Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Facebook is gaslighting the web. We can fix it.

dashes.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

51–60 of 93 posts

Re: Facebook is gaslighting the web. We can fix it.

#51

Post by fudged »

lbrandy wrote: post #38
cft wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Let's argue Reductio ad absurdum. Why does not Google pop-up similar warnings when you click on its search results? -Because Google is dependent on the richness and abundance of third-party websites, for its search to be meaningful. What is the objective of Facebook? - To suck users into facebook.com, and sandbox them there. Similarly, the smaller objective of Facebook Social plugins is to lift the userbase from thir…

You seem to be under a collection of interesting misapprehensions... 1. Google does warn in various ways when it detects possible badness. As it should. 2. We don't gate ALL links through such warnings. This can be verified by going to your news feed and clicking just about anything. 3. This is about a specific issue with notifications generated from comment widgets (a very common spam vector). 4. Detecting all badne…

I have a problem with the way Facebook allows me to share links. Even by using your 'advanced' login security measures, I have been required to fill in CAPTCHAs hundreds of times for legitimate links. For instance, why is a link to an imgur JPEG file considered possible spam? Do you not whitelist domains? And isn't the repeated use of CAPTCHAs generally an abuse of the actual purpose of a CAPTCHA?

Additionally, Facebook has disallowed me from posting specific legitimate links. You've failed as a communication medium when you censor links. There was no indication that anything was wrong with these links that I shared with friends. There's no excuse for this practice.

Yet, at the same time, you allow seriously terrible practices on your own site, such as pages which require users to click on fake button images to do actions. It makes absolutely no sense how you are "policing" the integrity of your own site and the linking to other parts of the greater web.

Re: Facebook is gaslighting the web. We can fix it.

#52

Post by fudged »

tomp wrote: post #49
evgen wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The 'good' Facebook you are looking for has to charge its users for accounts because that is the only way to pay the bills without selling you off to less purient interests. Is that related to how the only 'good' search engine would be one that has to charge you per-search lest it be forced to sell your click info and search terms to less prurient interests?

Personally, I would rather be stalked by a search engine than by a social network that has seen my photos and knows who my friends are. However, with the arrival of G+, this issue has become far more serious...

The difference is that the connections on G+ hold much less meaning than the connections on Facebook. Facebook automatically populates specifically-named friend lists based on your network data and asks that you refine their lists to improve their data collection.

Essentially, users who choose not to provide Facebook with their close friends, family, university, and location will be scoped out and tagged by their own friends using these smart lists. It's a disturbing strategy for data collection.

Re: Facebook is gaslighting the web. We can fix it.

#53

Post by dustingetz »

cft wrote: post #22
lbrandy wrote: post #13

I work on the team that generated the warning that seems to be the crux of this post. I am pretty convinced that it is a bug. His central theme, though, is a bit misguided. I don't understand why 1) using opengraph, or 2) using a like button implies facebook should trust your link and whitelist it. Even pages with those integrations can be malicious. In this actual case though, the notification link (generated from t…

Let's argue Reductio ad absurdum. Why does not Google pop-up similar warnings when you click on its search results? -Because Google is dependent on the richness and abundance of third-party websites, for its search to be meaningful. What is the objective of Facebook? - To suck users into facebook.com, and sandbox them there. Similarly, the smaller objective of Facebook Social plugins is to lift the userbase from thir…

google doesn't seem to have a problem with accounts being compromised from visiting malicious sites. I do like the incentive razor you've applied, but i think there is a simpler explanation in this case.

Re: Facebook is gaslighting the web. We can fix it.

#55

Post by thom »

droithomme wrote: post #48

People who use Facebook are silly people. No this is not a flame, it's AOL all over again. The walled garden, except the garden is a dystopian big brother state. I don't mind people being in the dystopia of their own choosing at all. I enjoy going for walks outside the cyberdome. It's quiet and peaceful out here and people are not monitoring and trying to manipulate and control me. Those who enjoy being a cog in a ma…

You know, the dystopia in which I'm forced to share pictures of my newborn son with my family, and talk to friends on the other side of the country that I haven't seen for months, is better than pretty much any other dystopia I can imagine.

