Facebook denies it collects call and SMS data from phones without permission • Hacker News Board

Re: Facebook denies it collects call and SMS data from phones without permission

#311

Post by bitmapbrother » Mon, Mar 26, 2018, 4:16 PM UTC

Slansitartop wrote: post #286

lotsofpulp wrote: post #225

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Google could not be more confusing. I spend 10 hours a day on the computer, and I will avoid Google stuff because it’s just not worth the time it takes to educate yourself about their nonsense, so I wouldn’t expect anyone less tech savvy to want to bother with them either.

The main problem with Google is that I expect any service they build (beyond their biggest ones) to be shutdown eventually (probably sooner rather than later). It's not worth taking a chance on them anymore.

That's amusing considering Microsoft has shut down more products and services than Google ever has. Apple is also up there.

Re: Facebook denies it collects call and SMS data from phones without permission

#312

Post by zbentley » Mon, Mar 26, 2018, 4:17 PM UTC

osteele wrote: post #239

“Privacy means people know what they’re signing up for. In plain English, and repeatedly. That’s what it means. I’m an optimist. I believe people are smart. And some people want to share more data than other people do. Ask them. Ask them every time. Make them tell you to stop asking them if they’re tired of you asking them. Let them know precisely what you’re going to do with their data. That’s what we think.” — Stev…

It's almost like the company he headed made next to no money from selling its users' data.

Sarcasm aside, it's a good quote, but misses the crux of the issue: incentives. User data sharing/selling (whether through partnerships or advertisement targeting) is Facebook's revenue model. Everything else they make money off of is insignificant compared to that. This, I think, is what people mean when they say something is "in a company's DNA": was a dubious partnership with Cambridge Analytica or an only-deceptively-authorized potential collection of contact/SMS data some sinister plot, or the goal all along? Probably not. Was behavior like this considered less-than-scary to Facebook's decision-makers, swept under the rug, or seen as a minor extension of what they already do to make money? Almost certainly.

Re: Facebook denies it collects call and SMS data from phones without permission

#313

Post by delecti » Mon, Mar 26, 2018, 4:23 PM UTC

kodablah wrote: post #303

OliverJones wrote: post #194

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> the largest part of the Facebook users has not even > realized the scandal in full scale. Exactly. That's why they must be regulated. Pharma companies, food companies, and airlines, to mention three, have the same sorts of characteristics in their businesses. Examples: Airlines have regulations because the typical user has no way to evaluate maintenance regimes or navigation procedures. The big information-hooverin…

> That's why they must be regulated. I don't agree with GP's assessment that users "haven't realized" but I do agree that the "majority however won't care". So why regulate if a majority of people are ok with it? They're not too stupid, they just don't prioritize the way some here do. Doesn't have to be a law to force them to prioritize this way. This false equivalence to expertise of airplane mechanics is completely…

> They're not too stupid, they just don't prioritize the way some here do

While I agree that most people aren't stupid, I would argue that many people are ignorant. They simply don't know why they should care, probably due to a lack of understanding what it means for a company to have a copy of their data, and what that could enable those companies to do and figure out.

Re: Facebook denies it collects call and SMS data from phones without permission

#314

Post by eric_h » Mon, Mar 26, 2018, 4:28 PM UTC

oselhn wrote: post #287

rsync wrote: post #224

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"how well can this be actually used currently to create a proper psychosocial(?) profile of an individual? What's the current state of the art? Any suggestions for books or papers to read on the matter?" I suspect quite poorly. It's 2018 and I've been hearing pitches and narratives to do with fancy targeting of advertisements and user profiling now for 22 years. And what do we have ? If I search for something obscure…

I had one incident which convinced me that their algorithm is easily fooled even by single misclick. I hate ads propagating alcohol so I always report them to FB. Once I misclicked and instead of reporting it I opened linked article. Based on that click FB added alcohol to my interests. It did not matter that I reported all other similar adds before and also after that.

Whether the algorithms seem effective to you, as a single consumer of the advertisements, is irrelevant.

Facebook ad campaigns most definitely work (though I'd imagine there's some variance of effectiveness based on what exactly you're trying to sell with the ad campaigns), and lookalike audiences are an effective way of determining who to show your ads to.

