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Big brother is here, and his name is Facebook

504 points by ahiknsr 9y ago

goalieca 9y ago
I've closed my Facebook account but as the article mentions, delete the app and use the browser interface if you must. Your battery will also thank you.
- RobertoG 9y ago
  If you close your account, do they delete the information that they have about you? if not, is there any way to force them legally? It seems to me that would be a "right to be forgotten" that makes sense instead of the current interpretation. (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Right_to_be_forgotten https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Right_to_be_forgotten)
  - samstave 9y ago
    They do not fully delete the information about you, you can request it - and you can request a copy of your account mailed to you on DVD, if they still do this, but I don't trust that it will truly be deleted in the sense that FB or GOV cant get historical records of your past, should they choose to...
  - megous 9y ago
    One way I know they don't delete stuff is that I cleared my entire history using delete buttons. Unfriended everyone, removed all the events, etc. The account looked clean. I also cleaned the ad categories or how they call it. It's interests they gather from your activity that they use to serve you ads. When I came back a few days later my ad interests were again filled with stuff obviously deduced from my posts that I deleted. Things I no longer care about, but posted in 2010, and obviously not visited recently, so they have no way of knowing what those interests are. Facebook is engaging in scummy activities obviously. They call most of those removal buttons "Delete", not "Hide". They just lie left and right. Data take out should instead be called data poop out, because that's the quality of the format you get of the data you provided them over the years. Actually that may be one of the less legal things they do. If you explicitly ask them to delete particular photo or whatever, they should delete it and not keep it to themselves. There may be for example issue with copyright. What if I posted something I don't have rights to and want to remove it? They obviously don't have right to it either, because I couldn't have given it to them.
    - jdormit 9y ago
      > That may be one of the less legal things they do Actually, it's in the TOS [0] - although it says you legally own content that you post, FB retains IP rights to your photos and videos. These rights end when you delete the content, unless the content has been shared with other users. This means, in practice, that they have IP rights in perpetuity to everything you post publically! Now, the TOS does claim that deleted content is deleted "in a manner similar to emptying the recycling bin on a computer". However, "deleted content may persist in backup copies for a reasonable period of time". Make of that what you will - I read it as a legal back door that lets them keep your deleted posts around for as long as they want. [0] https://m.facebook.com/terms.php https://m.facebook.com/terms.php
- unicornporn 9y ago
  Last time I checked it wasn't even possible to access messages from the mobile web app. That's why I stopped using Tinfoil for Facebook. I guess that was a good thing because now I hardly ever check my FB, and if I do it's from desktop.
innocentoldguy 9y ago
This article states all the reasons I don't use the Facebook app, the Messenger app, nor do I ever use Facebook as an authentication mechanism. Why stick a "kick me" sign on your own back?
cisanti 9y ago
The authoritarian regimes' secret police would be delighted at something like this. People actually (well, not all of us) give them information themselves, and those who don't, sure do get tracked across the web. "Thoughts control" is very much a real problem, as the Google Memo scandal showed us. People dug out the irrelevant donation of Brendan Eich. Think about the power FB has, they know exactly who is the enemy of the state using the word from good old Soviet Union where I happened to born in. People on the left dangerously remind me the fanatic pioneers, who only think one way is right and preach false tolerance. Some are even so stupid that they hold a hammer and sickle in one hand and rainbow flag in another. Knowing the possibility of the power and the capabilities these people would have if in power. I would say we live in dangerous times.
- megous 9y ago
  They are delighted. People are being locked up based on content of their social accounts for years. Regime doesn't even need to get cooperation from the social networks themselves that much. They take your phone, make you unlock it and the off with you to a prison. One such example being Turkey.
  - chiefalchemist 9y ago
    And if you're arrested and don't have any social presence that's presented in the media as odd, unacceptable, if not antisocial.
    - megous 9y ago
      I'd rather take that, than be thrown into prison. There's a recent case of two Czechs traveling to Syria to help Kurdish cause in "Rojava", that were checked on a border in Turkey and revealed by posting stuff to Facebook. They got six years for terrorism both. They had terrible opsec though, the girl went to talk on TV about her activities in Rojava before leaving for Syria and also posted publicly on FB.
- Micoloth 9y ago
  I more than agree with you. The only thing, why do you assume that only people "on the left" could be intrested in using these tools? Sure it's people "on the left" that are creating them and control them now, and yet thought control is DEFINITELY not a thing right parties have ever had problems using lol. Am I wrong?
msoad 9y ago
I heard form someone at Facebook that they use location data to figure out who you are with. If a group of friends go to a restaurant and nobody checks in Facebook will know you are together because all of you opened one of their apps in the same time frame and location.
- smokeyj 9y ago
  Ultrasonic beacons: https://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2017/05/using_ultrasoni.html https://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2017/05/using_ultraso...
- chiefalchemist 9y ago
  Which is why phone meta data is a big deal. Once you can cross reference numbers, locations, etc. patterns will emerge. For example, you meet with someone every Saturday. At some point your colocation isn't a coinsidence, it's a relationship of some sort. Gather enough data and they'll know more about you than you do.
  - qrbLPHiKpiux 9y ago
    Match.com has this feature now called "missed opportunities." Shows who you crossed paths with.
    - chiefalchemist 9y ago
      Right. And people are happy to be tracked. SMH
  - chiefalchemist 9y ago
    Ha. Speak of the "Don't be evil" devil. Yesterday, I had to turn on my location to use Waze. Today I get a notification from Google to review the venue I was went I turned on my location. That makes me very uncomfortable.
wonder_er 9y ago
I can't quite believe the argument that Facebook is Big Brother, because the first suggestion the author suggests is "stop using Facebook". In 1984, I believe the most compelling attribute of "Big Brother" was that he/it could not be willfully turned off. So, for this to be an appropriate analogy, Facebook would need to be able to legally compel you to have the app on your phone, and if you illegally removed the app/ignored FB, you could be thrown into jail. Facebook is huge, but all the big tech companies cannot actually imprison you. Seems like a useful distinction.
- jessewmc 9y ago
  Would you not consider shadow profiles a form of imprisonment? Perhaps not quite as strong as voluntarily giving heaps of information, but still a rich source of data on people who do not use Facebook.
  - jsemrau 9y ago
    About a month ago I started to receive Facebook notifications from people that I know. I am not on Facebook.
    - jdormit 9y ago
      If you are not on Facebook, how do you get the notifications?
      - jsemrau 9y ago
        By email
        slackoverflower 9y ago
        How did they get your email and your name?
        Kaius 9y ago
Deimorz 9y ago
Personally, I think Google is just as terrifying, possibly more. As an example, just take a fairly normal life situation like going out for dinner with some friends, and think about how much of it goes "through" Google: --- One of your friends sends an email to 6 others, to ask if everyone's free for dinner on Friday. 5 of the 7 people involved use gmail or a google apps address. You've never heard of the restaurant they're suggesting, so you search for it on Google to see what kind of food it is. You click to the restaurant's site. It uses Google Analytics, so even though you're no longer on Google, it still knows the exact path you take through the site while you're "outside". You decide the restaurant looks good, and enter the dinner into Google Calendar. On Friday, you use Google Maps to get to the restaurant, so Google knows exactly where you were before, what time you left, and the route you took. While you're driving, maybe you send a couple of text messages using the Google voice assistant. At the restaurant, it turns out your friend Doug is there, even though he wasn't part of the emails. During dinner, you're all trying to remember the name of that movie where Shaq plays a genie, so both you and Doug grab your phones and google for phrases like "shaq movie genie" at about the same time. Even though Doug wasn't included in any of the planning, Google now knows that you're almost certainly together, and what you're talking about. You finish your meal and pay via the restaurant's Square system, which emails the receipt to your gmail address. Google now knows exactly what you ate, and how much you paid for it. You use Google Maps again when leaving, telling Google exactly how long you stayed at the restaurant and where you're going next. --- I didn't even push that very far. There are multiple other things I could have easily added, and you can do this with almost any situation. It's quite insane how much Google knows about what people are doing all the time, and the level of detail they can get by combining these things.
