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> We've knows Facebook tracks everything Not disputing this, but when you say 'we' I think you mean the < 5% (maybe even < 1%) of techies and lawyers and journ
by justboxing 9y ago
> We've knows Facebook tracks everything
Not disputing this, but when you say 'we' I think you mean the < 5% (maybe even < 1%) of techies and lawyers and journalists in the world who really really care about their data and privacy.
The rest 95% either don't know, or could care less even if they know. I've told my non-techie fam and friends about data harvesting, privacy, and how facebook tracks everything, only to be ignored or outright ridiculed ("Oh you techies are so paranoid").
Many of my friends in India (where I was raised) and elsewhere used to freely post their phone # and home address on my wall asking me to call them / send them stuff from US. I don't think this 95% population really cares or gives a sh*t.
- walrus01 9y ago> The rest 95% either don't know, or could care less even if they know. I've told my non-techie fam and friends about data harvesting, privacy, and how facebook tracks everything, only to be ignored or outright ridiculed ("Oh you techies are so paranoid"). pretty much exactly my experience with Canadian and American family. People didn't give one iota of a fuck when the Snowden revelations came out because they just assumed that it was the case already. I think the average techie underestimates how important platform lockin + user interface design + ubiquity are. Once something like Facebook Messenger has reached a critical market share trying to get people to stop using it, no matter how privacy violating FB may be, is about as effective as trying to get people in the year 1985 to disconnect their house's analog telephone line.
- mysterypie 9y ago> People didn't give one iota of a fuck when the Snowden revelations came out because they just assumed that it was the case already. It's more complex than that. The tracking and surveillance are not visible to the average person. Point your camera at someone in a coffee shop or bar and take their picture. They'll be coming over to ask you why you took their photo. The fact that the coffee shop or bar is brimming with overhead cameras is completely lost on them because it is mostly invisible (or least no longer noticed). Just wait until someone does a massive leak of actual personal data, photos, and videos, as opposed to abstract technical reports and Powerpoint slides that Snowden leaked. The average person will be screaming like a banshee when they can look up all the personal info and private pics of themselves and their neighbors and friends on some public webserver.
- SmirkingRevenge 9y agoThe true data apocalypse will come when ISP logs are compromised and leaked (urls visited, dns lookups, tied to ip or even subscriber ids, etc), and there is enough leaked PII floating it out there to join it to people records.
- walrus01 9y agoWith the exception of big evil things like Comcast, you might be surprised how few ISPs keep detailed logs like this. The effort to correlate them with customers is generally not worth it unless you get a subpoena, and only then is it done manually.
- jodrellblank 9y ago(UK) The new surveillance law requires web and phone companies to store everyone’s web browsing histories for 12 months and give the police, security services and official agencies unprecedented access to the data. https://www.theguardian.com/world/2016/nov/29/snoopers-charter-bill-becomes-law-extending-uk-state-surveillance https://www.theguardian.com/world/2016/nov/29/snoopers-chart...
- walterstucco 9y agoWhat an ISP logs it's traffic made by ips not people Facebook tracks people not ips
- IanPBann 9y agoWhile the UK is still part of the EU, will there be a case to have your history removed under the new GDPR legislation?
- icebraining 9y agoNo, the GDPR allows states to include exceptions for such cases: https://ico.org.uk/for-organisations/guide-to-the-general-data-protection-regulation-gdpr/exemptions/ https://ico.org.uk/for-organisations/guide-to-the-general-da...
- samstave 9y agoIt’s a socioeconomic awareness. If you’re worried about food you don’t care. Facebooks 99% are the poorest and least educated. I’ve always wondered why face book, a platform which could unify teachers from mit with the poorest students across the globe has never done shit to do so. They claim to “connect the globe” but the haven’t connected anything. Where is the teacher hosting a class where any single person from fbs vast user base can connect? Fucking unreal. Facebook could have become the global educational foundation with their platform at this point. But it’s just a circlejerk.
- jansho 9y agoTo be fair, “connecting the globe —> making the world a better place” has always been a bit of a vague vision.
- B1FF_PSUVM 9y ago> educational foundation Well, that was the original hope with print, radio and TV. So we mostly get scandal sheets, soap operas and reality TV. "What we learn from history is that we don't learn from history", as some wag put it.
- jamesrcole 9y agoI'd like to hear a proposal for how print, radio or tv could have successfully served such an end. I.e. where enough people watched the content, where the proposal was realistically achievable, and would have been financially viable. Not saying such a thing is impossible but it sure isn't easy.
