10 ms·

The pile on continues... (1) This is probably a project by a small "research" group at Facebook. The goal of that group is probably to publish papers in a Psyc

• craftyguy 9y ago
  I dislike/disagree with facebook more than most folks, but even I can smell a dead horse being beaten.
  • needToSay 9y ago
    Indeed, but whoever is behind it, for whatever personal benefits, is doing the society in general a favor. Hopefully the horrible company gets destroyed and so does the CEO.
  • apotheothesomai 9y ago
    For years privacy-minded people have complained about the lack of recognition of privacy issues among the masses. Suddenly, story after story about aspects of Facebook's anti-privacy practices are being read by the public. This will lead to more stories about other data mining entities as well. The more this keeps up, the more concrete privacy issues will be in the minds of many. And yet, HN is full of dismissals. I've decided that to many here, the idea of being in an "elite", informed group is more important than the actual issues. Given that you are not the target audience of these stories, are you really in a position to judge whether they have reached "dead horse" status?
    • Joeboy 9y ago
      > Given that you are not the target audience of these stories Isn't that an argument for not having HN filled with these articles?
      • rainbowmverse 9y ago
        Only if the subgroup "people who are tired of all this privacy stuff" is representative of HN's readership. There are more people reading than will ever comment. That's true of any community.
    • 908087 9y ago
      HN is full of dismissals because many on HN work at Facebook and other companies that rely on being able to continue abusing our privacy. They want the stories to stop because they fear the general public may finally be gaining awareness of the abuse they're being subjected to.
    • wu-ikkyu 9y ago
      The hubristic disconnect between the technical minded people here on HN and the general masses of users is startling and indicative of the problem.
    • fricat1ve 9y ago
      >the idea of being in an "elite", informed group is more important than the actual issues. Do you mean to say it's voyeurism, i.e. the draw of being "informed"? Sitting in the eye of the panopticon? I think people just have a tendency to focus on the positive things that might be gained from data mining. There's just a lot of naivete about how compromised an ad-supported business ultimately is.
  • ccccccccccccc 9y ago
    I find it funny how we complain so often of the news moving too fast and major stories becoming irrelevant in a day or two, yet when a something stays in the news for more than a week people gripe over how much attention we give the topic.
    • craftyguy 9y ago
      many posts on HN about facebook are not even from within the last few months. some of them are from several years ago, but are only being reposted now for sweet internet points and bandwagoning.
      • Slansitartop 9y ago
        > many posts on HN about facebook are not even from within the last few months. some of them are from several years ago HN is just for "breaking news." It has an established culture of re-posting "old" stories if they're interesting or informative in the context of more recent events.
  • telchar 9y ago
    The situation regarding Facebook and privacy is very much unresolved. How can you call it a dead horse? Facebook is very much a large, living, dangerous horse. I think we shouldn't let up until the horse changes its spots or dies.
• StreamBright 9y ago
  How long do you think it would take to de-anonymize this data for a somebody who specialized in this?
  • codedokode 9y ago
    Both parties have hashes and source data. If they are able to match people in their lists, then they can find out who they are. So it is a matter of seconds I think.
• blub 9y ago
  Facebook has been screwing with people's privacy for years, so it's only fair that they are now criticised for years on end. This has got to be a new Facebook apology meme: the pile-on. Until Facebook and privacy is regulated in the US, like GDPR does it for the EU, the pile-on should continue. Must continue, no matter how uncomfortable it is for the pro-Facebook, pro-ads or pro-spyware people.
  • Joeboy 9y ago
    For me, the result of having HN filled with these Facebook non-stories is that I'm going to stop taking an interest in them. As far as I can tell the situation with Facebook is substantially the same as it's been since it started. Users willfully broadcast information using Facebook, and sometimes Facebook uses that information in ways its users didn't intend or expect. Among the recent slew of dramatic stories I haven't seen anything I found particularly surprising or shocking, so I've started to pattern match anti-Facebook stories as fluff. One day something actually shocking will happen, like Facebook leaking people's private messages or browsing histories. Hopefully when that happens we won't all have reached the point of ennui, boiling frog-style.
