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Facebook spamming users via their 2FA phone numbers

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Re: Facebook spamming users via their 2FA phone numbers

#231

Post by itronitron »

Analemma_ wrote: post #74
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…

> The good news (for those of us that don't like Facebook) is that it seems like users are leaving it—or at least that's the picture I get from stories/comments submitted here on HN. This is good news in the long term, but in the short- and medium-terms it means Facebook is going to get desperate and start deploying more and more dark patterns like the one the GP is talking about. Considering their reach, I shudder t…

the fewer that people use the network (FB) the less valuable it will be

Re: Facebook spamming users via their 2FA phone numbers

#232

Post by newscracker »

Slansitartop wrote: post #14
davidbiehl wrote: post #6

I found a similar thing with email notifications. If you regularly login to FB and look at your feed they will leave you alone. Delete the app from your phone or neglect logging in and you’ll start to get email notifications about the silliest things. Of course they don’t contain much more than “so and so shared a link” without any description of what was shared (trying to get you to login and look.) Not quite as bad…

Facebook has been steadily decreasing the usefulness of its email notifications in order to push more use of its app and website. The old notifications used to give you the content and allow you to reply through email, but not anymore. The notifications are also dark-pattern hard to manage. If you don't want a type, you have to wait to receive an example of it to unsubscribe. Their central notification page only allo…

> Facebook is a terrible product that can't die fast enough.

For the sake of humankind, I'd rephrase it as "Facebook is a terrible company that can't die fast enough."

Re: Facebook spamming users via their 2FA phone numbers

#233

Post by sandov »

bicubic wrote: post #207
kyteland wrote: post #194

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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…

Even though I hate how these companies take advantage of people, I hate restricting freedom even more. I prefer having the freedom to manipulate and be manipulated into these kind of traps instead of sending people to jail because they did something people don't like.

And we have the freedom to not use products that mistreat us, I left facebook a year ago and I'll soon install lineageOS on my cellphone, limiting myself to only open source apps.

Re: Facebook spamming users via their 2FA phone numbers

#234

Post by ianamartin »

No fucking way. A company whose revenue absolutely depends on user engagement is coercing users into engaging with the platform.

I'm shocked. Shocked to hear about this. I can't possibly imagine how this could've happened. It's time to rethink everything we know, rewrite C in rust, and put the social back in media.

Re: Facebook spamming users via their 2FA phone numbers

#235

Post by Spooky23 »

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…

The mobile number is the holy grail. You can buy all sorts of evil information from the carriers, and your number is sort of a public key representing you in other contexts.

Re: Facebook spamming users via their 2FA phone numbers

#236

Post by naravara »

sandov wrote: post #233
bicubic wrote: post #207

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Even though I hate how these companies take advantage of people, I hate restricting freedom even more. I prefer having the freedom to manipulate and be manipulated into these kind of traps instead of sending people to jail because they did something people don't like. And we have the freedom to not use products that mistreat us, I left facebook a year ago and I'll soon install lineageOS on my cellphone, limiting myse…

I love the argument that severely diminishing your capabilities and quality of life in relation to others equates to “freedom.”

Re: Facebook spamming users via their 2FA phone numbers

#237

Post by sandov »

tjoff wrote: post #50
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…

In my book this is more or less another proof that you should be vary of vendor lockin and that under no circumstances whatsoever use any such system for communication. It is bad enough to change phone number but you simply can't change facebook to something else and continue as usual. I guess this leaves email, SMS and IRC as the main remaining options. Somehow this needs to be communicated to the general public, bu…

I've been thinking about making an easy-to-use RSS client, so non-technical people can use it and post the stuff that they would otherwise put on facebook (before it got invaded by videos and ads) or twitter.

Have you tried mastodon?. Imagine Mastodon, but with a bloggy/(2008's facebook) vibe instead of a twitter clone.

There would be no ads, because it's decentralized, just like mastodon. The feed would be chronological, and the interface would desincentivize spamming (links wouldn't have thumbnails or previews).

The idea is to make a clean and simple blog interface with a profile section added, where you could put some contact information and a profile pic.

In fact I made a little preview of what I would like it to look like. What do you guys think? https://i.imgur.com/DSD1wE0.png

Re: Facebook spamming users via their 2FA phone numbers

#238

Post by koliber »

rorykoehler wrote: post #225
sizzle wrote: post #188

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As an ethical UX designer, unethical UX designers/PMs/ need to be shamed for creating/allowing dark pattern in their work. This goes against the fundamental tenets of empathetic UX design and in downright manipulative and bordering evil.

From the UX I've studied it seems that ethics is unrelated. Typically in consumer apps the goal is to increase MAU and engagement and UX is dictated by whatever moves the needle on those areas. It's hard to separate whether people are using the app more because of it's better design through UX design feedback loop iterations or if it is a dark pattern. For example it is entirely plausible that the sms notification be…

> In a normalised database there will only be one phone number for multiple uses.

No! Normalization does not mean keeping only one copy of each piece of data, regardless of category and context. I see this behavior all the time in junior and even some senior devs, both in databases, and when they code.

A piece of information has a type, but it also has a context. A 2FA phone number is different than a marketing contact phone number. It should never be normalized into just one field.

My favorite example of this is people re-using a constant in multiple places in code just because it happens to have the same value. Imagine you have a constant defined as `USER_DISPLAY_AS = 'first_name'`. Then, somewhere, you are building sorting and want to be able to sort by first name or last name. You notice you already have a constant that contains a value 'first_name', so you use it. Not you have tied two completely different things together in your code because you thought you are being DRY.

Re: Facebook spamming users via their 2FA phone numbers

#240

Post by solatic »

rorykoehler wrote: post #225
sizzle wrote: post #188

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As an ethical UX designer, unethical UX designers/PMs/ need to be shamed for creating/allowing dark pattern in their work. This goes against the fundamental tenets of empathetic UX design and in downright manipulative and bordering evil.

From the UX I've studied it seems that ethics is unrelated. Typically in consumer apps the goal is to increase MAU and engagement and UX is dictated by whatever moves the needle on those areas. It's hard to separate whether people are using the app more because of it's better design through UX design feedback loop iterations or if it is a dark pattern. For example it is entirely plausible that the sms notification be…

> From the UX I've studied it seems that ethics is unrelated. Typically in consumer apps the goal is to increase MAU and engagement and UX is dictated by whatever moves the needle on those areas. It's hard to separate whether people are using the app more because of it's better design through UX design feedback loop iterations or if it is a dark pattern.

No matter which metrics you choose, you run the risk of PM's ordering unethical means of increasing those metrics. A bakery can measure itself by sales volume and ensuing revenue numbers - that doesn't by itself prevent bakery managers from adding addictive drugs to the recipes, nor does it mean that those are poor metrics.

What it does mean is a) the company made some poor hiring decisions along the way, and the best way to deal with that problem is by having some b) ethical review board.

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