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Anyone else remember Beacon? This was how FB has always designed to work from the beginning. They've just been toying with the PR ways to say it to make people

Anyone else remember Beacon? This was how FB has always designed to work from the beginning. They've just been toying with the PR ways to say it to make people accept it without thinking. The election woke people up. I found this from 2011 when they shut it down as a "mistake." (https://newsroom.fb.com/news/2011/11/our-commitment-to-the-facebook-community/ https://newsroom.fb.com/news/2011/11/our-commitment-to-the-f...). Unfortunately, it looks like they removed the launch release - but it would be interesting to see how it was presented in light of the recent news. They're not a product company, they're a distraction company.

dfxm12 9y ago
This was how FB has always designed to work from the beginning Not exactly. In all fairness, as Zuck points out, this is a key part of the story, and in theory, why this is different: In 2015, we learned from journalists at The Guardian that Kogan had shared data from his app with Cambridge Analytica. It is against our policies for developers to share data without people's consent. This raises the question of what Facebook was doing (if anything) to prevent this sort of action, but the fact that they just took CA at their word that they deleted this ill-gotten data (of course they didn't), it makes me think they did very little. I think this is just as concerning as any other part of this story. Even if people are knowingly willing to hand over data to Facebook (or the devs of some app) in exchange to use a service, they wouldn't think that it's a free for all and anyone can mine the data for whatever they want.
- humanrebar 9y ago
  > It is against our policies for developers to share data without people's consent. Not to mention that it's arguable that "consent" was really given for facebook to share the data in the first place. I'd be interested to see some polling results asking if facebook users knew what facebook was up to and whether they feel OK with it.
  - pishpash 9y ago
    These fake consent (EULA, signup clauses) need to be shot down once and for all. Consent needs to be visible, granular, and explicit.
    - l9k 9y ago
      These have existed for a long time, on paper contracts.
  - haberman 9y ago
    I'd also be really interested to see screenshots of what the users saw when they clicked "ok." I've been able to find a few screenshots online for other apps, but nothing that indicates what it would have looked like in 2013.
    - cmac2992 9y ago
      https://photos.app.goo.gl/0z3F0BH9Q0wNK0nz1 https://photos.app.goo.gl/0z3F0BH9Q0wNK0nz1 I think this is from 2013.
      - haberman 9y ago
        Nice. This doesn't seem to mention sharing data about your friends though? I wonder if that would have been mentioned separately to grant access to your friends data?
        detaro 9y ago
        It mentions "list of friends", but not what kind of data is attached to entries in said list.
        cmac2992 9y ago
        That one is pretty vague. Here's another that I found that's a lot more explicit. This one is definitely from 2013. https://photos.app.goo.gl/od8XBXMP1YoacpMo2 https://photos.app.goo.gl/od8XBXMP1YoacpMo2
- mygo 9y ago
  Thanks for playing into the story that Facebook created to set the conversation. This was openly covered last year by BBC when they interviewed Trump's digital campaign manager at the time Theresa Hong [interview linked]. The campaign spent $16M on Facebook. Understandably, Facebook gave them the white glove treatment, even had their own employees embedded in Project Alamo (the headquarters of the campaign's digital arm). But today Facebook claims they had no idea who one of their multi-million-dollar clients in 2015-2016 were. That it was just some random quiz-making hacker dude selling data to some other random company. https://twitter.com/bbcstories/status/896752720522100742?lang=en https://twitter.com/bbcstories/status/896752720522100742?lan... This piece of work posted today by Facebook is what we call damage control. Don't expect the truth from it-- it will contain truths, but it will not be the truth of the matter. And don't let it set your dialogue, man.