- RodericDay 9y ago
  Don't use Google. Be a stick in the mud, and stop your friends from using Google. Get upset at them if they include you. I basically told people if they won't contact me using tools not made by Google/Facebook, they shouldn't contact me at all. And it was fine (they installed Signal lol).
- chiefalchemist 9y ago
  Ironic isn't it. Google is a threat, but the media focuses on a random memo. Not dismissing the memo, but it pales in comparison to Google's larger scope.
nibstwo 9y ago
Brave New World not 1984.
- unicornporn 9y ago
  +1 http://vision360design.com/1984-george-orwell-vs-brave-new-world/ http://vision360design.com/1984-george-orwell-vs-brave-new-w...
smokeyj 9y ago
Didn't Zuck assist Pakistan in enforcing blasphemy laws resulting in a mans death sentence? Here's a prediction. Zuck will be the face of the Democratic party in the next 12 years.
- seasonalgrit 9y ago
  Backgound: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14559267 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14559267 http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-39300270 http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-39300270 http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-40246754 http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-40246754
- noitsnot 9y ago
  He speaks very well compared to a few years back where it was awkward to watch. Also, that's a nice prediction from news a day or two ago.
basicplus2 9y ago
I use the Facebook app, but it is in a separate phone used for nothing else, and lives permanently on a desk at home.
deleted 9y ago
[deleted]
newscracker 9y ago
> In most cases, granting permission is an all-or-nothing affair. This means you cannot cherry-pick the permissions to grant or deny when installing an app. You either accept or decline. I wish the author had spent a few lines to expand on this one so people would understand it better. This is a huge problem for those using older Android phones (which is a huge number worldwide) with Android 5 and below. With Android 6 (Marshmallow) and beyond, one can control specific permissions post app install (whereas the "all or nothing at installation" model applies to lower versions). AFAIK, this is also a problem on Windows phones, but that's quite a small percentage comparatively. Those using iOS devices haven't had this issue for a long time because app permissions are granted or denied individually at runtime (this has also improved over time) and not during installation. > The choices here involve four things: >... > Switch to secured and private decentralized social networks The author mentions Nexus Social, but it still seems like it'll have decentralized storage only later next year. As of now, I don't know of any Facebook or Google+ replacements that are decentralized and help control/preserve privacy. There are simpler platforms to replace Twitter, like Mastodon. But a text-only platform will always remain a niche as far as social networking is concerned. We live in the age of memes, live videos and clips. I personally would love to see a decentralized, feature rich and easy to use platform that preserves and allows control of privacy by the users (from others and the network), but at this point in time I don't have much hope for the next several years.
- mejin 9y ago
  > With Android 6 (Marshmallow) and beyond, one can control specific permissions post app install There are a lot of apps that will simply refuse to open if you do not grant them permission for a list of unrelated permission.
  - CaptSpify 9y ago
    I've also found that the permissions aren't nearly granular enough. Should Google Maps be allowed to use my GPS when it's open? Sure, if I allow it. But there's no way for me to allow it only when Maps is open.
yhn4433 9y ago
... says a media outlet with live trackers for connect.facebook.com and graph.facebook.com, amoung others.
- jdormit 9y ago
  And a warning that says, "we use tracking cookies and sell your browsing data to advertisers"!
chrischen 9y ago
In these articles there are a lot of statements where Fb denies doing certain things specifically, such as storing audio recordings when the app is used to tag TV shows. I’m generally curious about if companies usually lie about practices like this, especially since company policy can change internally at any time without oversight. What happens if they are caught lying? Doesn’t seem to be breaking the law in any way. It’s scary to think that while Facebook reassures everyone they aren’t listening to conversations or aren’t storing audio in a way that’s connected to the harvested user, they really have no obligation to wihhold that promise and even if they don’t they don’t even have to tell us!
- Atheros 9y ago
  > storing audio recordings when the app is used to tag TV shows. And if they were truly not storing audio recordings but rather building a spectrogram of the audio and uploading that then their lawyers would argue that they were telling the truth. Even though the effect is the same.
megamindbrian 9y ago
Isn't Facebook run by Mormons now anyways? https://www.google.com/amp/m.huffpost.com/us/entry/us_58684845e4b0eb586489cb9e/amp https://www.google.com/amp/m.huffpost.com/us/entry/us_586848...
- ZoeZoeBee 9y ago
  Where do you get Mormons out of that?
  - quickthrower2 9y ago
    Sounds like he is playing the field and keeping his options open. Smart move with regards to PR and political connections. I doubt he actually believes in any of the fairy tales though, hence why he went atheist in the first place.
Micoloth 9y ago
Even tho i'll always remind that any reasoning that links this with a left or right political orientation is just dumb- Yes, this is deeply and dramatically scary
intopieces 9y ago
Big Brother is here, but his name is not Facebook. It's WeChat. https://www.nytimes.com/video/technology/100000004574648/china-internet-wechat.html https://www.nytimes.com/video/technology/100000004574648/chi... WeChat has the tracking capability that Facebook could only dream of, and it does not even hide it.
- giancarlostoro 9y ago
  https://chinachannel.co/who-really-owns-wechat-wechat-essential-tips/ https://chinachannel.co/who-really-owns-wechat-wechat-essent... The company that owns WeChat also owns QQ which is much more popular it seems.
  - yeukhon 9y ago
    QQ has been around for so long, it isn't going to fade away. But WeChat is the de facto messenger among the many Chinese-speaking users, especially those living in oversea. Obviously not everyone who can speak Chinese use Wechat. In HK, WhatsApp is probably the most popular messenger.
- SN76477 9y ago
  Tencent is too powerful already.
RomanPushkin 9y ago
More info about FB: https://stallman.org/facebook.html https://stallman.org/facebook.html
sametmax 9y ago
Did you just wake up and realize it ? Cause it's something a lot of people have been saying for years now.
SubiculumCode 9y ago
"Passively Listening" I will say this. The frequency of occasions is increasing where I've mentioned to my wife or son a product or service out of the blue only get served an ad with that product within the next 24 hours. Sure, it could be coincidence. I could be that the product was suggested subliminally to me via a campaign, etc. But some of these things are very specialized (plastic mold press), and not related to what I'm typically interested. What I've not done is stage experiments where I randomly select products, intentionally mention said product near our family's cell phones, and make note of ads targeted at me in the next 24 hours.
- dTal 9y ago
  While I suspect that something more interesting is going on there than either coincidence or secret audio recordings - Baader-Meinhof, or very intelligent guesses from the ad placement AI, or some combination thereof - I strongly urge you to do the experiment you describe.
- deleted 9y ago
  [deleted]
- ams6110 9y ago
  More likely your other recent online activity pointed to that product as something you might be interested in. An awful lot of what we talk about these days are things we've seen or heard about online, either by searching or just browsing the news, etc.
- DenisM 9y ago
  Be sure to make a control - talk away from phones. One explanation of what you see is that having talked of something you have likely primed yourself to pick out this particular thing from the sea of ads.
williamle8300 9y ago
Don't forget about Google. It's less of a salient problem... but all the data collection is created to be monetized. In a few years, we'll end up seeing really interesting ways that data will be sold (not just for advertisers).
pcunite 9y ago
Big Brother's name is actually IoT.
narrator 9y ago
I post all my daily thoughts and pictures and lots of personal details of my day to day activities TO MY OWN PRIVATE MASTODON SERVER. This is hosted on a VPS. I give accounts to my close friends and it gives me no impulse to use traditional social media for other than professional purposes. If friends want to know what is the latest on my life, they can just log in and read my activity feed. My default search is duckduckgo and I'll use Google if I'm not getting good results. I haven't really found a good alternative to Gmail though.
