Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Facebook spamming users via their 2FA phone numbers

mashable.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

201–210 of 380 posts

Re: Facebook spamming users via their 2FA phone numbers

#201

Post by nojvek »

kyteland wrote: post #194
saguro wrote: post #157

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That thing facebook does with demanding your phone number, that's my favorite dark pattern. Apple does the same thing with iOS upgrades. First you pose a seemingly innocent question, like 'would you like to give us your phone number so we can keep your account secure?' or 'would you like to upgrade to new iOS?'. Then you take away the NO option. You replace it with 'i'll decide later'. And by doing so, you make it no…

> Whoever the designers are who came up with this stuff, fuck them. Are you sure you're laying the blame at the feet of the right people? I'm a design lead on a mobile game and I find myself in a constant battle against these kind of shenanigans with the PM team.

As a tech lead I fight such dark patterns to a bloody battle.

It’s our responsibility to call out on bullshit like this.

Re: Facebook spamming users via their 2FA phone numbers

#202

Post by [deleted] »

DanielBMarkham wrote: post #113
ReidZB wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I realize that the proper solution is to terminate my account and never attempt to log back in.... but I've had my account since 2006 and despite the company's terrible practices, I'm really not interested in disconnecting for good at this time Well, that's the real problem, isn't it? If users aren't punishing Facebook by leaving the platform in droves, then what incentive does Facebook have to stop its consistentl…

"...Well, that's the real problem, isn't it? If users aren't punishing Facebook by leaving the platform in droves, then what incentive does Facebook have to stop its consistently user-hostile business practices?..." And the reason they're not leaving and don't want to leave? Where else are you going to connect up with old friends and remote family members? I said it when Facebook started growing like gangbusters. Fac…

[deleted]

Re: Facebook spamming users via their 2FA phone numbers

#203

Post by danbruc »

eterm wrote: post #153
danbruc wrote: post #124

The social media behemoth has seen a decline in traffic in recent weeks along with millions of users leaving its platform [...] Two years ago I said that Facebook will be dead by 2020 [1] and that line made me check the current situation, we are right on track and linear extrapolation still hits zero in mid 2020 [2]. As mentioned in the original thread, don't get fooled by the normalized numbers, the search traffic f…

Are you sure about that? https://trends.google.com/trends/explore?date=all&q=facebook... and https://trends.google.com/trends/explore?date=all&q=facebook... Those graphs suggest that while the trajectory is bad on this graph, any other site doesn't come close.

Sure, the search traffic is huge but so is the rate it is falling at. If it stopped right now, it would still be a very huge site, but are there any indications that it does? Are there good alternative explanations for the decline in search traffic that would not indicate a decline in popularity of Facebook, for example can the decline be matched with users migrating from browser to app? I failed to find a satisfying alternative explanation.

Besides that, I noticed a decline of the popularity of Facebook among the people I know at least about 5 years ago. I only looked at the search traffic for confirmation years later when that trend was pretty obvious from personal experience because I was interested whether that was a general trend or only due to me and the people I know becoming older or something like that.

Add to that that I talked to some young teenagers last year that somewhat proudly told me that they don't have and never had Facebook profiles and for all I know Facebook really is on the way down. Whether everyone just moves over to Instagram and WhatsApp and what all that implies for the company Facebook is of course also a different matter.

Re: Facebook spamming users via their 2FA phone numbers

#204

Post by realusername »

Faaak wrote: post #117
reaperducer wrote: post #60

Things like this are the reason that when a company starts spamming me, I update my account with the company's own information. I started when no matter how many times I tried to unsubscribe, Walgreens kept using my phone number (which is supposed to be used to verify that the right person is getting the prescription) to spam me flu shot notices, auto-refill offers, and more. So now those robocalls go to Walgreens HQ…

I do the same with B2B email spam. Just give another spammer's info, so company A spams company B, B spams C, etc. I've got a small list with CEOs emails, numbers, etc. Not legal, but I like it

I generally use webmaster@[their domain] so they get the SPAM instead of me.

Re: Facebook spamming users via their 2FA phone numbers

#205

Post by D-Coder »

eterm wrote: post #49
HankB99 wrote: post #34

FB (among other web sites) continually asks for my phone number. I continually ignore their entreaties. I always suspected they could not resist the temptation to use it like this. I really expected them to sell it to telemarketers.

Not only asks but I've had it display what it thinks is my number and asked, "is this your number?". I've consistently denied telling it my phone number. Of course it has it via whatsapp now but I've repeatedly made clear I don't want it associated with my facebook account. Reading this news I'm very glad I've put up with its demands and not linked it just for 2fa.

Call the President. PHONE NUMBERS:

Comments: 202-456-1111.

Switchboard: 202-456-1414.

Re: Facebook spamming users via their 2FA phone numbers

#206

Post by ryanwaggoner »

danbruc wrote: post #124

The social media behemoth has seen a decline in traffic in recent weeks along with millions of users leaving its platform [...] Two years ago I said that Facebook will be dead by 2020 [1] and that line made me check the current situation, we are right on track and linear extrapolation still hits zero in mid 2020 [2]. As mentioned in the original thread, don't get fooled by the normalized numbers, the search traffic f…

Wishful thinking. Facebook may be struggling in 2020, but they certainly won’t be dead. I’d wager they’ll still have more than a billion DAU.