- B1FF_PSUVM 9y agoHey, don't underestimate it. Protestant Europe got a big literacy boost from the Gutenberg Bible. And if you dig around the writings around the time that radio and (later) TV got started, you'll see plenty of hopeful plans for universal education. But after the transient is over, the steady state is kind of underwhelming. People are very resistant to instruction that doesn't suit them, and I really can't blame that.
- DyslexicAtheist 9y agoOnce something like Facebook Messenger has reached a critical market share trying to get people to stop using it writing this comment from South-East Europe where many people use facebook not just for cat pics but to find work and network with colleagues. It's a huge problem in developing countries where facebook IS the Internet. FB recently announced it would roll out job-posts for low-income workers[¹]. This will mean an even stronger lock-in for the user. While the discussion on ethics evolve mostly user-privacy and CA/FB role in Brexit/election hacking, the problem for less developed regions is facebook taking from them without giving back (fb is known not to pay it's taxes in Europe) ¹ https://techcrunch.com/2018/02/28/facebook-job-posts/ https://techcrunch.com/2018/02/28/facebook-job-posts/
- mmsimanga 9y agoEchoing your statement, "Facebook is the Internet". In Africa most telecoms have special data bundles for Facebook and WhatsApp. Normal data bundles to browse the Internet are just too expensive. A dollar will give you unlimited access to Facebook and WhatsApp for about 2 weeks. I have a few cows back in my village. I have toyed with the idea of creating a cattle monitoring application that would have to make use of Facebook or WhatsApp. The herder sends me a picture every evening of the cows. I want to piggy back on the affordable connectivity given to Facebook and WhatsApp. Yes I know, this would contribute to the problem but for me losing cattle is a bigger problem. From parent, finding a job is a bigger problem so we all get sucked into Facebook.
- ianlevesque 9y agoSounds like a Messenger bot would work well for that use case actually.
- mmsimanga 9y agoThanks I will add a note to my list of ideas on my rather long list of todo things.
- icebraining 9y ago
- ramphastidae 9y agoYep. I’ve been explaining this stuff to friends for years. Even the most intelligent and rational dismiss it as paranoia or say, “I don’t care, I have nothing to hide anyway.”
- jimmy1 9y agoDaniel Solove eloquently states the problems with the "I have nothing to hide" argument in this famous paper now turned book https://scholarship.law.gwu.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1159&context=faculty_publications https://scholarship.law.gwu.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=...
- hodl 9y agoI've not read t but guessing its similar to why you shouldn't speak to police without a lawyer even if "I done nothing wrong". Because you will probably say something they can use against you regardless.
- jsmthrowaway 9y agoWhich is a dangerous family of opinions to apply without fully understanding them, as asking for a lawyer when they’re at your door inquiring about a missing neighborhood kid is probably counterproductive and escalates attention on you unnecessarily. It’s a fine opinion when common sense is involved. I don’t have a problem with the sentiment, just watching people who digest YouTube and shout “where’s your probable cause” at the poor guy looking for gypsy moths at the California border. (Yes, I’ve seen that on 50 in Tahoe.)
- _jal 9y agoI'm pretty sure that idiots like that will be idiots no matter what advice they stumble over. But I have to say, > Which is a dangerous family of opinions to apply without fully understanding them I get what you're saying, but the point of the advice is that, in a situation to which the advice is applicable, you don't fully understand the implications of anything you may say, so your best play is to clam up and get a lawyer.
- mrhappyunhappy 9y agoPeople got so comfortable with ease of being able to reach anyone anywhere and in one place of all places that they have been conditioned to give up all privacy. Today's environment is a heaven for law enforcement agencies, marketing agencies and cybercriminals. It's too easy to manipulate, build profiles and do just about anything with anyone you'd like to Target. One could argue that while technology improves various aspects of our lives it also dumbs us down to the point of being totally numb to sanity.
- sgustard 9y agoPeople care, but assume it's inevitable. The government knows everything about me since I have to pay taxes. Likewise the banks because I have to keep my money somewhere. Likewise my cell provider because I need a phone to participate in society. Social media is not as high on the necessity list, but once you've already accepted this inevitability, how much is going to change if you give up Facebook? There is a downside which is measurable if you value the social contact. The upside is completely abstract and un-measurable. What outcome could you ever point to and say, this thing X happened specifically because I gave up Facebook?
