While I agree with the gist of the argument (Facebook shouldn't bring back user-deleted posts, and you shouldn't trust Facebook), the semantic arguments over the term "delete" are frivolous. It's not unreasonable for Facebook to keep storing things that I delete. Windows has the Recycle Bin, word processors have undo, databases have backups, etc. The problem is restoring the content without the user's permission. Citing a dictionary definition then overfitting your argument to that specific definition is something I expect from a high school speech class.
Never Trust Facebook
41–50 of 201 posts
Re: Never Trust Facebook
#42Earlier quoted context omitted.
Except that this isn't a bug. The user asked for the content to be deleted. For it to become public, they must have used a "delete" flag or something similar. The point is they didn't actually delete the content, rather just flag it as deleted.
Actually deleting content would be a very expensive operation at Facebook's scale. Flagging it as deleted is the most optimal way. What's troubling is that this content somehow got undeleted on its own. Not once, but twice.
Wouldn't it save a lot of hardware resources (given the scale) if they, say, carefully cleared them out with a regular cron job?
Re: Never Trust Facebook
#43One thing that has always bothered me it's that if you ever decide to post a comment on a site that uses the Facebook commenting system and you decide not to publish that comment on your timeline, then you have no way of recovering it (and thus deleting it, if you ever decide so). You have to resort to search engines that behave poorly for this kind of things.
I admit that after some mishaps Facebook has greatly improved the privacy controls on the site and allowed user to more easily control what they share and with whom, but I guess pretty much everyone would agree that it's not enough yet. We need the ability to delete the very content that we create, everyone has the right to be forgotten should he decide so.
Re: Never Trust Facebook
#44Earlier quoted context omitted.
What data "leaks" that a moderately sophisticated/equipped adversary could not easily learn via other means? In 45 seconds I was able to learn your name, basic age/location, and email from this post, your hn profile and github profile. Another 45 seconds and I found your google+ and twitter accounts, with better location data, education history and employer.
Its not what people can know about you, but rather how much of what they know is controlled by you. You can put out there all the info you want to make public, but if you change your mind, facebook will still keep your data.
He was in control of the data and then he relinquished control of the data when he shared it with facebook (and google, twitter, github and HN).
Trusting facebook to prevent Eve from accessing to your data is not the same thing as controlling Eve's access to your data.
Re: Never Trust Facebook
#45Just create a fake FB account for things like authentication, or getting coupons, etc...
I don't trust FB, but I do need it for certain things. Keeping in touch with friends/family is definitely not one of them
Re: Never Trust Facebook
#46Facebook has value, but no matter what your privacy settings are set to, no matter what you delete, always assume that anything you write or do on Facebook - in any context - will be embarrassingly public. 1) Because it will and 2) because it just makes life easier. When my wife and I were first dating, for religious and cultural reasons her parents didn't know. Her parents are conservative Muslims and mine conservat…
> always assume that anything you write or do on Facebook - in any context - will be embarrassingly public.
Furthermore, even if you don't use facebook, or use it for reading only, you can always assume that every piece of data your friends give them, from photos with your face in them to the contents of their address book (with your birthday, nickname, private phone numbers, etc) will be stored by them forever.
Even if they don't display the data on the public site, don't think they don't mine it for actionable changes to ad targeting.
It was recently discovered that they were leaking data that they were collecting from people's address books. Turns out that their app was uploading it for friends-matching but they were (logically) storing it silently alongside your profile.
It may well be possible that, via just their mobile app's userbase's contacts, they have the vast majority of the social graph for the entire planet, even their non-users.
Those users have volunteered sufficient data that, given that planetary graph, they can infer many attributes (with high accuracy) associated with those who actively avoid them.
It's sort of the same concept as how facial recognition technology and traffic analysis can uniquely ID all mass transit users, even those who don't use credit cards (your name's in the magstripe) to pay the fare. Given enough data, they can fill in the holes with sufficient accuracy and encompass everyone.
Re: Never Trust Facebook
#47Clearly they have a bug, but as far as actually deleting your data; I am willing to be it'll never be deleted. They couldn't possibly manage the data if you could remove pieces, since everything on facebook is intertwined (likes, comments, shares, etc). aka this doesn't surprise me.
I spent a fairly large amount of time trying to completely delete my account - it involved emails, 'hidden' links, and multiple confirmation boxes using a nonstandard UI for facebook. A few days ago I made a brand new account (but using the same email as before) and was greeted with the suggestion to add ALL of my old friends right back again. Clearly nothing has been deleted, and I now feel confirmed that it never,…
Just a theory, but could it be that all those friends have your email in their contact list, and when they've done a bulk import Facebook has remembered that connection so it can suggest them to you if you ever join (and vice versa)? The data isn't on your side, it's on there's.
Of course there's a whole other (worthy) debate about that, but it doesn't necessarily mean Facebook didn't delete the data you added.
Re: Never Trust Facebook
#48FB has, over the years, gradually lost my trust until I deleted my account in November 2010 after having been a member since late 2004 when FB was college-only. As a 20-something living in SF, it's a daily thing now: I don't get invited to parties, I don't know about birthdays, I don't see my friends' photos, I don't have any contact with anyone from high school or college anymore. There is a real social cost for som…
I've been where you are, it sucks. In fact, I don't really have friends because 1) I have moved around a lot since 2000 and 2) I stopped caring that FB ruled my friendships (in the way you mention). There are definitely people I'd be friends with, if they lived in my city, but since they don't, they only keep in contact via FB, which I don't use socially. I only have it for news feeds from Pages.
Re: Never Trust Facebook
#49FB has, over the years, gradually lost my trust until I deleted my account in November 2010 after having been a member since late 2004 when FB was college-only. As a 20-something living in SF, it's a daily thing now: I don't get invited to parties, I don't know about birthdays, I don't see my friends' photos, I don't have any contact with anyone from high school or college anymore. There is a real social cost for som…
What kind of friends are they, that don't notice and/or care to invite people except through Facebook? Also, birthdays? Aren't those the sorts of things you find out about once per friend and then add to your own contacts? I've never had a Facebook account, but that's not a problem I've ever experienced. Granted, I don't automatically know the birthday of every single person I meet or even get a number/email from. Bu…
I think its more "if the party is of a certain size you don't notice who isn't there." so for acquaintances, dropping off FB can drop you out of a lot of invites.
That said, I find it challenging to remember my immediate families birthdays (not to mention, anniversaries etc) and while my crutch has always been a calendar, FB can provide that crutch for folks who don't have a calendar habit.
Bottom line is that the core premise of FB is actually quite sound, its just not easily monetizable. Its possible that after a while folks would pay to subscribe to a FB like service but long before that Google or someone else who isn't being held against the wall with a share certificate pointed at their head may find a more workable solution.
And of course FB could, their are a lot of smart folks over there.
Re: Never Trust Facebook
#50Just create a fake FB account for things like authentication, or getting coupons, etc... I don't trust FB, but I do need it for certain things. Keeping in touch with friends/family is definitely not one of them
In a very creepy aspect of this. I closed my account a while ago, and I opened a dummy one with another email, because I still needed to mod a few communities. The recommendations were the usual: friends of people in the communities and such. About a month ago it started recommending family members, classmates, and friends. Really accurate. It's creepy: I don't have a smartphone from which it could syphon the contacts, I'm not using my real name and I was using an email that I only use for facebook. I have no idea what data it's using. But I was not surprised, I just thought. "Damn it, they found a way"