Edit: do you have an explanation for why this graph has been cratering for years while Facebook’s MAU and DAU have continued to climb?

Also, see Youtube’s search trend. Pretty sure it hasn’t been dying for years now.

This just isn’t a good signal, sorry.

Re: Facebook spamming users via their 2FA phone numbers

#207

Post by bicubic »

kyteland wrote: post #194
saguro wrote: post #157

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That thing facebook does with demanding your phone number, that's my favorite dark pattern. Apple does the same thing with iOS upgrades. First you pose a seemingly innocent question, like 'would you like to give us your phone number so we can keep your account secure?' or 'would you like to upgrade to new iOS?'. Then you take away the NO option. You replace it with 'i'll decide later'. And by doing so, you make it no…

> Whoever the designers are who came up with this stuff, fuck them. Are you sure you're laying the blame at the feet of the right people? I'm a design lead on a mobile game and I find myself in a constant battle against these kind of shenanigans with the PM team.

I would argue that you have an ethical responsibility to fight that battle.

Here in Australia, when you become a software engineer, you join the Engineers of Australia, become a chartered Engineer with some additional civic rights and responsibilities, and swear an oath which includes upholding ethics values, much like doctors swear an oath to do no harm. I hope this kind of thing becomes universal and more prominent with the younger generations. If we want to make the world a better place (and most people who set out to do engineering do), we must put ethics and the good of society above KPIs and profits and individual company valuations.

Re: Facebook spamming users via their 2FA phone numbers

#208

Post by 0x00000000 »

AhtiK wrote: post #86

To break away from the newsfeed for good the most effective method is to just start unfollowing everyone and everything who appears in your feed. After a few days of satisfaction from clicking, the wall becomes 100% empty and stays so. Much more effective than deleting your account or exercising any other kind of self-control. Good luck with having the determination to start following everyone once again -- not going…

It used to be if you get a notification you could go into settings and "disable this type of notification". But they removed that screen and you still get shit even with EVERYTHING disabled. I really hope they get what's coming to them soon

Re: Facebook spamming users via their 2FA phone numbers

#209

Post by Giroflex »

saguro wrote: post #157
SamLevin88 wrote: post #4

Finally, somewhere I can appropriately vent about this. About TWO years ago I was constantly annoyed by the 'secure your account: add your phone number here' banner frequently displayed at the top of the page upon loading FB, so I input my number to make it disappear for good. (Also, they kept hiding the 'x' (close) icon in different spots, making the banner difficult to dismiss.) A few days later I got a text messag…

That thing facebook does with demanding your phone number, that's my favorite dark pattern. Apple does the same thing with iOS upgrades. First you pose a seemingly innocent question, like 'would you like to give us your phone number so we can keep your account secure?' or 'would you like to upgrade to new iOS?'. Then you take away the NO option. You replace it with 'i'll decide later'. And by doing so, you make it no…

When I first opened up the Netflix mobile app and it asked me if I wanted it to show me notifications I thought "hey, that's nice, most apps just start spamming me without asking". I clicked "No thanks" and went on my way.

It turns out, though, that it asks that _every_ single time I open the app. It's really annoying and I'm about to allow them only to block them at the OS level.

Re: Facebook spamming users via their 2FA phone numbers

#210

Post by danbruc »

ryanwaggoner wrote: post #206
danbruc wrote: post #124

The social media behemoth has seen a decline in traffic in recent weeks along with millions of users leaving its platform [...] Two years ago I said that Facebook will be dead by 2020 [1] and that line made me check the current situation, we are right on track and linear extrapolation still hits zero in mid 2020 [2]. As mentioned in the original thread, don't get fooled by the normalized numbers, the search traffic f…

Wishful thinking. Facebook may be struggling in 2020, but they certainly won’t be dead. I’d wager they’ll still have more than a billion DAU. Edit: do you have an explanation for why this graph has been cratering for years while Facebook’s MAU and DAU have continued to climb? Also, see Youtube’s search trend. Pretty sure it hasn’t been dying for years now. This just isn’t a good signal, sorry.

My best guess is that the active user numbers are not representative. Once you have an Facebook account checking once a day if something interesting happened or sending a few messages makes you an active user, I guess, but in my book that does not mean you are really using Facebook.

I still visit Facebook almost every day, mostly to chat with friends, even though my feed has mostly become an uninteresting desert years ago and I rarely - less than once a month - post, comment or like something. So if I am not an exception, then looking at the number of users posting or commenting on any given day might vastly differ from the number of active users but I admittedly don't know how exactly Facebook defines those.

And if you look at the search traffic for MySpace, Google+, or the German StudiVZ and MeinVZ [1] it certainly tracked the rise and fall pretty exactly. Finally the YouTube search traffic is essentially flat for me since 2012 besides a step at the beginning of 2016 due to changed data collection methods.

[1] https://i.imgur.com/SGci58n.png

Post reply on HN