5 ms·

From the article it sounds like there was a prompt for permission that got removed: > Facebook told Gizmodo via email that in May 2016 it made a revision to th

From the article it sounds like there was a prompt for permission that got removed: > Facebook told Gizmodo via email that in May 2016 it made a revision to the registration process, which originally asked the affected users for permission to upload contact lists. That change removed the opt-in prompt, though the company did not realize the underlying functionality was still operating in some cases. It doesn't take a conspiracy to understand how a bug like that could happen.

sildur 8y ago
We are talking about Facebook here.
bluntfang 8y ago
Facebook is a multi-billion dollar company. This is gross negligence if they didn't spend time to QA this.
- Phobophobia 8y ago
  Just to be devil's advocate: Google is notorious for having separate siloed teams that do not share efficiencies or updates (eg. Hangouts and other messengers). A company like Google and Facebook don't have a good excuse, but we shouldn't be surprised.
- jayawayjayyay 8y ago
  Doing QA at large tech companies is never that simple. You have lots of teams that share code. Imagine a scenario where Team A uses code written by Team B which uses code written by Team C. Team C makes a change to their code that breaks Team B's code but only for the way Team A uses it.
  - yardie 8y ago
    For the people in the back, "Facebook is a multi-billion dollar company." They have 30,000 employees. They could spend the money to do better QA. But it's cheaper to let your end-users do it for free.
  - sethammons 8y ago
    One way to combat this is to let other teams register tests in other team's projects. If a test fails, you know it breaks someone's expectations. From there, you work with that team to update both sides.
  - bluntfang 8y ago
    It doesn't matter if it's simple or not. We can't hold these 1k+ engineer teams to the same accountability levels as a 3 person team. When, as engineering professionals, are we going to put an end to this? This is completely unacceptable in any other engineering discipline.
- chongli 8y ago
  Gross negligence? It is difficult to get a man to understand something, when his salary depends on his not understanding it. -- Upton Sinclair
zach43 8y ago
its such a coincidence that these accidents keep happening in ways that enable further data gathering...surely there isn't a larger problem with Facebook's attitude towards their users' private data or anything
- TheCraiggers 8y ago
  Well, to be fair we probably don't hear about the accidents that end up causing the opposite situation. Those are just normal bugs.
  - simonh 8y ago
    "Facebook bug causes all user's sensitive data to not be uploaded in some case" sounds like an Onion headline.
    - bryanrasmussen 8y ago
      That bug would be a critical failure and be caught, the reverse would be a non-critical bug that the PM decides to to put in the backlog because reasons. If in a year we haven't gotten around the fixing it, then it's time to clean out that backlog!
    - FabHK 8y ago
      The Onion has quite some insight on Facebook (the headlines practically write themselves): "Mark Zuckerberg Promises That Misuse Of Facebook User Data Will Happen Again And Again" https://www.theonion.com/mark-zuckerberg-promises-that-misuse-of-facebook-user-d-1823988784 https://www.theonion.com/mark-zuckerberg-promises-that-misus... "Facebook Employees Explain Daily Struggle Of Trying To Care About Company's Unethical Practices When Gig So Cushy" https://www.theonion.com/facebook-employees-explain-daily-struggle-of-trying-to-1825147978 https://www.theonion.com/facebook-employees-explain-daily-st... "Cash-Strapped Zuckerberg Forced To Sell 11 Million Facebook Users" https://www.theonion.com/cash-strapped-zuckerberg-forced-to-sell-11-million-face-1829112856 https://www.theonion.com/cash-strapped-zuckerberg-forced-to-... "New Facebook Feature Allows User To Cancel Account. ... The company later confirmed that account closures would not stop Facebook from continuing to acquire, permanently store, and sell all information about its current and former users until the day they die." https://www.theonion.com/new-facebook-feature-allows-user-to-cancel-account-1819573073 https://www.theonion.com/new-facebook-feature-allows-user-to...
devnonymous 8y ago
Also from the article > A Facebook spokesperson also told Gizmodo that a screenshot of the original opt-in prompt was not available. I'm not a conspiracy theorist but if you're trying to claim you cannot capture a screenshot from any release meant to be shipped out, either you're crap at release management or are full of shit. Which one is it? Also, even if we were to suspend logic and belive this was a bug, what's FB doing to correct it? Are they deleting all uploaded contacts and going to request for consent again? FB is a cesspit. Get out of the company if you work there and get out of the platform in any case.
- Mindwipe 8y ago
  > I'm not a conspiracy theorist but if you're trying to claim you cannot capture a screenshot from any release meant to be shipped out, either you're crap at release management or are full of shit. Which one is it? That doesn't strike me as especially unlikely, especially for a specific branch of the app codebase that would likely only operate with a huge number of other co-dependent codebases for backend systems that no longer exist. With six months to recover code and build a non-live environment with all the dependencies could it be done? Sure. But that's not really within the scope of a journalist request.
  - LeifCarrotson 8y ago
    I would say it should take less than an hour for a dev to get an instance of a specific revision up and running, not months...but I agree with the thrust of your message: when the reporter asked their Facebook representative for a screenshot of the box, they looked in their pictures folder for a screenshot. They probably did not try to spin up an instance for the developer.
- bryanrasmussen 8y ago
  How about a look at your design process regarding this particular part of the application?
nkrisc 8y ago
Bug or no bug, that doesn't absolve them of liability (or, at least, responsibility) for the outcome of their actions.
falcolas 8y ago
This reminds me of the Firefox/Google tweet storm. A bunch of "bugs" or "unintentional feature" that get fixed with a seemingly honest apology, only for another "bug" or "unintentional feature" to take its place. At some point, it goes from "the occasional bug" to negligence at best, and hostility at worst.

sildur 8y ago

We are talking about Facebook here.

bluntfang 8y ago

Facebook is a multi-billion dollar company. This is gross negligence if they didn't spend time to QA this.

