Isn't the biggest red flag of any privacy policy the ubiquitous "We can change this any way and any time we like, and you have no useful recourse."?
Red flags in the Threads privacy policy
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Re: Red flags in the Threads privacy policy
#12Isn't the biggest red flag of any privacy policy the ubiquitous "We can change this any way and any time we like, and you have no useful recourse."?
Always makes me think of this scene
https://tenor.com/view/darth-vader-alter-the-deal-empire-str...
Re: Red flags in the Threads privacy policy
#13Earlier quoted context omitted.
This reply is a good example of someone whose perspective is utterly locked in to their own perceived personal threat model (which may or may not accurately understand their own actual threats). This technology, they think, is perfectly acceptable according to their own sense of threats, so why isn't it good enough for literally everyone ? Other people's threat models are so unimaginable, so inconceivable that the co…
Is it too much to ask how, exactly, other apps safeguard this info? Allegedly, according to the App Store privacy declaration, mastodon collects no user content. Now how does that work? How does one post on a network that doesn't collect user content?
Mastodon doesn’t actively poll the operating system for data about you. You can input data (via posts) and that may be scanned by some system but you actively control all data that you choose to or not to share.
Threads polls just about every bit of data the operating system stores. E.g., on iOS threads reports that they collect data from the health app (“health and fitness”). If you are using the health app to store information about your health and body, Threads wants to get it straight from that app.
It’s not that it’s collecting data, it’s that it is asking for permission to passively collect data from other apps in the background (without you explicitly allowing it each time).
Re: Red flags in the Threads privacy policy
#14In my opinion, all the people complaining about privacy policies are barking up the wrong tree. As the saying goes in business, if you have to read the contract, you're already screwed. The reality is that the privacy policy will almost never be a determining factor in whether somebody will use a service. The Facebook haters on HN were never gonna use a Facebook product anyways, regardless of what the policy said, an…
Why should a social media app have access to the health data stored inside your phone? Why should we not be demanding laws to make this illegal?
Re: Red flags in the Threads privacy policy
#15Isn't the biggest red flag of any privacy policy the ubiquitous "We can change this any way and any time we like, and you have no useful recourse."?
Of course you have a recourse. You can choose not to use the service.
Unfortunately most people aren't willing to pay for websites and so the only successful model ends up being advertising driven.
Re: Red flags in the Threads privacy policy
#16In my opinion, all the people complaining about privacy policies are barking up the wrong tree. As the saying goes in business, if you have to read the contract, you're already screwed. The reality is that the privacy policy will almost never be a determining factor in whether somebody will use a service. The Facebook haters on HN were never gonna use a Facebook product anyways, regardless of what the policy said, an…
Why should a social media app have access to the health data stored inside your phone? Why should we not be demanding laws to make this illegal?
Which social media app has access to your phone's storage of health data? Certainly not the one that's the subject of this post.
Strava, a social media app for exercise, has selective access to "health" data about exercise stored on the phone, but that's the closest I can think of.
Re: Red flags in the Threads privacy policy
#17Man I hate these alarmist hit pieces. - "You cant delete Threads without deleting Instagram altogether": but you can deactivate it. What's the difference, and why do I care? Without including that info, you're useless. - "Threads collects sensitive personal information about you": How? Inferred from the things I post? Well I'll just not post those things. - "Threads collects data about your employment": Same. - "Thre…
" but you can deactivate it"
You actually can't deactivate your Instagram account. The deactivation feature doesn't do anything; they automatically reactivate your account immediately when you try to use it. It's fake.
This has been the case for several years and I can confirm this was still the case as of last week:
https://www.reddit.com/r/Instagram/comments/k0vxzk/my_instag...
Re: Red flags in the Threads privacy policy
#18If your problem is with the ownership of Twitter, I don’t understand why you would run from the arms of one wannabe cage-fighter into another’s. If your problem is with ethics, FB isn’t a beacon of good behavior. If your problem is getting rate-limited or losing your blue checkmark, I guess go wild, but you probably already loved Twitter too much to leave.
No my problem with Twitter is that the quality of the discourse is poor and getting worse every day.
Which is a direct result of Musk deciding to prioritise blue check comments over others. If you're having to pay to have people listen to you then that means you typically don't have something worth saying.
And we see this manifest in many ways e.g. pages of laughing emojis in response to a tweet.
Re: Red flags in the Threads privacy policy
#19In my opinion, all the people complaining about privacy policies are barking up the wrong tree. As the saying goes in business, if you have to read the contract, you're already screwed. The reality is that the privacy policy will almost never be a determining factor in whether somebody will use a service. The Facebook haters on HN were never gonna use a Facebook product anyways, regardless of what the policy said, an…
> a determining factor in whether somebody will use a service
Threads is currently not available in Europe because its privacy policy isn't compliant with EU law, that's literally what the article is about. We're not talking about individual choice here, or absolutists behind Tor. I don't understand what your post has to do with the topic. Clearly we have with privacy legislation at least accomplished that Meta must follow the rules or not operate here.
You're right that individual users agreeing with TOS's is meaningless, but we've been beyond that for years.
Re: Red flags in the Threads privacy policy
#20Earlier quoted context omitted.
Why should a social media app have access to the health data stored inside your phone? Why should we not be demanding laws to make this illegal?
Which social media app has access to your phone's storage of health data? Certainly not the one that's the subject of this post. Strava, a social media app for exercise, has selective access to "health" data about exercise stored on the phone, but that's the closest I can think of.
The App Store page for Threads lists “Health & Fitness” under the Analytics and App Functionality sections of App Privacy.
I am completely unfamiliar with what that implies or what access would actually be allowed, but I can see how that would raise concern.