    • camillomiller 9y ago
      I don’t know why you’ve been downvoted, you actually posed a serious point. Two days ago, Facebook’s CTO admitted that the search-by-phone-number functionality has been used by bad actors all over to rake in public profile information from potentially all users. We all barely flinched. Facebook PR strategy is now coming straight out of the Trump’s PR book.
      • Joeboy 9y ago
        > I don’t know why you’ve been downvoted I'm guessing for being a pro-Facebook shill and/or an anti-Facebook zealot.
    • tjoff 9y ago
      What makes you think this is a non-story? It is yet another example of a culture that feeds on lack of empathy and respect of peoples lives. Yes, it is boring, yes it is repetitive. And it will continue to be that way until facebook gains a shred of decency. But I guess that we should just forgive and ignore because there are too may of them? Maybe you are not the target of these stories, the public at large do feel that they are surprising and shocking.
• soziawa 9y ago
  (1) Or it could have been just another way to add a little more data to your profile. And even if you are right, I don't think you are but if you were, do you really want a company to do psychological experiments with you without your knowledge? (2) Yeah, but it wasn't started because of the pile on. You can't give Facebook credit for not starting this.
  • dwighttk 9y ago
    >do you really want a company to do psychological experiments with you without your knowledge? too late[1] (2014) https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2014/jul/02/facebook-apologises-psychological-experiments-on-users https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2014/jul/02/facebook-...
  • deleted 9y ago
    [deleted]
• nealdt 9y ago
  I think this story could appear harmless - or perhaps not. The potential gold mine of information that insurers and the health industry could get from this kind of data could be staggering, particularly when we think about claims or the price of the insurance policy. This is what many of us have been suspecting for some time so this confirms our suspicions. I don't think it's a non-story. I feel that if such research was genuine, I see no reason why medical professionals couldn't get this information in a wholly transparent manner without a middle man selling your data about potentially sensitive issues. Quite telling that it has been 'put on hold'. That in itself is a story.
  • downandout 9y ago
    Quite telling that it has been 'put on hold'. That in itself is a story. It's been put on hold because Facebook PR knows that people don't read the details of stories. By and large, they read headlines - and many of those are misleading at best. The issue with CA, for example, wasn't a data breach - the data they had was collected in compliance with Facebook's rules at the time. Yet many headlines and soundbites have used the term "data breach" throughout this incident. So, when 90% of the population incorrectly believes, based on some soundbites and a couple of headlines, that Trump hired CA to hack into Facebook and steal their data, read their minds, and steal the election, you don't want to go forward with something else that might sound scary in yet another mischaracterized headline or soundbite. If putting this project on pause is a story, that story is that Facebook has a PR department that understands its audience....I don't think it says anything one way or another about this project.
    • nealdt 9y ago
      Maybe, maybe not, but either way I don't want to give them the benefit of doubt for my reasons mentioned above. Cheers!
    • IAmEveryone 9y ago
      This again... "Data breach" means an unauthorised access or use of data. Cambridge Analytica was not authorised to access or use the users' data. Therefore, it's a data breach. It makes no difference if the breach uses a zero-day exploit to access FB's database, or if it uses social engineering to get someone at Facebook to send them a hard drive, or if it's some researcher being given access under false pretences. "Data breach" is a catch-all like "homicide": that term encompasses murder but also involuntary manslaughter, euthanasia, and capital punishment.
• vinhboy 9y ago
  It sounds to me like the researcher wanted to use this data to identify at-risk groups and get them preventive care. I don't mean "identify" as in, de-anonymize them, but to use data to figure who may need help (or advertised to -- same difference really). This actually sounds like a good idea if that's the purpose. It's not any different than retailers identifying cohorts they can sell to. It also sounds very similar to what a lot of AI research does (in my limited understanding of it). Take known samples and use that to identify/predict other things...
