4 ms·

The 2007 and 2013 paragraphs are pretty scary. Your friend takes a personality quiz from a random app developer and then that developer gets access to _your_ pe

by ddavis 9y ago

The 2007 and 2013 paragraphs are pretty scary. Your friend takes a personality quiz from a random app developer and then that developer gets access to _your_ personal data. Obviously Zuckerberg doesn't go into detail about what kind of data that was, but if they needed to rein that in in 2014... I imagine it was potentially pretty personal.

bluetwo 9y ago
I created an app so I could grant myself access to the API with it. It was an embarrassing amount of data on all your friends.
- rock_hard 9y ago
  Like what?
  - bluetwo 9y ago
    It was years ago before they started locking down the data. I put together a web page I was going to post to show people what info they were releasing, but I felt I would get lynched by friends for posting it all. Basically everything you see on yourself, plus pages you visit and like, groups you belong to, your picture, your friend list, as well as their friends, so it was really three steps out and included things not available through FB normally. It was totally predictable this data would get collected and abused.
    - rock_hard 9y ago
      I generally don’t see the problem of a user being able to share information about himself with apps she wants to use. That’s a fair product to build and provides lots of great value! Now can it be abused...of course it can, a rouge app developer could try to use this data for whatever, or sell it. That’s a problem. I think FB did a great job over the years though to improve UX for users to make it more clear what is happening and what information is being shared. Back in the day you could for example get a users friend list for example (only public profile information though)...I think they did the right thing in limiting that to only users who also use the app. It’s what makes apps like Spotify great...the fact that I can easily find my friends on it. I think there is tradeoff in anything we build. And 2B people believe it’s a good tradeoff! And don’t tell me that users are stupid and don’t know...because then I am gonna flag you as stupid first :) We also don’t sue Ford or the state that owns the streets for any accident that happens...that be nuts! We ask drivers and pedestrians to be responsible and that works for the most part. Of course there is the occasional deadly accident...but we accept that risk for the benefits of mobility.
- ckocagil 9y ago
  Do you remember if it provided any data that wasn't on your public profile?
- antocv 9y ago
  I created an app back in 2009, to grant myself access and look around. Saw too much information about friends, realized some friends began "using" my app, just because it was made by me. Realized all the quizzes and dumb polls are data-gathering apps for the developers. Realized, all the awkward "friend requests" from other side of the world, are fake profiles, to gather more data. Made a fake profile, to seem from a different part of the continent, with such an awkward for us name. Facebook recommended me to befriend people from that area. Some accepted the friend request. Soon I had 30+ friends on a fake profile, all within the same "web" of friends, within same region. Then I made more of those fake profiles, and made more fake apps with same theme, since this soo easy, for this and other regions which I suspected had hot women, and I was 25ish single at the time. My devious plan was to get outside my own social network and cast my net to catch the women who my algorithm would say - they are not on the edge of their own social network - they are a hub a popular and single etc. But that was too much work to complete. Later facebook gave me the graph search query where one could say "friend of my friends and single in this city", but that was still meh compared to what I had planned - since I would be doing the data gathering and analysis. I wanted to catch the woman who had good privacy settings, those not show up on fb own searches, those not installing my app, but appearing in friend list of those who do accept fake friend requests or use dumb quizz apps. Those who appear to be recommended by many fake profiles.
  - cornholio 9y ago
    Creep level: Zuck.
  - deleted 9y ago
    [deleted]
amyjess 9y ago
My guess is anything your friends can see. If your friends can see your posts, the app can see your posts. If your friends can see your birthdate, the app can see your birthdate. And so on, so forth.
- hanspeter 9y ago
  This was exactly the case. Any private personal information not shared with the app-connected user, was not exposed to the app.
ahtu123 9y ago
There were probably tens of thousands of apps like that. Maybe more. Most made by small teams that definitely don't care about the privacy implications at all. A lot of that data is still out there somewhere being sold.
physcab 9y ago
This was the graph api that enabled companies like Zynga to grow virally. You used to be able to do searches on Facebook like "photos taken by friends of _____" and you could easily stalk them without being friends with them. Today that search will yield photos only if you are friends with them, or they enabled their privacy settings to public.
- tardo99 9y ago
  To me the ugly piece of this is that companies like Zynga really operate in the realm of addiction. So, Facebook is operating as a sort of addictive drug on steroids.
- underwater 9y ago
  Graph API and Graph Search were different. The latter was never exposed via a public API. Neither exposed data that wasn’t available from using the product normally. For example you could visit someone’s profile, see who their friends were, and then look at those friends’ photos.
Bukhmanizer 9y ago
There's a short discussion about the changes here: https://stackoverflow.com/questions/23417356/facebook-graph-api-v2-0-me-friends-returns-empty-or-only-friends-who-also-u https://stackoverflow.com/questions/23417356/facebook-graph-...

