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‘People You May Know’ helped Facebook grow exponentially

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Re: ‘People You May Know’ helped Facebook grow exponentially

#41

Post by whymauri »

mrlala wrote: post #30
reaperducer wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The same billionaire who spends tens of millions of dollars bulldozing houses around his in order to increase his privacy,† then tells the commoners that wanting privacy isn't normal.†† † https://www.sfgate.com/tech/article/Zuckerberg-to-raze-4-hou... †† https://www.huffpost.com/entry/facebooks-zuckerberg-the_n_41...

Physical privacy vs virtual privacy are two very different things, so it's disingenuous to pretend they are exactly the same.

The impact that virtual privacy can have on lives is quickly approaching the impact that physical privacy can have. Further, part of the attack surface on physical privacy is virtual privacy, anyways.

Re: ‘People You May Know’ helped Facebook grow exponentially

#42

Post by wpietri »

mrlala wrote: post #30
reaperducer wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The same billionaire who spends tens of millions of dollars bulldozing houses around his in order to increase his privacy,† then tells the commoners that wanting privacy isn't normal.†† † https://www.sfgate.com/tech/article/Zuckerberg-to-raze-4-hou... †† https://www.huffpost.com/entry/facebooks-zuckerberg-the_n_41...

Physical privacy vs virtual privacy are two very different things, so it's disingenuous to pretend they are exactly the same.

Nobody said they were exactly identical. If you're going to argue, please argue with what people actually say.

Re: ‘People You May Know’ helped Facebook grow exponentially

#43

Post by wpietri »

toohotatopic wrote: post #7
RcouF1uZ4gsC wrote: post #5

> A sex worker found Facebook recommending her clients, who did not know her true identity. A sperm donor got a suggestion for the biological child he never met. A psychiatrist learned that Facebook was recommending that some of her patients friend each other on the service. It is amazing how little pieces of information that are likely innocuous by themselves can be combined to develop a pretty thorough understandin…

But we don't know if these are false positives. The connection between all those examples doesn't have to be the suggested link. E.g. the patients could be suggested because they have a common friend.

Since the system is both aggressive and intentionally opaque, it doesn't much matter to me whether the positives are false or true. If Facebook would like people not to feel threatened by it, then they could either not do it or make it much clearer what's going on.

Re: ‘People You May Know’ helped Facebook grow exponentially

#44

Post by cosmotron »

smacktoward wrote: post #36
choward wrote: post #6

They kept sending me "do you know [person I probably don't know]" as notifications on my phone! This was the last straw that made me delete the app and my account entirely a few years ago. One of the big annoyances in life is being notified or bugged about something I don't need to be notified about. This keeps getting worse with modern tech all the time which has slowly led me to stop using anything I don't have ful…

The one that got me to delete the app was when I went out one night on a first date with a woman, and then both the woman and I immediately started showing up in each other's "do you know" prompts. There is probably an explanation for this that doesn't boil down to "FB watched our GPS and noticed our phones sat next to each other at the same location for several hours," but it still felt sufficiently creepy to make m…

If one person searched for the other by name (you know, just to see if they're on FB and what stuff is publicly shared), then they may appear in PYMK.

Re: ‘People You May Know’ helped Facebook grow exponentially

#45

Post by solotronics »

mrlala wrote: post #30
reaperducer wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The same billionaire who spends tens of millions of dollars bulldozing houses around his in order to increase his privacy,† then tells the commoners that wanting privacy isn't normal.†† † https://www.sfgate.com/tech/article/Zuckerberg-to-raze-4-hou... †† https://www.huffpost.com/entry/facebooks-zuckerberg-the_n_41...

Physical privacy vs virtual privacy are two very different things, so it's disingenuous to pretend they are exactly the same.

He tapes over his camera on his laptop because he doesn't trust it. I do too and don't think this is odd behavior. https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2016/jun/22/mark-zuck...

Re: ‘People You May Know’ helped Facebook grow exponentially

#46

Post by ciil »

Seenso wrote: post #39
AlexandrB wrote: post #9

This quote from Zuckerberg is something else: > “We don’t view your experience with the product as a single-player game,” he says. Yes, in the short run, some users might benefit more than others from PYMK friending. But, he contends, all users will benefit if everyone they know winds up on Facebook. We should think of PYMK as kind of a “community tax policy,” he says. Or a redistribution of wealth. “If you’re ramped…

> This attitude of "we know what's good for you" is apparent in more and more modern tech products. I find it pretty gross... It's even grosser than that. The attitude here is really "we did what was good for us, but we think you're dumb enough to be convinced we did it because it was good for you."

I think at least some engineers genuinely believe they're doing what's best for the users and that it just so happens to also be either the best for their personal bottom line or the easiest route to go with their product.

Re: ‘People You May Know’ helped Facebook grow exponentially

#47

Post by mrlala »

solotronics wrote: post #45
mrlala wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Physical privacy vs virtual privacy are two very different things, so it's disingenuous to pretend they are exactly the same.

He tapes over his camera on his laptop because he doesn't trust it. I do too and don't think this is odd behavior. https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2016/jun/22/mark-zuck...

That is physical privacy.. it's so someone can't SEE YOU. Not track your online activity.

Re: ‘People You May Know’ helped Facebook grow exponentially

#48

Post by harikb »

choward wrote: post #6

They kept sending me "do you know [person I probably don't know]" as notifications on my phone! This was the last straw that made me delete the app and my account entirely a few years ago. One of the big annoyances in life is being notified or bugged about something I don't need to be notified about. This keeps getting worse with modern tech all the time which has slowly led me to stop using anything I don't have ful…

In case anyone hasn't seen the John Oliver episode on it [1] , it is worth your 5 minutes

1. https://youtu.be/kxatzHnl7Q8?t=16

Re: ‘People You May Know’ helped Facebook grow exponentially

#49

Post by Loughla »

itronitron wrote: post #37
titzer wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The geo thing is really happening.

so a stalker will get recommended to a 'stalkee' ?

I mean, part of the use case there is that the 'stalkee' will at least be notified that the person s/he has seen four or five times is definitely stalking them. So that's good, I guess.

This post is obviously sarcasm.

Re: ‘People You May Know’ helped Facebook grow exponentially

#50

Post by Seenso »

RcouF1uZ4gsC wrote: post #13
toohotatopic wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But we don't know if these are false positives. The connection between all those examples doesn't have to be the suggested link. E.g. the patients could be suggested because they have a common friend.

Yeah, the psychiatrist seems the easiest to explain since when choosing a medical professional people may ask their friends who they recommend.

> Yeah, the psychiatrist seems the easiest to explain since when choosing a medical professional people may ask their friends who they recommend.

IIRC, connections like those were often explainable by addressbook data. Please assumed Facebook didn't have access to that when it actually did (I'm pretty careful about this kind of stuff and found mine had been slurped at some point, for instance). It's not inconceivable that a psychiatrist and patient may have exchanged emails or phone numbers.

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