FTC issues orders to nine social media and video streaming services • Hacker News Board

Re: FTC issues orders to nine social media and video streaming services

#211

Post by [deleted] » Tue, Dec 15, 2020, 2:28 AM UTC

kodah wrote: post #43

asciident wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So I like social media, and get a lot of benefit from it. I like that it's free and supported by targeted ads, rather than a paid service. Since we disagree, and I imagine there are many people with the same opinions as both you and me, why not make it opt-in, so you only encounter social media if you choose to make an account, and then still only see it if you go to it and/or install it intentionally? Wait, that's h…

Social media isn't opt-in though. Facebook has routinely collected data on non-Facebook users, my name/likeness/content can appear on social media without my consent, and there are hardly controls for protecting such things in any meaningful sense. I deleted Instagram months ago and I have friends that have routinely told me that profile is still up, just in a limited capacity. How is this opt-in? An even better exam…

[deleted]

Re: FTC issues orders to nine social media and video streaming services

#212

Post by jetru » Tue, Dec 15, 2020, 2:33 AM UTC

cactus2093 wrote: post #36

devmunchies wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's funny to think that people might look back at how much time and attention people from 2010 to 2020 spent on their device and think how backwards we were. Like how "dumb" past generations were for putting lead in gasoline.

Seems more likely to me that all the overreaction to social media will be what is viewed as silly and old-fashioned. History is absolutely full of very similar examples of people freaking out over how new mediums like novels or bicycles or radio or rock music or whatever are a waste of time and/or are destroying the children's minds.

Right, history is also full of examples where enough reaction was non-existant and where this precise argument was used to allay concerns. History is probably also full of examples where it made sense.

History is full of all kinds of examples.

Re: FTC issues orders to nine social media and video streaming services

#213

Post by zepto » Tue, Dec 15, 2020, 2:34 AM UTC

jldugger wrote: post #210

jiofih wrote: post #206

Earlier quoted context omitted.

iMessage is a pure messaging service - there are no recommendations, no feed, no following friends, no status updates, no likes, no profiles, no stories, and no connection to Facebook at all. Most importantly, no advertising since they actually make money off the products, which means no incentive for gaming engagement metrics. They want you to have a good time and sell you another device next year, not glue your eye…

> no likes, no profiles, and no connection to Facebook at all You can absolutely thumbs up stuff. And accounts do have a profile -- a name, a phone number, a profile pic, email address, probably your apple ID somewhere in the metadata, etc. And this is not connected to Facebook, but to your Apple account. All your activity is sync'd between devices. > Since there is no “Apple social network” to be spoken of, there wo…

Would you say Fastmail is a social network?

Re: FTC issues orders to nine social media and video streaming services

#214

Post by uncomputation » Tue, Dec 15, 2020, 2:37 AM UTC

schappim wrote: post #207

Had a good laugh at the bottom of the release: "Like the FTC on Facebook(link is external), follow us on Twitter(link is external), get consumer alerts, read our blogs, and subscribe to press releases for the latest FTC news and resources." Like us on the platforms we're issuing orders to.

"Yet you participate in society. Curious! I am very intelligent."

Re: FTC issues orders to nine social media and video streaming services

#215

Post by d1zzy » Tue, Dec 15, 2020, 2:47 AM UTC

vkou wrote: post #59

nullsense wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Mostly making a fool of himself.

You call it making a fool out of himself, I call it winning the Republican primary, getting 63 and later 74 million people to vote for him, winning one election, and coming within 100,000 votes of winning a second one, despite being a walking embodiment of anti-democracy. If it weren't for COVID-19, he might well have won. You shouldn't be laughing at him, and people like him. You should be scared of them.

Yes, that is the country we live in, where someone like Trump can actually get that many people to vote for him. It's mind blowing to me and very shameful.

Re: FTC issues orders to nine social media and video streaming services

#216

Post by ineedasername » Tue, Dec 15, 2020, 2:47 AM UTC

akersten wrote: post #54

Here is the actual order (PDF warning): https://www.ftc.gov/system/files/documents/reports/6b-orders... I would encourage everyone to read it. My personal take is that this is a ridiculous amount of homework to do in 45 days, and is essentially the FTC asking for not only these companies' "secret sauce" but also their confidential bookkeeping. I would be astounded if none of them challenged this order. For example, r…

Revealing all R&D is too much, but I don't think in general that it's too little time to answer. They would of course know the answers to questions like the one you cited.

Otherwise, from the PDF:

1-6 mostly seem fine.

Q7 is secret sauce

Q8 doesn't really seem relevant to how personal data is used

Q10 is at least a little bit secret sauce.

Q11 I'm not sure what the relevance of this is

Q12 and most of Q13 is secret sauce

Q14-20 are what I think are really relevant

And so on...

Re: FTC issues orders to nine social media and video streaming services

#217

Post by sudosteph » Tue, Dec 15, 2020, 2:50 AM UTC

cooljacob204 wrote: post #47

Why did they decide to loop in Discord? If this is about targeted ads the Microsoft should have been included, tired of all the spyware on Windows 10.

My totally unsubstantiated gut feeling is that they might suspect that Discord harbors more "radicalizing" potential, compared to other social networks. Probably because discord servers are private, self-moderated, and demographically very skewed towards young men (since it's commonly used for gaming chats). I know that some of the more "troublesome" subreddits use discord to discuss sensitive topics without worrying about reddit admin censorship, so communities like those could be causing a bit of FUD around Discord as a whole.

Re: FTC issues orders to nine social media and video streaming services

#218

Post by elpin » Tue, Dec 15, 2020, 2:54 AM UTC

sonotmyname wrote: post #126

jyrkesh wrote: post #121

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'd love to see the law that allows the FTC to demand broad sets of documents like this without a warrant or even a purported crime. Unfortunately, I'd imagine it exists, but that it basically says "the FTC can do whatever it wants if it thinks a company is being 'abusive' or 'misleading consumers'" with some vague definition of what that means. Yet another example of Congress legislating away their ability to legisl…

> without a warrant 6(b) orders are essentially warrants under the FTC Act: "Section 6 of the FTC Act provides another investigative tool. Section 6(b) empowers the Commission to require an entity to file “annual or special . . . reports or answers in writing to specific questions” to provide information about the entity’s “organization, business, conduct, practices, management, and relation to other corporations, pa…

Key phrases being "broad sets of documents" from the comment you're responding to and "reports or answers in writing to specific questions" in the FTC's blurb.

Re: FTC issues orders to nine social media and video streaming services

#219

Post by ksm1717 » Tue, Dec 15, 2020, 3:00 AM UTC

uncomputation wrote: post #214

schappim wrote: post #207

Had a good laugh at the bottom of the release: "Like the FTC on Facebook(link is external), follow us on Twitter(link is external), get consumer alerts, read our blogs, and subscribe to press releases for the latest FTC news and resources." Like us on the platforms we're issuing orders to.

"Yet you participate in society. Curious! I am very intelligent."

“”Yet you participate in society. Curious! I am very intelligent.” I am very intelligent.”

Re: FTC issues orders to nine social media and video streaming services

#220

Post by pcj-github » Tue, Dec 15, 2020, 3:15 AM UTC

As much as I despise social media and the effect it is having on the general population, after reading the (50-page) request and the dissent, this request by the FTC is completely bananas.

This is essentially how it reads:

"Foreach social media and streaming service, provide an audit of all electrons passing through or near the service. Account for the precise position & momentum of said particles, the method by which they are tracked, and the person or persons responsible for auditing bias of said electrons against members of the current political party. You have five days to complete the report."