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Facebook's 'Clear History' Tool Doesn't Clear Shit (2020)

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Re: Facebook's 'Clear History' Tool Doesn't Clear Shit (2020)

#41

Post by c7DJTLrn »

gjsman-1000 wrote: post #38
c7DJTLrn wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not a silver bullet of course. Discord, for instance, just 'anonymises' message history by renaming your account to Deleted User. But most people's message history is enough to deanonymise them, making that completely null and void. If you ask for your messages to actually be deleted they will refuse your request. I published a tool on GitHub for deleting message history in the most efficient way I could find. Y…

One tactic I've worked out with individual mods is I have them ban me, then unban me, which causes all of my posts to be erased from the public chat. Of course Discord probably still has them privately, but it's better than nothing.

That's interesting, thanks for the tip. I would hope they would have a sort of garbage collection that deletes orphaned messages, but this is Discord we're talking about.

Re: Facebook's 'Clear History' Tool Doesn't Clear Shit (2020)

#42

Post by gundisclosed »

bobthechef wrote: post #19
gundisclosed wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

“When you delete content, it's no longer visible to other users; however, it may continue to exist elsewhere on our systems” This is from FB’s terms and conditions, so I guess they can still keep the data. If you agree to any other website’s terms and conditions saying “any third party can track you”, you have again given permission.

The problem with this interpretation is that valid contracts depend, among other things, on informed consent and on the legality of what's being required, meaning you can't trick someone into being bound to terms they never really accepted or sufficiently understood and you can't bind them to illegal terms. In this case, most people haven't read the Facebook terms of service and it is probably unreasonable to expect…

“most people haven't read the Facebook terms of service and it is probably unreasonable to expect everyone to not only read them”

I completely disagree with this thought process. If a website is asking your birthday, every like / dislike , every detail about relatives and is able to predict if you like someone even before you do .. you better know how they will use all this data.

Re: Facebook's 'Clear History' Tool Doesn't Clear Shit (2020)

#43

Post by nicbou »

ThisWasTaken wrote: post #33

it's funny how when you open an article criticizing how Facebook tracks you the first thing you have to do is go through 70 pages to tell the site you're reading the article on to not track you.

uBlock has a blocklist for cookie notices and other annoyances. Turning it off feels like watching cable TV after a decade of Netflix.

It's crazy that we need to go through so much crap (tracking, cookie notices, ads, newsletter prompts, SEO keyword soup) to get the simplest answers.

The website I run is deliberately annoyance-free. I see it as a competitive advantage.

Re: Facebook's 'Clear History' Tool Doesn't Clear Shit (2020)

#44

Post by ssalka »

devenblake wrote: post #35
r00fus wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, because of a 1996 US Federal law, information collected about you is no longer your property, even if there is no business relationship.

What law specifically?

On the off-chance that the parent's description has a typo, it may be this 1976 court ruling:

United States v. Miller, 425 U.S. 435

Re: Facebook's 'Clear History' Tool Doesn't Clear Shit (2020)

#46

Post by tyingq »

devenblake wrote: post #35
r00fus wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, because of a 1996 US Federal law, information collected about you is no longer your property, even if there is no business relationship.

What law specifically?

I would guess the "Telecommunications Act of 1996".

https://transition.fcc.gov/Reports/tcom1996.txt

Probably the text starting here:

  SEC. 702. PRIVACY OF CUSTOMER INFORMATION.
  Title II is amended by inserting after section 221 (47 U.S.C. 
  221) the following new section:
  SEC. 222. PRIVACY OF CUSTOMER INFORMATION

Re: Facebook's 'Clear History' Tool Doesn't Clear Shit (2020)

#47

Post by EastSmith »

nicbou wrote: post #43
ThisWasTaken wrote: post #33

it's funny how when you open an article criticizing how Facebook tracks you the first thing you have to do is go through 70 pages to tell the site you're reading the article on to not track you.

uBlock has a blocklist for cookie notices and other annoyances. Turning it off feels like watching cable TV after a decade of Netflix. It's crazy that we need to go through so much crap (tracking, cookie notices, ads, newsletter prompts, SEO keyword soup) to get the simplest answers. The website I run is deliberately annoyance-free. I see it as a competitive advantage.

Which blacklist is this?

Re: Facebook's 'Clear History' Tool Doesn't Clear Shit (2020)

#48

Post by samatman »

skybrian wrote: post #36
r00fus wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, because of a 1996 US Federal law, information collected about you is no longer your property, even if there is no business relationship.

When was it ever? Anyone could write an article about you. Articles about specific people are discussed all the time on Hacker News. Usually the person being written about doesn’t get a say about their reputation.

Sadly, I'm inclined to agree with your assessment, from my utterly amateur legal armchair.

We need new laws for this. GDPR is a good start, if one happens to be an EU citizen, if a bit toothless.

We need new laws because automated collection of vast amounts of personal data, at scale, is a thing different in kind from manually collecting personal data about a specific person. Due to the expense and difficulty, the earlier system would tend to scale broadly with someone's fame, or at least wealth, which matches our expectations: it's not surprising that, say, a gossip magazine would have a fat file on Leonardo DiCaprio, and we figure he has lawyers on hand to deal with any consequent fallout.

In fact, we all used to be quite grateful for the unsung laborers who would collect and publish a doxxing book, called the white pages, which would list the names, phone numbers, and addresses, of most local people. Of course they were legally obligated to unlist those who requested it...

Re: Facebook's 'Clear History' Tool Doesn't Clear Shit (2020)

#49

Post by goodpoint »

bobthechef wrote: post #19
gundisclosed wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

“When you delete content, it's no longer visible to other users; however, it may continue to exist elsewhere on our systems” This is from FB’s terms and conditions, so I guess they can still keep the data. If you agree to any other website’s terms and conditions saying “any third party can track you”, you have again given permission.

The problem with this interpretation is that valid contracts depend, among other things, on informed consent and on the legality of what's being required, meaning you can't trick someone into being bound to terms they never really accepted or sufficiently understood and you can't bind them to illegal terms. In this case, most people haven't read the Facebook terms of service and it is probably unreasonable to expect…

> valid contracts depend, among other things, on informed consent and on the legality of what's being required

Yes, and they also depends on power dynamics.

That's why there are a lot of restrictions on what can be written in a contract between public utilities and users. An electricity provider could strong-arm users into signing draconian contracts otherwise.

Social networks have the same negative externalities: if most of your friends move from using emails to using Facebook to communicate and you are not on it your life gets provably worse. You are cut out from a lot of your social circle.

Having walled-garden social networks is anti-competitive by design.

Unfortunately legislators turn a blind eye to this.

Re: Facebook's 'Clear History' Tool Doesn't Clear Shit (2020)

#50

Post by Karunamon »

gundisclosed wrote: post #42
bobthechef wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The problem with this interpretation is that valid contracts depend, among other things, on informed consent and on the legality of what's being required, meaning you can't trick someone into being bound to terms they never really accepted or sufficiently understood and you can't bind them to illegal terms. In this case, most people haven't read the Facebook terms of service and it is probably unreasonable to expect…

“most people haven't read the Facebook terms of service and it is probably unreasonable to expect everyone to not only read them” I completely disagree with this thought process. If a website is asking your birthday, every like / dislike , every detail about relatives and is able to predict if you like someone even before you do .. you better know how they will use all this data.

Strictly speaking you're correct, but you're describing the should rather than the is. There are too many overly-long ToSes written in arcane legalese to do mundane things like use a website or play a game for the average person to comprehend even the fist time for everything they use, let alone keeping up with the changes and their implications.

To coin a meme: "Ain't nobody got time for that"

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