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Facebook spamming users via their 2FA phone numbers

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281–290 of 380 posts

Re: Facebook spamming users via their 2FA phone numbers

#281
post #219

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> FB, annoying as it is, at least let's me know if they are doing ok. For some arbitrary definition of they . I've had a father of a childhood friend die and I didn't notice for two years. But that weird Australian friend of my former roommate that I helped through public transport from the airport last year? I get her drunk pictures. They didn't even like each other.

If you don’t like what you’re seeing, click the “hide stuff like this” option. I used to complain at end, then a friend forced me to use that feature and I rarely see something I don’t care about now (but still miss stuff I do care about as I don’t check FB that often).

Billions of dollars invested into machine learning and online tracking, and still I have to manually tell the thing about my interests.

Re: Facebook spamming users via their 2FA phone numbers

#282
post #233

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.”

Keep in mind if more people were proactive about their own digital landscapes, things like LineageOS and open source software would not seem like second rate diminished quality of life to people like you.

Oh fuck it I was trying to be nice but this has got me going. In my opinion it's certifiably dillusional to think that Google and Facebook equate to a higher quality of life. Holy shit that's crazy. It's bonafide brainwash.

I've severely scaled back my dependence on Facebook and Google the last few years and I could not be happier. It's made me pursue real social interactions again. My personal laptop is poewered primarily by free and open source software and in the last year or so has become so smooth it's putting macOS to shame (I am not making that up for the sake of argument).

Idk what has convinced you that Facebook and Google equal better life, but I can only pray you wake up some day and remember how to live life that isn't managed by someone else's server...

I should add I don't disagree with society regulating behavior that negatively impacts society, but I don't think your chosen method of arguing that point is intellectually sound. And in this case I really find it hard to imagine how you'd regulate user experience of an opt in service such as these companies are providing.

Re: Facebook spamming users via their 2FA phone numbers

#283
post #90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Unfortunately, there are a lot of events/organizations that organize almost exclusively through Facebook. Unfortunately, there effectively no other free platforms with a critical mass of sign ups big enough to be used in that way.

Unfortunately, there are a lot of events/organizations that organize almost exclusively through Facebook And there are services that require a Facebook account in order to use them. But you know what? If your business, event, whatever relies on the fact that I have a Facebook account then fuck you very much! I'm not interested.

It's all good if you are in a position to say no.

Eg. I've seen some housing communities use FB for their mailing lists.

I think the best option is to create dummy throwaway accounts if there's something on FB you really need access to.

Re: Facebook spamming users via their 2FA phone numbers

#284
post #82

Someone added my phone numbers on 2FA and now I am able to login to their account, without a password.

It's not really 2FA if you can login with just the one factor of the phone… Maybe you unconsciously reset the password to your own at some point and it's saved?

Re: Facebook spamming users via their 2FA phone numbers

#285
I suspect facebook is doing an even sinister version of this in India. It runs what is called an free mobile authentication service for startup called Account kit. A lot of apps use it to authenticate mobile numbers because it s free.

However, I suspect that facebooks intention behind this are not charitable at all. With this service facebook is able to get your phone number even if you dont give it to it. As long as you have installed any app on your mobile phone which uses Account kit to authenticate, facebook will be able to get your phone number and associate with your facebook account.

We talk about how Uber has lost the way, but somehow Facebook escapes all criticism. I think facebook is so lost at this point that they might as well shut the company down and go home.

Re: Facebook spamming users via their 2FA phone numbers

#286
post #95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can text anyone on any network.

Anyone in your home country. For me, and I don't think I am unusual in the US at least, texts to anywhere outside of the US, Canada, and Mexico aren't allowed without paying extra. Texts to many countries aren't allowed at any price.

Sucks to be at your Mobile Provider.

I can text literally any phone number, given I have enough money booked on the account. SMS is by nature not centralized, the data is exchanged between mobile providers.

If you were to start your own mobile provider, you could text anyone everywhere given you manage to get peering.

Re: Facebook spamming users via their 2FA phone numbers

#287

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…

> I'm really not interested in disconnecting for good at this time

This is all they heard.

Re: Facebook spamming users via their 2FA phone numbers

#288

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…

Also they reset your notifications settings regularly. I have disabled the email notification settings at least 5 times but after a while they keep coming again.

Re: Facebook spamming users via their 2FA phone numbers

#289

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 conta…

I don't disagree with you on the type issue but you can see in a large organisation how this would easily fall through the cracks. It's also entirely plausible that an intern came up with the sms notification idea and it wasn't caught in code review. I don't really subscribe to Hanlon's razor but in this context I can understand how it could happen quite easily.

Re: Facebook spamming users via their 2FA phone numbers

#290
post #275
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…

Same thing that they've done with the new Wifi toggle on the quick menu on iOS 11. You CANNOT turn off Wifi. It just "Disables it temporarily". They do this so that when you are home and your phones plugged in and on do not disturb its automatically downloading updates over Wifi again. This was the final straw for me.

My non technical partner was regularly finding herself out of data because she would turn off WiFi for some reason, forget to turn it back on again, and use a months data in a week. Since that change, it’s never happened. Yes, the option is misleading, (although there is a banner saying “turning off nearby WiFi until tomorrow”) but the vast vast majority of people don’t really turn off WiFi and want it off for good, they mean “I don’t want to use WiFi right now”. If you really do want to turn off WiFi, it’s in settings. I’d rather have a convenient feature that does what I want, even if it’s over use an un-updateable device where all the core services are tied to one of the largest tracking companies in the world, thanks.
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