Facebook recommended that a psychiatrist’s patients friend each other

Post by 0x0 » Tue, Aug 30, 2016, 10:36 AM UTC

ubernostrum wrote: post #16

throwanem wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not sure how they get it at all, except via contact list mining. It makes sense that the doctor's phone number is part of her Facebook account. It does not make sense that her patients, who have not added her as a "friend" there, would nonetheless have explicitly told Facebook her number from their end. (I don't even think that's a thing you can do.)

Facebook will happily slurp your entire contact list even if you're not FB friends with all of them. And the algorithms almost certainly know and take into account having someone in your contacts as a way to build a graph of relationships.

Post by throwanem » Tue, Aug 30, 2016, 10:38 AM UTC

Fuxy wrote: post #21

thr0waway1239 wrote: post #9

TLDR#1: The investigation still didn't reveal exactly how this happened. TLDR#2: The recommendation to "prevent" these issues on the individuals side is, "Lisa’s medical community has started recommending that patients concerned about privacy not log into Facebook or other social media accounts at medical offices, or even leave their phones in their cars during appointments. " This is about as practical as recommendi…

So basically don't install Facebook or Whatsapp try to use the Facebook website if you can or better yet don't use Facebook at all on your phone if you value your privacy. It's sad that we are at this stage but it's mostly our fault for being so complacent with companies doing these kinds of things. If people stopped using their service when they did these kinds of things they would change their behaviour really quic…

Post by throwanem » Tue, Aug 30, 2016, 10:45 AM UTC

daemin wrote: post #23

throwanem wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Especially since odds are the data being correlated comes from the contact lists in her patients' phones. Even successfully confounding geolocation won't solve that.

The other tricky thing is, even a single lapse in forgetting to turn the phone off, or bringing it with you is enough to undo all vigilance ever. I don't see it as feasibly, especially for people that are anxious or distracted by something more important on their mind.

Post by wtbob » Tue, Aug 30, 2016, 10:58 AM UTC

Fuxy wrote: post #21

thr0waway1239 wrote: post #9

TLDR#1: The investigation still didn't reveal exactly how this happened. TLDR#2: The recommendation to "prevent" these issues on the individuals side is, "Lisa’s medical community has started recommending that patients concerned about privacy not log into Facebook or other social media accounts at medical offices, or even leave their phones in their cars during appointments. " This is about as practical as recommendi…

So basically don't install Facebook or Whatsapp try to use the Facebook website if you can or better yet don't use Facebook at all on your phone if you value your privacy. It's sad that we are at this stage but it's mostly our fault for being so complacent with companies doing these kinds of things. If people stopped using their service when they did these kinds of things they would change their behaviour really quic…

Post by vidarh » Tue, Aug 30, 2016, 10:59 AM UTC

mrweasel wrote: post #11

untilHellbanned wrote: post #7

> “Without additional information from the people involved, we’re not able to explain why one person was recommended as a friend to another.” Such a terrible excuse. FB you only have one job! Fail.

Facebook must understand how weird that sounds. How can they not know why people are recommended to each other? They really do need to dig into the issue, if in fact they don't know. Because something seriously need to be excluded from their recommendation algorithm if the article is true.