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Facebook will shut down its controversial market research app for iOS

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Re: Facebook will shut down its controversial market research app for iOS

#171

Post by inetknght »

johnnyfaehell wrote: post #124
bendotero wrote: post #120

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's the "no one is harmed" part I strongly disagree with. Perhaps they signed up for something and have perfect knowledge of how Facebook will use the information they collect (doubtful) but the rest of us will be impacted, manipulated and harmed in some way by what Facebook ultimately ends up doing with the data that their guinea pigs willingly gave up.

> It's the "no one is harmed" part I strongly disagree with. I can't prove a negative. So you would have to prove the positive, what harm came from this app?

> what harm came from this app?

Would you say that the current political climate has been harmful? I would. I would not only say that, but I would also say that it's come about specifically because of data collection practices which have enabled data analysis of entire populations in a way which has never been seen before.

While analysis of populations is not inherently bad by itself, the outcome certainly has been, particularly because the abilities and effects are so new that there's little or no law governing people towards positive effects for society as a whole. Without those laws, the effects become geared toward benefiting people at the top either directly (company CEOs) or indirectly (capabilities sold to those who can afford them).

Re: Facebook will shut down its controversial market research app for iOS

#172

Post by gaius »

scrumper wrote: post #102
gaius wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I would love to be a fly-on-the-wall at some of their meetings when someone says “So we are going to do data collection on minors without parental consent now” and all the developers just say “great I’ll code that up straight away”. Like is there no dissent at all? Is there no one at all who says “guys this is not OK”?

There's some powerful dissonance going on. I once interviewed an engineer. We spent a good 15m of the hour-long interview talking about the moral implications of social networking, the potential for powerful technology to cause harm, and what a developer's imperatives were. He was completely on the "side of right" - must use powers for good, data harvesting is bad, Facebook is an immoral business etc. He turned down…

You dodged a bullet, that guy was just telling you what you wanted to hear, lacking in moral fibre

Re: Facebook will shut down its controversial market research app for iOS

#173

Post by gaius »

mruts wrote: post #117
briandear wrote: post #116

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Good point. Someone else essentially gets paid to compromise your privacy without your consent.

I mean, if you tell me something, I can legally decide to tell someone else. Unless we signed a contract or something.

Sure, but maintenance of the confidence of a friend shouldn’t need a law.

Re: Facebook will shut down its controversial market research app for iOS

#174

Post by mensetmanusman »

F500 install certificates like this on their employee owned devices.

If FB hires these people, is there a difference?

Do you think a random admin assistant knows more than a techy teenager about the dangers of data privacy? Or is she just trying to scrape by for another week of rent?

This sounds like alarm from the rich and well to do about an ‘immoral’ way for the poor to make money.

Interesting nonetheless.

Re: Facebook will shut down its controversial market research app for iOS

#175

Post by gaius »

tasubotadas wrote: post #145
gaius wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And now everybody is freaking about a fairly reasonable trade OK let’s imagine that you have a close friend or family member with some confidential issue - maybe an illness, maybe debt, maybe they are in the closet. Occasionally they message you, on old -fashioned SMS or email mentioning something about it. How many dollars is a reasonable trade to tell a data collection agency everything you know so they can add it…

Well, I pity the fools that assume that their communications are private when they are using SMS, FB Messenger, or Hangouts. If you want your info to stay private, do not send it to untrustworthy parties via untrustworthy means. Even if you stick with apps like Telegram or Wire (my choice), you have to have in mind that your phone might have a keylogger on (looking at Xiomi and Huawei).

If you want your info to stay private, do not send it to untrustworthy parties via untrustworthy means

Well there’s the rub isn’t it. I don’t think most people would consciously decide to rat out their friends secrets for $20 - or indeed for any price. But somehow, it’s happening.

Re: Facebook will shut down its controversial market research app for iOS

#176

Post by mensetmanusman »

klodolph wrote: post #87
tasubotadas wrote: post #18

What a bullsh*t. People got some money for giving up some privacy. Nobody was forced to do this. And now everybody is freaking about a fairly reasonable trade. What's next? People will start harassing students/researchers that do paid studies?

I think you might underestimate how seriously universities take research ethics, these days. Ever since the late 1970s or so. I doubt Facebook’s actions would have gotten past a typical university ethics board, which would be required before the study could proceed.

With the replication crisis hitting ~half of publications, there is still work to do.

Re: Facebook will shut down its controversial market research app for iOS

#177

Post by johnnyfaehell »

inetknght wrote: post #171
johnnyfaehell wrote: post #124

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It's the "no one is harmed" part I strongly disagree with. I can't prove a negative. So you would have to prove the positive, what harm came from this app?

> what harm came from this app? Would you say that the current political climate has been harmful? I would. I would not only say that, but I would also say that it's come about specifically because of data collection practices which have enabled data analysis of entire populations in a way which has never been seen before. While analysis of populations is not inherently bad by itself, the outcome certainly has been,…

> Would you say that the current political climate has been harmful? I would. I would not only say that, but I would also say that it's come about specifically because of data collection practices which have enabled data analysis of entire populations in a way which has never been seen before.

Seriously, look at the state of peoples finances. That's the cause. Look at the amount of money the rich have compared to those who voted for Trump, Brexit, etc. Look at the quality of life. This has been coming for a long, long time. Blaming on Facebook and Twitter is not very insightful of the state of affairs in the world today.

Re: Facebook will shut down its controversial market research app for iOS

#178

Post by gerash »

bob_theslob646 wrote: post #144
the_snooze wrote: post #132

I've been reading a lot of comments about this, and something that always comes up is the question "why shouldn't people be able to sell their data?" I have two objections to that. First, they're almost certainly not making that deal from an informed position. Security and privacy are very complicated matters, and most people won't even realize to ask questions about data retention, aggregation, sharing, differential…

"First, they're almost certainly not making that deal from an informed position" After spending an hour reading similar comments to yours, I have to ask this question. How informed should the user be? What qualifies as an informed user? This is getting into some dangerous territory because it because implies so some sort of contract literacy. >The second issue is that MITMing all network traffic on a phone will neces…

I agree. I've seen Facebook doing shady things but I don't think this is one of them.

As a company they want to collect data for whatever reason (a research project, training data for an ML system, creating a new product, refining an existing one or assessing the overall market). So they built software for data collection and are paying people money in exchange. How is this different from Amazon Mechanical Turk or any crowdsourcing platform which pays people for data?

I admit I haven't seen what the contract looks like but are people suggesting that the end user still does not understand that they are providing user data to be used by Facebook in exchange for money or have no power to decline such offer?

But it's much easier for the press to run click baity titles like "Facebook spies on teens! Again!!" and many folks on HN quickly jump on the bandwagon.

That said, the part of this backlash I sympathize with is if someone hates benefiting FB and have any of their data in their hands but then has a friend who uses this service and uploads all their collected chat conversations to FB.

and no, I don't work for them.

Re: Facebook will shut down its controversial market research app for iOS

#179

Post by kennyadam »

foobiekr wrote: post #152
meitham wrote: post #95

I struggle to see how software developers can willingly do work on a project that goes against all values and morales! I have previously worked with developers in start-ups and was amazed to hear some of their backgrounds. One previously worked for a company that bundles spyware with freeware MSI products. Another worked for an airline agency, where they advertise fake a discount on tickets when the price was in fact…

I know a reasonable number of Facebook employees. Their opinions on the last year range from “don’t care/getting paid” to “everyone does it.” These are good people. They just don’t care.

You should edit that to 'These are people who don't care. It's not good.'
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