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Actual Facebook Graph Searches

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Re: Actual Facebook Graph Searches

#31

Post by psbp »

corporalagumbo wrote: post #21
GuiA wrote: post #5

With great power comes great responsibility. Companies such as Facebook and the like undoubtedly draw great power from their "social graph"; however, human interactions are subtle, complex, multifaceted and often contradictory. Nothing good can come out of applying dumb algorithms (that is, any algorithm) to a sufficiently rich "social graph"; it will always lead to situations like that which are, at best, embarrassi…

Really? Nothing good? From any algorithm at all? How can you be so sure? Amazon seems to do a pretty good job thinking up new stuff I might like with its algorithms, for one.

I don't think he's saying that at all. The insanity is trying to construct a platform that manifests a person's entire social life. I think there's a harsh combination of conflating business interests and disinterested, contrived people sorting that is potentially very, very bad.

Re: Actual Facebook Graph Searches

#32

Post by kefs »

stephengillie wrote: post #7
harlanlewis wrote: post #3

Consider: “Family members of people who live in China and like Falun Gong”. And: ”When users recognize or fear that their privacy or confidentiality is compromised, true freedom of inquiry no longer exists.” - American Library Association, http://www.ala.org/Template.cfm?Section=interpretations&...

Where's the EFF Panopticlick for your FB likes? To tell you how well you stick out or blend in with the crowd? (though blending in with the crowd is just security through obscurity...) A couple days ago someone was asking for an automated FB deliker app/service, to automatically unlike everything you've like d on FB.

Exfoliate for Android (which stopped working for me after timeline, but i haven't retried since)

http://www.exfoliateapp.com/

https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.worb.andro...

Re: Actual Facebook Graph Searches

#33

Post by batiudrami »

newman314 wrote: post #22
corporalagumbo wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Really? Nothing good? From any algorithm at all? How can you be so sure? Amazon seems to do a pretty good job thinking up new stuff I might like with its algorithms, for one.

Try an Amazon account which is shared with family members. Amazon thinks I like electronics, Hello Kitty and bows.

Well, that's hardly Amazon's fault, it is?

Re: Actual Facebook Graph Searches

#34

Post by corporalagumbo »

CoffeeDregs wrote: post #27
GuiA wrote: post #5

With great power comes great responsibility. Companies such as Facebook and the like undoubtedly draw great power from their "social graph"; however, human interactions are subtle, complex, multifaceted and often contradictory. Nothing good can come out of applying dumb algorithms (that is, any algorithm) to a sufficiently rich "social graph"; it will always lead to situations like that which are, at best, embarrassi…

Wow. When Graph Searches were announced, I thought "meh, I'm tired of FB...". I never thought to explore what Graph Searches actually meant . And I would never have done so or will do so, but I'm very glad that someone has investigated the system. >it will always lead to situations like that which are [bad] I wonder if there isn't some definition analogous to "Turing complete" for social graphs? i.e. with a sufficien…

Zuckerberg thinks people complain about privacy because they're old-fashioned and scared of the future. He thinks in the future we're all going to be extremely open, share shit all the time, aaaand basically the whole world is going to be one big chat room where people don't really hide things any more.

Personally I think he's probably right. It has shades of that old totalitarian argument, 'why should you be worried about privacy if you don't have anything to hide?' but hopefully it'll be a little more... forgiving than that.

Re: Actual Facebook Graph Searches

#35

Post by psbp »

potatolicious wrote: post #25
GuiA wrote: post #5

With great power comes great responsibility. Companies such as Facebook and the like undoubtedly draw great power from their "social graph"; however, human interactions are subtle, complex, multifaceted and often contradictory. Nothing good can come out of applying dumb algorithms (that is, any algorithm) to a sufficiently rich "social graph"; it will always lead to situations like that which are, at best, embarrassi…

> "Nothing good can come out of applying dumb algorithms (that is, any algorithm) to a sufficiently rich "social graph"" These aren't algorithms. This is a search engine - what you put into it is up to you. It can be anywhere from the silliness seen in the link, to "friends who live in London" before you take a trip. This is just handing people another tool - the uses, and misuses, of said tool are entirely on the us…

This tool is part of a much larger machine that may actually affect society more than it serves it.