- Casseres 9y ago
  > I haven't really found a good alternative to Gmail though. Have you looked into FastMail?
  - qrbLPHiKpiux 9y ago
    Seconded. I use the POP service on one laptop only.
- dredmorbius 9y ago
  Protonmail is adequate. The client (Android) is quite limited, and neither POPD nor IMAPD access are supported. I'm pretty close to giving up on email entirely based on its deep and pervasive privacy flaws, and for the most part don't rely on it. (I'm lucky to have that option.) Unfortunately, I don't see an open alternative on the horizon either.
Animats 9y ago
I just can't see running the Facebook app. Facebook on the desktop, sure, but why on a phone? Other than checking in once a day or so to see what my friends are doing, Facebook has nothing I want. I don't use Gmail. I have a Google account, but it's only used for updating browser add-ons. Last login was over a year ago. Mail comes from a IMAP server. Android's standard mail client does IMAP just fine. All my desktops and laptops use the same IMAP server, so it all syncs. I don't have much Google stuff from my Android phone. When I bought the phone, uninitialized, it asked for a Google login. I clicked "later", and then deleted Google First-Time Login so that wouldn't come up again. After a while, voice dialing broke due to some update at Google, so I deleted more Google services. Location services come from ZANavi. (That uses unassisted GPS, so it takes a while to get a fix.)
- fnovd 9y ago
  >I just can't see running the Facebook app. Facebook on the desktop, sure, but why on a phone? Other than checking in once a day or so to see what my friends are doing, Facebook has nothing I want. This is like saying, "I just don't understand binge drinking. Red wine with dinner, sure, but a fifth of vodka in a night? I enjoy a light buzz, I have no need to get wasted." Some people are simply more susceptible to this addiction than others. This product is much more prevalent and addiction is less stigmatized and arguably more profitable. Motives have to be questioned.
- petra 9y ago
  What about search, cab you quit Google?
neuro_imager 9y ago
"Old George Orwell got it backward. Big Brother isn't watching. He's singing and dancing. He's pulling rabbits out of a hat. Big Brother’s busy holding your attention every moment you're awake. He's making sure you're always distracted. He's making sure you're fully absorbed. He's making sure your imagination withers. Until it's as useful as your appendix. He's making sure your attention is always filled. And this being fed, it's worse than being watched. With the world always filling you, no one has to worry about what's in your mind. With everyone's imagination atrophied, no one will ever be a threat to the world." Chuck Palahniuk
- the8472 9y ago
  We're getting a mix of 1984 and a brave new world.
  - quakeguy 9y ago
    Just a quick overview over both works here https://i.imgur.com/acumO.jpg https://i.imgur.com/acumO.jpg and i dont think we end up and a mix of both, but something else, more disturbing even. Think CGI + Fakenews + Propaganda. Uncanny.
    - raybb 9y ago
      Amusing Ourselves to Death is a fantastic book. I first read it years ago and it changed the way I view a lot of things (specifically TV). Maybe it's time to give it a read again.
yotamoron 9y ago
I deleted my fb account more then 2 years ago. Life is so much better now.
rogerthis 9y ago
To put things in a different perspective, imagine how much information about a farmer had an ancient imperor? How fast or effectively he could move the feelings of the people? Or order his army to attack or change tactics? Or how many months or years a pope from Middle Age would take to spread some dogma to all faithful? When I relate these questions to what we have today I can't help but think that if we do not pay attention we'll head to a world with less and less freedom.
darrmit 9y ago
I don't find Facebook useful for much and find that it brings the worst out in people, therefore I don't use it. I do find Google useful but choose to use it very sparingly - no search, no mail, no maps. I do use Drive, Docs, and Photos (for now). The problem I'm running into is some of Google's services are so exceptional compared to alternatives that it's becoming problematic to use alternatives. Maps is an example of this. In some ways Chrome is an example of this (when considering it as a platform/OS instead of just a browser). I get the irony that their services are exceptional because of the data they collect, but that's sort of irrelevant. But at the end of the day, I ask myself how much this matters in the absence of a VPN at home and on mobile when ISPs and cell providers are partnering up with advertisers and government agencies.
- earenndil 9y ago
  > I do use Drive, Docs, and Photos (for now). Docs is the most egregious item on this list. Just use libreoffice. And the syncing capability? Kill two birds with one stone, host your own cloud storage (raspberry pi hooked up to a 1tb hdd) sync your documents AND your photos to it.
  - darrmit 9y ago
    I already have Syncthing running, just haven't moved off to it. The biggest offender is Photos. I just haven't found a good self-hosted photo solution.
    - earenndil 9y ago
      What photo solution do you need? Or rather, what do you want for photo storage apart from file storage?
hutzlibu 9y ago
I wonder how many people who write about big brother and 1984, have actually read the book. Because I live a life without facebook. In 1984 there was no opt-out - full violent dominant controll, all the time. Also over the thoughts. We are maybe beeing spied on a lot, by many different organizations - but I am not going to torture/brainwashed camp, because I THINK xxx is bad. I can also say it. So continue to criticize bad things, but maybe with a little bit less alarmism/hystery ... thanks.
- graeme 9y ago
  But how much does facebook know abiut you? * photos amd comtact info uploaded by friends * tracking scripts all over the web * any datasets they may purchase to make correlations I'llbet they have a lot more on you than you think.
  - hutzlibu 9y ago
    "I'llbet they have a lot more on you than you think." No, I do know they know a lot about me ... so what? The do not have a army to take me in, if I do not think or act like they say I should. There might be a point, if I cannot have friends or find a job without a fb profile - and for some people this might be the felt truth allready - and this is bad, yes. But first of all, I think atm everyone has a choice - and secondly, big brother is still something completely different ... that was my point.
- nebabyte 9y ago
  Outer Party members (Winston) had their opinions controlled. No one cares about what the proles think.
  - hutzlibu 9y ago
    Yes, proles and animals were free, but right and powerless. So they could also be killed for whatever reason. (did not happen in the book, because the proles did not matter). But you could not choose to be a prole. If you were a common outer party member - you could not change, even if you wanted to be a prole.
zapperdapper 9y ago
I don't do any anti-social media. Period. I wish more people would follow suit but they really seem addicted to it. Will either FaceAche or Gobble still exist in ten years time anyway? Will any of us?
nigrioid 9y ago
All of the spooky privacy issues are bad enough, but what really makes me sad is the continuous movement away from things you can control and run yourself (e.g., mail and web servers) toward closed, opaque, proprietary stuff like Facebook.
throw2016 9y ago
Every problem is an opportunity and potential solution. The current centralization will bring with it all the problems of centralization. Individuals can't simply depend on goodwill. That never ends well. Power is arbitrary, concentrates itself and seeks its own expansion making individuals irrelevant. The bigger problem is the potential solution. What seems to happen in the market economy is once any potential 'solution' takes off, the money and greed involved also do, and the solution becomes the exact same problem it was attempting to solve. Or it was just 2 powerful vested interests fighting all along masquerading as change. There is plenty of wealth floating around, resources and power are increasingly centralized, the barriers to entry are getting higher exponentially, distract yourself, avoid it, accept it or vie for change, but most change-agents have been betrayers, merely replacing one set with another, hence the devil you know. This is not to advocate helplessness but to think carefully about potential solutions and not blindly support self serving interests promoting change.
partiallypro 9y ago
Google knows far far more about you than Facebook. Facebook knows the information you want public or general information like usage. Google knows your darkest secrets. Sure, Facebook tracking pixels might track some of your shopping habits too; but Google has analytics everywhere, Adwords linked up, your search history, your browser history, your location history etc.
- salsadip 9y ago
  I disagree. If you use WhatsApp, Facebook knows more personal things about you than google. Things you only talk about to your best friend, fights you have with your significant other, how you behave in group chats etc - it can derive your emotional state and use that. Facebook conducted studies on (real) users on how different posts and the order of posts affects them emotionally. I don't trust services which try to exploit my emotional well-being in order to be more engaging/addictive.
