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I always got the vibe that they pushed things like that so hard and in your face in order to find out more about you. If you are the type to set your privacy a

by scoggs 9y ago

I always got the vibe that they pushed things like that so hard and in your face in order to find out more about you. If you are the type to set your privacy a certain way they corral you into a group where you are looked at in a different way than users who don't toy with their privacy settings in a way where it draws attention to the fact that you actually seriously care about your privacy. This is just a hunch but with their endless data points and the internal teams involved with making these decisions not only decide what privacy options we are shown, how, and why but what the inverse effect would be in terms of how to treat and monitor those specific customers in order to harvest and obtain the types of data that were essential to providing useful and actionable information to those looking to buy that information. Something about how in your face their privacy awareness campaigns seemed to be while all the while everyone in tech or paying any attention knew that Facebook is in the business of selling personal / private information. I think what you don't say, don't do, and don't want them to see creates just as much of a profile about you as anything you do voluntarily give up to them. I feel they wouldn't be successful if they weren't the type of company that thought that deeply into it. All that said one of the scenarios in my mind that I figured applies to this, which is very apt right now with the goings-on of Facebook / Cambridge Analytica is when a user is flagged as the type who has locked down their privacy, thus being corralled into the group of "Members who care about personal internet privacy" that would be their cue to needing to harvest your data points via your friend circle or 3rd party Facebook tools / features (like external Like buttons) in order to obtain those data points while still sticking to their "Privacy Manifesto". Maybe that's when they start serving you lots of ads interesting you in dating on Tinder, using external photo sharing apps like Instagram, or external messaging apps like Messenger or WhatsApp. Who knows, really? But they and we know they've had many ways to skin a cat all along. Maybe I'm paranoid but I'd rather be paranoid and a bit fanatical than ignorant. PS. Not calling anyone out there ignorant. Just ranting is all.

Spooky23 9y ago
I think paranoia regarding anything Facebook says is pragmatic. The company has a Uber-ish brazen arrogance, and never takes a position that benefits anyone but the company. Even MFA was used as a tool to gather intelligence.
TeMPOraL 9y ago
I never actually considered they might be micromanaging those privacy reminders. But yeah, it sounds plausible. A bit more of context - I might be an outlier here, because from the get-go, I always, deliberately, kept everything on my Facebook profile public. I've always treated it as something similar to a personal website/blog. I still do, despite Facebook's constant reminders that I can limit my posts or profile visibility to my Friends. Also, in my circles in early 2010s, Facebook was as much about being able to discover other people as it was about sharing things. Over the years I've noticed how people increasingly lock down their accounts (sometimes to sub-Friends granularity); that discoverability use case is pretty much nonexistent nowadays.
- Khaine 9y ago
  Facebook has changed so much over the years. It first started off at Harvard and then moved to other elite universities. It finally expanded to all universities by the time I joined. Its exclusivity (only for people at uni) was its major plus against myspace. When I was at uni, you could use it to find people in your class and meet and interact with new people in a friendly manner. Since then the people who can join has expanded, and the positivity for facebook has gone downhill. Its not the same when your parents can see you trying to flirt with random people. The whole reason for facebook has changed, and for the worst I think. I don't think they can recapture the magic of early facebook and retain their valuations.
  - scoggs 9y ago
    I imagine in the early years and as soon as board member's / investor's profit margins started being a topic of discussion it was always known that that model was only the "free trial period" to gain traction, spread awareness, test certain extreme or ambitious features / ideas, and basically do a dry test run of the greater idea: capture as many data points of as many people as possible. I don't think it really would have fit the bill until it was able to capture the internet in the same way that LinkedIn was able to, eventually. But we all know this. Now the early University members of FB are in a position to become paying customers (in a buying of advertising sense) but the real payday was always in the swath of personal information and data that would come along with true saturation of population enrolled into the FB ecosystem. It would've been nice if it could have been made into something more altruistic but it only takes one less-than-intent watching of The Social Network to know that the idea was never altruism. I don't want to go in depth about what I think the masses ignoring what the movie said about Facebook as a whole / the movie's message about Facebook and it's founders considering it was all said in plain dialog as blatantly as possible but that fact surprises me most. That it was stated so plainly and it's taken THIS LONG for the non-tech folks to really start scratching their heads and asking, "Is this is all okay or not?" Capturing the magic is soooo long gone. Now it's about trying to figure out how to keep the devil / criminal activity, not the lightning, in the bottle for as long as possible. Well, from my POV at least.

by scoggs 9y ago

Spooky23 9y ago

I think paranoia regarding anything Facebook says is pragmatic. The company has a Uber-ish brazen arrogance, and never takes a position that benefits anyone but the company. Even MFA was used as a tool to gather intelligence.

TeMPOraL 9y ago

I never actually considered they might be micromanaging those privacy reminders. But yeah, it sounds plausible. A bit more of context - I might be an outlier here, because from the get-go, I always, deliberately, kept everything on my Facebook profile public. I've always treated it as something similar to a personal website/blog. I still do, despite Facebook's constant reminders that I can limit my posts or profile visibility to my Friends. Also, in my circles in early 2010s, Facebook was as much about being able to discover other people as it was about sharing things. Over the years I've noticed how people increasingly lock down their accounts (sometimes to sub-Friends granularity); that discoverability use case is pretty much nonexistent nowadays.

Khaine 9y ago
Facebook has changed so much over the years. It first started off at Harvard and then moved to other elite universities. It finally expanded to all universities by the time I joined. Its exclusivity (only for people at uni) was its major plus against myspace. When I was at uni, you could use it to find people in your class and meet and interact with new people in a friendly manner. Since then the people who can join has expanded, and the positivity for facebook has gone downhill. Its not the same when your parents can see you trying to flirt with random people. The whole reason for facebook has changed, and for the worst I think. I don't think they can recapture the magic of early facebook and retain their valuations.
- scoggs 9y ago
  I imagine in the early years and as soon as board member's / investor's profit margins started being a topic of discussion it was always known that that model was only the "free trial period" to gain traction, spread awareness, test certain extreme or ambitious features / ideas, and basically do a dry test run of the greater idea: capture as many data points of as many people as possible. I don't think it really would have fit the bill until it was able to capture the internet in the same way that LinkedIn was able to, eventually. But we all know this. Now the early University members of FB are in a position to become paying customers (in a buying of advertising sense) but the real payday was always in the swath of personal information and data that would come along with true saturation of population enrolled into the FB ecosystem. It would've been nice if it could have been made into something more altruistic but it only takes one less-than-intent watching of The Social Network to know that the idea was never altruism. I don't want to go in depth about what I think the masses ignoring what the movie said about Facebook as a whole / the movie's message about Facebook and it's founders considering it was all said in plain dialog as blatantly as possible but that fact surprises me most. That it was stated so plainly and it's taken THIS LONG for the non-tech folks to really start scratching their heads and asking, "Is this is all okay or not?" Capturing the magic is soooo long gone. Now it's about trying to figure out how to keep the devil / criminal activity, not the lightning, in the bottle for as long as possible. Well, from my POV at least.