Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Off-Facebook Activity

facebook.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

121–130 of 146 posts

Re: Off-Facebook Activity

#121

Post by amaccuish »

pesenti wrote: post #2

This is the clear history feature that was announced a year ago: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16969325 . See also the engineering post that explains some of the challenges in implementing this: https://engineering.fb.com/data-infrastructure/off-facebook-...

It's like how the scale of Google forced them to come up with Spanner to solve their engineering challenges: Facebook collects so much data it's now having to develop new systems and ingenious methods to allow users to delete said data.

Re: Off-Facebook Activity

#122

Post by jpamata »

ilikehurdles wrote: post #70
Semaphor wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It’s to keep a loose connection with distant people and organize private events and find out about non-personal events and happenings. Just because the people you added on facebook filled it with bullshit, doesn’t mean it’s like that for everyone. I’d love to get away from them, but I have yet to find a workable alternative.

My connections I cared about simply switched to other forms of communication. Private events, I still find out about. People care about others attending their events (quelle surprise). I just now keep in touch with others in a more personal way instead. "Non-personal events and happenings" are something whose value is worth thinking about. They were one of those things I'm very happy to have optimized away. If it's i…

I don't understand where this Facebook takes up a lot of one's time is coming from. You can always minimize it further. Nowadays, it just takes about 2-10 minutes of my lunchtime. I log in, skim the notifications for events and invitations, and that's it for the day. I don't check a post unless someone in real life tells me about it. While reacting to a post might not seem engaging, I'd say leaving a comment to a friend is. The only feature that kills my time is messenger, but that's because it's pretty much the de facto platform for communication in my country. Apps like telegram, wechat, and whatsapp aren't popular here since they ask for your phone number. The traditional phone call and text are expensive, especially when you're travelling internationally. It also becomes a problem when your contact switches their number. Messenger is free, can be used without the phone, no collecting of phone numbers required - just an easy friend request, and you don't have to worry about spam from people you don't know.

Re: Off-Facebook Activity

#124

Post by 6gvONxR4sf7o »

raquo wrote: post #87
megous wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you read the article linked in the comments, it looks like this works by creating a special tracking ID for each user that can be disconnected from the real UID, if the user chooses to. So if you don't have FB, presumably you already don't have UID, so you're on equal footing with Facebook users that use this future. They are tracked, but tracking data is not connected to their UIDs.

If you don't have a facebook account, facebook likely has a shadow profile for you. Which would carry your phone number, full name, and whatever else they could extract from your friends' phonebooks and whatever other sources they use. There is no opting out of that, and there is no opting out of facebook getting third party data that lets them connect your shadow profile to a cookie, or to information collected by t…

Yeah, but it's not connected to your UID, so it's okay!

Re: Off-Facebook Activity

#125

Post by Semaphor »

ilikehurdles wrote: post #70
Semaphor wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It’s to keep a loose connection with distant people and organize private events and find out about non-personal events and happenings. Just because the people you added on facebook filled it with bullshit, doesn’t mean it’s like that for everyone. I’d love to get away from them, but I have yet to find a workable alternative.

My connections I cared about simply switched to other forms of communication. Private events, I still find out about. People care about others attending their events (quelle surprise). I just now keep in touch with others in a more personal way instead. "Non-personal events and happenings" are something whose value is worth thinking about. They were one of those things I'm very happy to have optimized away. If it's i…

> My connections I cared about simply switched to other forms of communication.

I’ve been trying for years to get people to use XMPP. It worked while GTalk and Messenger used XMPP and worked with it. Nowadays my list contains 0 people.

> Private events, I still find out about.

Some I might, some I might not. And I’d certainly hear about it late and not even be in the discussion about when something happens. Because that happens on FB.

> Reacting to a post is neither taking part in the event nor engaging with the people involved in it. It's this artificial, vicarious interaction that people convince themselves is a valuable addition to their life when in reality it's a fleeting sentence on an infinitely scrolling newsfeed.

You misunderstood me or maybe I expressed myself badly. I mean events where you don’t have a close personal relation to the organizer. A gothic night in a club. The English language meetup. The neighbouring city’s birthday celebrations.

If I stopped using facebook right now, I’d get back less than 5 minutes per day. Unlike so many on HN I never had the problem of somehow being addicted to FB. The site became worse (UX wise) over time and nowadays I don’t even feel slightly compelled to read there.

Re: Off-Facebook Activity

#126

Post by Semaphor »

jpamata wrote: post #122
ilikehurdles wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My connections I cared about simply switched to other forms of communication. Private events, I still find out about. People care about others attending their events (quelle surprise). I just now keep in touch with others in a more personal way instead. "Non-personal events and happenings" are something whose value is worth thinking about. They were one of those things I'm very happy to have optimized away. If it's i…

I don't understand where this Facebook takes up a lot of one's time is coming from. You can always minimize it further. Nowadays, it just takes about 2-10 minutes of my lunchtime. I log in, skim the notifications for events and invitations, and that's it for the day. I don't check a post unless someone in real life tells me about it. While reacting to a post might not seem engaging, I'd say leaving a comment to a fri…

I said it before on HN and it’s still my impression. Those who say loudly how liberating it is to be off facebook always seem to have had an addiction of some level or another.

Personally the most I read on FB is when I’m on the loo and already checked HackerNews ;)

Re: Off-Facebook Activity

#127

Post by Semaphor »

tenebrisalietum wrote: post #76
Semaphor wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It’s to keep a loose connection with distant people and organize private events and find out about non-personal events and happenings. Just because the people you added on facebook filled it with bullshit, doesn’t mean it’s like that for everyone. I’d love to get away from them, but I have yet to find a workable alternative.

Block the memes at the source. Each time I see it, I block it. If the people on your page are like mine, they are reposting from these meme groups and not manually uploading these pictures. The result is my feed is pretty free of this garbage. My block list is probably over 100 of these stupid groups. I wish it could be exported and shared.

Back before FB fucked it up and I actually read what my friends were posting, I simply unfollowed those that posted memes. Problem solved (for me).

Re: Off-Facebook Activity

#129

Post by nappy »

Facebook just happens to get sent data... yeah, more like Facebook buys data. And invests heavily in tools to make it easier for its customers to send Facebook data.

Re: Off-Facebook Activity

#130

Post by CaptainZapp »

_bxg1 wrote: post #45
winternett wrote: post #39

Hey Guys, We here at Facebook realized you don't trust our apps, so we made another app that makes you think our apps are safe. Despite this just being another app within our portfolio of tracking tools. Please download and install, otherwise the other apps may not work eventually. Trust us. ಠ_ಠ

And just look at that lovely, friendly new shade of blue! There's no way a company using that color can mean any harm!

Is there an image of a cute bunny?

Like when they asked for permition (in a typically snaeky, weasely Facebook way) for permission to suck up your entire phone book data and message history (and even contents) from your Android device?

I want a bunny!

Post reply on HN