carl-erwin 9y ago
The funny thing is the "share on facebook" button at the end of the article.
benevol 9y ago
On one side, I'm happy to see that people slowly start to understand the situation. On the other side, I'm kind of shocked it took so long. The way these companies were going to take control over us was so obvious about 15 years ago. A lot of damage is done, now.
Joeri 9y ago
May 26 2018 is going to be a very interesting day. The GDPR will trigger across Europe, and Facebook will become legally compelled wrt any European citizen to share everything they know about them, discard data not relevant to delivering the Facebook service, and allow users to correct any of the data, or remove all of it. It will be fascinating to see what exactly they know about me. In theory, not that much, since I barely engage with Facebook at all, but in practice I suspect quite a lot.
- snarf21 9y ago
  One thing people are oblivious about is they say "Facebook is awful, I only use Instagram and WhatsApp" and forget that the whole network is insanely large and growing. People lose sight that FB and Google account for 99%+ of all online advertising in the US. Social has become such an echo chamber and so manipulative.
  - ryanwaggoner 9y ago
    99% sounded like a made-up statistic, so I looked it up [1]. What do you know, it's more like 60% combined. What's the purpose of throwing out numbers like this? It only hurts whatever point you're trying to make. (Edited for tone) 1. http://www.adweek.com/digital/u-s-digital-advertising-will-make-83-billion-this-year-says-emarketer/ http://www.adweek.com/digital/u-s-digital-advertising-will-m...
    - snarf21 9y ago
      I apologize, I misremembered the statistic from an article I read months ago. They only account for 99%+ of the growth in the last year, according to this article. [http://fortune.com/2017/04/26/google-facebook-digital-ads/ http://fortune.com/2017/04/26/google-facebook-digital-ads/]
      - ryanwaggoner 9y ago
        Even that source is a real stretch to support your point. Yes, some analyst thinks it's close to 100%, but sounds like most experts don't agree.
danirod 9y ago
Regarding the 'always listening' concerns, on Android 6.0 and above it is possible to grant granular permissions for resources such as microphone or location to applications. Even on applications that use an older SDK where granular permissions are not a thing, you can still disable those permissions after installing the application by tweaking the System Settings. By looking at my current permission settings, only the Camera and the Phone app have permission to use my microphone. I closed my Facebook account a while ago but I use WhatsApp, owned by Facebook. Given that I don't send voice notes or make in-app calls, there is no need for it having access to my microphone. Same with location -- no need.
danblick 9y ago
"Orwell warns that we will be overcome by an externally imposed oppression. But in Huxley's vision, no Big Brother is required to deprive people of their autonomy, maturity and history. As he saw it, people will come to love their oppression, to adore the technologies that undo their capacities to think." - Neil Postman in Amusing Ourselves to Death
kristianc 9y ago
> By running its platform on top of blockchain technology, Nexus integrates social networking, crowdfunding, and even e-commerce features embedded. Nexus is aiming to “eliminate all invasion of privacy that large corporation are currently performing” according to its founder, Jade Mulholland. So the big plan to avoid Facebook's privacy creep is to put everything on an immutable, publicly accessible record which you don't control? Okay.
- machineman44 9y ago
  I know right... Everywhere I turn, I hear people preaching about "blockchain technology" and it's ability to "increase privacy" ... I die a little inside every time...
barhun 9y ago
oh, idiots are attacking again. go away, dunderheads! just leave us alone! here is a list of some choices you are given: - to not opt into facebook membership - to opt out later if you ever opted in - to not share anything on it whenever you want - to remove any mobile app from your phone. facebook, what a totalitarian company! en passant... tell me, honestly; have you ever read 1984?
mattbgates 9y ago
All hail the Overlord Zuckerberg!
amingilani 9y ago
Hrm. This article is functionally suspiciously like a banner-ad for the Nexus social network's ICO. I'm not saying that it may have intended to be one, or that it isn't about Facebook taking over our lives. But it starts with how bad our privacy is, tells us how we can take control over messaging and our mic, and then ends with a switching to Nexus, and whose ICO starts in three days. Functionally speaking, it has the same impact as a sponsored article written for the ICO. I mean, I use Telegram myself, but it doesn't replace Messenger for me. While we're on the subject, Whatsapp also provides end-to-end encryption, is owned by Facebook and is definitely a Telegram competitor.
deleted 9y ago
[deleted]
wbillingsley 9y ago
Twitter is more concerning, as it has connected society's social enforcers (those who are concerned with which views "have no place in our society") with media, government, employers, etc. In terms of privacy, people have never been that concerned with "who's listening" so long as the scope of use is limited (eg, security cameras in carparks are seen as a sign of safety, not espionage, and people will happily mouth off loudly to their friends on balconies, untroubled by the ordinary passer by who might look on and scowl at the trash they might be talking). It's not the overhearing and data collection part of zersetzung that's the most problematic -- it's the army of volunteers ready to take part in public denunciation and social undermining that people grow to fear.
- mamon 9y ago
  On the other hand, Twitter is less and less relevant, on it's way to bankruptcy.
SHAKEDECADE 9y ago
Startpage for google results and eu.ixquick.com for non google/yahoo/bing results. All with a happy meal toy of being able to use their proxy to view sites and images. DDG has bangs via !sp & !ix but DDG uses GET instead of POsT
dzink 9y ago
Is it legal to announce a funding event like this ICO in the press? Especially in a PR piece?
sonnhy 9y ago
I've read nothing new from this article, but I've never heard of that app RYL and the concept that you can occupy the mic with one app at the time. Apart from the fact that that app will be listening all your day and that will make your phone containing sensible information anyway, I could be leaked as easily as that information is also stored as compressed as possible, for easy and non noticeable way in your internet footprint. Yet you can trust an app who's not open source, if your read their manifesto. I wonder if this article was all about RYL anyway.
kalipso 9y ago
It is allways important to talk about Facebook and that its influence is growing way to far. But the suggestions in this Article are very sad. As Example: "You can also use Telegram which ensures encryption and privacy across all communications." is a Big lie. Groupchats are not Encrypted using Telegram. And for Private Encrypted Chats you have to navigate through submenues to get encryption. Then: "Thirdly, you can take control of your smartphone’s mic through another means. On Android, an app called RYL or “record your life” lets you do just that." What the fuck? To block Facebook using my Mic I should install another app, recording ALL THE TIME? I dont want to offend the Author, i think we need more people writing about themes like facebook google privacy and more, but those suggestions are not good. My Suggestions: stop using facebook, use Diaspora or Mastodon. Instant Messages via XMPP (i strongly suggest the app "Conversations"). Root your Smartphone, dont by Iphones. With a rooted smartphone you could easily deny the usage of the mic for facebook instead of installing RYL.
kushagraasati 9y ago
https://www.emitpost.com https://www.emitpost.com
andreasgonewild 9y ago
There are plenty of superior alternatives; but this one is mine, and free; and secure: https://github.com/andreas-gone-wild/snackis https://github.com/andreas-gone-wild/snackis Whatever you do, opt out before it's too late...
vayun 9y ago
The article is pure FUD spreading. "potentially being able to eavesdrop on our conversations", so now any app which has access to microphone "may be listening"? So it uses data which you are willingly share with it to "serve better ads". Where is a problem with that? Does the author prefer worse ads?
- intopieces 9y ago
  >Where is a problem with that? Does the author prefer worse ads? I certainly do. I do not want ads at all, so I prefer them to be as least relevant to my interests as possible so the chances of them distracting me from what I was doing -- on the rare chance that my ad blocker fails -- are minimized. I also don't like seeing ads about things I just looked at at Amazon on other websites. It gives me the impression that this new website I'm looking at knows what I'm shopping for.
jkoll 9y ago
This is an ad for an ICO.
squarefoot 9y ago
After visiting a family of friends of mine a few weeks ago and noticing how much they're active on FB, and sadly how many bullshit they take for true and discuss there, from chemtrails to infinite energy etc., I never regretted refusing to be a part of that human stupidity collector called Facebook. Not for me, definitely.
haterswillhate 9y ago
YouTube and Facebook sooo yesterday, im over it.

