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

Facebook's seized files published by MPs

bbc.co.uk

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

221–230 of 507 posts

Re: Facebook's seized files published by MPs

#221

Post by drewblaisdell »

JustSomeNobody wrote: post #171
notacoward wrote: post #159

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, I do work at Facebook. I'm not going to get into some protracted argument about whether that makes me a bad person, or already was, but I'd like to give you something to think about. Let's say, for the sake of argument, that we can neatly divide tech workers into good and bad. Likewise for companies. All categories are non-empty, and certain to remain so. What's the optimal assignment of workers to companies? Is…

I'd say the HN response is, no, you can't be good and work at FB.

Whether or not that is true, my experience on here is that the amount of effort and self-doubt involved in this response by the average HNer is so low that I suspect jealousy and schaddenfreude are often involved. For example, consider how the root comment above ends.

Re: Facebook's seized files published by MPs

#222

Post by spunker540 »

tynpeddler wrote: post #204
breischl wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have no particular love for FB or what they've done with data, but these I don't understand why either of those points is particularly controversial or even unusual. > Facebook used data provided by the Israeli analytics firm Onavo to determine which other mobile apps were being downloaded and used by the public. It then used this knowledge to decide which apps to acquire or otherwise treat as a threat Checking out…

I agree that the first point seems pretty routine, but the second one is a problem. Look at Microsoft in the late 90's. They changed their system API's and refused to publish the changes for the express purpose of killing netscape. That was later deemed to be illegal. Facebook using their market dominance to kill other apps seems to be very similar.

I think they were mostly using their market dominance to kill apps that decided to live on the Facebook platform in the first place.

If you build an app that relies solely on Facebook login and access to Facebook data as key parts of your business model then are you really a competitor?

Re: Facebook's seized files published by MPs

#223

Post by notacoward »

nindalf wrote: post #209
notacoward wrote: post #159

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, I do work at Facebook. I'm not going to get into some protracted argument about whether that makes me a bad person, or already was, but I'd like to give you something to think about. Let's say, for the sake of argument, that we can neatly divide tech workers into good and bad. Likewise for companies. All categories are non-empty, and certain to remain so. What's the optimal assignment of workers to companies? Is…

Considering how downvoted this comment was within 10 minutes of posting, I wonder if people actually read it or just did a knee jerk downvote based on the first sentence.

Oh, I'm sure a couple downvoted it even before that, as soon as they saw my name. ;) That's OK, though. The important thing is to get people thinking about moral issues in a more possibly-productive way, and I haven't been disappointed.

Re: Facebook's seized files published by MPs

#225

Post by dreamdu5t »

beart wrote: post #214
dreamdu5t wrote: post #199

It’s terrifying that people want to use the government to regulate a free website that nobody even has to use and which has not actually caused anyone harm. GDPR tyrants: get a life and stop using Facebook. Seriously.

> which has not actually caused anyone harm. This is not a statement you can just throw out there. For example https://www.wired.com/story/how-facebooks-rise-fueled-chaos-...

Again. Hyperbole. We’re adults here. Who are you trying to convince with that crap?

No, Facebook is a website. They aren’t involved in genocide. They aren’t why Trump is president.

Re: Facebook's seized files published by MPs

#226

Post by ryacko »

criddell wrote: post #79
makomk wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The bigger problem is that, as I understand it, all of these documents were obtained from someone suing Facebook who had access to them as part of a lawsuit against Facebook under a court order that required them to be kept confidential.

That makes me wonder if a confidentiality agreement should ever include sharing that information with the government? Maybe NDAs from publicly traded companies should always exempt sharing with elected officials?

Speech and debate clause.

Re: Facebook's seized files published by MPs

#227

Post by dkersten »

SmellyGeekBoy wrote: post #165
arminiusreturns wrote: post #118

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Now remember that Facebook has made agreements with phone manufacturers to have fb installed by default and made un-uninstallable , with all the default permissions to share the users data whether they ever log in and use the app or not! Sidenote: I've noticed via umatrix that Netflix on pc, during a show, is attempting to load fb js... Netflix wtf!

Don't they use React for their UI?

Surely they would serve it from their own CDN though?

Re: Facebook's seized files published by MPs

#228

Post by snowwrestler »

whatshisface wrote: post #5

The documents[0] contain market research done by Onavo[1]. This data may have been bought from them, and if so it was probably bought under a non-disclose agreement, as is typical for those arrangements (the reasoning being that Onavo can't sell the data more than once if it is released publicly). This could pose a problem for Facebook if Onavo decides that another release like this is likely to happen again. I'd be…

Facebook apparently owns Onavo, but to answer your question more generally, liability is probably very low. In my experience, contracts that license or protect proprietary, confidential, or non-public data often have an explicit exception for following lawful government orders. Which makes sense, because in general, private contracts can't overrule the law. Even if the contract did not have an explicit carve-out in the language, it's hard to believe a lawsuit would succeed. Companies and people have to follow the law, even if they don't like it.

That said, companies are free to choose who they will do business with, so a data provider could always decide a certain customer is too risky for future deals. I wouldn't necessarily call that liability, though.

Re: Facebook's seized files published by MPs

#229

Post by notacoward »

how_many_times wrote: post #218
notacoward wrote: post #159

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, I do work at Facebook. I'm not going to get into some protracted argument about whether that makes me a bad person, or already was, but I'd like to give you something to think about. Let's say, for the sake of argument, that we can neatly divide tech workers into good and bad. Likewise for companies. All categories are non-empty, and certain to remain so. What's the optimal assignment of workers to companies? Is…

>> Is it never beneficial for a good person to work at a bad company, perhaps making it less bad? That's an interesting thought. If carried to its logical conclusion, the 'good people' had many, many, many years to influence the direction of the company, and whatever little 'less bad' the 'good people' are doing is being completely negated by the 'more bad' that the not-so-good people are doing. So I think its fair t…

> the 'good people' had many, many, many years to influence the direction of the company

You might be surprised. After only a year and a half, I'm rapidly approaching a point where I've been there longer than 2/3 of my peers. There has been a huge influx of new people with new perspectives and new voices. Admittedly that's weighted a bit toward the low end of the individual-influence scale, but collectively all those people can make a difference.

Re: Facebook's seized files published by MPs

#230

Post by gmueckl »

makomk wrote: post #43
whatshisface wrote: post #5

The documents[0] contain market research done by Onavo[1]. This data may have been bought from them, and if so it was probably bought under a non-disclose agreement, as is typical for those arrangements (the reasoning being that Onavo can't sell the data more than once if it is released publicly). This could pose a problem for Facebook if Onavo decides that another release like this is likely to happen again. I'd be…

The bigger problem is that, as I understand it, all of these documents were obtained from someone suing Facebook who had access to them as part of a lawsuit against Facebook under a court order that required them to be kept confidential.

The company CEO shared those files. But I believe that only his lawywers had a right to have them. Is this right? I am not 100% certain.
Post reply on HN