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Facebook is gaslighting the web. We can fix it.

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Re: Facebook is gaslighting the web. We can fix it.

#71

Post by ajross »

notahacker wrote: post #7
mnutt wrote: post #5

Regarding "Web sites are deemed unsafe, even if Facebook monitors them", wouldn't it be worse if Facebook deemed websites that it monitored 'safe'? Then Facebook would be saying: "use Facebook services on your site, or we'll scare all of your users with an interstitial message"

This is true. I presume a preferred option would be dumping the warnings altogether, but this would be a big boon for phishers. What I don't like about the article is the suggestion that the best way of combating Facebook's excessively paranoid and usually unwarranted warnings about offsite content is to show excessively paranoid warnings to people trying to get into Facebook. Particularly when one of the principal g…

Why would it be a boon to phishers? Existing solutions for phishing/malware blacklisting are mature and quite well supported. There's lost of competition in the market, and they work quite well overall. It's not like Facebook couldn't just buy one of these for decent coverage.

The point is that putting up what amounts to a false negative malware warning on basically every "minor" link on facebook (I know it's not really a false negative, but that's how it's perceived) is just terrible overkill for the problem, and a terrible experience for the users.

That it survives at all leads one to wonder seriously about facebook's intentions.

Re: Facebook is gaslighting the web. We can fix it.

#72

Post by thom »

VladRussian wrote: post #65
thom wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You know, the dystopia in which I'm forced to share pictures of my newborn son with my family, and talk to friends on the other side of the country that I haven't seen for months, is better than pretty much any other dystopia I can imagine.

>the dystopia in which I'm forced to share pictures of my newborn son with my family, and talk to friends on the other side of the country that I haven't seen for months the things impossible without Facebook :) The main thing that Facebbok does isn't [technically] enabling some specific communications in some specific space, the main thing is that Facebook puts people into that space, bumps them one into another and…

I guess I just haven't met these Facebook victims - vegetables chained to their computers, grinning and drooling as they click reflexively on adverts all day, unaware that they could be outside, surrounded by swarms of butterflies and running with wild horses in the warmth of the Summer sun.

Mostly it's just a website.

Re: Facebook is gaslighting the web. We can fix it.

#73

Post by benregenspan »

ajross wrote: post #69
podperson wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I can't believe I'm posting something that might be taken as defending Facebook but... If a site appears to contain malicious content at time X but not at time Y than I would PREFER to be notified that it is a dubious site until the site has earned back trust in some way. Continuing to warn users about a site that historically contained badness seems to me to be a FEATURE.

That's actually exactly Google's solution: they give you a set of reports and an indication of when the malware or malicious link was last detected on the site. But I don't think that's the issue here. That facebook warning does not , as far as I know, get generated from a positive malware/spam/badness metric. It's just thrown up as a default action when someone links to an unblessed site on the web. That's what the…

But as lbrandy mentioned, this is in one rare case and appears to be the result of a bug. If this happened when most links were clicked leaving Facebook, you can rest assured that all publishers would be up in arms.

Re: Facebook is gaslighting the web. We can fix it.

#74

Post by ajross »

benregenspan wrote: post #73
ajross wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's actually exactly Google's solution: they give you a set of reports and an indication of when the malware or malicious link was last detected on the site. But I don't think that's the issue here. That facebook warning does not , as far as I know, get generated from a positive malware/spam/badness metric. It's just thrown up as a default action when someone links to an unblessed site on the web. That's what the…

But as lbrandy mentioned, this is in one rare case and appears to be the result of a bug. If this happened when most links were clicked leaving Facebook, you can rest assured that all publishers would be up in arms.

Hopefully it's a bug. But I see it routinely. It's definitely not a "rare case" by any metric I can think of.

Re: Facebook is gaslighting the web. We can fix it.

#75

Post by iamandrus »

Karunamon wrote: post #64
billybob wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree with your first sentence. Whether it worked in the past is arguable, since they continue to do slimy things. But one thing is sure: they can't abuse your data if you don't give it to them.

.. and that it's not "abuse" if you know what they're doing with it and expect it. Don't share anything on Facebook that you wouldn't want to see on the news the next morning. Simple and easy.

That sounds simple and easy but for today's teens there's no limit. I know people who have gotten expelled from private schools for posting stupid things on Facebook. It's a disturbingly common occurrence. It's not Facebook's fault obviously, but for kids, dangers about "oversharing" go in one ear and out the other.

Re: Facebook is gaslighting the web. We can fix it.