504 points by ahiknsr 9y ago

I've closed my Facebook account but as the article mentions, delete the app and use the browser interface if you must. Your battery will also thank you.

RobertoG 9y ago
If you close your account, do they delete the information that they have about you? if not, is there any way to force them legally? It seems to me that would be a "right to be forgotten" that makes sense instead of the current interpretation. (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Right_to_be_forgotten https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Right_to_be_forgotten)
- samstave 9y ago
  They do not fully delete the information about you, you can request it - and you can request a copy of your account mailed to you on DVD, if they still do this, but I don't trust that it will truly be deleted in the sense that FB or GOV cant get historical records of your past, should they choose to...
- megous 9y ago
  One way I know they don't delete stuff is that I cleared my entire history using delete buttons. Unfriended everyone, removed all the events, etc. The account looked clean. I also cleaned the ad categories or how they call it. It's interests they gather from your activity that they use to serve you ads. When I came back a few days later my ad interests were again filled with stuff obviously deduced from my posts that I deleted. Things I no longer care about, but posted in 2010, and obviously not visited recently, so they have no way of knowing what those interests are. Facebook is engaging in scummy activities obviously. They call most of those removal buttons "Delete", not "Hide". They just lie left and right. Data take out should instead be called data poop out, because that's the quality of the format you get of the data you provided them over the years. Actually that may be one of the less legal things they do. If you explicitly ask them to delete particular photo or whatever, they should delete it and not keep it to themselves. There may be for example issue with copyright. What if I posted something I don't have rights to and want to remove it? They obviously don't have right to it either, because I couldn't have given it to them.
  - jdormit 9y ago
    > That may be one of the less legal things they do Actually, it's in the TOS [0] - although it says you legally own content that you post, FB retains IP rights to your photos and videos. These rights end when you delete the content, unless the content has been shared with other users. This means, in practice, that they have IP rights in perpetuity to everything you post publically! Now, the TOS does claim that deleted content is deleted "in a manner similar to emptying the recycling bin on a computer". However, "deleted content may persist in backup copies for a reasonable period of time". Make of that what you will - I read it as a legal back door that lets them keep your deleted posts around for as long as they want. [0] https://m.facebook.com/terms.php https://m.facebook.com/terms.php
unicornporn 9y ago
Last time I checked it wasn't even possible to access messages from the mobile web app. That's why I stopped using Tinfoil for Facebook. I guess that was a good thing because now I hardly ever check my FB, and if I do it's from desktop.

innocentoldguy 9y ago

This article states all the reasons I don't use the Facebook app, the Messenger app, nor do I ever use Facebook as an authentication mechanism. Why stick a "kick me" sign on your own back?

cisanti 9y ago

The authoritarian regimes' secret police would be delighted at something like this. People actually (well, not all of us) give them information themselves, and those who don't, sure do get tracked across the web. "Thoughts control" is very much a real problem, as the Google Memo scandal showed us. People dug out the irrelevant donation of Brendan Eich. Think about the power FB has, they know exactly who is the enemy of the state using the word from good old Soviet Union where I happened to born in. People on the left dangerously remind me the fanatic pioneers, who only think one way is right and preach false tolerance. Some are even so stupid that they hold a hammer and sickle in one hand and rainbow flag in another. Knowing the possibility of the power and the capabilities these people would have if in power. I would say we live in dangerous times.

megous 9y ago
They are delighted. People are being locked up based on content of their social accounts for years. Regime doesn't even need to get cooperation from the social networks themselves that much. They take your phone, make you unlock it and the off with you to a prison. One such example being Turkey.
- chiefalchemist 9y ago
  And if you're arrested and don't have any social presence that's presented in the media as odd, unacceptable, if not antisocial.
  - megous 9y ago
    I'd rather take that, than be thrown into prison. There's a recent case of two Czechs traveling to Syria to help Kurdish cause in "Rojava", that were checked on a border in Turkey and revealed by posting stuff to Facebook. They got six years for terrorism both. They had terrible opsec though, the girl went to talk on TV about her activities in Rojava before leaving for Syria and also posted publicly on FB.
Micoloth 9y ago
I more than agree with you. The only thing, why do you assume that only people "on the left" could be intrested in using these tools? Sure it's people "on the left" that are creating them and control them now, and yet thought control is DEFINITELY not a thing right parties have ever had problems using lol. Am I wrong?

msoad 9y ago

I heard form someone at Facebook that they use location data to figure out who you are with. If a group of friends go to a restaurant and nobody checks in Facebook will know you are together because all of you opened one of their apps in the same time frame and location.

smokeyj 9y ago
Ultrasonic beacons: https://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2017/05/using_ultrasoni.html https://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2017/05/using_ultraso...
chiefalchemist 9y ago
Which is why phone meta data is a big deal. Once you can cross reference numbers, locations, etc. patterns will emerge. For example, you meet with someone every Saturday. At some point your colocation isn't a coinsidence, it's a relationship of some sort. Gather enough data and they'll know more about you than you do.
- qrbLPHiKpiux 9y ago
  Match.com has this feature now called "missed opportunities." Shows who you crossed paths with.
  - chiefalchemist 9y ago
    Right. And people are happy to be tracked. SMH
- chiefalchemist 9y ago
  Ha. Speak of the "Don't be evil" devil. Yesterday, I had to turn on my location to use Waze. Today I get a notification from Google to review the venue I was went I turned on my location. That makes me very uncomfortable.

wonder_er 9y ago

I can't quite believe the argument that Facebook is Big Brother, because the first suggestion the author suggests is "stop using Facebook". In 1984, I believe the most compelling attribute of "Big Brother" was that he/it could not be willfully turned off. So, for this to be an appropriate analogy, Facebook would need to be able to legally compel you to have the app on your phone, and if you illegally removed the app/ignored FB, you could be thrown into jail. Facebook is huge, but all the big tech companies cannot actually imprison you. Seems like a useful distinction.

jessewmc 9y ago
Would you not consider shadow profiles a form of imprisonment? Perhaps not quite as strong as voluntarily giving heaps of information, but still a rich source of data on people who do not use Facebook.
- jsemrau 9y ago
  About a month ago I started to receive Facebook notifications from people that I know. I am not on Facebook.
  - jdormit 9y ago
    If you are not on Facebook, how do you get the notifications?
    - jsemrau 9y ago
      By email
      - slackoverflower 9y ago
        How did they get your email and your name?
        Kaius 9y ago

Deimorz 9y ago

Personally, I think Google is just as terrifying, possibly more. As an example, just take a fairly normal life situation like going out for dinner with some friends, and think about how much of it goes "through" Google: --- One of your friends sends an email to 6 others, to ask if everyone's free for dinner on Friday. 5 of the 7 people involved use gmail or a google apps address. You've never heard of the restaurant they're suggesting, so you search for it on Google to see what kind of food it is. You click to the restaurant's site. It uses Google Analytics, so even though you're no longer on Google, it still knows the exact path you take through the site while you're "outside". You decide the restaurant looks good, and enter the dinner into Google Calendar. On Friday, you use Google Maps to get to the restaurant, so Google knows exactly where you were before, what time you left, and the route you took. While you're driving, maybe you send a couple of text messages using the Google voice assistant. At the restaurant, it turns out your friend Doug is there, even though he wasn't part of the emails. During dinner, you're all trying to remember the name of that movie where Shaq plays a genie, so both you and Doug grab your phones and google for phrases like "shaq movie genie" at about the same time. Even though Doug wasn't included in any of the planning, Google now knows that you're almost certainly together, and what you're talking about. You finish your meal and pay via the restaurant's Square system, which emails the receipt to your gmail address. Google now knows exactly what you ate, and how much you paid for it. You use Google Maps again when leaving, telling Google exactly how long you stayed at the restaurant and where you're going next. --- I didn't even push that very far. There are multiple other things I could have easily added, and you can do this with almost any situation. It's quite insane how much Google knows about what people are doing all the time, and the level of detail they can get by combining these things.

