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Facebook’s Surveillance Machine

nytimes.com

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Re: Facebook’s Surveillance Machine

#211

Post by Chardok »

freehunter wrote: post #195
Chardok wrote: post #151

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It seems incredibly bizarre to me that the author says that. She lists all the privacy and user trust violations, future social health concerns, but then says leaving Facebook isn't viable? I have little faith in the US government regulating Facebook's privacy and data mining and even less faith that Facebook would take any action on behalf of its users privacy. Leaving Facebook is the only viable solution.

"Leaving" Facebook is close to impossible. They track you and keep a profile on you no matter what. Other than that, there's no competitor to Facebook that exists in the same market. My favorite stores and restaurants downtown have events and sales and information that is only on Facebook. Saying "just quit Facebook" is like saying "just stop making phone calls" or "just get rid of your mailbox" or "just stop reading…

>Saying "just quit Facebook" is like saying "just stop making phone calls" or "just get rid of your mailbox" or "just stop reading emails"

I don't agree with this analogy. Phone calls and physical/electronic mail are a technology, not a corporation. While I'm sure Facebook would like to be there, as it stands a Facebook account is nowhere near the importance of phones/mail to function in a modern society. In fact, I truly hope it does not reach that point, as a central authority like Facebook can choose to blacklist your accounts entirely. (https://techcrunch.com/2018/03/18/facebook-has-suspended-the...)

>"Leaving" Facebook is close to impossible. They track you and keep a profile on you no matter what.

This is mostly dependent on data being fed by your friends and family. Unfortunately, you enjoying events and sales is contributing to this "shadow profiling".

Re: Facebook’s Surveillance Machine

#212

Post by CaptSpify »

sjapkee wrote: post #26
ensiferum wrote: post #5

I think it's time to finally close the FB account, move on to Firefox and disable 3rd party trackers and start using VPN routinely.

>move on to Firefox I can't trust them after the case when they installed the extension as an advertising company of the TV series. 21st centery, you can't trust anyone.

Who would you trust then?

I agree that Mozilla has been horrible in how they treat their users, and people should be much more critical of them. But from what I've seen, they are the only ones who are even trying.

Re: Facebook’s Surveillance Machine

#213

Post by walterstucco »

munificent wrote: post #194
bambax wrote: post #163

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're right. What upset me though was the conclusion that it's "impossible" to leave Facebook. Everything is possible, including walking instead of driving, not eating meat, etc. Some things are more inconvenient than others, but if convenience trumps everything and you can't accept to make any sacrifice whatsoever then maybe you deserve to be taken advantage of.

I wish there was a name for this fallacy because it comes up so often. When you have a systemic problem, you do not have a viable solution if your solution requires the conscientious choices of every affected individual. If that worked, we would have already solved car accidents (obey all the traffic laws!), suicide (don't kill yourself!), obesity (don't eat too much unhealthy food), debt (don't spend more than you m…

> I wish there was a name for this fallacy because it comes up so often

it's called false dichotomy

Re: Facebook’s Surveillance Machine

#214

Post by freehunter »

jakewins wrote: post #209
freehunter wrote: post #195

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Leaving" Facebook is close to impossible. They track you and keep a profile on you no matter what. Other than that, there's no competitor to Facebook that exists in the same market. My favorite stores and restaurants downtown have events and sales and information that is only on Facebook. Saying "just quit Facebook" is like saying "just stop making phone calls" or "just get rid of your mailbox" or "just stop reading…

> They track you and keep a profile on you no matter what. This is only true because the voting US public believes it to be true. Meanwhile, the EU simply wrote a law against it. Now any EU citizen can simply withhold consent, and if FB continues to process datasets with their PII they will be brought to court. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/General_Data_Protection_Regula...

>This is only true because the voting US public believes it to be true.

It's true because it's true. Full stop.

You may argue that there are ways to stop it, and sure there are. Like you said, the EU did it, and it's a great law. But GDPR doesn't make it less true in areas not impacted by GDPR, which is everywhere because it doesn't go into effect until May.

I didn't say "there's no way to stop it", which is a statement that is only true because the voting US public believes it to be true. I said "they track you and keep a profile on you no matter what", which is true because it's exactly true.

Not believing it to be true won't make it less true.

Re: Facebook’s Surveillance Machine

#215

Post by kossae »

freehunter wrote: post #202
owly wrote: post #157

Serious question, to where are companies who were previously dependent on FB moving their advertising and marketing?

That's a very good question. As a business owner, as far as I'm concerned I'm tied to Facebook. As someone who writes a local blog, Facebook is where I get most of my information about my city. The Internet (and this thread) is full of people telling you to get off Facebook and go to something else, but especially for businesses, what else is there? I have thousands of followers on Facebook and Facebook drives 90% of…

In that case I would recommend pushing as many subscribers over to your e-mail newsletter as possible. I'm sure this has already been attempted to some degree on your part, but e-mail marketing is very effective when done right and could potentially displace some negative impact from if/when Facebook decides/regulates that your business is no longer needed on their platform.

Re: Facebook’s Surveillance Machine

#216

Post by freehunter »

kossae wrote: post #215
freehunter wrote: post #202

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's a very good question. As a business owner, as far as I'm concerned I'm tied to Facebook. As someone who writes a local blog, Facebook is where I get most of my information about my city. The Internet (and this thread) is full of people telling you to get off Facebook and go to something else, but especially for businesses, what else is there? I have thousands of followers on Facebook and Facebook drives 90% of…

In that case I would recommend pushing as many subscribers over to your e-mail newsletter as possible. I'm sure this has already been attempted to some degree on your part, but e-mail marketing is very effective when done right and could potentially displace some negative impact from if/when Facebook decides/regulates that your business is no longer needed on their platform.