- amrx101 9y agoPeople are fucking okay with their data being in public. They even fucking post any slight event in their lives.
- ghthor 9y agoData being public and data being hoarded by an platform with lock in is different. I share plenty of things that I'm perfectly OK being public but that I'd never ever want to give away to a single entity that I don't trust like Facebook.
- harryf 9y agoFacebook exploits "bugs" in the human psyche, such as our need to avoid feeling lonely (by sharing intimate details of our life) is far more compelling than any abstract fear of "big brother". That is until big brother is Donald Trump, then suddenly the fear is no longer abstract.
- mtberatwork 9y ago> Facebook exploits "bugs" in the human psyche Small quip: the need for social interaction/emotional support is a human trait not a "bug". A bug would imply that this need is somehow undesirable/irrational, but that's just not correct.
- harryf 9y agoAh what I meant was that prioritizing loneliness over privacy is a kind of a bug; satisfying a more unconscious need over taking conscious decisions to be smart with your own privacy.
- azinman2 9y agoThey’re starting to. They just need enough examples of something having gone wrong with huge consequences. This is one of them.
- lowkeyokay 9y agoAnd this would be the time to revisit John Oliver’s Snowden interview [1]. Specifically at 25:53. Since the topic is surveillance it may be inappropriate to link YouTube. If you haven’t seen it and don’t want to, the gist is people only care when their dickpics gets leaked... [1] https://youtu.be/XEVlyP4_11M https://youtu.be/XEVlyP4_11M
- pbhjpbhj 9y agoWhat about the overwhelming majority that don't take images of their genitals? Is there a downside for them?
- leoharsha2 9y agoI have nothing to hide” - most of the people a pregnant teenager being outed by the store Target, after it mined her purchase data – larger handbags, headache pills, tissues – and sent her a “congratulations” message as marketing, which her unknowing father got instead. Oops! Don't confuse privacy with secrecy. I know what you do in the bathroom, but you still close the door. That’s because you want privacy, not secrecy. I found this article very interesting about FB - http://www.salimvirani.com//facebook/ http://www.salimvirani.com//facebook/ reply
- simias 9y ago>I have nothing to hide” - most of the people a pregnant teenager being outed by the store Target, after it mined her purchase data – larger handbags, headache pills, tissues – and sent her a “congratulations” message as marketing, which her unknowing father got instead. Oops! Has this ever been proved or is it just an urban legend? I keep hearing this anecdote but I always thought it was fishy and could easily be explained by a simple coincidence. Like these people who claim that the Facebook app is listening to them continuously to match keywords for ads. My girlfriend and I are in our early 30's, she's been regularly targeted for pregnancy-related products for the past 5 years at least. It seems that for most advertisers you don't need a super fancy algorithm harvesting thousands of data points, simply "woman age 25-35" is probably good enough to assume that pregnancy is likely. Undoubtedly Target has that information, they thought that it was plausible that she could be pregnant (or would be in the close future) so they sent pregnancy-related material. When it turned out that this person was actually pregnant they thought Target was surprisingly prescient. Of course that's not counting the hundreds of people who potentially received the same offer but were not actually pregnant and discarded it immediately as junk mail. I'm sure the profiling takes place but this anecdote probably overplays how accurate these predictions are. Facebook and Google are in an other league though, they have access to so much more personal info, I'm sure these companies "know" many of their users better than any of their friends or relative ever will.
- pbhjpbhj 9y agoI think you prove the point you're denying. You say you don't need fancy algos, but companies are wasting advertising on your gf by using basic indicators (age, sex) when in the Target case the advertising was, well, targeted. If advertisers know what will get you to push the buy button then they can use that against you. Advertising pregnancy pants to those who aren't pregnant will almost always fail, and from the advertisers perspective it wastes an opportunity to push a product that you might buy.
- jfoster 9y agoIt's very simple. No one will care unless it has a tangible effect on their lives. For that reason, if it does have a tangible effect on peoples' lives, Facebook is doing it wrong.
- woodandsteel 9y agoMaybe ask them how they would feel if a little robot owned by some giant corporation was following them around every day, all day long. And imagine the corporation had similar robots following everyone else around, even children. And tell them the corporation made its money by selling the information it collected to anyone who could pay. And tell them some of the purchasers use the information for various nasty things, like identity theft, And then ask them how they would feel if the robots were invisible, so they didn't realize they were being monitored. And then tell them that is what is actually happening today.