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Red flags in the Threads privacy policy

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Re: Red flags in the Threads privacy policy

#201

Post by AtNightWeCode »

impulser_ wrote: post #151
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.

I would bet over 95% of companies don't comply with GDPR. I know some startups don't serve EU because of this. Facebook is under the microscope of the EU, they probably aren't risking getting fined until they can scale the product and implement the thing they need to lower the fine they would get and make being fined worth it. They are going to get fined most likely, but again 95% of the companies in the world could…

It is not that difficult for most startups to be mostly GDPR compliant. At least not in comparison with trying to fix it later. In some business areas local law and GDPR clashes though which can be a pain.

Re: Red flags in the Threads privacy policy

#202

Post by that_guy_iain »

superq wrote: post #195
Keirmot wrote: post #173

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Let me give my 2 cents as an EU citizen. The way I see it is a mix of all of that, but number 3 is the biggest. Twitter is not big here. There’s people who use it, sure, but there’s a reason you don’t see that many EU issue trending on Twitter. Here’s an example out of the top of my head: France is rioting and it barely registered on Twitter. The biggest European market for Twitter is the UK and it has 19M users, the…

> France is rioting Your point is well taken, and if anything that's a significant understatement. This is one of the most significant protests (or nearly civil war) to occur in France since the Revolution. > and it barely registered on Twitter. Indeed. I saw videos of what was happening in Wuhan in late 2019, but tbh it was mostly linked by comments on (where else) HN, so I may not have discovered it via Twitter's o…

> Your point is well taken, and if anything that's a significant understatement. This is one of the most significant protests (or nearly civil war) to occur in France since the Revolution.

As someone from Europe who isn't French. It's just another France rioting story. It might be big in France but for the rest of us, it's just looks like another France rioting story which they were doing for the past few months.

It's not just that it's barely registering on Twitter, it's barely registering anywhere because lots of us are just so used to France rioting that it's not really news. It's like mass shootings in the US. I think there was a new one over 4th July holiday period but I am not 100% sure because we're so numb to mass shootings out of the US. They need to do something super wtf like have the police stand outside a classroom while a school shooter is shooting children for us to register.

Re: Red flags in the Threads privacy policy

#203

Post by Silhouette »

jen20 wrote: post #192
Silhouette wrote: post #164

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How are you going to "fix" that "design flaw" when the personal data in question is the result of legally required customer age checks? Evidence needed to support your tax filings? Used to identify and block people who are repeatedly trying to defraud you or breach your security? Subject to a legal hold because it might provide relevant evidence in some legal action between other parties or it's been requested as evi…

> How are you going to "fix" that "design flaw" when the personal data in question is the result of legally required customer age checks? Evidence needed to support your tax filings? This kind of wilfully ignorant argument is extremely tedious and indicative of the fact that you do not understand the actual construction of the GDPR, or choose to misrepresent it. Let’s put this nonsense to bed once and for all by quot…

This kind of wilfully ignorant argument

This is HN. Please don't post comments with that sort of hostile tone here. Assuming ignorance and/or bad faith does not further constructive or interesting discussion.

Re: Red flags in the Threads privacy policy

#204

Post by AtNightWeCode »

superq wrote: post #196
impulser_ wrote: post #151

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I would bet over 95% of companies don't comply with GDPR. I know some startups don't serve EU because of this. Facebook is under the microscope of the EU, they probably aren't risking getting fined until they can scale the product and implement the thing they need to lower the fine they would get and make being fined worth it. They are going to get fined most likely, but again 95% of the companies in the world could…

What's interesting about the GDPR is that it's ambiguous and vague and it seems like " we're ok with that ", whereas in the U.S. ambiguity works against the legislators because a court is supposed to rule on the side of the defense if a law is too vague. In the EU, it's basically expected that the courts will apply the law on a case-by-case basis, which opens the door to inconsistent application of the law and ultima…

What I don't understand is why products like Facebook and Google Analytics (up to 3?) ship PII to US. The owners have data centers in EU and should be able to process the data enough for it to be OK to send to US.

