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Facebook spamming users via their 2FA phone numbers

mashable.com

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Re: Facebook spamming users via their 2FA phone numbers

#101

Post by slenk »

jedrek wrote: post #90
fahadkhan wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I left Facebook. But mainly because I realised that it's a real poor way to keep in touch with anyone. Gives you the feeling that you are keeping in touch when in reality you are just sharing photos and quotes in a medium that's very noisy with adverts.

Unfortunately, there are a lot of events/organizations that organize almost exclusively through Facebook. Unfortunately, there effectively no other free platforms with a critical mass of sign ups big enough to be used in that way.

Google Calendar/Hangouts/Maybe even plus?

Everyone has the gmail they probably created just to sign up for Facebook, since it seems this younger generation doesn't believe in email.

Re: Facebook spamming users via their 2FA phone numbers

#102

Post by IntronExon »

jkmcf wrote: post #91
fahadkhan wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I left Facebook. But mainly because I realised that it's a real poor way to keep in touch with anyone. Gives you the feeling that you are keeping in touch when in reality you are just sharing photos and quotes in a medium that's very noisy with adverts.

If you never comment on each other's posts, then you aren't interacting. However, it is a great way to "keep appraised" of how people are doing. There are a ton of people I've met throughout my life and around the world, but only a handful with whom I want to interact regularly. FB, annoying as it is, at least let's me know if they are doing ok.

It lets you know how they say they’re doing, and nothing else. If they have a bot updating their status, maybe not even that much.

Re: Facebook spamming users via their 2FA phone numbers

#104

Post by fortylove »

As this stream of negative facebook articles continue, I can't help but feel duped about my experiences with it.

I've quit fb since new years, but I can't help but wonder if I was played the whole time. I feel like they advertised fb as an altruistic platform, when in reality, I was just a means to marketing dollars and they fed whatever altruistic lines they wanted to keep me coming back.

Serious question: does fb purely exist as a company in order to sell our information? Do developers at fb believe they're making the world a better place? I'm not saying developers _need_ to make their career about making the world a better place. I do, however, feel like that's the line fb was feeding about their company culture.

Re: Facebook spamming users via their 2FA phone numbers

#105

Post by baby »

IntronExon wrote: post #102
jkmcf wrote: post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you never comment on each other's posts, then you aren't interacting. However, it is a great way to "keep appraised" of how people are doing. There are a ton of people I've met throughout my life and around the world, but only a handful with whom I want to interact regularly. FB, annoying as it is, at least let's me know if they are doing ok.

It lets you know how they say they’re doing, and nothing else. If they have a bot updating their status, maybe not even that much.

If you message them you can know

Re: Facebook spamming users via their 2FA phone numbers

#106

Post by akvadrako »

reaperducer wrote: post #70
jzl wrote: post #15

It's pretty clear from some simple googling that he ended up somehow activating a feature called "Facebook Texts" (the key giveaway -- that replying to the texts posted to his wall): https://www.facebook.com/help/130694300342171?helpref=faq_co... I believe that he didn't set this up intentionally and it may very well be a bug that caused him to be signed up, but as bad as Facebook is I'll eat my shoe if they signed u…

> I'll eat my shoe if they signed up every single person who gave a 2FA phone number to this service. Facebook doesn't have to sign up every 2FA person. It can pick a few hundred or thousand and see what happens. If engagement increases, then more 2FA people are brought on board. If this isn't widespread, it may not be the user's fault. It may just be the camel's nose under the tent.

The evil of unrestrained A/B testing.

Re: Facebook spamming users via their 2FA phone numbers

#107

Post by akvadrako »

endless1234 wrote: post #32
loorinm wrote: post #7

This happened to me too. The value of being on facebook is an illusion. In person relationships are vastly more rewarding, both emotionally and financially.

Is that really something people do - substitute in person relationships for Facebook ones? "I could hang out with my SO today, but I guess I'll just go on FB instead"

Many people do this habitually, though not so explicitly.

Re: Facebook spamming users via their 2FA phone numbers

#108

Post by larkeith »

spraak wrote: post #87
tjoff wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In my book this is more or less another proof that you should be vary of vendor lockin and that under no circumstances whatsoever use any such system for communication. It is bad enough to change phone number but you simply can't change facebook to something else and continue as usual. I guess this leaves email, SMS and IRC as the main remaining options. Somehow this needs to be communicated to the general public, bu…

> I guess this leaves email, SMS and IRC as the main remaining options. But how are those not also vendor lock-ins?

Email and IRC are completely vendor-agnostic protocols. I'm not as familiar with SMS, but it's much less centralized than Facebook - any user on any SMS provider may contact any other user, not only ones with the same provider.

Re: Facebook spamming users via their 2FA phone numbers

#110

Post by b3lvedere »

SamLevin88 wrote: post #4

Finally, somewhere I can appropriately vent about this. About TWO years ago I was constantly annoyed by the 'secure your account: add your phone number here' banner frequently displayed at the top of the page upon loading FB, so I input my number to make it disappear for good. (Also, they kept hiding the 'x' (close) icon in different spots, making the banner difficult to dismiss.) A few days later I got a text messag…

Terminating is impossible. They made it that way and have told this numerous times.

Now you know how they get their info and now you can get creative with it. Info doesn't always have to stay the same.

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