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I've been using Facebook since college (circa 2005). Never "hidden" my profile from anyone or the public. Never deactivated anything or deleted a post. Recruite

I've been using Facebook since college (circa 2005). Never "hidden" my profile from anyone or the public. Never deactivated anything or deleted a post. Recruiters and acquaintances look up my profile all the time. Still, I have never had the data I've given them come back to haunt me. I still trust Facebook leadership very much in this regard. Maybe it's because I trust myself and how I utilize the technology. Or maybe it's because I am cut from the same cloth as them when it comes to technology and I understand it at a very instinctive level. In light of the recent election, at this point I wouldn't trust any other entity with that kind of data (like Amazon, who seems to use my data to raise prices on me, frequently). In fact, I would wish Facebook to contract with and take over identity management systems (ie. social security, drivers license) away from local and federal government - not to dictate policy but just to dictate infrastructure. I really don't care about privatization or policy in a general sense, just progress in this regard. 10 years later I still don't get the point of these articles besides fear mongering and at most to provide a technological challenge to engineers and developers on "the other side". I understand ad-blocker companies are fighting a messy war right now with both content and ad providers. I guess that is another way, albeit much slower, way to achieve progress. Hacking goes both ways.

xapata 10y ago
Yeah, I always get annoyed at standing in line for building security needing to take yet another photo of me and stare at my license. Let's just be friends on Facebook so their security cameras can identify me when I walk in the door.
- javra 10y ago
  I honestly can't tell if you're being sarcastic or not.
  - xapata 10y ago
    Nope, not sarcastic. I understand that my comment might sound like a parody to folks that share the sentiment of the article author.
jdhzzz 10y ago
The point of this particular article is that you don't even need to be on Facebook. Your image is bound to be captured, perhaps only in the background in a public space, by someone who is. Your face will be recognized and it will become part of your "public record". No amount of opting out will prevent this. Perhaps going full Amish will, but even that simply pushes back the timeline.
- libraryatnight 10y ago
  "FYI man, alright. You could sit at home, and do like absolutely nothing, and your name goes through like 17 computers a day. 1984? Yeah right, man. That's a typo. Orwell is here now. He's livin' large. We have no names, man. No names. We are nameless!" lol i used to love this quote in Hackers and your point made me recall it.
- pmoriarty 10y ago
  On Facebook and other social media websites, people regularly volunteer to identify their friends in photos. That does not happen with ordinary street surveillance footage, as far as I know. So you might have pictures of you taken by street surveillance cameras as you walk around in big cities, but your face isn't ordinarily going to be recognized by anyone.
  - jdormit 10y ago
    These days, I'd be willing to bet that "ordinary street surveillance" uses facial recognition algorithms. It wouldn't be as effective as FB's, because FB has an enormous stream of training data coming in all the time. However, that could change if law enforcement got access to FB's data - hence this article.
    - pmoriarty 10y ago
      Facial recognition software can only recognize you if your face is already in the database and identified as you. It's not going to magically know your identity otherwise, no matter how sophisticated it is. On the other hand, I guess it could do some inference, such as: person X seen at location Y is also seen going in to residence Z every evening and coming out of the same residence every morning for the last 6 months, therefore there's a high probability that this person's address is residence Z, and since John Doe is the only person registered as living in that residence, person X is probably John Doe, etc.
Sir_Substance 10y ago
>Still, I have never had the data I've given them come back to haunt me. Are you sure? Facebook has a patent on lowering your credit score based on who is in your friends list[1]. They also feed data to credit score companies who directly examine your posts and use it to tweak your credit score yet further[2]. It's totally possible that your use of Facebook has affected your ability to buy a car or house, or get a job[3]. The lifetime cost of your mortgage could be $20,000 higher than it need be due to your use of Facebook. Maybe you got passed over for that job that would have been in the perfect place for raising your new child, due to your posting. How would you know? Did you really think they were going to tell you? Maybe you're not at a time in your life where these things have happened to you yet, but I have bad news. The data you've submitted to Facebook will never be deleted. It's invisible baggage, following you everywhere. Honestly, you have no real idea of what impact it's having on your life, because it's not in the interest of any of that data's consumers to tell you what they are doing with it. [1] https://qz.com/472751/facebooks-new-patent-lets-lenders-reject-a-loan-based-on-your-friends-credit-scores-but-dont-freak-out/ https://qz.com/472751/facebooks-new-patent-lets-lenders-reje... [2] http://www.ajc.com/news/national/how-your-facebook-profile-can-affect-your-credit/dGASsQw6MBsxjspFdzwoZK/ http://www.ajc.com/news/national/how-your-facebook-profile-c... [3] https://www.creditkarma.com/article/why-some-employers-check-credit-history-1014152 https://www.creditkarma.com/article/why-some-employers-check...
