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

Red flags in the Threads privacy policy

qz.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

41–50 of 263 posts

Re: Red flags in the Threads privacy policy

#41

Post by dylan604 »

threeseed wrote: post #15
l0b0 wrote: post #11

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."?

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.

you're skipping over the fact that any data that you shared under the previous agreement are now subject to the new agreement whether you agree to them or not. if they provided a way to nuke everything you've ever posted because you no longer agree to the new terms, that might be something to discuss.

Re: Red flags in the Threads privacy policy

#42

Post by nologic01 »

The adtech business model is predicated on the maximum invasion of privacy that is permitted by law (and the law has been quite accomodating of "innovation" in this space).

It is a necessary but thankless job to document how they get away with it. My pessimistic take is its not going to move the needle. There is a huge captive audience (the most likely users of threads are existing users of facebook and instagram) that has been socially engineered not to worry about privacy.

Internal cannibalism between surveillance capitalists aside, the true change will only come when authoritative bodies (public sector and other institutions) walk the talk, vocally refuse to use these platforms and throw their weight behind the fediverse.

Re: Red flags in the Threads privacy policy

#43

Post by burnished »

scythe wrote: post #26
tqi wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think we spend too much time and mental energy questioning other people's reasons for how they spend their free time.

You do realize the irony in that statement, correct?

This isn't ironic, they aren't questioning or otherwise probing motives

Re: Red flags in the Threads privacy policy

#44

Post by mellosouls »

Tbh if you are concerned about the privacy and ethics concerns here the biggest red flag is in the subtitle:

Meta's Twitter rival launched in over 100 countries today—but not in the EU

Anything more is simply detail - if a major launch of this sort of service omits the EU we immediately know exactly why.

Re: Red flags in the Threads privacy policy

#45

Post by wraptile »

e63f67dd-065b wrote: post #10
twobitshifter wrote: post #7

If 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.

It's not about any of those things, it's about just being a well-run internet service. Facebook is very good at running a big internet service that billions use, Twitter not so much under new management. A well-run internet service tries not to keep causing self-inflicted PR disasters. A well-run service is stable, consistently available, doesn't have a large amount of feature churn, and generally has stable leadersh…

can you define "well run"? As in "being a cause of a literal genocide because you couldn't bother to hire a single person to manage the country you're publishing your product in and take any actions to prevent the whole thing" or do we mean "making money" here?

Re: Red flags in the Threads privacy policy

#46

Post by MrVandemar »

jakear wrote: post #2

Man 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…

> - "Threads collects data about your employment": Same.

There are passive ways of doing this. If you take your phone someplace monday-friday, from 8:30 to 5pm, and you have geo-location turned on, it's a pretty good guess they know where you work, and your working hours, minnimum.

Re: Red flags in the Threads privacy policy

#47

Post by tedunangst »

twobitshifter wrote: post #7

If 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.

Zuck seems rather less likely to dig up one of my posts just to say "did your brain fall out" directing the attention of his 100m followers to then also dump on my post.

Re: Red flags in the Threads privacy policy

#48

Post by edandersen »

tedunangst wrote: post #47
twobitshifter wrote: post #7

If 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.

Zuck seems rather less likely to dig up one of my posts just to say "did your brain fall out" directing the attention of his 100m followers to then also dump on my post.

Sadly they copied the Quote Tweet function for Threads, when Mastodon mercifully didn't.

Re: Red flags in the Threads privacy policy

#49

Post by TylerE »

mellosouls wrote: post #44

Tbh if you are concerned about the privacy and ethics concerns here the biggest red flag is in the subtitle: Meta's Twitter rival launched in over 100 countries today—but not in the EU Anything more is simply detail - if a major launch of this sort of service omits the EU we immediately know exactly why.

Not sure I buy this. Some of the EU stuff is good, I think a lot of it goes to far and it's a terrible nightmare to navigate now, never mind in a decade when we're all using software that doesn't exist yet.

Re: Red flags in the Threads privacy policy

#50

Post by thelock85 »

e63f67dd-065b wrote: post #3

In 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…

This is true now, but over the long arc a paper trail of complaints lay groundwork for legal and political challenges. Historically that has been the meaningfulness of such busywork —no one cares today, but what if someone does in the future?

Now if you are saying there is no willpower to follow through over the long arc aka this fight is over and lost, then I disagree but could be wrong.

Post reply on HN