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You’re either misunderstanding or misrepresenting what is happening here. The website or app implements Facebook Login. When a user visits that they can choose

You’re either misunderstanding or misrepresenting what is happening here. The website or app implements Facebook Login. When a user visits that they can choose to share their profile information with that app. Through poor security or malicious action that app leaks that information to third parties. You can’t control data on systems you don’t own. So Facebook’s options are either (a) limit how platform apps use data via non-technical/legal methods (b) better educate users on the implications of sharing their data with external apps, or (c) refuse to share any user data with external apps. We’ve seen the first option fail with the Cambridge Analytica scandal. Educating users consistently fails. And before Facebook built a platform, they were accused of building a walled garden.

JumpCrisscross 9y ago
It's almost like it's a problem that cannot be solved without outside intervention.
- underwater 9y ago
  Are you suggesting regulation could have helped in this situation? Do you believe the problem is with Facebook sharing data (which they did with the user's permission) with an app? Or with an app failing to secure the data? Or with a third-party taking user data without permission?
  - JumpCrisscross 9y ago
    > Are you suggesting regulation could have helped in this situation? Facebook doesn't give a shit about its users. And for that I don't blame them. They're fighters. When they went public, so many assumed they were dead for lacking a mobile presence. Time and again, they've been called out as moribund and time and again they've won. That takes--and develops--thick skin. That thick skin is now a hard head obstructing their view of the truth. When they drop the ball, it is never their fault. Someone is mis-defining a term, users aren't reading fine print, lawmakers are being mean, et cetera. The onus is put on us, the public, to determine how our rights can be balanced with their business model. As if their business is a given. If Facebook were liable for repeatedly losing our data, for repeatedly refusing to tell users what it does with what they give them, for constantly lying about what it's doing and going to do, this would stop. Or Facebook would stop. Neither users nor advertisers can unilaterally disengage. Not in meaningful numbers. Facebook is too powerful. The only solution is for it to be broken up.
    - curiousgeorgio 9y ago
      Do you believe in the rule of law, or do you expect everyone to take the "moral high ground" (however you want to define that) all the time just because they should? Pick one or the other, but not both. Hint: one of the two is a fair and practical approach; the other is a pipe dream built from excessive virtue signaling. Should Facebook be 100% held responsible to the law? Of course. Should some laws be updated/created to help fill gaps where we might need more privacy? Possibly. Should Facebook be held to some nebulous moral standard of what some people want but don't have the will power or public support to codify into law? Absolutely not. Too powerful? If people actually cared more about privacy, then either the law would get changed (which is happening in some places), or Facebook would lose market share and be forced to make changes from market forces alone. No need for governments to arbitrarily pick winners and losers.
      - jimbo999 9y ago
        >Do you believe in the rule of law Facebook Ireland Ltd. Does. > Pick one or the other why not both?
      - JumpCrisscross 9y ago
        > Facebook would lose market share and be forced to make changes from market forces alone "Market failure is a situation in which the allocation of goods and services is not efficient" [1]. They are known failure modes that free markets suffer, and must be defended, from. Laissez-faire doesn't work. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Market_failure https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Market_failure
      - indemnity 9y ago
        Found the Facebook employee.
Arbalest 9y ago
All three options failing? So basically the very premise of Facebook is broken if we wish to uphold this value.
ljm 9y ago
I'm not sure you can see this as a persistent failure in terms of FB (and similar) fighting against an unstoppable tide of ignorance. It's far more easier to see Facebook (and similarly Google with Android, for a very long time) sabotaging the effort from the start. A user absolutely can choose what they share with Facebook, but Facebook makes no effort to tell you why you should edit the defaults. Instead, you have to click an edit button, and look at a list of checkboxes, and understand what each thing means, and double and triple check that this doesn't override your personal privacy preferences or have some other unintended side-effects. The default expectation from Facebook (and similar) is biased heavily against the user, purely by virtue of it being opt out. It depends on users not being educated well enough, and giving them a good reason to care less about being more judicious with their profile.
- darod 9y ago
  Actually some apps wont allow you to login if you change any of the checkboxes.
Angostura 9y ago
> You can’t control data on systems you don’t own. So Facebook’s options are either (a) limit how platform apps use data via non-technical/legal methods Under GDPR, as a data controller, you cant share data with another organisation without ensuring that they follow the same rules that you have set out for processing data. This may get interesting in Europe.
mixedbit 9y ago
> Through poor security or malicious action that app leaks that information to third parties. It's neither poor security or malicious action. Web site isolation rules by design give full privileges to any third party script the website includes. If a website uses facebook login, all third party scripts can access the facebook user name.
zzzeek 9y ago
> And before Facebook built a platform, they were accused of building a walled garden. That's not any kind of argument for the privacy-diluting practices of Facebook. If Facebook were a totally closed environment that shared your data with nobody, that's a problem for Facebook and the private companies who would prefer to exploit that information, not for the users, who at this point would very much prefer Facebook to be a "walled", but but in actuality a "regulated", garden.

