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Facebook Is Using You

nytimes.com

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Re: Facebook Is Using You

#51

Post by true_religion »

Somehow I feel this article hasn't gone through an editor.

Here are a few examples:

> In Europe, laws give people the right to know what data companies have about them, but that is not the case in the United States.

This sentence primes the audience for a discussion of the laws, but that anticipation is never fulfilled. The article jumps to a new topic immediately.

> Ads that pop up on your screen might seem useful, or at worst, a nuisance. But they are much more than that. The bits and bytes about your life can easily be used against you. Whether you can obtain a job, credit or insurance can be based on your digital doppelgänger — and you may never know why you’ve been turned down.

Yes advertising uses the same 'bits and bytes' about your life to determine targeted ads, but you can't co-mingle the idea of advertising and the drastic case of being turned down on insurance because of a Facebook posting you made.

The premise of the article is that Facebook uses you, in that they use your personal data. It's true, but they use your data for advertisement and not for the other more troubling purposes the article talks about.

The author appears to want to set up a slippery slope argument by saying that simply because a market exists for personal data beyond advertising, then Facebook will either (a) sell their corpus to those companies that already provide the service or (b) start providing those services themselves.

It's possible, but there's no evidence suggesting that it is occurring already or is likely to occur in the future---businesses don't enter new industries merely because they can; there's always a cost to diversifying and for Facebook the cost of selling user-data to let employers make hiring decisions is the loss of their dominance in social networking. Once its known that the information you give you Facebook can be used for more than advertising, people likely will stop giving that information. Facebook can make a one-time sale, but loses on the chance to continue reaping ad-profits.

Why would they kill their cash-cow and core business just for dubious short-term gain?

Re: Facebook Is Using You

#52

Post by naner »

spodek wrote: post #4

This is what Freedombox is for (also Diaspora). Freedombox is one of the few projects I make time to contribute to. I'm surprised it isn't one of the more popular projects among this community. Anyway, here are some links and background if you aren't familiar with it. From http://freedomboxfoundation.org and http://freedomboxfoundation.org/learn What is FreedomBox? Email and telecommunications that protects privacy a…

I'm surprised it isn't one of the more popular projects among this community.

You shouldn't be. My values align roughly with that of the freedombox creators/developers but I can easily see this will have poorer adoption than other well-intentioned technology like PGP or gNewSense.

If you want a project of this nature to see widespread use it will have to be fun, usable, and pretty.

Re: Facebook Is Using You

#53

Post by true_religion »

jscottmiller wrote: post #6
blauwbilgorgel wrote: post #3

I don't see that many merits in the views expressed in this article. You are using Facebook, and Facebook is using you and your data. "Using you" has a negative connotation, like a bad relationship. So what does Facebook do to "use you"? It shows tailored advertisements. By that standard, nearly every commercial entity on the web is "using you". The article continues with non-Facebook-specific privacy issues, mostly…

Your example of the profile picture misses the larger issue - this data is not perfect and people have natural biases in their judgement. Does the situation change if the employer based her discrimination claim on stated relationship status or sexual orientation (illegally, yes)? What if that status is based not on overt information, but on your friends and relationship status? This kind of discrimination is difficul…

In the US, I don't think its illegal at the federal level to discriminate on sexual orientation. Some states though have laws granting protection.

Re: Facebook Is Using You

#54

Post by polynomial »

Reading the Times' headline I can't help thinking of the grammatical difference between 'use' and 'utilize', which turns on what the intended purpose of the object is.

Which of course raises the question, what is the intended purpose of a facebook user…?

Re: Facebook Is Using You

#56

Post by dreamdu5t »

I find it perverted that people are angry about Facebook but illegal warrantless mass surveillance of every citizen in the US doesn't generate a comparable outcry.

Facebook does nothing to violate your privacy. The FBI intentionally spying on you without your consent or knowledge IS a violation of privacy.

Re: Facebook Is Using You

#57

Post by dreamdu5t »

edderly wrote: post #13

The simplest opt-in/out I think would be satisfactory would be to limit the amount of data they can associate with me to an arbitrary time period (six months sounds about right). I think there has to be a price to pay from the data aggregator side if they want information associated with my 'real' identity.

Facebook is opt-in/opt-out. You don't have to create an account and start adding a bunch of personal information to it.

If you're actually concerned about people destroying your data after six months, why are you giving it to people lacking such an agreement?

Re: Facebook Is Using You

#58

Post by jfmercer »

In an information economy, a data mine has the same value that an oil, iron, or coal mine has in an industrial economy. The great data aggregators--Facebook, Google, Twitter, et al.--will be the robber barons of the information economy because they own-and therefore control access to-the data mines.

Re: Facebook Is Using You

#59

Post by edderly »

dreamdu5t wrote: post #57
edderly wrote: post #13

The simplest opt-in/out I think would be satisfactory would be to limit the amount of data they can associate with me to an arbitrary time period (six months sounds about right). I think there has to be a price to pay from the data aggregator side if they want information associated with my 'real' identity.

Facebook is opt-in/opt-out. You don't have to create an account and start adding a bunch of personal information to it. If you're actually concerned about people destroying your data after six months, why are you giving it to people lacking such an agreement?

Yes at a simple level you're right, but you could use the same argument about lots of things, for example I could opt-out of using the Internet but that should not give ISPs carte blanche with my personal data.

As to your question, I use FB fairly cautiously and I'd also rather not exclude myself from a social forum which friends prefer to use.

What I'm suggesting is a simple compromise, rather than give social networks an unlimited license to my data I'm happy to give them a more limited one.

Re: Facebook Is Using You

#60

Post by screwt »

meterplech wrote: post #24

I think this is a terrible headline that masks an interesting philosophical debate. Especially at this community, we feel we intuitively understand that we get the convenience and social value from Facebook for $0, and we pay in our personal data they use to serve up advertisements. That to me is hardly newsworthy and a relatively uninteresting piece. But- there is an interesting question in what is an appropriate us…

NYT's target audience is not HN. I think many people who use FB don't realise there are any privacy issues under consideration, and I think it's good that the NYT is pointing them out.

While I'd expect most HNers to have made a conscious choice whether to trade their data for FB service or not, that's not something I expect regular users to do (I think they should, but that's another matter).

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