by ddavis 9y ago

bluetwo 9y ago

I created an app so I could grant myself access to the API with it. It was an embarrassing amount of data on all your friends.

rock_hard 9y ago
Like what?
- bluetwo 9y ago
  It was years ago before they started locking down the data. I put together a web page I was going to post to show people what info they were releasing, but I felt I would get lynched by friends for posting it all. Basically everything you see on yourself, plus pages you visit and like, groups you belong to, your picture, your friend list, as well as their friends, so it was really three steps out and included things not available through FB normally. It was totally predictable this data would get collected and abused.
  - rock_hard 9y ago
    I generally don’t see the problem of a user being able to share information about himself with apps she wants to use. That’s a fair product to build and provides lots of great value! Now can it be abused...of course it can, a rouge app developer could try to use this data for whatever, or sell it. That’s a problem. I think FB did a great job over the years though to improve UX for users to make it more clear what is happening and what information is being shared. Back in the day you could for example get a users friend list for example (only public profile information though)...I think they did the right thing in limiting that to only users who also use the app. It’s what makes apps like Spotify great...the fact that I can easily find my friends on it. I think there is tradeoff in anything we build. And 2B people believe it’s a good tradeoff! And don’t tell me that users are stupid and don’t know...because then I am gonna flag you as stupid first :) We also don’t sue Ford or the state that owns the streets for any accident that happens...that be nuts! We ask drivers and pedestrians to be responsible and that works for the most part. Of course there is the occasional deadly accident...but we accept that risk for the benefits of mobility.
ckocagil 9y ago
Do you remember if it provided any data that wasn't on your public profile?
antocv 9y ago
I created an app back in 2009, to grant myself access and look around. Saw too much information about friends, realized some friends began "using" my app, just because it was made by me. Realized all the quizzes and dumb polls are data-gathering apps for the developers. Realized, all the awkward "friend requests" from other side of the world, are fake profiles, to gather more data. Made a fake profile, to seem from a different part of the continent, with such an awkward for us name. Facebook recommended me to befriend people from that area. Some accepted the friend request. Soon I had 30+ friends on a fake profile, all within the same "web" of friends, within same region. Then I made more of those fake profiles, and made more fake apps with same theme, since this soo easy, for this and other regions which I suspected had hot women, and I was 25ish single at the time. My devious plan was to get outside my own social network and cast my net to catch the women who my algorithm would say - they are not on the edge of their own social network - they are a hub a popular and single etc. But that was too much work to complete. Later facebook gave me the graph search query where one could say "friend of my friends and single in this city", but that was still meh compared to what I had planned - since I would be doing the data gathering and analysis. I wanted to catch the woman who had good privacy settings, those not show up on fb own searches, those not installing my app, but appearing in friend list of those who do accept fake friend requests or use dumb quizz apps. Those who appear to be recommended by many fake profiles.
- cornholio 9y ago
  Creep level: Zuck.
- deleted 9y ago
  [deleted]

amyjess 9y ago

My guess is anything your friends can see. If your friends can see your posts, the app can see your posts. If your friends can see your birthdate, the app can see your birthdate. And so on, so forth.

hanspeter 9y ago
This was exactly the case. Any private personal information not shared with the app-connected user, was not exposed to the app.

ahtu123 9y ago

There were probably tens of thousands of apps like that. Maybe more. Most made by small teams that definitely don't care about the privacy implications at all. A lot of that data is still out there somewhere being sold.

physcab 9y ago

This was the graph api that enabled companies like Zynga to grow virally. You used to be able to do searches on Facebook like "photos taken by friends of _____" and you could easily stalk them without being friends with them. Today that search will yield photos only if you are friends with them, or they enabled their privacy settings to public.

tardo99 9y ago
To me the ugly piece of this is that companies like Zynga really operate in the realm of addiction. So, Facebook is operating as a sort of addictive drug on steroids.
underwater 9y ago
Graph API and Graph Search were different. The latter was never exposed via a public API. Neither exposed data that wasn’t available from using the product normally. For example you could visit someone’s profile, see who their friends were, and then look at those friends’ photos.

Bukhmanizer 9y ago

There's a short discussion about the changes here: https://stackoverflow.com/questions/23417356/facebook-graph-api-v2-0-me-friends-returns-empty-or-only-friends-who-also-u https://stackoverflow.com/questions/23417356/facebook-graph-...