Facebook’s Safety Check is a stress-inducing flip of social norms • Hacker News Board

Re: Facebook’s Safety Check is a stress-inducing flip of social norms

#171

Post by jdietrich » Thu, Jun 15, 2017, 6:45 AM UTC

dx034 wrote: post #163

jdietrich wrote: post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Imagine if one-fifth of the entire global population read the same newspaper every morning. Imagine if that same newspaper also operated the largest espionage network in the history of humanity. Facebook doesn't receive nearly enough scrutiny and criticism. Western governments have been completely blindsided by the immense power that lies in the hands of Mark Zuckerberg. Facebook have a near-monopoly on social media…

> Imagine if one-fifth of the entire global population read the same newspaper every morning. Imagine if that same newspaper also operated the largest espionage network in the history of humanity. That's not a valid comparison since Facebook doesn't publish their own content. It can promote unfiltered news (that often turn out not to be true) but it's not as if the same news story would be read by 1bn people each day…

Facebook decide what you do or don't see, based on completely opaque algorithms and human filtering. They're not the journalists, they're the editor.

Re: Facebook’s Safety Check is a stress-inducing flip of social norms

#172

Post by hedora » Thu, Jun 15, 2017, 6:46 AM UTC

rabboRubble wrote: post #78

I lived through a major natural disaster that left me an evacuee for months. Facebook's safety check is the only reason I haven't killed my account and I've said this before in prior comments here on Hacker News. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14412146 Thank god the author hasn't lived through an event where everybody you know is affected by the event. The ability to say "I'm okay", say it once, and have everyb…

Why not post something to your timeline or update your status? Presumably that would have worked just as well.

(Honest question; I don't use FB, and this feature seems about as useful as being woken up by a 2AM Amber Alert on my cell phone here in the US)

Re: Facebook’s Safety Check is a stress-inducing flip of social norms

#173

Post by seanp2k2 » Thu, Jun 15, 2017, 6:47 AM UTC

mod wrote: post #85

daveFNbuck wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How did you ensure that no other apps were listening in the background?

I don't understand--how would other apps trigger related facebook ads?

Send some data to an ad network or something that feeds it, Facebook ads somehow pick that up. Not beyond the realm of feasibility. Try using a just-factory-reset phone with JUST the Facebook app installed. There is science to be done here.

Re: Facebook’s Safety Check is a stress-inducing flip of social norms

#174

Post by bogomipz » Thu, Jun 15, 2017, 6:51 AM UTC

marksomnian wrote: post #149

bogomipz wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>"It feels like everything Facebook is overblown on HN" And yet you had to create a throwaway account before you could comment.

If I understood GP correctly, he created it due to the heat of the debate, not to make it more heated.

I wasn't suggesting that they created a throw away account to make it more heated.

Re: Facebook’s Safety Check is a stress-inducing flip of social norms

#175

Post by dcsommer » Thu, Jun 15, 2017, 6:55 AM UTC

seanp2k2 wrote: post #129

ghughes wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I just don't buy this theory until I see some evidence. It wouldn't be hard for a talented individual to reverse engineer the Facebook client app to find out if it's either a) continuously recording and uploading raw audio to their servers, or b) continuously recording and locally processing audio before sending information about the content to their servers. Until I see an analysis of their code that indicates eithe…

The tools are there for you to try it: https://www.charlesproxy.com/documentation/faqs/using-charle... http://docs.telerik.com/fiddler/Configure-Fiddler/Tasks/Conf... You could probably also do it with the emulator. You may need to do something like https://www.bettercap.org/blog/sslstripping-and-hsts-bypass/ or it could be even harder: http://docs.mitmproxy.org/en/stable/certinstall.html#certifi... There are of cour…

This would make an interesting blog post.

Re: Facebook’s Safety Check is a stress-inducing flip of social norms

#176

Post by ganonm » Thu, Jun 15, 2017, 6:58 AM UTC

The main issue I have with this feature is that as far as I can tell there is no way to opt out. I don't want this feature and I choose not to respond to the notifications I occasionally receive when there is a terrorist event in my city. That leaves me in a bind - unless I tell friends and family who use Facebook that I'm actively choosing not to use the feature, they invariably begin to worry about me when I don't 'mark myself as safe'. This to me is unacceptable.

Re: Facebook’s Safety Check is a stress-inducing flip of social norms

#177

Post by ardacinar » Thu, Jun 15, 2017, 7:05 AM UTC

That seems to be an abuse of the security check feature by Facebook's part. 6 mile radius for a fire in a ridiculously large city? As mentioned in other comments, that feature can be very useful in cases of natural disasters or large terror attacks that prompted the creation of this feature. (Although, to be frank, living in Istanbul, it had become somewhat annoying to mark myself safe every couple of weeks or so - though this is more directed towards the Turkish government than Facebook)

Re: Facebook’s Safety Check is a stress-inducing flip of social norms

#178

Post by corobo » Thu, Jun 15, 2017, 7:06 AM UTC

an_account wrote: post #153

jdietrich wrote: post #111

Earlier quoted context omitted.

