy theories are really starting to get old, it's almost flat earth believers level.

It’s not conspiratorial if they have form and it’s ridiculously easy for them to do.

Re: Facebook Accused of Watching Instagram Users Through Cameras

#45

Post by zupreme »

This is why iOS is badly in need of a “Task Manager” and of an “Event Viewer”, so that users may easily audit what resources each app is currently accessing, and which resources they have accessed in the past, including logging each instance of camera or microphone use by any app.

Apple has the power to easily mitigate these concerns - yet they do not.

Why?

Re: Facebook Accused of Watching Instagram Users Through Cameras

#46

Post by TranceMan »

izacus wrote: post #40
tchalla wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> As an iOS developer who worked with apps that access camera frequently, I can confidently say that it's just a UX optimization. Here's what Facebook does once you give access to the iOS Photos app. Every time you open the Facebook app, it asks you - "Would you like to post these photos on Facebook?". Basically, they are reading the Photos library repeatedly to scan for recent (or past) photos along with their meta…

Or, more likely, it's an engagement optimization to have people post more photos and keep those metrics up. These bizarre over-the-top conspiracy theories are really starting to get old, it's almost flat earth believers level.

Is it not both?

Re: Facebook Accused of Watching Instagram Users Through Cameras

#48

Post by loriverkutya »

zupreme wrote: post #45

This is why iOS is badly in need of a “Task Manager” and of an “Event Viewer”, so that users may easily audit what resources each app is currently accessing, and which resources they have accessed in the past, including logging each instance of camera or microphone use by any app. Apple has the power to easily mitigate these concerns - yet they do not. Why?

Because my mother is using an iphone and nothing you described would make sense for her.

She is pretty good with tech and understands how computers and phones work, but she just does not want to browse a process list to see which process is using the camera.

Re: Facebook Accused of Watching Instagram Users Through Cameras

#49

Post by qwertox »

pferde wrote: post #15
can16358p wrote: post #9

Don't want to be the devil's advocate here but just because camera is on doesn't mean anything is being recorded. As an iOS developer who worked with apps that access camera frequently, I can confidently say that it's just a UX optimization. Starting the camera takes a brief few hundred milliseconds which is easily noticable from a user perspective. By keeping the camera ready, they are making the experience smoother…

Doesn't keeping camera on increase battery drain, though? Also, with Facebook being evil and all, what's stopping them from hopping on "hey, the camera is already on, let's not waste that, and use the incoming visual data for something while we're at it" line of thinking eventually?

Assuming that this happens only when the user is actively using the app, I'd guess that the display would consume dramatically more energy, making the camera's usage of the battery negligible, also compared to the benefit of then having a very responsive camera.

In any case, I do think that providing visual feedback to the user is very important. Like a small picture-in-picture-overlay.

Re: Facebook Accused of Watching Instagram Users Through Cameras

#50

Post by qwertox »

zupreme wrote: post #45

This is why iOS is badly in need of a “Task Manager” and of an “Event Viewer”, so that users may easily audit what resources each app is currently accessing, and which resources they have accessed in the past, including logging each instance of camera or microphone use by any app. Apple has the power to easily mitigate these concerns - yet they do not. Why?

There could be an industry wide agreement to reserve the top two pixel rows for realtime visual feedback of sensor use. 1st quarter of the display refers to the microphone, 2nd to the camera, 3rd to GPS and so on, with standardized ways of notifying what is happening, ie blinking means it's currently active, red that it has been used at least once during the last 5 minutes or so, with more detailed information in the notification bar.
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