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Report: Facebook Monitors Your Chats for Criminal Activity

mashable.com

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Re: Report: Facebook Monitors Your Chats for Criminal Activity

#41

Post by Sukotto »

rationalbeats wrote: post #12

I'm not a criminal, I am a a pretty mundane guy actually, but of course we live in a society that every single one of us breaks some small law every day. Which is why I stopped using Facebook. I also stopped using Twitter to tweet. I still use it to follow news sources, I just don't actively tweet. I did that after the NYPD won a court case to see all the private messages you send on Twitter. I also don't comment muc…

  If you give me six lines written by the hand of the most
  honest of men, I will find something in them which will
  hang him. -- Cardinal Richelieu

Re: Report: Facebook Monitors Your Chats for Criminal Activity

#42

Post by Jach »

fl3tch wrote: post #7

This looks like it's mostly targeted at sex predators, but I wonder if the system is also activated if you jokingly tell a friend that they are "smoking crack".

Why bother with this system when there are plenty of public (not that it matters for FB) profiles admitting the owner is using some sort of illegal drug?

Re: Report: Facebook Monitors Your Chats for Criminal Activity

#43

Post by iamdave »

chrsstrm wrote: post #5

So what happens if Facebook's system flags a message, it is reviewed by their staff and then dismissed as non-actionable, but turns out to be the precursor to a severe criminal act? Does the blame come back on Facebook for failing to prevent this crime?

Possibly failure to properly notify will result in some sort of legislative slap on the wrist, but not for failing to prevent it. That isn't their responsibility.

Re: Report: Facebook Monitors Your Chats for Criminal Activity

#44

Post by DanielBMarkham »

It's been clear in my mind for some time now that Facebook is desperately doing anything possible to stay plugged into our internet lives. Their attempted take-over of email, which will probably lead to some success, only reinforces this. I think they see the writing on the wall -- that newer services will take over older ones -- and are doing anything they can to stay top dog.

What we need is an abstraction layer on top of social networks. No matter what their TOS, they do not own my friends or my conversations with my friends. I have no qualms at all about having some other service handle my friendships and conversations in a way I deem appropriate.

We need to pry Facebook's greasy hands from our throats before it's too late. At one point they were cute. Then they were pleasantly time-wasting. Now they're crossing over the line firmly into evil territory.

Re: Report: Facebook Monitors Your Chats for Criminal Activity

#45

Post by adventureful »

sp332 wrote: post #32
mahyarm wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is nothing preventing your SMSs being saved in a telco DB. I'm fairly certain they are.

Well sure it might be, but it doesn't have to. FB messages always get saved, no question.

FB chat messages don't have to be saved either.

Re: Report: Facebook Monitors Your Chats for Criminal Activity

#46

Post by eschulte »

malandrew wrote: post #40

I'm of the opinion that once enough people get fed up with a surveillance state, or even a surveillance society since private entities are involved, that the best way to "fix" the problem is by collectively generating noise that makes it too expensive and time consuming to find a needle in a haystack. Right now they probably generate very few false positives, however if many people went out of their way to actively g…

Might be time to hook up something like Emacs' "M-x spook" to FB.

Re: Report: Facebook Monitors Your Chats for Criminal Activity

#47

Post by law »

samstave wrote: post #19
rationalbeats wrote: post #12

I'm not a criminal, I am a a pretty mundane guy actually, but of course we live in a society that every single one of us breaks some small law every day. Which is why I stopped using Facebook. I also stopped using Twitter to tweet. I still use it to follow news sources, I just don't actively tweet. I did that after the NYPD won a court case to see all the private messages you send on Twitter. I also don't comment muc…

I have never had a facebook account. Never have - never will. I distrust everything they do. And while we like to think that other sites are not as bad, I was recently censored on Quora for asking about why a post was censored on Reddit. They threw some "against policy" bullshit at me, and Marc Bodnick attempted to appear sympathetic and that his hands were tied and he didnt like the policy either - but it was a BS r…

Let's take it a step further: every item that you purchase with a credit card is recorded. It wouldn't surprise me if some retail stores use CCTV systems capable of facial recognition to identify cash purchases, too...

It's time to create an underground data haven in Kinakuta--the Crypt.

Re: Report: Facebook Monitors Your Chats for Criminal Activity

#48

Post by sp332 »

adventureful wrote: post #45
sp332 wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well sure it might be, but it doesn't have to. FB messages always get saved, no question.

FB chat messages don't have to be saved either.

If I log in and click the Messages button I can see all my messages. To do that they have to be on their server. There isn't an off-the-record button I missed is there?

Re: Report: Facebook Monitors Your Chats for Criminal Activity

#49

Post by noarchy »

Zenst wrote: post #24
Zenst wrote: post #23

What if Facebook make a mistake, do they get done for wasting police time? Monitoring is all fine but it needs to be done independantly, anything else is a conflict of interest and something that FaceBook staff can abuse. You know it would not supprise me one bit if FaceBook had staff monitoring this modding down every post that holds them in true^H^H^H^HBAD light.

I rest my case.

You might have lost some people when you said, "Monitoring is all fine..."

Re: Report: Facebook Monitors Your Chats for Criminal Activity

#50

Post by ck2 »

Somewhat related, apparently if you want to shutdown someone's paypal account and suspend their funds (and yours as well, be warned) just send them some money with the reason "drug money".

Apparently people have sent their friends money, rent, etc. and did that as a joke, boom, it's a nightmare.

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