- aianus 10y ago
  > The lifetime cost of your mortgage could be $20,000 higher than it need be due to your use of Facebook. Or it could be $20,000 cheaper if you're actually low-risk and their algorithms are better than the status quo... > Maybe you got passed over for that job that would have been in the perfect place for raising your new child, due to your posting. How would you know? If you didn't have Facebook, how would you know if you were missing out on opportunities because you've since lost touch with various acquaintances?
  - Sir_Substance 10y ago
    >Or it could be $20,000 cheaper if you're actually low-risk and their algorithms are better than the status quo... I'm sorry, are we now living on bizarro-earth where companies work with each other to develop new, exciting opportunities to make less money?
jitbit 10y ago
That age old "I have nothing to hide" argument. AKA "they're nice people, what could go wrong". This is not the point. The point is: Information in the wrong hands can become dangerous, period. People change. Companies change. You have no guarantee Facebook will preserve the vision they have right now. You have no guarantee their new CEO won't have a different opinion... (wont be a "Trump"). Also you have to realize, how much pressure from authorities they have to handle. A Russian friend of mine (I'm originally from russia) used to work for "VK" which is (was) the biggest social network there. They literally got calls from surveillance agencies on a daily basis. At some point they were unable to fight the pressure and surrendered, the CEO was forced to resign and leave the country (Pavel Durov, he runs Telegram now), the stock were sold and the social network is basically controlled by the government now. I do agree the article is a bit over dramatic. But that's just to gain attention from non-tech crowd I guess, who continue to happily post kitten-pics without thinking of the consequences.
- Kiro 10y ago
  Not OP but even if the next Hitler would get all my Facebook data I still don't care personally. Am I naive? I do understand why people have a problem with it though.
  - elastic_church 10y ago
    People have been fired or denied employment from "groups" they "liked" way back in the heydays of Facebook. Very benign things can activate very discretionary things in other people.
    - Kiro 10y ago
      If I get fired because of my Facebook profile I'm sure I wouldn't want to work there anyway.
      - elastic_church 10y ago
        and I'm guessing you consider that a rebuttal?
kafkaesq 10y ago
In fact, I would wish Facebook to contract with and take over identity management systems (ie. social security, drivers license) away from local and federal government - not to dictate policy but just to dictate infrastructure. Is it "fear-mongering" to bring up this episode again? Zuck: Yeah so if you ever need info about anyone at Harvard Zuck: Just ask Zuck: I have over 4,000 emails, pictures, addresses, SNS [Redacted Friend's Name]: What? How'd you manage that one? Zuck: People just submitted it. Zuck: I don't know why. Zuck: They "trust me" Zuck: Dumb fucks https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Mark_Zuckerberg https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Mark_Zuckerberg
- conistonwater 10y ago
  Is there a newer interview with Zuckerberg where he expresses his views at length? Given how big Facebook is now as a company, it's possible that that "policy" was supplanted by a later more reasonable policy. What is their current view, have they explained it in any detail?
  - kafkaesq 10y ago
    I'd suggest a better question to ask would be: could you ever trust Zuckerberg to honestly tell you what his real policies will be -- as opposed to what he might say they are, in statements to the public -- when the government comes by to twist his arm?
    - conistonwater 10y ago
      Given the sheer number of people involved in Facebook's decision-making, I would believe it if they told me there was an internal consensus that differed from Zuckerberg's earlier college-age views. So I want to know if there is such a consensus, because if there is, then to my mind it would override that chat snapshot. Also, yes, you can generally trust people to tell you what their real policies are. They might not be good policies, or well thought-through, etc., but there are very few people in the world who make it their business to lie and cheat every day.
pmoriarty 10y ago
Fear mongering? Consider yourself lucky if you or your loved ones haven't been harassed or stalked because of information you've posted about yourself or your family online. Some have not been so fortunate, and don't want to make themselves or their families any more vulnerable than they already are.
dsfyu404ed 10y ago
Statistically speaking, the apple only ever falls so far from the tree. Imagine if we had Face-book in the since the 1920s. Imagine if DHS could use FB info to figure out who's parents gave them alcohol as infants when they wouldn't STFU or hit them when they swore. I bed they'd start showing up at schools and randomly questioning kids the way young people crossing the border get searched "randomly" You might not have anything to hide now but you might in the future and even if you don't that doesn't mean you won't be harassed because you "might" have something to hide. Immigrants from japan/germany/italy in the US during WW2. Those people all had nothing to hide on Dec 6th.
derptron 10y ago
>In fact, I would wish Facebook to contract with and take over identity management systems (ie. social security, drivers license) away from local and federal government Thank Christ you only get one vote.