#76

Post by shaver »

anildash wrote: post #66
chc wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do you really think so? It's intellectually honest to suggest that Stop Badware — a system intended to cordon off viruses, spyware and surreptitiously installed junkware — should be used to punish a site because its threat detection algorithms are overly cautious? That doesn't strike you as even a little bit spiteful?

Stop Badware regularly flags sites that issue spurious security warnings in an attempt to mislead users. Facebook certainly falls under that description.

Can you give me an example? Sites get entered in there if they try to install malware on people's machines. I think it's straight-up ridiculous to say that FB's text there is an attempt to mislead users. It gives good advice that most people don't keep in mind at a funnel point that's known to be relevant to an enormous number of phishing and other attacks.

Do you actually believe the things you're saying? I'm struggling here.

(StopBadware actually doesn't flag sites at all.)

Re: Facebook is gaslighting the web. We can fix it.

#77

Post by shaver »

tlrobinson wrote: post #21

I'm usually pretty tolerant of Facebook's more aggressive initiatives, but I've started blocking all of the "frictionless sharing" apps. The user interface they present is ridiculous. 1. I see a friend read an article that looks interesting. I click it. 2. Every time I click one of these I'm asked to add the application before I'm allowed to view the link. 3. My options are "ok" and "cancel". The first few times I as…

Yes, you should block apps that you don't want to see. They are (per your reasonable definition) badly behaved, and you should exclude them from your stream. I think that's exactly the behaviour that FB would want, because it ties the utility/economics of those apps to the quality of their user-experience.

(Disclosure: I start at FB next week, though I don't have any inside info on this.)

Re: Facebook is gaslighting the web. We can fix it.

#78

Post by benregenspan »

chc wrote: post #60
HalSF wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It’s hardly calm and cogent — in fact it’s sort of a wild accusation — to describe a post as “flinging wild accusations” when it does nothing of the sort. Yes, Anil’s post is sharply argued and it’s definitely a polemical pushback against Facebook’s practice, but it’s a valuable part of the debate (especially with the added value of the comments below it), not a flame.

I don't see how you can describe the statements "Facebook is gaslighting the web"† and "Facebook has moved from merely being a walled garden into openly attacking its users' ability and willingness to navigate the rest of the web" as anything but wild accusations. You might argue that, as wild as they are, they're nonetheless true — but they are accusations and extreme ones at that. I certainly feel that Anil's post…

Agreed. I was expecting a much more substantial argument from Anil, but instead the post offers a list of disparate concerns without any real attempt made to link them together or to justify such strong statements. There are all kinds of explanations for discontinuing RSS import support and for malware warnings that do not point to nefariousness on the part of Facebook.

Re: Facebook is gaslighting the web. We can fix it.

#79

Post by tlrobinson »

shaver wrote: post #77
tlrobinson wrote: post #21

I'm usually pretty tolerant of Facebook's more aggressive initiatives, but I've started blocking all of the "frictionless sharing" apps. The user interface they present is ridiculous. 1. I see a friend read an article that looks interesting. I click it. 2. Every time I click one of these I'm asked to add the application before I'm allowed to view the link. 3. My options are "ok" and "cancel". The first few times I as…

Yes, you should block apps that you don't want to see. They are (per your reasonable definition) badly behaved, and you should exclude them from your stream. I think that's exactly the behaviour that FB would want, because it ties the utility/economics of those apps to the quality of their user-experience. (Disclosure: I start at FB next week, though I don't have any inside info on this.)

It's an ok solution for me, but unfortunately I think most users will just click "ok" so they can see their friend's link without realizing what they're actually agreeing to.

I think that's what Facebook wants: "making the world more open and connected"... at all costs. They're constantly pushing the limit of what level of openness users will accept. It's going to backfire.

Re: Facebook is gaslighting the web. We can fix it.

#80

Post by ChuckMcM »

redthrowaway wrote: post #9
ChuckMcM wrote: post #6

Cache link is essential, of course the term 'gaslighting' [1] may be common in some groups, it was new to me. The general theme is that Facebook is making changes which make the service benefit Facebook more and is less user friendly. I'm not sure it rises to the level of abuse implied by the term but that is clearly subjective. The 'answer' of course is to leave. I know, I know, "But all my friends are there!" or "N…

>(warning Wikipedia link) What's the warning for? If it's warning against being confronted with Jimbo's piercing gaze, that seems a bit snarky.

I generally prefer to quote somewhat more authoritative sources than Wikipedia, it isn't that they are always (or even most ways) incorrect or ill-written, its just that for subjective things they cannot be relied upon. It is the nature of Wikipedia of course.
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