About 500 people were directly endangered by this incident. The Safety Check alert seems to extend well beyond Greater London, so at least 9 million people. That gives us an approximate false positive rate of 99.995%. Is that reasonable or proportionate? Does it actually provide useful information? Is it likely to quell unfounded fears and provide genuine reassurance? As tragic as this incident was, it affected a sin…

You could also just post on Facebook, "I'm okay, I survived [the event]" if you would find value in telling all your friends. Why does Facebook need to prompt?

I thought it was well known and well complained about that when you post something not everyone sees it. The way my timeline seems to be right now if someone posted they're safe right this moment I wouldn't see it until tomorrow night.

Re: Facebook’s Safety Check is a stress-inducing flip of social norms

#179

Post by 3ygun » Thu, Jun 15, 2017, 7:07 AM UTC

rabboRubble wrote: post #123

bogomipz wrote: post #116

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>"Had FB's safety check feature been around in those days, I think that particular situation would not have been so chaotic for the families." Would it have helped the families of first the first responders like NYFD/NYPD/EMTs? Are first responders supposed to take time to "check in" on FB? Would it have been any less chaotic for their families? And honestly I find it really disturbing to compare tragedies, especiall…

I was comparing geographic size, the 6 miles referenced by the poster above me. Both events were in a small geographic area. I guess I feel I have the right to make the comparison. I wasn't there in NYC, but I had "some skin in the game" on 9/11 so to speak. From that experience, and from later ones, I can put myself into the shoes of somebody wondering if their loved one was mixed up in the London fire. To them, it…

rabboRubble To start off I understand your point that the Safety Check feature can be valuable. Japan's typhoon system is fantastic example you brought up where the entire population of a city needs to, after the incident, notate their safety. However, this is vastly different than the case being discussed of the London fire. In the London fire a small minority, ~500 people, results in a 6 miles notification (other comments said ~9 million people). As stated this kind of notification provides very little value. And instead provides negative value by switching peoples perceived safety ("I think my mother is safe sleeping currently") to a "required" opt-in safety check ("Well she hasn't said anything...so is she?").

This difference is my problem with the Safety Check system and, I believe, the authors. If there is an event where my safety is indeed in a majority questionable state (Typhoon takes out my town) then prompt me with a check #ThankYou. If there was an event which doesn't swing to a majority question then leave it to the individual case.

2 side notes: 1. Why do I personally take issue? Well, I was a student during the following: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2016_Ohio_State_University_att... and felt "forced" to provide my answer to the Safety Check as I know my one crazy aunt would go loony if I didn't. In no way did the event warrant this switch from perceived safety to opt-in safety (it was 13 students hurt of >50,000).

2. As other commenters have noted "With great power, comes great responsibility!". If they're going to deploy this technology make sure it provides value and effects, changes safety to opt-in, for the smallest possible subset. Additionally, as you pointed out in your original post allow individuals to add themselves to the Safety Check list if you are getting spammed with messages.

Sorry for the long post but, like the author, I was very taken aback when I first encountered this feature on Facebook. While I understand the good intentions. Personally, it fell into the area of prompting a world where we need that instant knowledge, text back, response, etc. which frankly isn't that healthy...

Re: Facebook’s Safety Check is a stress-inducing flip of social norms

#180

Post by aaron-lebo » Thu, Jun 15, 2017, 7:07 AM UTC

an_account wrote: post #153

jdietrich wrote: post #111

Earlier quoted context omitted.

About 500 people were directly endangered by this incident. The Safety Check alert seems to extend well beyond Greater London, so at least 9 million people. That gives us an approximate false positive rate of 99.995%. Is that reasonable or proportionate? Does it actually provide useful information? Is it likely to quell unfounded fears and provide genuine reassurance? As tragic as this incident was, it affected a sin…

You could also just post on Facebook, "I'm okay, I survived [the event]" if you would find value in telling all your friends. Why does Facebook need to prompt?

Facebook can't make money off that or make people feel like it's necessary to their lives. Similarly, Facebook couldn't take a cut out of people recovering from these events unless they integrated it into their platform.

This is especially problematic when you consider Facebook’s business model benefits from increased engagement with its platform. Add to that, it also recently stepped into the personal fundraising space. And today, as chance would have it, Facebook announced that Safety Check will be integrating these personal fundraisers (starting in the US).

An FAQ for Facebook’s Fundraisers notes that the company levies a fee for personal donations of 6.9% + $.30, while fees for nonprofit donations range from 5% to 5.75%.