Re: Facebook is gaslighting the web. We can fix it.

#56

Post by barry-cotter »

redthrowaway wrote: post #9
ChuckMcM wrote: post #6

Cache link is essential, of course the term 'gaslighting' [1] may be common in some groups, it was new to me. The general theme is that Facebook is making changes which make the service benefit Facebook more and is less user friendly. I'm not sure it rises to the level of abuse implied by the term but that is clearly subjective. The 'answer' of course is to leave. I know, I know, "But all my friends are there!" or "N…

>(warning Wikipedia link) What's the warning for? If it's warning against being confronted with Jimbo's piercing gaze, that seems a bit snarky.

What's the warning for?

Same reason as TvTropes. Potential tab explosion/epic wasted time event.

Re: Facebook is gaslighting the web. We can fix it.

#57

Post by vijayr »

paganel wrote: post #14

If you believe FB is out-there trying to conquer and destroy the web then please don't use FB comments on your website.

This is the part I don't understand - last week there was an article about Salman Rushdie and FB. I doubt anything is going to change by complaining - FB is continuously going to do everything in its power to monetize and lock down it's users. Why not just stop using FB? May be I don't 'get' the importance of FB, but I think people can happily communicate with just email, phone and a bunch of other sites, which are less offensive than FB.

Re: Facebook is gaslighting the web. We can fix it.

#58

Post by podperson »

cft wrote: post #42
lbrandy wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You seem to be under a collection of interesting misapprehensions... 1. Google does warn in various ways when it detects possible badness. As it should. 2. We don't gate ALL links through such warnings. This can be verified by going to your news feed and clicking just about anything. 3. This is about a specific issue with notifications generated from comment widgets (a very common spam vector). 4. Detecting all badne…

>4. Detecting all badness via the domain name at "write-time" is not a sufficient solution to the malicious link problem. Doesn't Google has this problem too, that detecting badness at the "indexing time" is not a sufficient solution? The content of a site may change between their checks. No pop-ups are shown in between indexing times nevertheless. With your abuse reporting volume, you should be able to almost instan…

I can't believe I'm posting something that might be taken as defending Facebook but...

If a site appears to contain malicious content at time X but not at time Y than I would PREFER to be notified that it is a dubious site until the site has earned back trust in some way. Continuing to warn users about a site that historically contained badness seems to me to be a FEATURE.

Re: Facebook is gaslighting the web. We can fix it.

#60

Post by chc »

HalSF wrote: post #28
chc wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Thank you for expressing this so cogently and calmly. It's easy to get defensive when somebody starts flinging wild accusations like Anil does here, but informative and level-headed responses like this are much better at keeping the conversation on track.

It’s hardly calm and cogent — in fact it’s sort of a wild accusation — to describe a post as “flinging wild accusations” when it does nothing of the sort. Yes, Anil’s post is sharply argued and it’s definitely a polemical pushback against Facebook’s practice, but it’s a valuable part of the debate (especially with the added value of the comments below it), not a flame.

I don't see how you can describe the statements "Facebook is gaslighting the web"† and "Facebook has moved from merely being a walled garden into openly attacking its users' ability and willingness to navigate the rest of the web" as anything but wild accusations. You might argue that, as wild as they are, they're nonetheless true — but they are accusations and extreme ones at that.

I certainly feel that Anil's post could have benefited from at least a cursory application of Hanlon's razor.

† For those who don't know, the term "gaslighting" refers to a form of mental abuse where you undermine a person's confidence in their own perceptions and competence in order to retain their belief or loyalty. The typical example is an abusive husband who keeps his wife from leaving by making her feel like it's all her fault.

Post reply on HN