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Facebook recommended that a psychiatrist’s patients friend each other

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Re: Facebook recommended that a psychiatrist’s patients friend each other

#141
post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

An individual's data sharing with Facebook is less of the issue, here, though. You personally not using it doesn't prevent you from becoming the common thread that ties others together. Just because I'm not on Facebook (I'm not), anyone that's allowed Facebook to see their own contacts, in their phone or email, has shown that they are or are not connected to me in some way. Without me actually ever even having an acc…

That doesn't seem to be very important. It's not the doctor who wants privacy. The people who want privacy allowed Facebook to scrape their contact lists and monitor their locations. They then expected Facebook not to correlate this data with others who contact and visit the same doctor. Why not?

Sherman, set the wayback machine for about 110 years ago...

The people who want meat didn't demand tours of the meatpacking factories. They then expected the meat they bought to not be unsanitary and diseased. Why not?

Re: Facebook recommended that a psychiatrist’s patients friend each other

#142
This is one of the many dark patterns that Facebook uses. It simply does not respect any boundaries the user might wish to have in place...

Install it on your phone? Anyone you have in your phone's address book gets to see your picture under "people you may know".

Someone in your family joins Facebook and friends you? Now everyone you are friends with gets prompted about whether or not they know your family member.

Want to delete some pictures you uploaded to Facebook? It's extremely difficult and they must be deleted one by one.

Other than LinkedIn, I'd say FB is the prime innovator of UI dark patterns that exploit users' unwitting behavior for profit.

The youngest generation of internet users gets this which is why they largely do not use Facebook. Soon they will realize that IG and Whatsapp are connected, and will avoid those too.

What's interesting to me is that the recommendations are fundamentally not useful. It's easy to look someone up by searching for their name without the privacy-invading helpful suggestions.

Re: Facebook recommended that a psychiatrist’s patients friend each other

#143
post #66
post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If employees are having trouble saying "no" to unsafe, unethical, or unlawful projects, then a professional association or union is needed. A professional association can create duty requirements external to a company; it's easier to say no to your boss is have the excuse that "as a member of $ORG, I have follow $ETHICS_RULE". Alternatively a union can put pressure companies to never ask for certain things or to meet…

If there is one thing our world does not lack, it's amoral people. Would you prefer that Facebook only hire them?

> If there is one thing our world does not lack, it's amoral people. Would you prefer that Facebook only hire them?

If they are currently hiring only amoral people and people who are afraid of expressing their moral outrage, then there is absolutely no difference than if they were just hiring amoral people to start with.

Re: Facebook recommended that a psychiatrist’s patients friend each other

#144

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Which works fine for iPhone owners, and on the 15% of Android devices running Marshmallow, in the relatively rare case where someone knows this can be done and acts upon that knowledge. Everybody else is hosed.

You can disable the location access entirely on Android, and enable temporarily only for the short moments when you really need it. Most Androids have a slide-from-top quick menu when you can toggle it with one click. Honestly, Google Maps is the only app on my phone that really needs location access.

Just because you turn it off doesnt mean it's not tracking you. Have a look at google location history, it doesn't use GPS but it can still pinpoint you very closely using cell tower triangulation. Stallman was right, we carry the worlds most advanced tracking device in our pockets.

Re: Facebook recommended that a psychiatrist’s patients friend each other

#145

So, I deactivated my account maybe 6 months ago, and uninstalled the app long ago. Since then, I moved halfway across the country and, using a brand new laptop, a fake name and number, and a throwaway email address, created another profile so I could use their API. People You May Know still had old high school friends, my old real estate broker (??), and someone I starred on GitHub. I have absolutely no idea how they…

If you're not using a plugin such as Facebook Disconnect, pages that have a "Like this on Facebook" embed or similar can accidentally or deliberately reassociate you with your prior identity. Consider this scenario:

1. You log in to your account and get redirected to http://example.com/?user=3834

2) That page has an embedded Like button.

3) When your browser requests the button from Facebook, the referrer is "http://example.com/?user=3834" which is a URL that you visited a lot when your old Facebook login was active, and it was never visited by any Facebook users apart from you.

There are other similar ways they could link you to an old identity if they wanted to, some not necessarily blockable by these plugins, but the above would be simplest.

Re: Facebook recommended that a psychiatrist’s patients friend each other

#147

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're not using some kind of mobile router/dongle thing for network access are you? Otherwise all that's left is you - how you type, click & otherwise use FB. Edit: and the 1st thing the goddamn site shows me is a pop-up begging for a Like :\

I'm not, in fact I'm using a different ISP entirely. You really think my behavior patterns are uniquely identifiable at FB's scale? I can't imagine how many other users must have similar typing/clicking/resting/etc. patterns.

Interestingly, my comment's getting down-voted without refutation. C'mon, let's talk :)

Anyway, no, I don't know if FB can do that at scale.

What I do know is that sites, especially complex ones like FB, like to track user interaction to evaluate UX (hover targets, click targets, time it takes to find call-out etc).

If I were a data science type at FB, and knew FB was collecting that stuff, I think I'd like to find out what other questions I could answer with it.

Or more banal - did you use your laptop as a wifi endpoint and connect your phone & WhatsApp to it?

Re: Facebook recommended that a psychiatrist’s patients friend each other

#148
post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If there is one thing our world does not lack, it's amoral people. Would you prefer that Facebook only hire them?

> If there is one thing our world does not lack, it's amoral people. Would you prefer that Facebook only hire them? If they are currently hiring only amoral people and people who are afraid of expressing their moral outrage, then there is absolutely no difference than if they were just hiring amoral people to start with.

Isn't there? Do you see no possibility that the latter group might find cause to overcome their fear?

I mean, to be clear, I still think this whole line of discussion around the imaginary (im/a)morality of Facebook employees is pretty far off base. But the question bears asking all the same.

Re: Facebook recommended that a psychiatrist’s patients friend each other

#149
post #79
post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If there is one thing our world does not lack, it's amoral people. Would you prefer that Facebook only hire them?

How often do you see doctors being hired that are not members of the AMA (or similar professional associations)? Their Code Of Medical Ethics[1] isn't perfect and certainly there individuals that have ignored it for $REASONS, but at least they have created a culture where it is expected that doctors will at least try to avoid unethical behavior. > only hire them? I suspect this is the knee-jerk hostility toward union…

I see a few problems.

Dwindling pool of non-members: Facebook is an especially bad example here, because they have enough money and clout to get around this.

How often do you see doctors being hired that are not members of the AMA: Doctors need to be on location, but this restriction doesn't apply to software. Facebook can always find talent in a country that doesn't have an 'AMA.'

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