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Facebook's seized files published by MPs

bbc.co.uk

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Re: Facebook's seized files published by MPs

#431

Post by traek »

evilzuku wrote: post #33
tpush wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Really interesting stuff in there. > Facebook email 24 January 2013 > Justin Osofsky – ‘Twitter launched Vine today which lets you shoot multiple short video segments to make one single, 6-second video. As part of their NUX, you can find friends via FB. Unless anyone raises objections, we will shut down their friends API access today. We’ve prepared reactive PR, and I will let Jana know our decision. > MZ – ‘Yup, go…

Nothing says evil more than preparing reactive PR to bury your competitors. And the nonchalant way his response sends chills down my spine. These people will suffocate innovation just to win.

> Nothing says evil more than preparing reactive PR to bury your competitors.

Really?

Re: Facebook's seized files published by MPs

#433

Post by traek »

bduerst wrote: post #157
JumpCrisscross wrote: post #139

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Did Onavo have access to data that other public BI firms don't? Yes. Onavo built “consumer-facing apps to help optimise device and app performance and battery life on iOS and Android devices” [1] while piping their users’ data to Facebook. [1] https://techcrunch.com/2013/10/13/facebook-buys-mobile-analy...

So they were basically the spamware apps like flashlight and other 'performance enhancers'? That makes this kind of worse, especially if they continued it after acquisition.

Not really, they built an actual data compression VPN for users with limited data plans and did traffic analysis on the data that went through that pipe.

Re: Facebook's seized files published by MPs

#434

Post by kevindqc »

traek wrote: post #430
oliveshell wrote: post #287

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree; of course that isn’t. But being forced to give away half your physical retail space is hardly the same thing as just letting them keep using an API that you provide explicitly for such use. Also, more broadly: one would have quite a hard time making the case that Facebook isn’t nakedly, gleefully, and rapaciously user-hostile.

> But being forced to give away half your physical retail space is hardly the same thing as just letting them keep using an API that you provide explicitly for such use. In this case, Facebook was deprecating the API and declined to provide special whitelist access to a competitor.

So they just heard about Vine, and decided to deprecate the API the same day? That doesn't sound right to me. That conversation seems to indicate they just wanted to block them ASAP (same day), nothing to do with deprecation?

Re: Facebook's seized files published by MPs

#436

Post by hkt »

NeedMoreTea wrote: post #87
hkt wrote: post #73

Sometimes, even amidst the Brexit madness, I love our Parliament. Publishing and seizing documents like this is a move that proves politicians have the spine to look after people's interests. Time to get serious, act on this, and break up Facebook forever.

This is our committee system working as intended. I wish it still applied to other areas of governance like local government funding, lobbying, MPs in government and so on. Late Edit: I must add to that list admission of ministerial responsibility. The last resignation with honour, rather than for political point scoring, was Lord Carrington resigning as Foreign Secretary in 1982. Since then it's a dead concept.

Yeah, it is a joy to behold. I hope it becomes even more powerful than it is already.

Re: Facebook's seized files published by MPs

#437

Post by hkt »

Mahn wrote: post #307
amaccuish wrote: post #292

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And what precedent is that? The idea that companies aren't above the law? That's a precedent I wish was more enforced. I'm proud of my parliament today (and it's not often I can say that), even if in other parts they're tearing themselves apart.

What laws did Facebook break that warranted seizing and publishing internal documents?

It didn't break a law, but it also didn't comply with our sovereign parliament's right to investigate matters of interest to its members. In a manner of speaking in this sense, they are the law.

Re: Facebook's seized files published by MPs

#438

Post by IronWolve »

I worked for a company that was bought by blackberry and then split up. A large portion of our developers and engineers went to Facebook in Ireland and Seattle/California.

This is my personal experience, so I don't know how widespread this is, but I suspect its common.

I stayed friendly with many ex-coworkers on Facebook for awhile, and saw some attitudes move towards a harsh alt-leftist view and some went extremely violent. Anti-Isreal statements started popping up and some Jewish facebook engineers started to self-censor and talk in personal messages instead of posting, commenting to me if I was also seeing this attitude in posts.

Could just be how divided facebook made people, amplifying echo-chambers and enforcing views that "their side" is correct, but many of my old co-workers show a large political divide and a few just are wildly hardcore political in very violent tones. How this bleeds into their job, only time will tell.

I finally had to make facebook just for family and close friends and removed the app from my phone, and only use it in a web browser. I'm guilty of enjoying a good meme or political cartoon, but things are definitely more divided now. I would not doubt the documents reflect more political views seeping into their products.

Re: Facebook's seized files published by MPs

#439

Post by hkt »

Mahn wrote: post #283
hkt wrote: post #73

Sometimes, even amidst the Brexit madness, I love our Parliament. Publishing and seizing documents like this is a move that proves politicians have the spine to look after people's interests. Time to get serious, act on this, and break up Facebook forever.

I think this sets an awful precedent and it's astonishing that an action like this would be applauded. But you do you.

It set a pretty awful precedent when Facebook spread misinformation so effectively that my country voted to cripple itself. We are going to have justice: no foreign intervention or dark money will stop us. I rarely feel pride like I did today, because for all their faults it is clear to me that the current crop of Parliamentarians will hunt down those responsible for weaponising disinformation in our politics.

Re: Facebook's seized files published by MPs

#440

Post by [deleted] »

ryanwaggoner wrote: post #308
hkt wrote: post #73

Sometimes, even amidst the Brexit madness, I love our Parliament. Publishing and seizing documents like this is a move that proves politicians have the spine to look after people's interests. Time to get serious, act on this, and break up Facebook forever.

Seizing documents for a valid inquiry is one thing. But does that follow that publishing them is OK too? From the outside, it looks like these politicians are frustrated that a foreign CEO ignored their demand to appear before them (because he has no legal obligation to do so), and have decided to retaliate by releasing embarrassing private internal documents obtained during an investigation in the hopes that Faceboo…

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