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Facebook Is Going After Its Critics in the Name of Privacy

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Re: Facebook Is Going After Its Critics in the Name of Privacy

#11

Post by input_sh »

ankit219 wrote: post #8

For once, can we have articles (or even opinion pieces) which try to explain the context and position of both sides rather than pieces such as these. These kind of writings do nothing to change the mind of anyone. For someone who hates FB and its practices, they reinforce the already held belief. And for those, who are skeptical of such media articles, they would be put off by the language used. And make no mistake,…

The plug-in is open sourced: https://github.com/OnlinePoliticalTransparency/social-media-...

You can download a release straight from there and import it into your browser. Browsers also do some reviews of the plugins that are in their stores, so every update should be tested by both Google and Mozilla (even if only superficially).

I'd say the odds of them managing to pull off scraping anything else without anyone noticing are rather slim.

Re: Facebook Is Going After Its Critics in the Name of Privacy

#12

Post by KaiserPro »

ankit219 wrote: post #8

For once, can we have articles (or even opinion pieces) which try to explain the context and position of both sides rather than pieces such as these. These kind of writings do nothing to change the mind of anyone. For someone who hates FB and its practices, they reinforce the already held belief. And for those, who are skeptical of such media articles, they would be put off by the language used. And make no mistake,…

> isnt that close to how Cambridge Analytica happened?

Yes, its exactly this.

"Facebook changes based on past scandal for the better, and this is bad. here is my 9th grade essay with no research just feeling"

Facebook _should_ be held to account.

I personally don't think that the advertising is actually that much of a problem. It all has paper trails because they have to pay. Advertising is not the worst part of facebook is its users.

for that to change facebook needs to understand that "freedom of expression" disappears when you sign the terms and agreements, which specifically limit your freedom of expression. If they actually enforced their community standards properly, the place would be much better.

Instead they carve out exceptions for celebs, based on precedence that not even employees can find.

Re: Facebook Is Going After Its Critics in the Name of Privacy

#13

Post by KaiserPro »

input_sh wrote: post #11
ankit219 wrote: post #8

For once, can we have articles (or even opinion pieces) which try to explain the context and position of both sides rather than pieces such as these. These kind of writings do nothing to change the mind of anyone. For someone who hates FB and its practices, they reinforce the already held belief. And for those, who are skeptical of such media articles, they would be put off by the language used. And make no mistake,…

The plug-in is open sourced: https://github.com/OnlinePoliticalTransparency/social-media-... You can download a release straight from there and import it into your browser. Browsers also do some reviews of the plugins that are in their stores, so every update should be tested by both Google and Mozilla (even if only superficially). I'd say the odds of them managing to pull off scraping anything else without anyone no…

with respect, thats not the issue. With facebook they only collect "limited" information. Its what they do with it afterwards that matter.

How is it stored, is it secure, how do they anonymise it, who has access to the raw data, what happens when there is a break, is there monitoring, etc etc etc.

They are making a massive honey pot, and we just have to trust them that they are doing good job. (much like facebook....)

Re: Facebook Is Going After Its Critics in the Name of Privacy

#14

Post by gabea »

It’s important to point out that Facebook has an Ads library that allows you to research currently running ads for a given Facebook page and for politics, social issue, or election ads there is an API.

While these capabilities do not map 1:1 to how this plugin works it seems like a bit of a middle ground for the researchers to be able to research ads without risking privacy of people or violating terms of service.

(Disclaimer - I work at FB)

See:

https://www.facebook.com/ads/library/?active_status=all&ad_t...

https://www.facebook.com/ads/library/api/?source=archive-lan...

Re: Facebook Is Going After Its Critics in the Name of Privacy

#15

Post by Maarten88 »

> This may be par for the course with Facebook, but it's not something we as a society can afford to tolerate any longer.

Those are strong words, but I'm afraid the "we as a society" are not as much of a power as one would hope. Facebook as a company might turn out to be more powerful. Facebook can bring lawsuits, PR doublespeak and over time wear down adversaries threatening their business.

I think the underlying problems need to be fixed before there can be hope of restricting what businesses like Facebook can do.

Re: Facebook Is Going After Its Critics in the Name of Privacy

#16

Post by URfejk »

Maarten88 wrote: post #15

> This may be par for the course with Facebook, but it's not something we as a society can afford to tolerate any longer. Those are strong words, but I'm afraid the "we as a society" are not as much of a power as one would hope. Facebook as a company might turn out to be more powerful. Facebook can bring lawsuits, PR doublespeak and over time wear down adversaries threatening their business. I think the underlying pr…

> Those are strong words, but I'm afraid the "we as a society" are not as much of a power as one would hope.

If everyone would abandon FB, they would go out of bussiness.

People have much more power that they think they do.

They just do not know it.

Re: Facebook Is Going After Its Critics in the Name of Privacy

#17

Post by Maarten88 »

gabea wrote: post #14

It’s important to point out that Facebook has an Ads library that allows you to research currently running ads for a given Facebook page and for politics, social issue, or election ads there is an API. While these capabilities do not map 1:1 to how this plugin works it seems like a bit of a middle ground for the researchers to be able to research ads without risking privacy of people or violating terms of service. (D…

> research ads without risking privacy of people

...so you go along in the doublespeak. Please elaborate, because the article says it's without merit and also rather rich coming from Facebook.

> violating terms of service

prohibiting independent research to find if what they promise is actually true, after they have been proven untrustworthy many times?

Re: Facebook Is Going After Its Critics in the Name of Privacy

#18

Post by White_Wolf »

ankit219 wrote: post #8

For once, can we have articles (or even opinion pieces) which try to explain the context and position of both sides rather than pieces such as these. These kind of writings do nothing to change the mind of anyone. For someone who hates FB and its practices, they reinforce the already held belief. And for those, who are skeptical of such media articles, they would be put off by the language used. And make no mistake,…

Isn't(technically speaking) the addon taking data only from the users PC and not from facebook servers? At the end of the day it shouldn't be facebook's call what goes on the user's device.

One thing about these addons is that you can actually take them apart and see what is going on if you don't trust that the addon is built from their github code.

Re: Facebook Is Going After Its Critics in the Name of Privacy

#19

Post by Someone »

Maarten88 wrote: post #15

> This may be par for the course with Facebook, but it's not something we as a society can afford to tolerate any longer. Those are strong words, but I'm afraid the "we as a society" are not as much of a power as one would hope. Facebook as a company might turn out to be more powerful. Facebook can bring lawsuits, PR doublespeak and over time wear down adversaries threatening their business. I think the underlying pr…

“We as a society” write the laws. They can be changed.

The process, IMO, already has started, with the USA and the EU launching investigations against about all the big tech companies (I think Microsoft isn’t investigated yet, but in the context of privacy, they aren’t a truly big player yet. Any new laws will apply to them, regardless)

Re: Facebook Is Going After Its Critics in the Name of Privacy

#20

Post by alisonkisk »

KaiserPro wrote: post #10
mcny wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think you’re missing the context of this conversation. From a comment in a previous Han post about this > The research participants are voluntarily sharing their ads with NYU. Facebook is objecting.

They also voluntarily shared it with the personality quiz, which were then obtained by CA. much as I dislike facebook on this one, I think they actually have a point.

No, Facebook shared uaers' profile data (which now is banned by GDPR) in exchange for letting users take the quiz. The quiz wasn't the data CA abused, it was just bait.

This NYU project only collects data that the users want to share with NYU.

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