381–390 of 719 posts
Every single non technical person I have spoken to has not the slightest idea about the data collection or even the business model. When told about it, the concern is minimal. The only ones who got infuriated were the ones where someone else logged into their accounts. Even showed some real data from breaches, like mobile numbers, still no concern, they'd typically say "well i gave them my number". The issue is so pr…
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That's why it's a 3/4 truth. They don't offer "pay us to see John Doe's religious affiliation", instead they offer "show your ad to Catholics". It's more similar to a Catholic TV station selling commercial slots. That said, it can be far more targeted and powerful than a TV commercial, e.g. "show your ad to 18 year old Catholics with post-secondary education in Flint, Michigan".
Thanks for replying and not simply downvoting and moving on. I can see what you (or the parent) was getting at and somewhat agree that it's not a "full" truth, and there is some nuance at play. Although, with just a few of those variables (age/gender/poltiics/religion/geography) you can likely narrow down your target audience to a few tens of people, making those people identifiable. I recall a few years ago a report…
Perhaps, but that's a very different scenario that what most people think of when others say "FB profits from selling your info".
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It's not just product advertising, it's also political advertising which gets even creepier in my opinion. The two major outfits in 2016 (BlueLabs for Clinton, Cambridge Analytica for Trump) were spending hundreds of millions on these kind of targeted ad campaigns according to numerous disclosures. For example, I imagine Team Trump would target the white supremacist crowd (a relatively small % of the public) with one…
And I'm sure someone targeted you with ads and false stories accusing Trump of being a white supremacist, which is why you believe crap like that.
"Only black people could live like that" when describing Chicago, for instance.
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> I don't want Facebook fixed and I do want Facebook harmed. I don't want the government to meddle with what types of things people can say online, I want them to ban the business model of stalking people online and selling intimate details of their lives. If the problem is Facebook choosing profits over public good, then cut off the profits. This is obvious. Bingo. Make stalking at scale the same as stalking by cree…
> Tracking everything people do isn't a "business model"—it's a crime. Could you point me to a law that codifies this as crime? I have yet to see convincing proof of widespread or significant harm caused by tracking/retargeting. These arguments always seem to rely on hyperbole and redefining terms and norms. No, I don’t work at FB. No, I don’t work in digital advertising.
Who redefined "Terms and norms"? Who declared that privacy is dead? The problem really is that people have normalized a practice (surveillance, compilation of human behavioral profiles, classification, trading of such profiles, material impact on people's life based on such data and their algorithmic interpretation) that is historically the hallmark of oppression. This is not normal, not if we live in democratic, well functioning societies as we are led to believe. The cambridge-analytica episode is just the tip of the iceberg of what will happen if politicians and markets keep legitimizing this business model.
Why place this bomb under society? Is there any service being offered that is not reproducible otherwise? Its just some freaking databases and servers and messages after all. What the world is waiting for is for the gargantuan mea-culpa of silicon valley and the amoral capital that financed this.
This is a litmus test of whether there is anything left of the "Western" project, because of oppressive and unaccountable regimes there are plenty.
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Except what you are saying is not really true. Most conservatives want to reduce government power, not extend it. The left, on the other hand, universally wants to extend government reach. I would recommend reading "The Authoritarian Moment" which goes into detail as to how the left are basically winning: https://www.amazon.com/Authoritarian-Moment-Weaponized-Ameri... To quote from the book's introduction: "There are…
> "There are certainly totalitarians on the political right. But statistically, they represent a fringe movement with little institutional clout. The authoritarian left, meanwhile, is ascendant in nearly every area of American life. A small number of leftists—college-educated, coastal, and uncompromising—have not just taken over the Democratic Party but our corporations, our universities, our scientific establishment…
I didn't think I'd need to provide evidence that the left want to extend government reach, though. What do you think the 3.5 trillion dollar reconciliation bill will do? What do you think the failed "for the people" act tried to do? What do you think Biden tries to do when he has the CDC unconstitutionally ban evictions, or has OSHA force employers to vaccinate their employees against a disease with a .2% IFR?
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You say that like it's a bad thing, rather than something she has every right to be .
No it means she's biased and we should evaluate if she has another motive because she's connected to the party now interviewing her who want to censor Americans. I wonder if she'll be a professor or an ambassador for her service.
I find it weird for a whistleblower to be so "lib", as the kids say. She said she 'loves' Facebook, and wants to fix it, not harm it. I don't want Facebook fixed and I do want Facebook harmed. I don't want the government to meddle with what types of things people can say online, I want them to ban the business model of stalking people online and selling intimate details of their lives. If the problem is Facebook choo…
It seems that the question is if there is a version of Facebook that does not lead to misinformation and other harms, or at least outweighed by benefits of having a communication channel like Facebook.
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Because the complaints she is making and that people find most offensive regarding Facebook are not its data collection. I know that is an unpopular opinion here, but many people don't care about data collection because they don't see how that negatively impacts their lives. There are sizable populations of people that think the Facebook apps record all audio they hear and serve ads based off what you say in front of…
Where does it end though? Probably Brad Pitt and Elon Musk and Justin Bieber make a lot of people feel bad about their lives. Should media just stop reporting about them?
The two best ideas I've heard: - Require age verification by law and ban kids from using it. We ban kids from alcohol we should ban them from this. - Require ID verification by law but allow people to use a fake name. Fixes the bots issue and the kid depression issue. The market isn't going to get there by itself because of competition. If insta implements this then they lose market share to snap. So there's a strong…
> Require age verification by law and ban kids from using it. We ban kids from alcohol we should ban them from this.
It’s also surreal to see that totalitarian governments like China are doing almost exactly this (see recent video gaming bans for under-18s) with a negative reaction from HN and tech communities, but for some reason the same restrictions are championed for social media.
I suspect it has a lot to do with the fact that HN and online tech communities are getting older. We can imagine ourselves playing video games as kids, but social media is a new, scary foreign concept that we need to protect the children from.
I have to wonder if the whole anti-social-media trend will play out like the anti-violent video game protests of the 90s: A flurry of “think of the children” arguments and political non-action that ultimately fizzles out when the new generation grows up and takes over the discourse, having growing up with social media and turned out just fine.