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The NYT article is definitely overblown. It’s popular to hate on Facebook about privacy, and yeah, they’ve made mistakes in the past, but that’s largely because

The NYT article is definitely overblown. It’s popular to hate on Facebook about privacy, and yeah, they’ve made mistakes in the past, but that’s largely because they’re just engineers trying their best to do the right thing. IMO they need more non-engineer types to inform them what “the right thing” actually is, when it doesn’t align with the typical attitude of “Oh, there’s a technical solution to this problem!” > the BlackBerry app had access to all of the reporter’s Facebook friends and, for most of them, returned information such as user ID, birthday, work and education history and whether they were currently online. User ID and birthday are both public information, and people typically share work and education history as public (or at least “networks” thereof, for finding friends). AFAIK online status is the only thing that’s usually friends-only, but perfectly reasonable to share with a device messaging app.

josefresco 8y ago
Also from the article: Some device partners can retrieve Facebook users’ relationship status, religion, political leaning and upcoming events, among other data. Are those public?
- jonhendry18 8y ago
  Also, is it the data belonging to the user of the device and the Facebook account the device is logged into? "Facebook integration on device OS allows viewing user's own profile after logging in to account" doesn't seem that shocking.
cdubzzz 8y ago
I generally agree with you that this piece is a bit sensationalistic but... > [...] they’re just engineers trying their best to do the right thing. What makes you say that? Beyond potential abuses of data by third parties (or whatever), I would expect that most FB employees are trying their best to get paid. Whether or not all or any single one of them cares about “the right thing” is mostly unknown to outsiders. I have always assumed, based on FB’s overall business model, that there is a general disregard for any particular interpretation of “the right thing” at least when it comes to the privacy of the platform’s users.
- evincarofautumn 8y ago
  I worked there in the past. Everyone I met was earnestly trying to do good work and afraid of getting fired or sued for doing something that would impact privacy and thereby FB’s bottom line. Facebook is strongly incentivised to protect user data because that is their primary market advantage—having ad targeting data that other ad networks don’t. Leaks and breaches of trust are bad for business and bad for the RSUs that employees and acquirees are given.
  - hvis 8y ago
    There is a huge distance between "Doing the right thing" and "doing one's best to avoid getting sued". There are lots of things that are legal but frowned upon in a decent society. And no, Facebook is not "just engineers <...>". There are lots of other positions who make high-level decisions, e.g. decide how the company is going to make money.

josefresco 8y ago

Also from the article: Some device partners can retrieve Facebook users’ relationship status, religion, political leaning and upcoming events, among other data. Are those public?

jonhendry18 8y ago
Also, is it the data belonging to the user of the device and the Facebook account the device is logged into? "Facebook integration on device OS allows viewing user's own profile after logging in to account" doesn't seem that shocking.

cdubzzz 8y ago

I generally agree with you that this piece is a bit sensationalistic but... > [...] they’re just engineers trying their best to do the right thing. What makes you say that? Beyond potential abuses of data by third parties (or whatever), I would expect that most FB employees are trying their best to get paid. Whether or not all or any single one of them cares about “the right thing” is mostly unknown to outsiders. I have always assumed, based on FB’s overall business model, that there is a general disregard for any particular interpretation of “the right thing” at least when it comes to the privacy of the platform’s users.

evincarofautumn 8y ago
I worked there in the past. Everyone I met was earnestly trying to do good work and afraid of getting fired or sued for doing something that would impact privacy and thereby FB’s bottom line. Facebook is strongly incentivised to protect user data because that is their primary market advantage—having ad targeting data that other ad networks don’t. Leaks and breaches of trust are bad for business and bad for the RSUs that employees and acquirees are given.
- hvis 8y ago
  There is a huge distance between "Doing the right thing" and "doing one's best to avoid getting sued". There are lots of things that are legal but frowned upon in a decent society. And no, Facebook is not "just engineers <...>". There are lots of other positions who make high-level decisions, e.g. decide how the company is going to make money.