RodericDay 9y ago
Don't use Google. Be a stick in the mud, and stop your friends from using Google. Get upset at them if they include you. I basically told people if they won't contact me using tools not made by Google/Facebook, they shouldn't contact me at all. And it was fine (they installed Signal lol).
chiefalchemist 9y ago
Ironic isn't it. Google is a threat, but the media focuses on a random memo. Not dismissing the memo, but it pales in comparison to Google's larger scope.

nibstwo 9y ago

Brave New World not 1984.

unicornporn 9y ago
+1 http://vision360design.com/1984-george-orwell-vs-brave-new-world/ http://vision360design.com/1984-george-orwell-vs-brave-new-w...

smokeyj 9y ago

Didn't Zuck assist Pakistan in enforcing blasphemy laws resulting in a mans death sentence? Here's a prediction. Zuck will be the face of the Democratic party in the next 12 years.

seasonalgrit 9y ago
Backgound: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14559267 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14559267 http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-39300270 http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-39300270 http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-40246754 http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-40246754
noitsnot 9y ago
He speaks very well compared to a few years back where it was awkward to watch. Also, that's a nice prediction from news a day or two ago.

basicplus2 9y ago

I use the Facebook app, but it is in a separate phone used for nothing else, and lives permanently on a desk at home.

deleted 9y ago

[deleted]

newscracker 9y ago

> In most cases, granting permission is an all-or-nothing affair. This means you cannot cherry-pick the permissions to grant or deny when installing an app. You either accept or decline. I wish the author had spent a few lines to expand on this one so people would understand it better. This is a huge problem for those using older Android phones (which is a huge number worldwide) with Android 5 and below. With Android 6 (Marshmallow) and beyond, one can control specific permissions post app install (whereas the "all or nothing at installation" model applies to lower versions). AFAIK, this is also a problem on Windows phones, but that's quite a small percentage comparatively. Those using iOS devices haven't had this issue for a long time because app permissions are granted or denied individually at runtime (this has also improved over time) and not during installation. > The choices here involve four things: >... > Switch to secured and private decentralized social networks The author mentions Nexus Social, but it still seems like it'll have decentralized storage only later next year. As of now, I don't know of any Facebook or Google+ replacements that are decentralized and help control/preserve privacy. There are simpler platforms to replace Twitter, like Mastodon. But a text-only platform will always remain a niche as far as social networking is concerned. We live in the age of memes, live videos and clips. I personally would love to see a decentralized, feature rich and easy to use platform that preserves and allows control of privacy by the users (from others and the network), but at this point in time I don't have much hope for the next several years.

mejin 9y ago
> With Android 6 (Marshmallow) and beyond, one can control specific permissions post app install There are a lot of apps that will simply refuse to open if you do not grant them permission for a list of unrelated permission.
- CaptSpify 9y ago
  I've also found that the permissions aren't nearly granular enough. Should Google Maps be allowed to use my GPS when it's open? Sure, if I allow it. But there's no way for me to allow it only when Maps is open.

yhn4433 9y ago

... says a media outlet with live trackers for connect.facebook.com and graph.facebook.com, amoung others.

jdormit 9y ago
And a warning that says, "we use tracking cookies and sell your browsing data to advertisers"!

chrischen 9y ago

In these articles there are a lot of statements where Fb denies doing certain things specifically, such as storing audio recordings when the app is used to tag TV shows. I’m generally curious about if companies usually lie about practices like this, especially since company policy can change internally at any time without oversight. What happens if they are caught lying? Doesn’t seem to be breaking the law in any way. It’s scary to think that while Facebook reassures everyone they aren’t listening to conversations or aren’t storing audio in a way that’s connected to the harvested user, they really have no obligation to wihhold that promise and even if they don’t they don’t even have to tell us!

Atheros 9y ago
> storing audio recordings when the app is used to tag TV shows. And if they were truly not storing audio recordings but rather building a spectrogram of the audio and uploading that then their lawyers would argue that they were telling the truth. Even though the effect is the same.

megamindbrian 9y ago

Isn't Facebook run by Mormons now anyways? https://www.google.com/amp/m.huffpost.com/us/entry/us_58684845e4b0eb586489cb9e/amp https://www.google.com/amp/m.huffpost.com/us/entry/us_586848...

ZoeZoeBee 9y ago
Where do you get Mormons out of that?
- quickthrower2 9y ago
  Sounds like he is playing the field and keeping his options open. Smart move with regards to PR and political connections. I doubt he actually believes in any of the fairy tales though, hence why he went atheist in the first place.

Micoloth 9y ago

Even tho i'll always remind that any reasoning that links this with a left or right political orientation is just dumb- Yes, this is deeply and dramatically scary

intopieces 9y ago

Big Brother is here, but his name is not Facebook. It's WeChat. https://www.nytimes.com/video/technology/100000004574648/china-internet-wechat.html https://www.nytimes.com/video/technology/100000004574648/chi... WeChat has the tracking capability that Facebook could only dream of, and it does not even hide it.

giancarlostoro 9y ago
https://chinachannel.co/who-really-owns-wechat-wechat-essential-tips/ https://chinachannel.co/who-really-owns-wechat-wechat-essent... The company that owns WeChat also owns QQ which is much more popular it seems.
- yeukhon 9y ago
  QQ has been around for so long, it isn't going to fade away. But WeChat is the de facto messenger among the many Chinese-speaking users, especially those living in oversea. Obviously not everyone who can speak Chinese use Wechat. In HK, WhatsApp is probably the most popular messenger.
SN76477 9y ago
Tencent is too powerful already.

RomanPushkin 9y ago

More info about FB: https://stallman.org/facebook.html https://stallman.org/facebook.html

sametmax 9y ago

Did you just wake up and realize it ? Cause it's something a lot of people have been saying for years now.

SubiculumCode 9y ago

"Passively Listening" I will say this. The frequency of occasions is increasing where I've mentioned to my wife or son a product or service out of the blue only get served an ad with that product within the next 24 hours. Sure, it could be coincidence. I could be that the product was suggested subliminally to me via a campaign, etc. But some of these things are very specialized (plastic mold press), and not related to what I'm typically interested. What I've not done is stage experiments where I randomly select products, intentionally mention said product near our family's cell phones, and make note of ads targeted at me in the next 24 hours.

dTal 9y ago
While I suspect that something more interesting is going on there than either coincidence or secret audio recordings - Baader-Meinhof, or very intelligent guesses from the ad placement AI, or some combination thereof - I strongly urge you to do the experiment you describe.
deleted 9y ago
[deleted]
ams6110 9y ago
More likely your other recent online activity pointed to that product as something you might be interested in. An awful lot of what we talk about these days are things we've seen or heard about online, either by searching or just browsing the news, etc.
DenisM 9y ago
Be sure to make a control - talk away from phones. One explanation of what you see is that having talked of something you have likely primed yourself to pick out this particular thing from the sea of ads.

williamle8300 9y ago

Don't forget about Google. It's less of a salient problem... but all the data collection is created to be monetized. In a few years, we'll end up seeing really interesting ways that data will be sold (not just for advertisers).

pcunite 9y ago

Big Brother's name is actually IoT.

narrator 9y ago

I post all my daily thoughts and pictures and lots of personal details of my day to day activities TO MY OWN PRIVATE MASTODON SERVER. This is hosted on a VPS. I give accounts to my close friends and it gives me no impulse to use traditional social media for other than professional purposes. If friends want to know what is the latest on my life, they can just log in and read my activity feed. My default search is duckduckgo and I'll use Google if I'm not getting good results. I haven't really found a good alternative to Gmail though.

