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

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

#191

Post by Nursie »

jdietrich wrote: post #111
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…

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…

Probably way more than 9 million. I live in a small city 60 miles from London, and facebook asked me to "mark safe" yesterday because of the fire.

It's nuts.

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

#192

Post by djhworld »

bbarn wrote: post #7

I've said it before here, and I'll say it every time it's relevant: Stop using Facebook. Start telling your friends and family to do the same. As the "smart computer person" in many people's lives, you can be the voice they need to hear.

Just use it occasionally then.

I deleted my account and was "clean" for a few years, but last year decided to sign up again.

I only use it occasionally, maybe once or twice a week. It's nice to catch up with family and friends, and it's very simple to filter out the cruft that you have no interest in.

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

#193

Post by Already__Taken »

donkeyd wrote: post #184
afro88 wrote: post #143

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Simple solution: have a "ask X if they're safe" button that friends/family can press. If someone presses it, that person gets a push to mark themselves safe. They don't get a push otherwise.

That will have the flip side of family members getting extra worried if not marked safe, because Facebook wasn't checked for example.

You always had that though. And you can't automatically answer it for users from device activity because that would violate someone's privacy.

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

#194

Post by ClassyJacket »

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?

Unfortunately, you can't trust Facebook to actually show your posts to other people. Their "algorithm" - a cancerous wart that has infected Instagram too now - means that they show you what they want to show you, not necessarily what your friends post.

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

#195

Post by ClassyJacket »

hedora wrote: post #172
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)

Because "the algorithm" might decide your family don't get to see that update. Facebook is no point chronological, nor does it show everything your friends post. They pick and choose.

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

#196

Post by Kiro »

sergiotapia wrote: post #127
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…

I had it happen to me too. Why would I lie about something like this? This is my real account, I'm a real guy. My wife and I were talking about celebrating my kids birthday party at Arcade Foobar. A day later she started seeing ads on Facebook about Arcade Foobar. It's grotesque and one of the many reasons why my wife and I no longer have facebook accounts.

Complete nonsense. That you actually believe this instead of the much more plausible explanations are beyond me.

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

#197

Post by taneq »

thinkfurther wrote: post #124
taneq wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Can't risk losing internet points, can we? Although it's also somewhat an indictment of the chilling effect of online lynch mobs on open discussion.

It is also an indictment of Facebook, where such a thing is not even (supposed to be possible). I had an account for ten years, my real name from day 1, my real pictures from day one, lots of RL friends plus friends I basically casually made on Facebook. I had a great time posting about whatever and hating on Facebook, until one day it greets me with "we have to confirm your identity", because some people who surely…

I'm not sure what Facebook is meant to do here. They added the 'fake profile' thing to help combat scammers / impersonators, and as a result some people use it as a way to annoy legit users with whom they disagree (just like with any moderation system that has a 'flag user' button). Or are you saying that you think Facebook themselves started harassing your account as some kind of punishment?

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

#198

Post by [deleted] »

pdkl95 wrote: post #70
austenallred wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Facebook knows about all of your interactions on Facebook, and they probably know what you are buying and what sites you visit through tracking mechanisms. So what? I mean that earnestly - why is it inherently bad if a company knows a lot about me? > What utility are they really getting? It's fake utility. Do you really believe that easily keeping up with friends is "fake" utility? You really think that billions of…

> why is it inherently bad if a company knows a lot about me? With enough data about you (Facebook collects more than enough) it becomes easy to manipulate you (blackmail, "targeted advertising" aka propaganda, etc ), and your pattern-of-life can be sold for profit. Data doesn't go away and we keep inventing more powerful analysis methods, so the risk, that collected data will be used against you only increases with…

[deleted]

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

#199

Post by [deleted] »

pdkl95 wrote: post #70
austenallred wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Facebook knows about all of your interactions on Facebook, and they probably know what you are buying and what sites you visit through tracking mechanisms. So what? I mean that earnestly - why is it inherently bad if a company knows a lot about me? > What utility are they really getting? It's fake utility. Do you really believe that easily keeping up with friends is "fake" utility? You really think that billions of…

> why is it inherently bad if a company knows a lot about me? With enough data about you (Facebook collects more than enough) it becomes easy to manipulate you (blackmail, "targeted advertising" aka propaganda, etc ), and your pattern-of-life can be sold for profit. Data doesn't go away and we keep inventing more powerful analysis methods, so the risk, that collected data will be used against you only increases with…

[deleted]
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