fleitz 9y ago
It's a really bad business move to share the data, if Kogan was smart he'd develop an API to allow them to ask for the insights, but not see the data. The sad thing is FB sounds jealous he realized more value from their data than they did. It's totally a Duh, why didn't we think of that, Clinton would have paid way more for that data than Trump did.
orblivion 9y ago
I basically quit after Beacon.
bduerst 9y ago
What's the tl;dr: on Beacon?
- jjulius 9y ago
  >Beacon formed part of Facebook's advertisement system that sent data from external websites to Facebook, for the purpose of allowing targeted advertisements and allowing users to share their activities with their friends. Beacon would report to Facebook on its members' activities on third-party sites that also participate with Beacon. These activities would be published to users' News Feed. This would occur even when users were not connected to Facebook and would happen without the knowledge of the Facebook user. One of the main concerns was that Beacon did not give the user the option to block the information from being sent to Facebook. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Facebook_Beacon https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Facebook_Beacon
  - Slansitartop 9y ago
    Was this the thing that would put up a notification on your Facebook profile that you just bought a dildo from Amazon (for instance)?
    - LeoPanthera 9y ago
      I really hate that. It's a specific deal between Facebook and Amazon. You can't "block" it. Amazon willingly send your purchase history to Facebook.
    - fancyfacebook 9y ago
      Yep. What was even more bizarre is how they never really acknowledged it might be a problem, they just keep taking this arrogant attitude that the plebe users are wrong and just don't understand this amazing new data feature. It was the first time I recall them using analytics to justify their bullshit, it pretty much set the tone for where we are at now.
theli0nheart 9y ago
Yes! Wow, that was a long time ago. FWIW, it looks like Archive.org has a copy of the press release: https://web.archive.org/web/20080214193303/http://www.facebook.com/press/releases.php?p=9166 https://web.archive.org/web/20080214193303/http://www.facebo...
arca_vorago 9y ago
"They're not a product company, they're a distraction company." Correction, they are a surveillance company. Need I remind everyone of Google and FB's In-Q-Tel CIA partners in crime? They just figured out a way for everyone to willingly report on themselves, but not just on themselves, on others too! FB is bad and should collapse like every other dotcom boom-bust that uses and abuses it's users... but the difference is the level of monopoly on non-technical users that didn't exist in the 90's. Back then the technical community could have dropped a product like hotcakes and watched it bust... but due to the increase of non-technical users who sign any EULA/TOS and don't give a crap about privacy... I expect nothing will happen until something really bad and at a massive scale happens. For those who are younger, consider this the slashdot/digg/reddit cycle. Reddit will die next the closer it gets to IPO too. It's the beauty of computing though. Every market is ripe for disruption if someone has a good vision and follow-through. The problem is that so many of them use the exact same model and a few years later are the ones dying due to lack of integrity.
- PaulStatezny 9y ago
  > The problem is that so many of them use the exact same model and a few years later are the ones dying due to lack of integrity. Can you substantiate this claim of tech product companies getting large/successful and then “dying due to lack of integrity”? I haven’t noticed the pattern but if there is one I’m sure interested in the evidence. (And in what sense do they lack integrity?)