xapata 10y ago

Yeah, I always get annoyed at standing in line for building security needing to take yet another photo of me and stare at my license. Let's just be friends on Facebook so their security cameras can identify me when I walk in the door.

javra 10y ago
I honestly can't tell if you're being sarcastic or not.
- xapata 10y ago
  Nope, not sarcastic. I understand that my comment might sound like a parody to folks that share the sentiment of the article author.

jdhzzz 10y ago

The point of this particular article is that you don't even need to be on Facebook. Your image is bound to be captured, perhaps only in the background in a public space, by someone who is. Your face will be recognized and it will become part of your "public record". No amount of opting out will prevent this. Perhaps going full Amish will, but even that simply pushes back the timeline.

libraryatnight 10y ago
"FYI man, alright. You could sit at home, and do like absolutely nothing, and your name goes through like 17 computers a day. 1984? Yeah right, man. That's a typo. Orwell is here now. He's livin' large. We have no names, man. No names. We are nameless!" lol i used to love this quote in Hackers and your point made me recall it.
pmoriarty 10y ago
On Facebook and other social media websites, people regularly volunteer to identify their friends in photos. That does not happen with ordinary street surveillance footage, as far as I know. So you might have pictures of you taken by street surveillance cameras as you walk around in big cities, but your face isn't ordinarily going to be recognized by anyone.
- jdormit 10y ago
  These days, I'd be willing to bet that "ordinary street surveillance" uses facial recognition algorithms. It wouldn't be as effective as FB's, because FB has an enormous stream of training data coming in all the time. However, that could change if law enforcement got access to FB's data - hence this article.
  - pmoriarty 10y ago
    Facial recognition software can only recognize you if your face is already in the database and identified as you. It's not going to magically know your identity otherwise, no matter how sophisticated it is. On the other hand, I guess it could do some inference, such as: person X seen at location Y is also seen going in to residence Z every evening and coming out of the same residence every morning for the last 6 months, therefore there's a high probability that this person's address is residence Z, and since John Doe is the only person registered as living in that residence, person X is probably John Doe, etc.

Sir_Substance 10y ago

>Still, I have never had the data I've given them come back to haunt me. Are you sure? Facebook has a patent on lowering your credit score based on who is in your friends list[1]. They also feed data to credit score companies who directly examine your posts and use it to tweak your credit score yet further[2]. It's totally possible that your use of Facebook has affected your ability to buy a car or house, or get a job[3]. The lifetime cost of your mortgage could be $20,000 higher than it need be due to your use of Facebook. Maybe you got passed over for that job that would have been in the perfect place for raising your new child, due to your posting. How would you know? Did you really think they were going to tell you? Maybe you're not at a time in your life where these things have happened to you yet, but I have bad news. The data you've submitted to Facebook will never be deleted. It's invisible baggage, following you everywhere. Honestly, you have no real idea of what impact it's having on your life, because it's not in the interest of any of that data's consumers to tell you what they are doing with it. [1] https://qz.com/472751/facebooks-new-patent-lets-lenders-reject-a-loan-based-on-your-friends-credit-scores-but-dont-freak-out/ https://qz.com/472751/facebooks-new-patent-lets-lenders-reje... [2] http://www.ajc.com/news/national/how-your-facebook-profile-can-affect-your-credit/dGASsQw6MBsxjspFdzwoZK/ http://www.ajc.com/news/national/how-your-facebook-profile-c... [3] https://www.creditkarma.com/article/why-some-employers-check-credit-history-1014152 https://www.creditkarma.com/article/why-some-employers-check...