>if/when Facebook decides/regulates that your business is no longer needed on their platform.

That's really my fear, I'm trying to create a critical mass where Facebook isn't required anymore. I took a big hit earlier this year when they decided to stop showing people content from pages. But a huge problem is, any article I write that doesn't get posted to Facebook gets zero hits. Posting to Facebook gets thousands of hits. No one is visiting my site without being provided a link to click on. And my audience is Millennials, which is a demographic that doesn't use email as much as others.

Even pulling all my current followers into the email newsletter, though, doesn't solve the problem of finding a new audience. Right now I can pay Facebook $1/day and reliably get 30 new followers every week. Even though my audience is all within my small town, building that audience on Facebook is far cheaper than even the most conservative physical advertising plan.

That is assuming, of course, that Facebook followers translate into actual readers. And it certainly has been an ongoing struggle to get Facebook to show my content to the people who have explicitly opted-in to see my content.

The two situations I face: either rely on Facebook (which is cheap and easy) until the day they decide I shouldn't be a business anymore, or do anything but Facebook, which is harder and more expensive. That's why people use Facebook: no one trusts it, but it's so damn easy, even when they constantly make it harder.

Re: Facebook’s Surveillance Machine

#217

Post by beams_of_light »

shard972 wrote: post #83
3chelon wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're absolutely right we should all leave FB. It's the only way to make them change. I've been seriously considering it for a while - I'd lose some exposure in my hobby groups, and my mother would miss the kids' photo updates, but I could just about live with that.

You could use Diaspora. I haven't used either FB or Diaspora in quite a few years know but I would have to imagine it still exists.

Or Mastodon.

Re: Facebook’s Surveillance Machine

#218

Post by stordoff »

zeveb wrote: post #164

This isn't limited to Facebook. Yesterday I saw that PUBG just came out for Android. I've heard great things about it, so I looked for it on the Play Store and took a look at the permissions. It demands the ability to read my phone's logs & see running apps. What possible reason could it have for that? It's a free app. While I know that there are in-app purchases, is Tencent also selling information about me if I ins…

> It demands the ability to read my phone's logs & see running apps. What possible reason could it have for that?

Possibly anti-cheat?

Re: Facebook’s Surveillance Machine

#219

Post by freehunter »

Chardok wrote: post #211
freehunter wrote: post #195

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Leaving" Facebook is close to impossible. They track you and keep a profile on you no matter what. Other than that, there's no competitor to Facebook that exists in the same market. My favorite stores and restaurants downtown have events and sales and information that is only on Facebook. Saying "just quit Facebook" is like saying "just stop making phone calls" or "just get rid of your mailbox" or "just stop reading…

>Saying "just quit Facebook" is like saying "just stop making phone calls" or "just get rid of your mailbox" or "just stop reading emails" I don't agree with this analogy. Phone calls and physical/electronic mail are a technology, not a corporation. While I'm sure Facebook would like to be there, as it stands a Facebook account is nowhere near the importance of phones/mail to function in a modern society. In fact, I…

Facebook may as well be considered a technology in and of itself. Nothing else compares. Everything else in the sector is either successful in its niche or wildly unsuccessful. In the 70s and 80s, there were phone companies other than Bell... but you probably didn't have one. You probably had a Bell phone with Bell service. It took government regulation to change it from a company to a technology because everyone was happy enough to keep it as a company.

We're not talking about search engines where all the information is the same and the only competition is who can display them best. With Facebook, much of the information is only available on Facebook, only accessed through Facebook, and in some cases, only enabled by Facebook. Snapchat, Instagram, Reddit, Mastadon, Twitter, none of these social networks are half of what Facebook is, yet Facebook is all of them combined. It's not interchangeable, there are tradeoffs to switching.

>Unfortunately, you enjoying events and sales is contributing to this "shadow profiling".

Which is exactly what I always argue when people say you don't have to give up any social interaction by giving up Facebook. If that information is only on Facebook, you have to use Facebook no matter what, or you have to give up some amount of understanding of the world around you. I'm not going to stop enjoying local bands or community social events, and the only source for that right now in my community is Facebook.

I'd love an American GDPR because as far as my life is concerned, Facebook isn't going anywhere.

Re: Facebook’s Surveillance Machine

#220

Post by beams_of_light »

gfodor wrote: post #155
mliker wrote: post #153

Earlier quoted context omitted.

VR hasn’t taken off as promised and the hype is dying down now. The headset is too clunky in its current incarnation. People view it as a novelty item rather than a useful tool, so I’m inclined to believe this won’t be the massive surveillance tool VR proponents think it’ll be.

Untethered standalone VR devices are likely a prerequisite to any mainstream adoption and are shipping this year. Your guess is as good as mine if they will reach mass appeal, but to assume VR is not viable before these devices are available at low prices is probably wrong. The one to keep your eye on is the Oculus Go which is a self contained device for $199. (Also a Facebook product, probably going to have all this…

We're diverging quite a bit from the posted subject matter, but I wonder how the problem of the health impacts will be solved, if ever.
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