31–40 of 126 posts
"Are you recording my conversations, Facebook?" "Of course not, silly! We don't listen to your conversations, we just identify the things you're listening to , of course!" 0_O
"Are you recording my conversations, Facebook?" "Of course not, silly! We don't listen to your conversations, we just identify the things you're listening to , of course!" 0_O
Of course the problem is you can't control or check which of the two was done with the audio that got uploaded, and that is the scary part and reason enough not to allow anyone to record audio. But you can't just claim that facebook does in fact "listen" to your _conversation_ in any way we would understand as listening.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Look, I know that nowdays it's popular to pay attention to security and privacy, and I understand that it's important. But can we for once not immediately assume ill intentions? I mean come on, do you seriously believe that programmers at facebook are rubbing their hands and laughing at how smart they are, figuring out how to turn on your mike for 15 seconds? Is that really what you believe is going on? Or is it just…
Look, I know that nowdays it's popular to pay attention to security and privacy, and I understand that it's important. But can we for once not immediately assume ill intentions? Not really. If I find it important to mention what I am watching or listening too, I can add it myself. Obviously, the goals is not surveillance, since 15 seconds would be a too small amount of time. The goal is getting an even more fine-grai…
People distrust big corporations, and that makes sense to a degree. But if I imagine a team of programmers that work on that stuff, when I visualise actual human beings that make the decisions, I have very hard time believing that this is the kind of thoughts that go through they heads.
Sure, maybe there's some manager somewhere who literally thinks "lets decrease people's privacy so we could squeeze extra few cents out of our users", I just believe that in 95% of cases it's just people like you and me, trying to do good things and build a new fun feature.
I understand your concern about the remaining 5%, but it seems unlikely to me in this case.
People who work at facebook probably have enough money to not be desperate about earning more, and to be free to focus on just making cool things. I think it's bad when everything google/apple/facebook/etc does is met with hostility, and in this particular case that reaction seems to be the result of group think, it isn't warranted by the information that we have.
They introduced similar feature with football (soccer) this weekend, or earlier and I didn't notice. When one of the teams I like is playing a match, the placeholder for post status is replaced with something asking my opinion about the match and a football icon is added. Which is a decent idea to get more people updating their statuses and posting more. Regarding privacy, etc. Eh, damn, it gets boring when so many c…
Regarding the "it gets boring": yes, it's boring, but until it changes we will continue pointing it out. Because if you don't do it, people forget. We end up taking it for granted. Tell me how many people on Facebook know "Facebook steals their data" and how many of them actually act on it. What actually happens is that people have a vague idea of the privacy issues but, because "we all know it" and "it's boring" it doesn't get discussed and we end up accepting it.
Is it just me or is it _beyond_ creepy ? Location, sound ... soon they will be collecting biometric data as well, "just to get room temperature, promise".
Look, I know that nowdays it's popular to pay attention to security and privacy, and I understand that it's important. But can we for once not immediately assume ill intentions? I mean come on, do you seriously believe that programmers at facebook are rubbing their hands and laughing at how smart they are, figuring out how to turn on your mike for 15 seconds? Is that really what you believe is going on? Or is it just…
But you are asking for some really heavy lifting here. You're positing that we have two choices: assume ill intent on the part of Facebook or assume it's all good.
These are not the only choices, and they're not opposites of each other. Most likely is that FB folks are actively trying to help posters as much as they can. Most likely is that the average poster enjoys all this cool stuff. Most likely is that this is a terrible feature that should have never seen the light of day because of where it's taking the industry -- deeper down a pit of the surveillance/security state. Most likely a lot of folks complain about it simply because it's trendy.
All of these things can be true at the same time.
So I'm not really sure what to say. Sucks to work at Facebook, I guess. Too many developers and a mission to own the planet. Maybe they should have just stuck to "pictures of people you know and what they've been doing lately"
Is it just me or is it _beyond_ creepy ? Location, sound ... soon they will be collecting biometric data as well, "just to get room temperature, promise".
Look, I know that nowdays it's popular to pay attention to security and privacy, and I understand that it's important. But can we for once not immediately assume ill intentions? I mean come on, do you seriously believe that programmers at facebook are rubbing their hands and laughing at how smart they are, figuring out how to turn on your mike for 15 seconds? Is that really what you believe is going on? Or is it just…
They introduced similar feature with football (soccer) this weekend, or earlier and I didn't notice. When one of the teams I like is playing a match, the placeholder for post status is replaced with something asking my opinion about the match and a football icon is added. Which is a decent idea to get more people updating their statuses and posting more. Regarding privacy, etc. Eh, damn, it gets boring when so many c…
There's a difference, though: you explicitly told Facebook what you like, and it's acting on it. You pressed "like" on your team, and Facebook can check if it's playing right now. However, this is different: you didn't tell Facebook "hey search what show I'm watching". Regarding the "it gets boring": yes, it's boring, but until it changes we will continue pointing it out. Because if you don't do it, people forget. We…
After the Snowden leaks, pretty much everyone on HN is aware of the issues. So some are strongly against it and are vocal, and others silently accept it and don't think it's possible to convince them otherwise.
But anyway, thank you for your nice, calm response to my semi-raging post :)
Is it just me or is it _beyond_ creepy ? Location, sound ... soon they will be collecting biometric data as well, "just to get room temperature, promise".
As long as it's opt-in I don't find it that creepy to be honest.
"Are you recording my conversations, Facebook?" "Of course not, silly! We don't listen to your conversations, we just identify the things you're listening to , of course!" 0_O
Or every stranger in a bar, that happens to be around me, when I post my silly "I'm wasted beyond believe" status?
In my mind, there are ramifications beyond believe there. And I am not really sure, what to make of this.