  • jamra 9y ago
    Although I agree that it’s a non issue, it is a big deal to identify patients against their permission. It’s also illegal.
  • tjoff 9y ago
    Sure, all I see is that insurance companies will be the ones with the most to gain (economically) from this information, and thus the ones that will pay the most for it.
    • RoyTyrell 9y ago
      Insurance companies already have tons of relevant medical data on their clients, there's no reason why whatever FB can provide them is going to be miraculously more telling than actual medical data such as their current and past diagnoses and medical conditions.
      • sidlls 9y ago
        Insurance companies are perhaps surprisingly often ignorant about their own medical data and what it means for their clients or patients (except for what it means in terms of revenue). Entire profitable businesses (who aren't insurers) sell analytics products based on these data to companies because insurers don't have the means or know how to.
        • RoyTyrell 9y ago
• tjoff 9y ago
  > (2) According to the article, the project was never actually started. So it sounds like a bit of a non-story. According to the article the reason for why it was never actually started was because of the "Cambridge Analytica data leak scandal". Very important distinction.
• fwdpropaganda 9y ago
  > (2) According to the article, the project was never actually started. So it sounds like a bit of a non-story. I don't think it's a non-story. At least for me it reinforces my reading of this company's attitude and hangling of their user's (and the population's) privacy. It's a datapoint. It's not everything, but it's not nothing either.
• jakewins 9y ago
  On the one hand, I'm rather happy about this sudden outpouring of anger; FB has fundamentally corrupted the public square, scrutiny is appropriate. On the other hand, it's hard not to get conspiratorial, given https://www.cnbc.com/2018/02/12/facebook-rupert-murdoch-threatened-mark-zuckerberg-in-2016-with-a-war.html https://www.cnbc.com/2018/02/12/facebook-rupert-murdoch-thre...
• Irishsteve 9y ago
  Unless of course, the research is promising and can be integrated into the product somehow.
• firstplacelast 9y ago
  I agree it's terrible, people should really look out for these multi-billion dollar companies more.
• gethesmane 9y ago
  (1) This is probably a project by a small "research" group at Facebook. With blessings from on high, no doubt. (2) According to the article, the project was never actually started. Oh yes it was -- the FB spokesperson said it was in the "planning stages". That's quite definitely a form of "starting" (especially for large companies). If a local waste disposal company were to acknowledge that it was in the "planning" stages of, say, a major incineration facility on that vacant lot down the street your kids used to play in... you wouldn't say this was "a bit of a non-story", now would you?
  • 411mrc 9y ago
    "Hey, major waste company, how about you partner with Facebook and let us sift through people's trash using AI robots before it goes in the landfill? It's for....uhhh, science...yeah, thats the ticket"
• flokie 9y ago
  It seems like some are forgetting the near 6000 word 'manifesto' where this was all outlined by Mark. "In times like these, the most important thing we at Facebook can do is develop the social infrastructure... " "For the past decade, Facebook has focused on connecting friends and families. With that foundation, our next focus will be developing the social infrastructure for community -- for supporting us, for keeping us safe, for informing us, for civic engagement," " I have long expected more organizations and startups to build health and safety tools using technology, and I have been surprised by how little of what must be built has even been attempted. There is a real opportunity to build global safety infrastructure, and I have directed Facebook to invest more and more resources into serving this need." This is barely a year old. Did he not lay out a vision where FB powered our civic, social & community services? link: https://www.facebook.com/notes/mark-zuckerberg/building-global-community/10154544292806634/ https://www.facebook.com/notes/mark-zuckerberg/building-glob...
• mapster 9y ago
  How did the public get wind of it if it was an internal research project?
• itbeho 9y ago
  They deserve a pile on. I don't want any social media company having any access to my health data, especially if I haven't authorized it. (1) There is no guarantee they will accurately associate that "anonymized" data with my profile. (2) There is no guarantee they will "do no harm" with that data. It's a way to run-around existing HIPAA protection and something a lot of organizations would pay for if they could.