Casseres 9y ago
> I haven't really found a good alternative to Gmail though. Have you looked into FastMail?
- qrbLPHiKpiux 9y ago
  Seconded. I use the POP service on one laptop only.
dredmorbius 9y ago
Protonmail is adequate. The client (Android) is quite limited, and neither POPD nor IMAPD access are supported. I'm pretty close to giving up on email entirely based on its deep and pervasive privacy flaws, and for the most part don't rely on it. (I'm lucky to have that option.) Unfortunately, I don't see an open alternative on the horizon either.

Animats 9y ago

I just can't see running the Facebook app. Facebook on the desktop, sure, but why on a phone? Other than checking in once a day or so to see what my friends are doing, Facebook has nothing I want. I don't use Gmail. I have a Google account, but it's only used for updating browser add-ons. Last login was over a year ago. Mail comes from a IMAP server. Android's standard mail client does IMAP just fine. All my desktops and laptops use the same IMAP server, so it all syncs. I don't have much Google stuff from my Android phone. When I bought the phone, uninitialized, it asked for a Google login. I clicked "later", and then deleted Google First-Time Login so that wouldn't come up again. After a while, voice dialing broke due to some update at Google, so I deleted more Google services. Location services come from ZANavi. (That uses unassisted GPS, so it takes a while to get a fix.)

fnovd 9y ago
>I just can't see running the Facebook app. Facebook on the desktop, sure, but why on a phone? Other than checking in once a day or so to see what my friends are doing, Facebook has nothing I want. This is like saying, "I just don't understand binge drinking. Red wine with dinner, sure, but a fifth of vodka in a night? I enjoy a light buzz, I have no need to get wasted." Some people are simply more susceptible to this addiction than others. This product is much more prevalent and addiction is less stigmatized and arguably more profitable. Motives have to be questioned.
petra 9y ago
What about search, cab you quit Google?

neuro_imager 9y ago

"Old George Orwell got it backward. Big Brother isn't watching. He's singing and dancing. He's pulling rabbits out of a hat. Big Brother’s busy holding your attention every moment you're awake. He's making sure you're always distracted. He's making sure you're fully absorbed. He's making sure your imagination withers. Until it's as useful as your appendix. He's making sure your attention is always filled. And this being fed, it's worse than being watched. With the world always filling you, no one has to worry about what's in your mind. With everyone's imagination atrophied, no one will ever be a threat to the world." Chuck Palahniuk

the8472 9y ago
We're getting a mix of 1984 and a brave new world.
- quakeguy 9y ago
  Just a quick overview over both works here https://i.imgur.com/acumO.jpg https://i.imgur.com/acumO.jpg and i dont think we end up and a mix of both, but something else, more disturbing even. Think CGI + Fakenews + Propaganda. Uncanny.
  - raybb 9y ago
    Amusing Ourselves to Death is a fantastic book. I first read it years ago and it changed the way I view a lot of things (specifically TV). Maybe it's time to give it a read again.

yotamoron 9y ago

I deleted my fb account more then 2 years ago. Life is so much better now.

rogerthis 9y ago

To put things in a different perspective, imagine how much information about a farmer had an ancient imperor? How fast or effectively he could move the feelings of the people? Or order his army to attack or change tactics? Or how many months or years a pope from Middle Age would take to spread some dogma to all faithful? When I relate these questions to what we have today I can't help but think that if we do not pay attention we'll head to a world with less and less freedom.

darrmit 9y ago

I don't find Facebook useful for much and find that it brings the worst out in people, therefore I don't use it. I do find Google useful but choose to use it very sparingly - no search, no mail, no maps. I do use Drive, Docs, and Photos (for now). The problem I'm running into is some of Google's services are so exceptional compared to alternatives that it's becoming problematic to use alternatives. Maps is an example of this. In some ways Chrome is an example of this (when considering it as a platform/OS instead of just a browser). I get the irony that their services are exceptional because of the data they collect, but that's sort of irrelevant. But at the end of the day, I ask myself how much this matters in the absence of a VPN at home and on mobile when ISPs and cell providers are partnering up with advertisers and government agencies.

earenndil 9y ago
> I do use Drive, Docs, and Photos (for now). Docs is the most egregious item on this list. Just use libreoffice. And the syncing capability? Kill two birds with one stone, host your own cloud storage (raspberry pi hooked up to a 1tb hdd) sync your documents AND your photos to it.
- darrmit 9y ago
  I already have Syncthing running, just haven't moved off to it. The biggest offender is Photos. I just haven't found a good self-hosted photo solution.
  - earenndil 9y ago
    What photo solution do you need? Or rather, what do you want for photo storage apart from file storage?

hutzlibu 9y ago

I wonder how many people who write about big brother and 1984, have actually read the book. Because I live a life without facebook. In 1984 there was no opt-out - full violent dominant controll, all the time. Also over the thoughts. We are maybe beeing spied on a lot, by many different organizations - but I am not going to torture/brainwashed camp, because I THINK xxx is bad. I can also say it. So continue to criticize bad things, but maybe with a little bit less alarmism/hystery ... thanks.

graeme 9y ago
But how much does facebook know abiut you? * photos amd comtact info uploaded by friends * tracking scripts all over the web * any datasets they may purchase to make correlations I'llbet they have a lot more on you than you think.
- hutzlibu 9y ago
  "I'llbet they have a lot more on you than you think." No, I do know they know a lot about me ... so what? The do not have a army to take me in, if I do not think or act like they say I should. There might be a point, if I cannot have friends or find a job without a fb profile - and for some people this might be the felt truth allready - and this is bad, yes. But first of all, I think atm everyone has a choice - and secondly, big brother is still something completely different ... that was my point.
nebabyte 9y ago
Outer Party members (Winston) had their opinions controlled. No one cares about what the proles think.
- hutzlibu 9y ago
  Yes, proles and animals were free, but right and powerless. So they could also be killed for whatever reason. (did not happen in the book, because the proles did not matter). But you could not choose to be a prole. If you were a common outer party member - you could not change, even if you wanted to be a prole.

zapperdapper 9y ago

I don't do any anti-social media. Period. I wish more people would follow suit but they really seem addicted to it. Will either FaceAche or Gobble still exist in ten years time anyway? Will any of us?

nigrioid 9y ago

All of the spooky privacy issues are bad enough, but what really makes me sad is the continuous movement away from things you can control and run yourself (e.g., mail and web servers) toward closed, opaque, proprietary stuff like Facebook.

throw2016 9y ago

Every problem is an opportunity and potential solution. The current centralization will bring with it all the problems of centralization. Individuals can't simply depend on goodwill. That never ends well. Power is arbitrary, concentrates itself and seeks its own expansion making individuals irrelevant. The bigger problem is the potential solution. What seems to happen in the market economy is once any potential 'solution' takes off, the money and greed involved also do, and the solution becomes the exact same problem it was attempting to solve. Or it was just 2 powerful vested interests fighting all along masquerading as change. There is plenty of wealth floating around, resources and power are increasingly centralized, the barriers to entry are getting higher exponentially, distract yourself, avoid it, accept it or vie for change, but most change-agents have been betrayers, merely replacing one set with another, hence the devil you know. This is not to advocate helplessness but to think carefully about potential solutions and not blindly support self serving interests promoting change.

partiallypro 9y ago

Google knows far far more about you than Facebook. Facebook knows the information you want public or general information like usage. Google knows your darkest secrets. Sure, Facebook tracking pixels might track some of your shopping habits too; but Google has analytics everywhere, Adwords linked up, your search history, your browser history, your location history etc.

salsadip 9y ago
I disagree. If you use WhatsApp, Facebook knows more personal things about you than google. Things you only talk about to your best friend, fights you have with your significant other, how you behave in group chats etc - it can derive your emotional state and use that. Facebook conducted studies on (real) users on how different posts and the order of posts affects them emotionally. I don't trust services which try to exploit my emotional well-being in order to be more engaging/addictive.

carl-erwin 9y ago

The funny thing is the "share on facebook" button at the end of the article.

benevol 9y ago

On one side, I'm happy to see that people slowly start to understand the situation. On the other side, I'm kind of shocked it took so long. The way these companies were going to take control over us was so obvious about 15 years ago. A lot of damage is done, now.

