9 ms·

"In announcing new transparency efforts or tools to combat foreign influence, Facebook included a caveat. “These changes will not prevent abuse entirely. We’re

"In announcing new transparency efforts or tools to combat foreign influence, Facebook included a caveat. “These changes will not prevent abuse entirely. We’re up against smart, creative and well-funded adversaries who change their tactics as we spot abuse,” Leathern wrote. But we believe that they will help prevent future interference in elections on Facebook. And it is why they are so important.” But posing as 100 senators didn’t require being smart, creative, or even particularly well-funded. " Ouch. "There was one “Paid for” disclosure that Facebook didn’t approve in our latest test. They denied, just a couple minutes after we submitted it: Mark Zuckerberg." Double ouch.

mrguyorama 8y ago
I wonder how many times "Zuckerberg" is in the code verbatim
- warent 8y ago
  I imagine one time. Then everything else imports the `MZ_CONST` file which then references the `MK` or `ZBERG` variables.
  - evgen 8y ago
    Nah, things just refer to him as fbid 4.
    - Implicated 8y ago
      Who are 1, 2 and 3?
      - tylerhou 8y ago
        Test accounts which ended up getting deleted before (presumably) auth worked.
        hawkice 8y ago
        Holy smokes I just had flashbacks to working at a place that tested things in production and ended up with a couple of these production-db IDs in the code. Shudders
        pavel_lishin 8y ago
        Your codebase only has a couple?
        hawkice 8y ago
        You're already hitting a database, you can add a column for whatever information you want. I've heard people are spooked by having too many columns, but more spooked than having essentially untestable production IDs in their code? No thanks.
        beobab 8y ago
        I remember one place I worked, someone released code which only returned data permissions for the test user (id 5).
      - anticensor 8y ago
        fbid 1 is former zuck. fbid 2 is Facebook itself (the software, not the Facebook's own page in FB). fbid 3 is yet another former test account.
  - valarauca1 8y ago
    dog it’s a PHP shop, nobody re-uses code
    - jjeaff 8y ago
      PHP's Packagist disagrees with over 1.4m packages and around a half billion package downloads a month. (More than NPM FYI) https://packagist.org/statistics https://packagist.org/statistics
      - sah2ed 8y ago
        > (More than NPM FYI) I found your claim hard to believe so I went digging but couldn't find any recent resource on the total number of downloads npmjs.org handles per month. I could have sworn they used to publish aggregate stats prominently on their home page somewhere ... but can't seem to find it. Anyway, aggregating* the download numbers of just 12 of the top npm packages comes to about ~504.4m, or half a billion package downloads a month. *: using September 2018 numbers. 1: https://npm-stat.com/charts.html?package=express https://npm-stat.com/charts.html?package=express - 21m/mo 2: https://npm-stat.com/charts.html?package=body-parser https://npm-stat.com/charts.html?package=body-parser - 24.4m/mo 3: https://npm-stat.com/charts.html?package=lodash https://npm-stat.com/charts.html?package=lodash - 64m/mo 4: https://npm-stat.com/charts.html?package=async https://npm-stat.com/charts.html?package=async - 64.7m/mo 5: https://npm-stat.com/charts.html?package=debug https://npm-stat.com/charts.html?package=debug - 87.6m/mo 6: https://npm-stat.com/charts.html?package=request https://npm-stat.com/charts.html?package=request - 50.8m/mo 7: https://npm-stat.com/charts.html?package=chalk https://npm-stat.com/charts.html?package=chalk - 64m/mo 8: https://npm-stat.com/charts.html?package=commander https://npm-stat.com/charts.html?package=commander - 61.8m/mo 9: https://npm-stat.com/charts.html?package=underscore https://npm-stat.com/charts.html?package=underscore - 21.5m/mo 10: https://npm-stat.com/charts.html?package=babel-core https://npm-stat.com/charts.html?package=babel-core - 17.8m/mo 11: https://npm-stat.com/charts.html?package=webpack https://npm-stat.com/charts.html?package=webpack - 16m/mo 12: https://npm-stat.com/charts.html?package=react https://npm-stat.com/charts.html?package=react - 10.8m/mo
        8y ago
  - babypuncher 8y ago
    I didn't realize Facebook only hired software engineers from the '80s who are allergic to coming up with good identifiers
- bigiain 8y ago
  a:1:{s:4:"name";s:10:"Zuckerberg";}
- lozenge 8y ago
  I wouldn't be surprised if it were verboten. The leaked Windows NT source code had plenty of swearing, no references to Bill Gates.
  - deleted 8y ago
    [deleted]
andrewflnr 8y ago
That's probably one of the only people they could actually be sure wasn't buying Facebook ads. Whereas a senator buying Facebook ads is, in itself, quite likely. Not really a fair comparison.
- SilasX 8y ago
  Why wouldn't Zuckerberg ever buy Facebook ads? I doubt they'd let him run personal stuff for free, and I doubt they'd be sure he'd never want to run personal stuff.
  - andrewflnr 8y ago
    The simplest way would be for him to say, "hey, I'm never going to buy ads on my own site, so don't let anyone impersonate me." If Zuck wants to tell us something on Facebook, he'll just put a banner at the top of our feed. Or if he does want to run ads as himself, he'll pull some other founder-fiat move. Keep in mind the engineering motto of the company we're talking about. They don't need to stick to the rules.
    - SilasX 8y ago
      Corporate boards usually have controls against appropriating company resources for personal use.
      - jimnotgym 8y ago
        Presumably there is a tax implication too? In the UK this would probably be a benefit-in-kind and taxed say it's market value as income.
        jjeaff 8y ago
        Yes. Same in the US. Things like private jet use are applied as income. However, I'm not sure you would have to do so at retail rates. For example, you would have to pay taxes on the cost of the private jet use. The marginal cost of something like running your personal ads on the favebook platform is so low as to probably not be considered "material" by the tax man.
gcb0 8y ago
and after having the "paid by Zuckerberg" confirmation that this was a malicious account, they didn't revoked approval of the other ads. Triple ouch.
- FussyZeus 8y ago
  Tech company doesn't give a f#$% what it's advertising as long as it's getting paid. Film at 11. I mean props to them for doing this to show it so blatantly, but is anyone really surprised? Nobody cares, and why should they from a business standpoint? The only way to make something a priority is to make the consequences so harsh that you'll catch the attention of upper management.
  - dragonwriter 8y ago
    > Nobody cares Obviously, FB thinks someone cares, otherwise they wouldn't be selling a tale about their efforts to improve validation of campaign ads.
  - camillomiller 8y ago
    I keep getting ads in my feed disguised as CNBC ads. The image they show has a cnbc logo. If you click on them you get to a fake news website disguised as CNBC with some bogus story about criptocurrency. I reported them 3 times to Facebook and I keep seeing them.

