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Facebook recommended that a psychiatrist’s patients friend each other

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Re: Facebook recommended that a psychiatrist’s patients friend each other

#211

Post by grandalf »

rando444 wrote: post #151
grandalf wrote: post #142

This is one of the many dark patterns that Facebook uses. It simply does not respect any boundaries the user might wish to have in place... Install it on your phone? Anyone you have in your phone's address book gets to see your picture under "people you may know". Someone in your family joins Facebook and friends you? Now everyone you are friends with gets prompted about whether or not they know your family member. W…

I know it's seems like it's 'dark pattern' week on HN, but not everything is a dark pattern. Dark Patterns are user interfaces that are designed to trick users. Facebook requests the permission to go through your stuff and if you read their data use policy, they go so far as to tell you in detail exactly the information they're taking from you, as well as how they use it. Sure, it's a little bothersome when the infor…

> I know it's seems like it's 'dark pattern' week on HN

OK, what is a dark pattern by your definition?

Dark patterns are a relevant topic on HN because many startups are measured in terms of user engagement and the growth of their user-base.

What is the difference between advertising and information? Growth hacking techniques and clickbait? Nudges and dark patterns?

These things are interesting because the line is blurry, and many patterns (dark or otherwise) that used to work suddenly stop working. This is why banner ads worked for a while and why interruption ads are becoming more and more common, and why adblock is becoming more and more common.

The world is not static, and so there is not ever going to be a consistent definition of what constitutes a dark pattern... it depends on the audience. In the first world, most 70 year olds are now on Facebook, and they are vulnerable to many patterns that the younger generations are not.

Just as scammers send senior citizens envelopes that look like social security checks but are actually ads, Facebook offers something that looks like a way to voluntarily share information but is actually often involuntary.

I think FB should take a hard line against dark patterns and be content to grow based on the massive network effect it can get without them.

Re: Facebook recommended that a psychiatrist’s patients friend each other

#212

Post by huehehue »

rando444 wrote: post #153
huehehue wrote: post #127

So, I deactivated my account maybe 6 months ago, and uninstalled the app long ago. Since then, I moved halfway across the country and, using a brand new laptop, a fake name and number, and a throwaway email address, created another profile so I could use their API. People You May Know still had old high school friends, my old real estate broker (??), and someone I starred on GitHub. I have absolutely no idea how they…

You either logged your new account into a mobile device and it pulled your contacts, or you gave facebook your phone number for account recovery / two-factor and they already had your contacts either from your old account, or if you use whatsapp or instagram.

I don't use whatsapp or instagram and have not used the new account on any other device.

I did use my real number for the old FB account, but used 555-867-5309 for the new one.

Re: Facebook recommended that a psychiatrist’s patients friend each other

#213

Post by rando444 »

huehehue wrote: post #212
rando444 wrote: post #153

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You either logged your new account into a mobile device and it pulled your contacts, or you gave facebook your phone number for account recovery / two-factor and they already had your contacts either from your old account, or if you use whatsapp or instagram.

I don't use whatsapp or instagram and have not used the new account on any other device. I did use my real number for the old FB account, but used 555-867-5309 for the new one.

You can't provide a fake phone number for account recovery / two-factor authentication, as they verify that you control the phone number before accepting it.

Re: Facebook recommended that a psychiatrist’s patients friend each other

#214

Post by saint_fiasco »

pjc50 wrote: post #201
arielb1 wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If there is one thing our world does not lack, it's amoral people. Would you prefer that Facebook only hire them?

Day 1; "Here at Facebook, we're only hiring amoral people from now on!" Day 87; Facebook declares bankruptcy. None of the money can be found. The servers have already been stolen by the surviving employees. Administrators arrive at HQ to find only a few broken chairs and a vast pile of shredded paper. (to explain the joke, there is a downside to hiring amoral people)

Amoral people aren't always stupid. Amoral cops refuse bribes when the (probability of being caught) * (cost of losing their job) is above the bribe amount, and parasitic employees know they will earn more long term if they don't kill the host company.

If Facebook takes care to only hire smart amoral people they will last much more than 87 days.

Re: Facebook recommended that a psychiatrist’s patients friend each other

#215

Post by talmand »

giancarlostoro wrote: post #158
grandalf wrote: post #142

This is one of the many dark patterns that Facebook uses. It simply does not respect any boundaries the user might wish to have in place... Install it on your phone? Anyone you have in your phone's address book gets to see your picture under "people you may know". Someone in your family joins Facebook and friends you? Now everyone you are friends with gets prompted about whether or not they know your family member. W…

LinkedIn is pretty bad at trying though. I got a new job not long ago, they congratulated me on it, two days later or so, and even now still they keep sending me emails about my next future job. I barely have gotten my feet wet at this one... What in the world?

What's their benefit to putting in the extra work to delay such emails based on your start time? What if some people actually wanted the emails regardless of a recent new job? What if they don't trust the start times that people claim?

Re: Facebook recommended that a psychiatrist’s patients friend each other

#217

Post by adw7677 »

I know for a fact that Facebook uses my phone contacts to suggest friends. When I started at a new job and was exchanging numbers with coworkers, they would appear as a suggested friend within 24 hours.

My doctor also showed up as a suggestion. I figured either the office phone number was linked to his FB page, or FB was scanning my calendar events and linked me to him that way.

Re: Facebook recommended that a psychiatrist’s patients friend each other

#218

Post by cLeEOGPw »

fma wrote: post #180
grandalf wrote: post #142

This is one of the many dark patterns that Facebook uses. It simply does not respect any boundaries the user might wish to have in place... Install it on your phone? Anyone you have in your phone's address book gets to see your picture under "people you may know". Someone in your family joins Facebook and friends you? Now everyone you are friends with gets prompted about whether or not they know your family member. W…

I have coworkers' phone numbers on my phone so I assume that's how Facebook is recommending them to me. I like my coworkers but this is kind of creepy. Wish there was a way to turn it off, both directions.

Even if you would "turn it off" and fb would not recommend it to you, they would still know the connection, and those same people would get you as a recommendation. So "turn it off" only would mean "hide the underlying connection".

Only way to prevent this is to hide/obfuscate/limit information that fb is accessing about you. And that would be a huge feat in an of itself.

Re: Facebook recommended that a psychiatrist’s patients friend each other

#219

Post by cLeEOGPw »

white-flame wrote: post #185
userbinator wrote: post #183

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The whole premise of FB is to "connect people", whether or not you like it, so it's not an entirely unexpected behaviour from them. It's also the reason I don't use FB, and never will.

and the thing that sucks about us non-FB using people is that Facebook still has a pretty complete profile of our photo likenesses, names, emails, phone numbers, and other website profiles.

And if he joined facebook he would be instantly be recommended many of the people he knows.

Re: Facebook recommended that a psychiatrist’s patients friend each other

#220

Post by codingmyway »

It should be a lot easier for everyone to collectively sue Facebook and other social networks for violation of privacy.

This is just one of the economic asymmetries where small annoyances to everyone, but not enough to individually do anything about it, aggregate to billions for a few in power.

The only social network we need is a collective legal one.

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