Mad at Meta? Don't Let Them Collect and Monetize Your Personal Data • Hacker News Board

Re: Mad at Meta? Don't Let Them Collect and Monetize Your Personal Data

#91

Post by ffsm8 » Fri, Feb 07, 2025, 3:57 PM UTC

SapporoChris wrote: post #83

ffsm8 wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not nonsense. Meta will have a shadow profile of pretty much everyone, wherever the person in question is blocking their trackers or not. It's still a good idea to block them, because it will reduce the amount of information they'll have about you, making their shadow profile less useful Nonetheless, Meta knows you exist and will almost certainly be able to tell some things about you

"What can I do, under US law, to minimize what they store about me and my behavior, or at least keep tabs on them?" "...Nothing" "Nonsense, and the article addresses this. 'Block Meta’s Trackers' The parent said nothing could be done. I say that's nonsense and listed a thing that could be done. You respond it's not nonsense and then list the same thing I mentioned. I am very confused by your thought process.

I can see where you're coming from.

I'll be honest, when I read the initial comment I interpreted his question to be closer to

"stop Meta from collecting my data to a meaningful degree"

vs how you've interpreted it -

"reduce the amount of data Meta tracks even if only marginally"

That's why the response saying "nothing" made sense to me, because blocking the trackers only has such a minor effect on Metas tracking.

Re: Mad at Meta? Don't Let Them Collect and Monetize Your Personal Data

#92

Post by ChicagoDave » Fri, Feb 07, 2025, 7:36 PM UTC

akimbostrawman wrote: post #67

ChicagoDave wrote: post #8

MalwareBytes browser extension. Blocks all the shite. Mobile version too.

So instead of meta getting your browsing data, your AV gets your whole PC data that they will sell too.

According to Malwarebytes' privacy policy, they do not track user location information and only collect minimal data necessary for functionality, like license key validation, and do not store or track your online activity when using their VPN service, prioritizing user privacy; however, they may collect anonymized data for improving their software through analytics.

Re: Mad at Meta? Don't Let Them Collect and Monetize Your Personal Data

#93

Post by averageRoyalty » Fri, Feb 07, 2025, 9:45 PM UTC

oefnak wrote: post #86

the_gipsy wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not solution to the network problem, but you can bridge/puppet Whatsapp, Instagram, telegram, to matrix.org.

How can you bridge WhatsApp to matrix? Can you still send pictures?

https://github.com/mautrix/whatsapp

Have a look at ROADMAP.md, but the short answer is yes.

Re: Mad at Meta? Don't Let Them Collect and Monetize Your Personal Data

#94

Post by averageRoyalty » Fri, Feb 07, 2025, 9:49 PM UTC

Yizahi wrote: post #78

mikae1 wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As a Swede, the Amazon comment is funny. They came here perhaps two years ago and everybody I know agrees they suck and can not compete with our local alternatives. They're not cheaper and the website is an utter mess of auto translations and dark patterns. Order flash storage and pray it's not counterfeit. We use Prisjakt[1] to compare prices and price history between shops. About Google... Yes, YouTube is hard for…

I'm reasonably sure that if you will block every single Amazon owned address at your entry firewall, a majority of the apps or sites will stop working for you. That's what is implied by saying that it is not possible to avoid Google, Amazon and either one of the MS or Apple.

I've never seen anything indicating that AWS does any level of user level tracking of people who access the instrastructure it sells on, have you?

I understand AWS is part of Amazon, but I think in the context of this discussion they're quite fairlt being treated as isolated companies.

Re: Mad at Meta? Don't Let Them Collect and Monetize Your Personal Data

#95

Post by handoflixue » Fri, Feb 07, 2025, 10:53 PM UTC

bitcurious wrote: post #89

handoflixue wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Can you provide examples? I don't feel like opting out of data collection is a very good example there. I definitely feel like the ACLU took a turn for the worse in that direction a few years ago. I'll be sad if the EFF is also headed that direction - they've struck me as one of the only ones that's still willing to stand on principle

In this very post, the EFF premise is that you are upset about Meta’s shift to less censorship. Meta’s new policies are a win for free speech.

There's a huge difference between "acknowledging other people are upset" and "actively advocating against freedom of speech".

Re: Mad at Meta? Don't Let Them Collect and Monetize Your Personal Data

#96

Post by SapporoChris » Sat, Feb 08, 2025, 4:04 AM UTC

ffsm8 wrote: post #91

SapporoChris wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"What can I do, under US law, to minimize what they store about me and my behavior, or at least keep tabs on them?" "...Nothing" "Nonsense, and the article addresses this. 'Block Meta’s Trackers' The parent said nothing could be done. I say that's nonsense and listed a thing that could be done. You respond it's not nonsense and then list the same thing I mentioned. I am very confused by your thought process.

I can see where you're coming from. I'll be honest, when I read the initial comment I interpreted his question to be closer to "stop Meta from collecting my data to a meaningful degree" vs how you've interpreted it - "reduce the amount of data Meta tracks even if only marginally" That's why the response saying "nothing" made sense to me, because blocking the trackers only has such a minor effect on Metas tracking.

Thank you for explaining, I appreciate it. I could see we were talking past each other, but I wasn't sure how.

Re: Mad at Meta? Don't Let Them Collect and Monetize Your Personal Data

#97

Post by Gormo » Sun, Feb 09, 2025, 5:02 PM UTC

jimmydoe wrote: post #27

Gormo wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The only way that the ever-growing risks inherent in being dependent on centralized platforms will ever be addressed is for "non tech people" to start learning about tech. There is no way to reconcile "I want to trust other people to do things I don't understand but are critically important to me" with "I don't want to allow third parties to have control over things that are critically important to me. You can neithe…

. The society is holding together by some level of trust others. Over emphasize individual self dependence is not helpful IMO. But instead of trust the big platform, we can go back trust people near you in the real world. As the more technical person in a small community, we all holds responsibility to help out.