Joeri 9y ago

May 26 2018 is going to be a very interesting day. The GDPR will trigger across Europe, and Facebook will become legally compelled wrt any European citizen to share everything they know about them, discard data not relevant to delivering the Facebook service, and allow users to correct any of the data, or remove all of it. It will be fascinating to see what exactly they know about me. In theory, not that much, since I barely engage with Facebook at all, but in practice I suspect quite a lot.

snarf21 9y ago
One thing people are oblivious about is they say "Facebook is awful, I only use Instagram and WhatsApp" and forget that the whole network is insanely large and growing. People lose sight that FB and Google account for 99%+ of all online advertising in the US. Social has become such an echo chamber and so manipulative.
- ryanwaggoner 9y ago
  99% sounded like a made-up statistic, so I looked it up [1]. What do you know, it's more like 60% combined. What's the purpose of throwing out numbers like this? It only hurts whatever point you're trying to make. (Edited for tone) 1. http://www.adweek.com/digital/u-s-digital-advertising-will-make-83-billion-this-year-says-emarketer/ http://www.adweek.com/digital/u-s-digital-advertising-will-m...
  - snarf21 9y ago
    I apologize, I misremembered the statistic from an article I read months ago. They only account for 99%+ of the growth in the last year, according to this article. [http://fortune.com/2017/04/26/google-facebook-digital-ads/ http://fortune.com/2017/04/26/google-facebook-digital-ads/]
    - ryanwaggoner 9y ago
      Even that source is a real stretch to support your point. Yes, some analyst thinks it's close to 100%, but sounds like most experts don't agree.

danirod 9y ago

Regarding the 'always listening' concerns, on Android 6.0 and above it is possible to grant granular permissions for resources such as microphone or location to applications. Even on applications that use an older SDK where granular permissions are not a thing, you can still disable those permissions after installing the application by tweaking the System Settings. By looking at my current permission settings, only the Camera and the Phone app have permission to use my microphone. I closed my Facebook account a while ago but I use WhatsApp, owned by Facebook. Given that I don't send voice notes or make in-app calls, there is no need for it having access to my microphone. Same with location -- no need.

danblick 9y ago

"Orwell warns that we will be overcome by an externally imposed oppression. But in Huxley's vision, no Big Brother is required to deprive people of their autonomy, maturity and history. As he saw it, people will come to love their oppression, to adore the technologies that undo their capacities to think." - Neil Postman in Amusing Ourselves to Death

kristianc 9y ago

> By running its platform on top of blockchain technology, Nexus integrates social networking, crowdfunding, and even e-commerce features embedded. Nexus is aiming to “eliminate all invasion of privacy that large corporation are currently performing” according to its founder, Jade Mulholland. So the big plan to avoid Facebook's privacy creep is to put everything on an immutable, publicly accessible record which you don't control? Okay.

machineman44 9y ago
I know right... Everywhere I turn, I hear people preaching about "blockchain technology" and it's ability to "increase privacy" ... I die a little inside every time...

barhun 9y ago

oh, idiots are attacking again. go away, dunderheads! just leave us alone! here is a list of some choices you are given: - to not opt into facebook membership - to opt out later if you ever opted in - to not share anything on it whenever you want - to remove any mobile app from your phone. facebook, what a totalitarian company! en passant... tell me, honestly; have you ever read 1984?

mattbgates 9y ago

All hail the Overlord Zuckerberg!

amingilani 9y ago

Hrm. This article is functionally suspiciously like a banner-ad for the Nexus social network's ICO. I'm not saying that it may have intended to be one, or that it isn't about Facebook taking over our lives. But it starts with how bad our privacy is, tells us how we can take control over messaging and our mic, and then ends with a switching to Nexus, and whose ICO starts in three days. Functionally speaking, it has the same impact as a sponsored article written for the ICO. I mean, I use Telegram myself, but it doesn't replace Messenger for me. While we're on the subject, Whatsapp also provides end-to-end encryption, is owned by Facebook and is definitely a Telegram competitor.

deleted 9y ago

[deleted]

wbillingsley 9y ago

Twitter is more concerning, as it has connected society's social enforcers (those who are concerned with which views "have no place in our society") with media, government, employers, etc. In terms of privacy, people have never been that concerned with "who's listening" so long as the scope of use is limited (eg, security cameras in carparks are seen as a sign of safety, not espionage, and people will happily mouth off loudly to their friends on balconies, untroubled by the ordinary passer by who might look on and scowl at the trash they might be talking). It's not the overhearing and data collection part of zersetzung that's the most problematic -- it's the army of volunteers ready to take part in public denunciation and social undermining that people grow to fear.

mamon 9y ago
On the other hand, Twitter is less and less relevant, on it's way to bankruptcy.

SHAKEDECADE 9y ago

Startpage for google results and eu.ixquick.com for non google/yahoo/bing results. All with a happy meal toy of being able to use their proxy to view sites and images. DDG has bangs via !sp & !ix but DDG uses GET instead of POsT

dzink 9y ago

Is it legal to announce a funding event like this ICO in the press? Especially in a PR piece?

sonnhy 9y ago

I've read nothing new from this article, but I've never heard of that app RYL and the concept that you can occupy the mic with one app at the time. Apart from the fact that that app will be listening all your day and that will make your phone containing sensible information anyway, I could be leaked as easily as that information is also stored as compressed as possible, for easy and non noticeable way in your internet footprint. Yet you can trust an app who's not open source, if your read their manifesto. I wonder if this article was all about RYL anyway.

kalipso 9y ago

It is allways important to talk about Facebook and that its influence is growing way to far. But the suggestions in this Article are very sad. As Example: "You can also use Telegram which ensures encryption and privacy across all communications." is a Big lie. Groupchats are not Encrypted using Telegram. And for Private Encrypted Chats you have to navigate through submenues to get encryption. Then: "Thirdly, you can take control of your smartphone’s mic through another means. On Android, an app called RYL or “record your life” lets you do just that." What the fuck? To block Facebook using my Mic I should install another app, recording ALL THE TIME? I dont want to offend the Author, i think we need more people writing about themes like facebook google privacy and more, but those suggestions are not good. My Suggestions: stop using facebook, use Diaspora or Mastodon. Instant Messages via XMPP (i strongly suggest the app "Conversations"). Root your Smartphone, dont by Iphones. With a rooted smartphone you could easily deny the usage of the mic for facebook instead of installing RYL.

kushagraasati 9y ago

https://www.emitpost.com https://www.emitpost.com

andreasgonewild 9y ago

There are plenty of superior alternatives; but this one is mine, and free; and secure: https://github.com/andreas-gone-wild/snackis https://github.com/andreas-gone-wild/snackis Whatever you do, opt out before it's too late...

vayun 9y ago

The article is pure FUD spreading. "potentially being able to eavesdrop on our conversations", so now any app which has access to microphone "may be listening"? So it uses data which you are willingly share with it to "serve better ads". Where is a problem with that? Does the author prefer worse ads?

intopieces 9y ago
>Where is a problem with that? Does the author prefer worse ads? I certainly do. I do not want ads at all, so I prefer them to be as least relevant to my interests as possible so the chances of them distracting me from what I was doing -- on the rare chance that my ad blocker fails -- are minimized. I also don't like seeing ads about things I just looked at at Amazon on other websites. It gives me the impression that this new website I'm looking at knows what I'm shopping for.

jkoll 9y ago

This is an ad for an ICO.

squarefoot 9y ago

After visiting a family of friends of mine a few weeks ago and noticing how much they're active on FB, and sadly how many bullshit they take for true and discuss there, from chemtrails to infinite energy etc., I never regretted refusing to be a part of that human stupidity collector called Facebook. Not for me, definitely.

haterswillhate 9y ago

YouTube and Facebook sooo yesterday, im over it.