aianus 10y ago
> The lifetime cost of your mortgage could be $20,000 higher than it need be due to your use of Facebook. Or it could be $20,000 cheaper if you're actually low-risk and their algorithms are better than the status quo... > Maybe you got passed over for that job that would have been in the perfect place for raising your new child, due to your posting. How would you know? If you didn't have Facebook, how would you know if you were missing out on opportunities because you've since lost touch with various acquaintances?
- Sir_Substance 10y ago
  >Or it could be $20,000 cheaper if you're actually low-risk and their algorithms are better than the status quo... I'm sorry, are we now living on bizarro-earth where companies work with each other to develop new, exciting opportunities to make less money?

jitbit 10y ago

That age old "I have nothing to hide" argument. AKA "they're nice people, what could go wrong". This is not the point. The point is: Information in the wrong hands can become dangerous, period. People change. Companies change. You have no guarantee Facebook will preserve the vision they have right now. You have no guarantee their new CEO won't have a different opinion... (wont be a "Trump"). Also you have to realize, how much pressure from authorities they have to handle. A Russian friend of mine (I'm originally from russia) used to work for "VK" which is (was) the biggest social network there. They literally got calls from surveillance agencies on a daily basis. At some point they were unable to fight the pressure and surrendered, the CEO was forced to resign and leave the country (Pavel Durov, he runs Telegram now), the stock were sold and the social network is basically controlled by the government now. I do agree the article is a bit over dramatic. But that's just to gain attention from non-tech crowd I guess, who continue to happily post kitten-pics without thinking of the consequences.

Kiro 10y ago
Not OP but even if the next Hitler would get all my Facebook data I still don't care personally. Am I naive? I do understand why people have a problem with it though.
- elastic_church 10y ago
  People have been fired or denied employment from "groups" they "liked" way back in the heydays of Facebook. Very benign things can activate very discretionary things in other people.
  - Kiro 10y ago
    If I get fired because of my Facebook profile I'm sure I wouldn't want to work there anyway.
    - elastic_church 10y ago
      and I'm guessing you consider that a rebuttal?

kafkaesq 10y ago

In fact, I would wish Facebook to contract with and take over identity management systems (ie. social security, drivers license) away from local and federal government - not to dictate policy but just to dictate infrastructure. Is it "fear-mongering" to bring up this episode again? Zuck: Yeah so if you ever need info about anyone at Harvard Zuck: Just ask Zuck: I have over 4,000 emails, pictures, addresses, SNS [Redacted Friend's Name]: What? How'd you manage that one? Zuck: People just submitted it. Zuck: I don't know why. Zuck: They "trust me" Zuck: Dumb fucks https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Mark_Zuckerberg https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Mark_Zuckerberg

conistonwater 10y ago
Is there a newer interview with Zuckerberg where he expresses his views at length? Given how big Facebook is now as a company, it's possible that that "policy" was supplanted by a later more reasonable policy. What is their current view, have they explained it in any detail?
- kafkaesq 10y ago
  I'd suggest a better question to ask would be: could you ever trust Zuckerberg to honestly tell you what his real policies will be -- as opposed to what he might say they are, in statements to the public -- when the government comes by to twist his arm?
  - conistonwater 10y ago
    Given the sheer number of people involved in Facebook's decision-making, I would believe it if they told me there was an internal consensus that differed from Zuckerberg's earlier college-age views. So I want to know if there is such a consensus, because if there is, then to my mind it would override that chat snapshot. Also, yes, you can generally trust people to tell you what their real policies are. They might not be good policies, or well thought-through, etc., but there are very few people in the world who make it their business to lie and cheat every day.

pmoriarty 10y ago

Fear mongering? Consider yourself lucky if you or your loved ones haven't been harassed or stalked because of information you've posted about yourself or your family online. Some have not been so fortunate, and don't want to make themselves or their families any more vulnerable than they already are.

dsfyu404ed 10y ago

Statistically speaking, the apple only ever falls so far from the tree. Imagine if we had Face-book in the since the 1920s. Imagine if DHS could use FB info to figure out who's parents gave them alcohol as infants when they wouldn't STFU or hit them when they swore. I bed they'd start showing up at schools and randomly questioning kids the way young people crossing the border get searched "randomly" You might not have anything to hide now but you might in the future and even if you don't that doesn't mean you won't be harassed because you "might" have something to hide. Immigrants from japan/germany/italy in the US during WW2. Those people all had nothing to hide on Dec 6th.

derptron 10y ago

>In fact, I would wish Facebook to contract with and take over identity management systems (ie. social security, drivers license) away from local and federal government Thank Christ you only get one vote.