Phobophobia 8y ago
Just to be devil's advocate: Google is notorious for having separate siloed teams that do not share efficiencies or updates (eg. Hangouts and other messengers). A company like Google and Facebook don't have a good excuse, but we shouldn't be surprised.
jayawayjayyay 8y ago
Doing QA at large tech companies is never that simple. You have lots of teams that share code. Imagine a scenario where Team A uses code written by Team B which uses code written by Team C. Team C makes a change to their code that breaks Team B's code but only for the way Team A uses it.
- yardie 8y ago
  For the people in the back, "Facebook is a multi-billion dollar company." They have 30,000 employees. They could spend the money to do better QA. But it's cheaper to let your end-users do it for free.
- sethammons 8y ago
  One way to combat this is to let other teams register tests in other team's projects. If a test fails, you know it breaks someone's expectations. From there, you work with that team to update both sides.
- bluntfang 8y ago
  It doesn't matter if it's simple or not. We can't hold these 1k+ engineer teams to the same accountability levels as a 3 person team. When, as engineering professionals, are we going to put an end to this? This is completely unacceptable in any other engineering discipline.
chongli 8y ago
Gross negligence? It is difficult to get a man to understand something, when his salary depends on his not understanding it. -- Upton Sinclair

zach43 8y ago

its such a coincidence that these accidents keep happening in ways that enable further data gathering...surely there isn't a larger problem with Facebook's attitude towards their users' private data or anything

TheCraiggers 8y ago
Well, to be fair we probably don't hear about the accidents that end up causing the opposite situation. Those are just normal bugs.
- simonh 8y ago
  "Facebook bug causes all user's sensitive data to not be uploaded in some case" sounds like an Onion headline.
  - bryanrasmussen 8y ago
    That bug would be a critical failure and be caught, the reverse would be a non-critical bug that the PM decides to to put in the backlog because reasons. If in a year we haven't gotten around the fixing it, then it's time to clean out that backlog!
  - FabHK 8y ago
    The Onion has quite some insight on Facebook (the headlines practically write themselves): "Mark Zuckerberg Promises That Misuse Of Facebook User Data Will Happen Again And Again" https://www.theonion.com/mark-zuckerberg-promises-that-misuse-of-facebook-user-d-1823988784 https://www.theonion.com/mark-zuckerberg-promises-that-misus... "Facebook Employees Explain Daily Struggle Of Trying To Care About Company's Unethical Practices When Gig So Cushy" https://www.theonion.com/facebook-employees-explain-daily-struggle-of-trying-to-1825147978 https://www.theonion.com/facebook-employees-explain-daily-st... "Cash-Strapped Zuckerberg Forced To Sell 11 Million Facebook Users" https://www.theonion.com/cash-strapped-zuckerberg-forced-to-sell-11-million-face-1829112856 https://www.theonion.com/cash-strapped-zuckerberg-forced-to-... "New Facebook Feature Allows User To Cancel Account. ... The company later confirmed that account closures would not stop Facebook from continuing to acquire, permanently store, and sell all information about its current and former users until the day they die." https://www.theonion.com/new-facebook-feature-allows-user-to-cancel-account-1819573073 https://www.theonion.com/new-facebook-feature-allows-user-to...

devnonymous 8y ago

Also from the article > A Facebook spokesperson also told Gizmodo that a screenshot of the original opt-in prompt was not available. I'm not a conspiracy theorist but if you're trying to claim you cannot capture a screenshot from any release meant to be shipped out, either you're crap at release management or are full of shit. Which one is it? Also, even if we were to suspend logic and belive this was a bug, what's FB doing to correct it? Are they deleting all uploaded contacts and going to request for consent again? FB is a cesspit. Get out of the company if you work there and get out of the platform in any case.

Mindwipe 8y ago
> I'm not a conspiracy theorist but if you're trying to claim you cannot capture a screenshot from any release meant to be shipped out, either you're crap at release management or are full of shit. Which one is it? That doesn't strike me as especially unlikely, especially for a specific branch of the app codebase that would likely only operate with a huge number of other co-dependent codebases for backend systems that no longer exist. With six months to recover code and build a non-live environment with all the dependencies could it be done? Sure. But that's not really within the scope of a journalist request.
- LeifCarrotson 8y ago
  I would say it should take less than an hour for a dev to get an instance of a specific revision up and running, not months...but I agree with the thrust of your message: when the reporter asked their Facebook representative for a screenshot of the box, they looked in their pictures folder for a screenshot. They probably did not try to spin up an instance for the developer.
bryanrasmussen 8y ago
How about a look at your design process regarding this particular part of the application?

nkrisc 8y ago

Bug or no bug, that doesn't absolve them of liability (or, at least, responsibility) for the outcome of their actions.

falcolas 8y ago

This reminds me of the Firefox/Google tweet storm. A bunch of "bugs" or "unintentional feature" that get fixed with a seemingly honest apology, only for another "bug" or "unintentional feature" to take its place. At some point, it goes from "the occasional bug" to negligence at best, and hostility at worst.