It's really quite simple, as a company you can spend money on Facebook ads and you will get traffic/conversions/etc.

Re: Facebook denies it collects call and SMS data from phones without permission

#315

Post by CraigRood » Mon, Mar 26, 2018, 4:33 PM UTC

ibdf wrote: post #309

It's time for a decentralized social network to be formed that's not guided by advertising money, therefore no need to collect data. The only platform that does something similar that I know of is mastodon... are there other alternatives?

I think we should go one level deeper and build an open low level decentralized protocol. that allows others to create networks and 'feeds' on top. The data should belong to the person and the app/website should provide the features.

Re: Facebook denies it collects call and SMS data from phones without permission

#316

Post by ng-user » Mon, Mar 26, 2018, 4:42 PM UTC

seba_dos1 wrote: post #282

lotsofpulp wrote: post #226

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you have international family/friends, WhatsApp is the most ubiquitous and easy to use option I’ve come across.

Honest question: Is it really? That can be just my network, but I've never stumbled upon anyone using WhatsApp here in Poland. I only know this name because I follow tech news. Almost everyone uses Facebook's Messenger, some people use Telegram, sometimes Hangouts, gamers use Discord, techies Signal or Jabber and that's pretty much it.

When I was in the Nederlands last year they actually had public signage advertising a WhatsApp group chat (for emergencies and the like) for the surrounding community.

I was surprised by how popular it is.

Re: Facebook denies it collects call and SMS data from phones without permission

#317

Post by gault8121 » Mon, Mar 26, 2018, 4:52 PM UTC

soziawa wrote: post #244

randomsearch wrote: post #237

If you haven't already installed Signal on your phone, please go and do so. To have alternatives to Facebook/W/I we need to build up network effects. Pretty easy to convince tech people to do this, and it would be a good start for getting Signal in as a replacement.

While Signal is nice it's rather worrying that it's free. I'd rather use a paid alternative like Threema.

They are now in the process of becoming a nonprofit and recently won a $50m grant.

Re: Facebook denies it collects call and SMS data from phones without permission

#318

Post by pgwhalen » Mon, Mar 26, 2018, 4:53 PM UTC

jerrre wrote: post #269

vincnetas wrote: post #186

Earlier quoted context omitted.

FB income : 15,920,000,000$ [1] FB users : 2,129,000,000 [2] $7.47/year This is quite affordable. Curious how would marketing companies react to such idea. [1] https://www.nasdaq.com/symbol/fb/financials?query=income-sta... [2] https://www.statista.com/statistics/264810/number-of-monthly...

I keep hearing the argument that the people most likely to pay for not looking at ads, are the most interesting to advertisers.....

And it seems very plausible. I’m sure a HN reader is worth far more than $7.47 a year to Facebook.

Re: Facebook denies it collects call and SMS data from phones without permission

#319

Post by fsfsf » Mon, Mar 26, 2018, 4:56 PM UTC

sametmax wrote: post #305

logfromblammo wrote: post #304

Earlier quoted context omitted.

English is already partly French, thanks to the Normans. You can usually drop individual French words straight in without a problem, and sometimes short idiomatic phrases. Trying to translate will just shed any idiomatic character. En masse is already idiomatically associated with groups of people, whereas "in mass" makes us think in terms of kilograms. How many tons of people are leaving Facebook now? As another exa…

Voila, I learned the fact du jour. This makes my day, or my joie de vivre if I may say. Do I do it right ?

These little facts give life a certain je ne sais quoi

Re: Facebook denies it collects call and SMS data from phones without permission

#320

Post by fsfsf » Mon, Mar 26, 2018, 4:59 PM UTC

logfromblammo wrote: post #304

sametmax wrote: post #270

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The irony is, I'm french, and I tried to "englishify" "en masse", thinking it made sense.

English is already partly French, thanks to the Normans. You can usually drop individual French words straight in without a problem, and sometimes short idiomatic phrases. Trying to translate will just shed any idiomatic character. En masse is already idiomatically associated with groups of people, whereas "in mass" makes us think in terms of kilograms. How many tons of people are leaving Facebook now? As another exa…

I speak Spanish (native) and Italian (fluent) on top of English (best language).

I found French class hard growing up. Until I realized that this "latin" language had as much in common with English as it did my two romanance language.