Re: Red flags in the Threads privacy policy

#205

Post by 3cats-in-a-coat »

Levitz wrote: post #182
WinstonSmith84 wrote: post #165

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> interesting to see a big international company actually back up their "we just won't do europe then" that's the most interesting things to me. Whether: 1- Threads is dead in the water 2- They figure it out and makes the EU happy 3- EU is irrelevant enough to be ignored 2- still looks like the most likely 1- would be very embarrassing and 3- would be, indeed, an "interesting" development.

What is the EU missing out on if Threads never enters it though? I don't believe Facebook, Instagram, Tik Tok or Twitter were net gains for people. I don't see how Threads might be. I do honestly believe that if all these services disappeared overnight we would live in a better world. I legit just don't want Threads to enter the EU, ever.

EU is not an arbiter of which particular business it likes or doesn't like. It's not Russia.

Re: Red flags in the Threads privacy policy

#206

Post by blitzar »

KaiserPro wrote: post #172

This level of scrutiny is really excellent. Now we need to apply it to other companies working in the same space. There is a serious lesson for startups though, if you actively start collecting data, you will, if you survive long enough, begin to have to declare what data you have when you "grow up". For example, if you do anything with photos, you will have to ask for permissions to process location data. even if yo…

Worst. Rant. Ever.

> Scary people hoovering up data - they will and do monetise it

> Is threads (Facebook) actually setting out to hoover that data? I doubt it

So Facebook is the noble player; Twitter, Google, Apple, TikTok the bad guys ... Mark Zuckerberg isnt going to buy you a horse for your efforts.

"they trust me, dumb fucks"

Re: Red flags in the Threads privacy policy

#207

Post by [deleted] »

3cats-in-a-coat wrote: post #134
3cats-in-a-coat wrote: post #130

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Don't jump to conclusions. They're likely not launching in EU because EU requires user data be stored in EU, and their current launch stack is hosted elsewhere, look at this datacenter map of Meta: https://datacenters.atmeta.com/ They're mostly in the US, and most outside the EU. Given the record timeline from concept to launch for this app, it's normal they can't whip up a datacenter from nothing overnight.

I find it odd that I'm downvoted. Is the information I stated incorrect? Or simply doesn't align with the narrative in this thread of bashing Meta? I'm simply trying to stay objective. Facebook is as intrusive as it can be, even more than Threads can be I'd say. And it's running fine in EU. So, let's not ignore facts.

[deleted]

Re: Red flags in the Threads privacy policy

#208

Post by that_guy_iain »

3cats-in-a-coat wrote: post #205
Levitz wrote: post #182

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What is the EU missing out on if Threads never enters it though? I don't believe Facebook, Instagram, Tik Tok or Twitter were net gains for people. I don't see how Threads might be. I do honestly believe that if all these services disappeared overnight we would live in a better world. I legit just don't want Threads to enter the EU, ever.

EU is not an arbiter of which particular business it likes or doesn't like. It's not Russia.

It can make particular businesses not profitable or even possible. Which is basically the issue for Threads at the moment.

Re: Red flags in the Threads privacy policy

#209

Post by _cenw »

Silhouette wrote: post #203
jen20 wrote: post #192

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> How are you going to "fix" that "design flaw" when the personal data in question is the result of legally required customer age checks? Evidence needed to support your tax filings? This kind of wilfully ignorant argument is extremely tedious and indicative of the fact that you do not understand the actual construction of the GDPR, or choose to misrepresent it. Let’s put this nonsense to bed once and for all by quot…

This kind of wilfully ignorant argument This is HN. Please don't post comments with that sort of hostile tone here. Assuming ignorance and/or bad faith does not further constructive or interesting discussion.

I absolutely agree though, this argument is extremely weak, like a developer being asked to step outside their comfort zone locking up and declaring something unknowable levels of complexity so they don't even have to try.

The GDPR is extremely easy to understand. It's not always trivial to comply with, because we all know that enterprises are held together with instant glue, a networking VM in a basement nobody has logged in to for 10 years, at least 3 layers of management between a DPO and feature teams and one all-knowing employee everyone hopes will never leave or take too much vacation because things will slowly crumble in their absence. It's pretty hard to be absolutely compliant in that environment. But if you're a startup, or even solo? You can absolutely design your app to not have these issues in the first place.

Re: Red flags in the Threads privacy policy

#210

Post by deelowe »

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.

> if a major launch of this sort of service omits the EU we immediately know exactly why.

Yeah, because implementing compliance features takes time and they likely opted to launch early instead.

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