mrguyorama 8y ago

I wonder how many times "Zuckerberg" is in the code verbatim

warent 8y ago
I imagine one time. Then everything else imports the `MZ_CONST` file which then references the `MK` or `ZBERG` variables.
- evgen 8y ago
  Nah, things just refer to him as fbid 4.
  - Implicated 8y ago
    Who are 1, 2 and 3?
    - tylerhou 8y ago
      Test accounts which ended up getting deleted before (presumably) auth worked.
      - hawkice 8y ago
        Holy smokes I just had flashbacks to working at a place that tested things in production and ended up with a couple of these production-db IDs in the code. Shudders
        pavel_lishin 8y ago
        Your codebase only has a couple?
        hawkice 8y ago
        You're already hitting a database, you can add a column for whatever information you want. I've heard people are spooked by having too many columns, but more spooked than having essentially untestable production IDs in their code? No thanks.
        beobab 8y ago
        I remember one place I worked, someone released code which only returned data permissions for the test user (id 5).
    - anticensor 8y ago
      fbid 1 is former zuck. fbid 2 is Facebook itself (the software, not the Facebook's own page in FB). fbid 3 is yet another former test account.
- valarauca1 8y ago
  dog it’s a PHP shop, nobody re-uses code
  - jjeaff 8y ago
    PHP's Packagist disagrees with over 1.4m packages and around a half billion package downloads a month. (More than NPM FYI) https://packagist.org/statistics https://packagist.org/statistics
    - sah2ed 8y ago
      > (More than NPM FYI) I found your claim hard to believe so I went digging but couldn't find any recent resource on the total number of downloads npmjs.org handles per month. I could have sworn they used to publish aggregate stats prominently on their home page somewhere ... but can't seem to find it. Anyway, aggregating* the download numbers of just 12 of the top npm packages comes to about ~504.4m, or half a billion package downloads a month. *: using September 2018 numbers. 1: https://npm-stat.com/charts.html?package=express https://npm-stat.com/charts.html?package=express - 21m/mo 2: https://npm-stat.com/charts.html?package=body-parser https://npm-stat.com/charts.html?package=body-parser - 24.4m/mo 3: https://npm-stat.com/charts.html?package=lodash https://npm-stat.com/charts.html?package=lodash - 64m/mo 4: https://npm-stat.com/charts.html?package=async https://npm-stat.com/charts.html?package=async - 64.7m/mo 5: https://npm-stat.com/charts.html?package=debug https://npm-stat.com/charts.html?package=debug - 87.6m/mo 6: https://npm-stat.com/charts.html?package=request https://npm-stat.com/charts.html?package=request - 50.8m/mo 7: https://npm-stat.com/charts.html?package=chalk https://npm-stat.com/charts.html?package=chalk - 64m/mo 8: https://npm-stat.com/charts.html?package=commander https://npm-stat.com/charts.html?package=commander - 61.8m/mo 9: https://npm-stat.com/charts.html?package=underscore https://npm-stat.com/charts.html?package=underscore - 21.5m/mo 10: https://npm-stat.com/charts.html?package=babel-core https://npm-stat.com/charts.html?package=babel-core - 17.8m/mo 11: https://npm-stat.com/charts.html?package=webpack https://npm-stat.com/charts.html?package=webpack - 16m/mo 12: https://npm-stat.com/charts.html?package=react https://npm-stat.com/charts.html?package=react - 10.8m/mo
      - 8y ago
- babypuncher 8y ago
  I didn't realize Facebook only hired software engineers from the '80s who are allergic to coming up with good identifiers
bigiain 8y ago
a:1:{s:4:"name";s:10:"Zuckerberg";}
lozenge 8y ago
I wouldn't be surprised if it were verboten. The leaked Windows NT source code had plenty of swearing, no references to Bill Gates.
- deleted 8y ago
  [deleted]

andrewflnr 8y ago

That's probably one of the only people they could actually be sure wasn't buying Facebook ads. Whereas a senator buying Facebook ads is, in itself, quite likely. Not really a fair comparison.

SilasX 8y ago
Why wouldn't Zuckerberg ever buy Facebook ads? I doubt they'd let him run personal stuff for free, and I doubt they'd be sure he'd never want to run personal stuff.
- andrewflnr 8y ago
  The simplest way would be for him to say, "hey, I'm never going to buy ads on my own site, so don't let anyone impersonate me." If Zuck wants to tell us something on Facebook, he'll just put a banner at the top of our feed. Or if he does want to run ads as himself, he'll pull some other founder-fiat move. Keep in mind the engineering motto of the company we're talking about. They don't need to stick to the rules.
  - SilasX 8y ago
    Corporate boards usually have controls against appropriating company resources for personal use.
    - jimnotgym 8y ago
      Presumably there is a tax implication too? In the UK this would probably be a benefit-in-kind and taxed say it's market value as income.
      - jjeaff 8y ago
        Yes. Same in the US. Things like private jet use are applied as income. However, I'm not sure you would have to do so at retail rates. For example, you would have to pay taxes on the cost of the private jet use. The marginal cost of something like running your personal ads on the favebook platform is so low as to probably not be considered "material" by the tax man.

gcb0 8y ago

and after having the "paid by Zuckerberg" confirmation that this was a malicious account, they didn't revoked approval of the other ads. Triple ouch.

FussyZeus 8y ago
Tech company doesn't give a f#$% what it's advertising as long as it's getting paid. Film at 11. I mean props to them for doing this to show it so blatantly, but is anyone really surprised? Nobody cares, and why should they from a business standpoint? The only way to make something a priority is to make the consequences so harsh that you'll catch the attention of upper management.
- dragonwriter 8y ago
  > Nobody cares Obviously, FB thinks someone cares, otherwise they wouldn't be selling a tale about their efforts to improve validation of campaign ads.
- camillomiller 8y ago
  I keep getting ads in my feed disguised as CNBC ads. The image they show has a cnbc logo. If you click on them you get to a fake news website disguised as CNBC with some bogus story about criptocurrency. I reported them 3 times to Facebook and I keep seeing them.