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Actual Facebook Graph Searches

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Re: Actual Facebook Graph Searches

#121

Post by onedev »

crowhack wrote: post #93
MrMan wrote: post #90

I am scared to death of FaceBook and Graph Search is the last straw I am immediately deactivating my account.

Just did the same. I've had enough of being used.

You realize graph search only utilizes information that YOU make available.

Why did you make that data available? Do you not want others to see it? If you didn't, then why did you put it out there for others to see?

Also, you know that privacy controls are taken into account right? So if you don't make certain data available to certain people, you don't show up in searches for those people....

I think you're being a bit irrational when you say that you're "being used".

Re: Actual Facebook Graph Searches

#122

Post by ladzoppelin »

MrMan wrote: post #90

I am scared to death of FaceBook and Graph Search is the last straw I am immediately deactivating my account.

It completely blows my mind. I am totally confused as to what Facebook does for people for them to take this stuff on a monthly basis. As for this new search: What happens when people pop up on this search even when they have nothing in common with the question being asked? I really might my family to deactivate for a while at least until this thing is better understood.

Re: Actual Facebook Graph Searches

#123

Post by joe_the_user »

achompas wrote: post #40
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 ne…

"Is Graph Search really that shocking to you--to anyone on HN?"

Are serial killers who actually kill people really shocking to people? Well, the answer to that question depends a lot on how much you let its framing determine your thinking, right?

Sure, I too, personally, don't share anything personally identifying on FB, in violation of FB and G+'s TOS BTW. But all those naive people, they walked through the door, they didn't see the samurai behind the door and pow, what do they expect? They won't be play in the Seven Samurai now. Why should we Samurai give a heck about them morons? Well, there are some reasons, starting with the fact that we have personal relations, with non-Samurai.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seven_Samurai

"Again we are defeated," Kambei muses. "The winners are those farmers. Not us."

Re: Actual Facebook Graph Searches

#124

Post by corporalagumbo »

fusiongyro wrote: post #110
corporalagumbo wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think by 'silliness' he's referring to "Girls who live nearby who are single and like Getting drunk!" Fair call in my opinion. I made this point in another post: the take-away from this link shouldn't be how bad it was of Facebook to not realise that making available powerful search tools for already-public data might put some people in an unfortunate spotlight. The real take-away is that we shouldn't live in a wor…

This isn't an opportunity for wishful thinking. Read about what's happened to Walid Husayin, a Palestinian man from the West Bank, since blogging openly about being an atheist: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Walid_Husayin All the stuff he's gone through—death threats, imprisonment, torture—has been for the sole "crime" of apostasy. This graph search is going to enable sadists to lower their bar for finding victims from…

I can see your point. I'm not saying it's a pleasant prospect to consider. I do consider these sorts of things inevitable teething pains of a one-way process though. Perhaps that seems a little harsh.

Re: Actual Facebook Graph Searches

#126

Post by angersock »

rogerchucker wrote: post #107
angersock wrote: post #65

Well, the consumers wanted it, right? Props to giving the people what they want! (also for having such wonderful inventory management!)

Are you intentionally being dense? Where is the data that showed "consumers wanted it"?

I don't have it, but I assume you could look for people that "like" the Graph feature on Facebook. :)

Re: Actual Facebook Graph Searches

#127

Post by batiudrami »

ladzoppelin wrote: post #122
MrMan wrote: post #90

I am scared to death of FaceBook and Graph Search is the last straw I am immediately deactivating my account.

It completely blows my mind. I am totally confused as to what Facebook does for people for them to take this stuff on a monthly basis. As for this new search: What happens when people pop up on this search even when they have nothing in common with the question being asked? I really might my family to deactivate for a while at least until this thing is better understood.

Events and photo sharing. No other service has enough of my friends on it to be an event planning service. Email doesn't cut it as there's no collaboration at all (and I don't even have most of their email addresses!).

Then there's photo sharing - back in the day (before multiple photo upload on Myspace) my friend group used a shared Flickr account to share photos, but it was a one way experience - no commenting or interaction.

I'm sure there are plenty of sites which do both those things better (only in the last year or so have we had the option to have reasonable resolution photos on Facebook), but without the user reach I'm not going to use them.

That being said, Facebook amongst people I know feels like Myspace just before Facebook became popular (2007ish). We use it because it's there, but there's a feeling that people are after something better. Especially with their news feed 'algorithm' which completely excludes me from hearing about news from some of my good friends.

Re: Actual Facebook Graph Searches

#128

Post by fusiongyro »

corporalagumbo wrote: post #125
fusiongyro wrote: post #111

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You could watch The Ascent of Man by Jacob Bronowski.

Sounds interesting. Any reason in particular you're recommending it?

Well, it's fantastic, but what makes it germane here is because the author/narrator switched from being a mathematician/physicist to a biologist mid-career because he saw no other way to continue working on nuclear physics without causing more harm. Several other physicists of that era did.

We are to some extent liable for the ill perpetrated by other people using our technology. The extent is debatable, but it must be greater than "not at all."

Re: Actual Facebook Graph Searches

#129

Post by cantos »

corporalagumbo wrote: post #69
GuiA wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>A snarky and mean-spirited stereotyping of all nerds as socially inept! How clever. Not at all. I'm just willing to bet that the average Facebook employee has never had to hide his sexuality/political/religious beliefs for fear of execution/incarceration/abuse to his family/etc. Yet a non-negligible part of Facebook's user base are people precisely in this situation. That being said, the very fact that you call what…

I think by 'silliness' he's referring to "Girls who live nearby who are single and like Getting drunk!" Fair call in my opinion. I made this point in another post: the take-away from this link shouldn't be how bad it was of Facebook to not realise that making available powerful search tools for already-public data might put some people in an unfortunate spotlight. The real take-away is that we shouldn't live in a wor…

Often the best first step to stop something evil is to remove the tools that make evil's job easier. In this case Facebook is facilitating persecution by making better and better tools to filter data on a large number of people simultaneously. If you want persecution to stop you can't just automatically absolve Facebook of responsibility for the consequences of the design choices they make. Sure people should be careful about what they post online but Facebook and the companies advertising on it offer incentives to get people to do it. Past 'likes' will now be easily accessible forever. It isn't only what you've put on your profile, inferences can be drawn based on the information about your friends. If all your friends are openly gay but you don't want others to know you're gay it can now quickly be deduced with a search.

Re: Actual Facebook Graph Searches

#130

Post by fusiongyro »

corporalagumbo wrote: post #124
fusiongyro wrote: post #110

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This isn't an opportunity for wishful thinking. Read about what's happened to Walid Husayin, a Palestinian man from the West Bank, since blogging openly about being an atheist: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Walid_Husayin All the stuff he's gone through—death threats, imprisonment, torture—has been for the sole "crime" of apostasy. This graph search is going to enable sadists to lower their bar for finding victims from…

I can see your point. I'm not saying it's a pleasant prospect to consider. I do consider these sorts of things inevitable teething pains of a one-way process though. Perhaps that seems a little harsh.

I'm not sure what you mean by "one-way process." I think there are certainly situations where bad things happen yet nobody is responsible and nothing needs to be done differently. I do think randomness plays a big role in my arriving at that conclusion, and I don't see a very big role for randomness in the potential abuses of graph search.
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