Re: Actual Facebook Graph Searches

#36

Post by corporalagumbo »

______ wrote: post #8

It's ironic -- the "anonymization" technique of pixelating the image and blanking the names doesn't really work anymore: one can easily just search by the other attributes to find the people again, there is enough entropy in that data.

That's true. I do consider it polite though not to display their names openly on the site. It gives these people a chance to change their preferences and hide from future searches for instance.

Interesting concept... showing courtesy for strangers you find in search results...

Re: Actual Facebook Graph Searches

#37

Post by psbp »

corporalagumbo wrote: post #34
CoffeeDregs wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wow. When Graph Searches were announced, I thought "meh, I'm tired of FB...". I never thought to explore what Graph Searches actually meant . And I would never have done so or will do so, but I'm very glad that someone has investigated the system. >it will always lead to situations like that which are [bad] I wonder if there isn't some definition analogous to "Turing complete" for social graphs? i.e. with a sufficien…

Zuckerberg thinks people complain about privacy because they're old-fashioned and scared of the future. He thinks in the future we're all going to be extremely open, share shit all the time, aaaand basically the whole world is going to be one big chat room where people don't really hide things any more. Personally I think he's probably right. It has shades of that old totalitarian argument, 'why should you be worried…

Zuckerberg hopes that we're open to facebook*

I don't see all this "open" information, because I don't have a facebook account.

Re: Actual Facebook Graph Searches

#38

Post by corporalagumbo »

psbp wrote: post #35
potatolicious wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> "Nothing good can come out of applying dumb algorithms (that is, any algorithm) to a sufficiently rich "social graph"" These aren't algorithms. This is a search engine - what you put into it is up to you. It can be anywhere from the silliness seen in the link, to "friends who live in London" before you take a trip. This is just handing people another tool - the uses, and misuses, of said tool are entirely on the us…

This tool is part of a much larger machine that may actually affect society more than it serves it.

What exactly do you mean by that?

Re: Actual Facebook Graph Searches

#39

Post by [deleted] »

unreal37 wrote: post #17
electic wrote: post #6

This is bad news all around. It is likely a huge percentage of searches performed by people will not enrich lives but most people will use it to mine out insights that others don't wish to be publicized. Can you imagine people being rounded up in China over this and put into prisons over their "like".

They don't have Facebook in the Great Firewall of China. And if they DID, people there wouldn't be liking Falun Gong. It's a bogus example.

[deleted]

Re: Actual Facebook Graph Searches

#40

Post by achompas »

GuiA wrote: post #5

With great power comes great responsibility. Companies such as Facebook and the like undoubtedly draw great power from their "social graph"; however, human interactions are subtle, complex, multifaceted and often contradictory. Nothing good can come out of applying dumb algorithms (that is, any algorithm) to a sufficiently rich "social graph"; it will always lead to situations like that which are, at best, embarrassi…

Nothing good can come out of applying dumb algorithms (that is, any algorithm) to a sufficiently rich "social graph"; it will always lead to situations like that which are, at best, embarrassing, and at worst, dangerous, for whoever is in the system.

What does this even mean? The "dumb algorithm" here will (a) take a user's query and (b) search that user's friends and public profiles for hits on that query. What's next: shouting about the robots taking over? Lamenting about how we're all losing our humanity and man weren't things better back in the old days?

I'm really disappointed this is the top comment on HN's top post. Users identified by Graph Search have public accounts and have willingly entered personal information into Facebook. We go thorough this song-and-dance every year: FB updates security policies, everyone is up in arms, then -- gasp! -- everyone updates their security settings. Facebook has a clear transaction with users: build a profile, get sold as eyeballs to advertisers. If you don't like it, then quit.

"With great power comes great responsibility," indeed. People have received numerous warnings about Facebook and privacy, and yet they've chosen to share personal information with everyone they know. At this point the user is responsible for choosing to participate or drop out. Meanwhile, every third HN post includes a commenter, wagging their finger, reminding us in a nasally, know-it-all voice that we're not the customer if we're not paying.

Is Graph Search really that shocking to you--to anyone on HN? Why the hell is anyone up in arms about this in 2013, given what we know about social networks?

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