JumpCrisscross 9y ago

It's almost like it's a problem that cannot be solved without outside intervention.

underwater 9y ago
Are you suggesting regulation could have helped in this situation? Do you believe the problem is with Facebook sharing data (which they did with the user's permission) with an app? Or with an app failing to secure the data? Or with a third-party taking user data without permission?
- JumpCrisscross 9y ago
  > Are you suggesting regulation could have helped in this situation? Facebook doesn't give a shit about its users. And for that I don't blame them. They're fighters. When they went public, so many assumed they were dead for lacking a mobile presence. Time and again, they've been called out as moribund and time and again they've won. That takes--and develops--thick skin. That thick skin is now a hard head obstructing their view of the truth. When they drop the ball, it is never their fault. Someone is mis-defining a term, users aren't reading fine print, lawmakers are being mean, et cetera. The onus is put on us, the public, to determine how our rights can be balanced with their business model. As if their business is a given. If Facebook were liable for repeatedly losing our data, for repeatedly refusing to tell users what it does with what they give them, for constantly lying about what it's doing and going to do, this would stop. Or Facebook would stop. Neither users nor advertisers can unilaterally disengage. Not in meaningful numbers. Facebook is too powerful. The only solution is for it to be broken up.
  - curiousgeorgio 9y ago
    Do you believe in the rule of law, or do you expect everyone to take the "moral high ground" (however you want to define that) all the time just because they should? Pick one or the other, but not both. Hint: one of the two is a fair and practical approach; the other is a pipe dream built from excessive virtue signaling. Should Facebook be 100% held responsible to the law? Of course. Should some laws be updated/created to help fill gaps where we might need more privacy? Possibly. Should Facebook be held to some nebulous moral standard of what some people want but don't have the will power or public support to codify into law? Absolutely not. Too powerful? If people actually cared more about privacy, then either the law would get changed (which is happening in some places), or Facebook would lose market share and be forced to make changes from market forces alone. No need for governments to arbitrarily pick winners and losers.
    - jimbo999 9y ago
      >Do you believe in the rule of law Facebook Ireland Ltd. Does. > Pick one or the other why not both?
    - JumpCrisscross 9y ago
      > Facebook would lose market share and be forced to make changes from market forces alone "Market failure is a situation in which the allocation of goods and services is not efficient" [1]. They are known failure modes that free markets suffer, and must be defended, from. Laissez-faire doesn't work. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Market_failure https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Market_failure
    - indemnity 9y ago
      Found the Facebook employee.

Arbalest 9y ago

All three options failing? So basically the very premise of Facebook is broken if we wish to uphold this value.

ljm 9y ago

I'm not sure you can see this as a persistent failure in terms of FB (and similar) fighting against an unstoppable tide of ignorance. It's far more easier to see Facebook (and similarly Google with Android, for a very long time) sabotaging the effort from the start. A user absolutely can choose what they share with Facebook, but Facebook makes no effort to tell you why you should edit the defaults. Instead, you have to click an edit button, and look at a list of checkboxes, and understand what each thing means, and double and triple check that this doesn't override your personal privacy preferences or have some other unintended side-effects. The default expectation from Facebook (and similar) is biased heavily against the user, purely by virtue of it being opt out. It depends on users not being educated well enough, and giving them a good reason to care less about being more judicious with their profile.

darod 9y ago
Actually some apps wont allow you to login if you change any of the checkboxes.

Angostura 9y ago

> You can’t control data on systems you don’t own. So Facebook’s options are either (a) limit how platform apps use data via non-technical/legal methods Under GDPR, as a data controller, you cant share data with another organisation without ensuring that they follow the same rules that you have set out for processing data. This may get interesting in Europe.

mixedbit 9y ago

> Through poor security or malicious action that app leaks that information to third parties. It's neither poor security or malicious action. Web site isolation rules by design give full privileges to any third party script the website includes. If a website uses facebook login, all third party scripts can access the facebook user name.

zzzeek 9y ago

> And before Facebook built a platform, they were accused of building a walled garden. That's not any kind of argument for the privacy-diluting practices of Facebook. If Facebook were a totally closed environment that shared your data with nobody, that's a problem for Facebook and the private companies who would prefer to exploit that information, not for the users, who at this point would very much prefer Facebook to be a "walled", but but in actuality a "regulated", garden.