Ironically, before it lets me read this story the site pops up a "LIKE US ON FACEBOOK!" prompt. I'm pretty sure once I do that all you fellow article-readers will be my next friends.
Facebook recommended that a psychiatrist’s patients friend each other
171–180 of 224 posts
Re: Facebook recommended that a psychiatrist’s patients friend each other
#172Earlier quoted context omitted.
I know it's seems like it's 'dark pattern' week on HN, but not everything is a dark pattern. Dark Patterns are user interfaces that are designed to trick users. Facebook requests the permission to go through your stuff and if you read their data use policy, they go so far as to tell you in detail exactly the information they're taking from you, as well as how they use it. Sure, it's a little bothersome when the infor…
Indeed, I don't believe the problem here was that Facebook was tricking their users here into handing over their phones/emails contact information (aka this persons client lists). FB is explicit about permissions in this sense, although most users agree to everything without thinking twice. The real problem is how the information was utilized by the recommendation engine, which is known to be creepily effective at ma…
Fundamentally though that's the problem with the modern web - the services that users get is not a transaction in the sense that the user knows what they're giving up for the service - it's all hidden under an innocent permissions check (if it's Facebook) or not said at all (if its LinkedIn). The user provides permission for a small pittance like their email address or phone number and it snowballs into having every want need and action tracked and catalogued to make the service owner money. A product not intent on tricking the user into giving up every bit of the data on their life would ask if it could use individual bits of information to serve them ads and sell their information.
It takes more than it asks, and the fine print is there to cover its ass, when in reality if users were asked about what information they were willing to share they would be much more uptight. The users's have no real idea what is happening with their data, what they've given up or how its used to make the company money. It may be true that most user's don't care, and some might even prefer the outcome to them in the form of "relevant" ads (if the choice is made over "irrelevant" ads or paying for the service). It certainly is transforming what is in the public sphere about people, and the lessening of privacy can certainly be used as a weapon (and it is, to the extent that it is a big powerful force arrayed against a person independently figuring out what they want to spend their resources on).
Re: Facebook recommended that a psychiatrist’s patients friend each other
#173Earlier quoted context omitted.
That might help, but facebook is still fully capable of seeing that the clients have the same number in both of their phone books.
And at the point that they start using that its 100% a Facebook problem, but I don't believe that they are at this point.
I see both methods of matching people to friends-of-friends as equally invasive, to be honest.
Re: Facebook recommended that a psychiatrist’s patients friend each other
#174tl;dr
"When Lisa looked at her Facebook profile, she was surprised to see that she had, at some point, given Facebook her cell phone number. It’s a number that her patients could also have in their phones."
Re: Facebook recommended that a psychiatrist’s patients friend each other
#175This 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. W…
> Want to delete some pictures you uploaded to Facebook? It's extremely difficult and they must be deleted one by one. THIS is a huge pain point for me. I would ideally like to delete all my Facebook photos and timeline/wall posts from all of history. However, I cannot find a greasemonkey or tampermonkey script which will actually accomplish this. There are a few that claim to, but none actually worked for me (outdat…
Re: Facebook recommended that a psychiatrist’s patients friend each other
#176Earlier quoted context omitted.
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?
> They then expected Facebook not to correlate this data with others who contact and visit the same doctor. Why not? Because that would be a dick move. But clearly that is not enough to dissuade companies from doing this kind of thing, because they have no morals. And that is the crux of the problem. They don't give a shit what would be considered "reasonable behaviour" for a human being, because they are just giant…
Suing Facebook for knowing something people told them ought to be interesting. Please tell HN all about it if you ever pull the trigger.
Re: Facebook recommended that a psychiatrist’s patients friend each other
#177Earlier quoted context omitted.
Yeah, I know this can get brought out a lot in these circumstances, but remember how everyone thought Richard Stallman / rms was crazy for being so disconnected from the Internet? Somehow that doesn't seem the case anymore.
Keep in mind, when you consider that, that Stallman is also almost entirely disconnected from the world, as well. Granted, that's by choice, and it seems to suit him. But it casts a great deal of doubt on the value of his perspective, especially his perspective on those people who choose otherwise. It's sort of infuriating, if I'm honest. He has a lot of insight with regard to, for example, the extent to which Facebo…
Eh. He and you have different lifestyles. I also can't fathom there lifestyles of the shepherds back home that go without human contact for months at a time, but they have a lifestyle.
Just because you don't want to switch your lifestyle, or we trade convenience for exposure, doesn't mean that stalman's lifestyle is wrong.
It's just different choice, and we are comparing apples to oranges here.
Re: Facebook recommended that a psychiatrist’s patients friend each other
#178This 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. W…
Some girl from a dating site Googled my phone number, found my name, searched for me on Facebook and then Facebook suggested I friend her, providing me with her full name, which I did not previously know. If you search for someone on Facebook, then Facebook will suggest to that person that they friend you. Seems a massive privacy hole to me.
I noticed that too. The more often you search for someone and click on their profile, the more facebook will promote the connection both ways.
I think it's kind of interesting to 'figure out' how the facebook machine works. How a simple interaction, a location, a conversation or even a purchase on amazon shapes your news feed and the feed of people around you.
Re: Facebook recommended that a psychiatrist’s patients friend each other
#179After three accidental ad-clicks and a scrolling ad on mobile, I gave up on reading the article.
Re: Facebook recommended that a psychiatrist’s patients friend each other
#180This 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. W…
I have coworkers' phone numbers on my phone so I assume that's how Facebook is recommending them to me. I like my coworkers but this is kind of creepy. Wish there was a way to turn it off, both directions.