dfxm12 9y ago

This was how FB has always designed to work from the beginning Not exactly. In all fairness, as Zuck points out, this is a key part of the story, and in theory, why this is different: In 2015, we learned from journalists at The Guardian that Kogan had shared data from his app with Cambridge Analytica. It is against our policies for developers to share data without people's consent. This raises the question of what Facebook was doing (if anything) to prevent this sort of action, but the fact that they just took CA at their word that they deleted this ill-gotten data (of course they didn't), it makes me think they did very little. I think this is just as concerning as any other part of this story. Even if people are knowingly willing to hand over data to Facebook (or the devs of some app) in exchange to use a service, they wouldn't think that it's a free for all and anyone can mine the data for whatever they want.

humanrebar 9y ago
> It is against our policies for developers to share data without people's consent. Not to mention that it's arguable that "consent" was really given for facebook to share the data in the first place. I'd be interested to see some polling results asking if facebook users knew what facebook was up to and whether they feel OK with it.
- pishpash 9y ago
  These fake consent (EULA, signup clauses) need to be shot down once and for all. Consent needs to be visible, granular, and explicit.
  - l9k 9y ago
    These have existed for a long time, on paper contracts.
- haberman 9y ago
  I'd also be really interested to see screenshots of what the users saw when they clicked "ok." I've been able to find a few screenshots online for other apps, but nothing that indicates what it would have looked like in 2013.
  - cmac2992 9y ago
    https://photos.app.goo.gl/0z3F0BH9Q0wNK0nz1 https://photos.app.goo.gl/0z3F0BH9Q0wNK0nz1 I think this is from 2013.
    - haberman 9y ago
      Nice. This doesn't seem to mention sharing data about your friends though? I wonder if that would have been mentioned separately to grant access to your friends data?
      - detaro 9y ago
        It mentions "list of friends", but not what kind of data is attached to entries in said list.
      - cmac2992 9y ago
        That one is pretty vague. Here's another that I found that's a lot more explicit. This one is definitely from 2013. https://photos.app.goo.gl/od8XBXMP1YoacpMo2 https://photos.app.goo.gl/od8XBXMP1YoacpMo2
mygo 9y ago
Thanks for playing into the story that Facebook created to set the conversation. This was openly covered last year by BBC when they interviewed Trump's digital campaign manager at the time Theresa Hong [interview linked]. The campaign spent $16M on Facebook. Understandably, Facebook gave them the white glove treatment, even had their own employees embedded in Project Alamo (the headquarters of the campaign's digital arm). But today Facebook claims they had no idea who one of their multi-million-dollar clients in 2015-2016 were. That it was just some random quiz-making hacker dude selling data to some other random company. https://twitter.com/bbcstories/status/896752720522100742?lang=en https://twitter.com/bbcstories/status/896752720522100742?lan... This piece of work posted today by Facebook is what we call damage control. Don't expect the truth from it-- it will contain truths, but it will not be the truth of the matter. And don't let it set your dialogue, man.

fleitz 9y ago

It's a really bad business move to share the data, if Kogan was smart he'd develop an API to allow them to ask for the insights, but not see the data. The sad thing is FB sounds jealous he realized more value from their data than they did. It's totally a Duh, why didn't we think of that, Clinton would have paid way more for that data than Trump did.

orblivion 9y ago

I basically quit after Beacon.

bduerst 9y ago

What's the tl;dr: on Beacon?

jjulius 9y ago
>Beacon formed part of Facebook's advertisement system that sent data from external websites to Facebook, for the purpose of allowing targeted advertisements and allowing users to share their activities with their friends. Beacon would report to Facebook on its members' activities on third-party sites that also participate with Beacon. These activities would be published to users' News Feed. This would occur even when users were not connected to Facebook and would happen without the knowledge of the Facebook user. One of the main concerns was that Beacon did not give the user the option to block the information from being sent to Facebook. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Facebook_Beacon https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Facebook_Beacon
- Slansitartop 9y ago
  Was this the thing that would put up a notification on your Facebook profile that you just bought a dildo from Amazon (for instance)?
  - LeoPanthera 9y ago
    I really hate that. It's a specific deal between Facebook and Amazon. You can't "block" it. Amazon willingly send your purchase history to Facebook.
  - fancyfacebook 9y ago
    Yep. What was even more bizarre is how they never really acknowledged it might be a problem, they just keep taking this arrogant attitude that the plebe users are wrong and just don't understand this amazing new data feature. It was the first time I recall them using analytics to justify their bullshit, it pretty much set the tone for where we are at now.

theli0nheart 9y ago

Yes! Wow, that was a long time ago. FWIW, it looks like Archive.org has a copy of the press release: https://web.archive.org/web/20080214193303/http://www.facebook.com/press/releases.php?p=9166 https://web.archive.org/web/20080214193303/http://www.facebo...

arca_vorago 9y ago

"They're not a product company, they're a distraction company." Correction, they are a surveillance company. Need I remind everyone of Google and FB's In-Q-Tel CIA partners in crime? They just figured out a way for everyone to willingly report on themselves, but not just on themselves, on others too! FB is bad and should collapse like every other dotcom boom-bust that uses and abuses it's users... but the difference is the level of monopoly on non-technical users that didn't exist in the 90's. Back then the technical community could have dropped a product like hotcakes and watched it bust... but due to the increase of non-technical users who sign any EULA/TOS and don't give a crap about privacy... I expect nothing will happen until something really bad and at a massive scale happens. For those who are younger, consider this the slashdot/digg/reddit cycle. Reddit will die next the closer it gets to IPO too. It's the beauty of computing though. Every market is ripe for disruption if someone has a good vision and follow-through. The problem is that so many of them use the exact same model and a few years later are the ones dying due to lack of integrity.

PaulStatezny 9y ago
> The problem is that so many of them use the exact same model and a few years later are the ones dying due to lack of integrity. Can you substantiate this claim of tech product companies getting large/successful and then “dying due to lack of integrity”? I haven’t noticed the pattern but if there is one I’m sure interested in the evidence. (And in what sense do they lack integrity?)