> The society is holding together by some level of trust others. Over emphasize individual self dependence is not helpful IMO.

The maintenance of social trust is entirely conditional on the ease with which people can revoke it or transfer it to others. The ability to exercise the right of exit is the primary thing that mitigates fiduciary risk and allows trust between individuals to be established. Society is a network of relations among individuals, and it only exists as a consequence of people exercising individual autonomy.

People having the means to do things for themselves in a pinch is precisely what enables them to trust others without fear of being abused.

Re: Mad at Meta? Don't Let Them Collect and Monetize Your Personal Data

#98

Post by Gormo » Sun, Feb 09, 2025, 5:08 PM UTC

k310 wrote: post #33

Gormo wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The only way that the ever-growing risks inherent in being dependent on centralized platforms will ever be addressed is for "non tech people" to start learning about tech. There is no way to reconcile "I want to trust other people to do things I don't understand but are critically important to me" with "I don't want to allow third parties to have control over things that are critically important to me. You can neithe…

Having been involved with personal computing from its inception, I believe that companies made computers difficult to use for whatever reasons, be they catering to “power users”, business or just plain inattention to the non-techie user. Apple was better in this respect, but in recent times, has vast mysteries. I have written up how to save tabs in ios Safari and (this is real good) how to convert a webp file to jpg…

> I believe that companies made computers difficult to use for whatever reasons, be they catering to “power users”, business or just plain inattention to the non-techie user.

I don't think that's quite accurate. "Power users" are simply the users who bothered to learn how computers work. Dumbing technology down to the level of people who couldn't be be so bothered is precisely what's lead to all of the centralization and abuse. It's also diminished the value of the technology itself, since simplifying user interfaces to a level that fails to express the inherent complexity of the system makes its full functionality inaccessible.

Trying to make things "easy" leads to making them less powerful, less adaptable to the needs of the user, and less accessible and responsive to users who do care to learn how they work. At the end of the day, there's simply no way to attain the full value of technology without significant risk exposure if you don't put at least a little time and effort into understanding it.

Re: Mad at Meta? Don't Let Them Collect and Monetize Your Personal Data

#99

Post by bjelkeman-again » Sun, Feb 09, 2025, 10:58 PM UTC

amatecha wrote: post #50

bjelkeman-again wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So how do I make my mom do this? /s Seriously, even I would have to spend a day or two to figure this out. We need something simple for 99.99% of people to use.

Yeah, my point is that toggling some settings in Facebook won't do much of anything if you don't want to be tracked by these scumbags. I mean, regardless, your mom doesn't have to do anything if you swap her crappy ISP-provided router with a new router running opnsense or pfsense (and a bit of configuration to block the Meta-related domains). Entire households can become Meta-free with a single hardware swap. It does…

I get it. A lot of people on HN seem to think every family has a tech nerd in it to do this. I’d rather we had spa consume solution for it. But I suspect we’ll never get there.

Re: Mad at Meta? Don't Let Them Collect and Monetize Your Personal Data

#100

Post by k310 » Mon, Feb 10, 2025, 6:11 AM UTC

Gormo wrote: post #98

k310 wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Having been involved with personal computing from its inception, I believe that companies made computers difficult to use for whatever reasons, be they catering to “power users”, business or just plain inattention to the non-techie user. Apple was better in this respect, but in recent times, has vast mysteries. I have written up how to save tabs in ios Safari and (this is real good) how to convert a webp file to jpg…

> I believe that companies made computers difficult to use for whatever reasons, be they catering to “power users”, business or just plain inattention to the non-techie user. I don't think that's quite accurate. "Power users" are simply the users who bothered to learn how computers work. Dumbing technology down to the level of people who couldn't be be so bothered is precisely what's lead to all of the centralization…

I remember when "power users" were the ones who wrote reviews (free publicity). The classic story is Jerry Pournelle, who started writing but became hooked on personal computers themselves, and I would read his stories of the evolving hardware and software. It became clear that vendors would feed him new products so that they could score in the articles he wrote. [0]

> Along the way, he began to write, but wasn’t able to publish. “I became an aerospace engineer, not a professional writer”

> “I paid Tony Pietsch to build me the best machine he could, and paid him $12,000 all told,” Pournelle noted. The computer ran a program called Electric Pencil, the first word processing program for home computers, which had been released just the year before. Pournelle later began using a program that Pietsch programmed, which offered some improvements over Electric Pencil.

> Authors saw the potential immediately. “Larry Niven saw my system, loved it, and had Tony Pietsch build him two of them,” Pournelle recalled. When he later threw a party at his home, a number of other authors “saw my system and wanted one. Greg Benford got Tony to build him a copy, and several others got Tony to find them someone local to them who’d do it for them.” The race to adopt the PC was on.

IIRC, he tired of becoming a computer reviewer. It was a long time ago, and old copies of Byte Magazine are online.[1] I think it was Byte. Old timers (make that microcomputer pioneers) can correct me if I remembered this poorly.

[0] https://www.kirkusreviews.com/news-and-features/articles/jer...

[1] https://archive.org/details/byte-magazine

P.S. I was one of those power hungry types and got into Unix in a serious way around the time of the Mac Classic/Plus. The Mac won on fontography, Unix on insane productivity. I would reduce data, and write reports with data plots in a couple of days while the personal computer users took a week. grap, pic, troff.