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I would agree with facebook in this point. Data you put on social media is basically public. It may not be easily discoverable by the public at large, but that

I would agree with facebook in this point. Data you put on social media is basically public. It may not be easily discoverable by the public at large, but that lack of discoverability is not a perpetual guarantee at all. But most participants on social media don't understand that. Maybe it's because they overestimate the confidentiality of social circles. Even offline that's not much of a protection.

kevincox 7y ago
I don't agree. You set a list of people you want to share it with. Obviously those people have the ability to forward but I would expect (or would like to expect) that only those on the recipient list would be able to access it directly.
- bayesian_horse 7y ago
  That's not a reasonable expectation in my opinion, but a fairly common one. For example I never understood how people would want to send intimate pictures to someone else (even in the case of on-paper or video phones) and expect them not to share it.
coldtea 7y ago
>Data you put on social media is basically public. It may not be easily discoverable by the public at large, but that lack of discoverability is not a perpetual guarantee at all. That's an individuals own risk, and not the same as whether Facebook should treat them as private, and don't sell them, expose them, etc. Sure, I should be cautious of what I say in social media, because e.g. the other side could leak it, the servers could be hacked and the contents exposed, etc. The same holds for my snail mail or what I type in my laptop. But I still expect those to be kept private (and even more importantly, want them to be kept so, and want the law to enforce that). Just because there's no "perpetual guarantee" doesn't mean there shouldn't be company closing fines for selling your data, or showing negligence in making them private (e.g. unencrypted passwords come to mind) etc.
- bayesian_horse 7y ago
  I don't think fines about selling data can be enforced without explicit contracts about keeping data confidential. Such contracts don't exist for information Facebook gathers from your data, even if a lot of that data is indeed non-public. In the case of privacy-endangering malpractice like unencrypted passwords, that is already happening through GDPR for example. It is also, however, affected by the contract the individual has with the company. I don't think that social media interactions, especially on facebook, fall under that umbrella, in general. Private chats, maybe. But even there you know that friends may share the texts or get hacked, and the facebook system monitors such communication for certain things like child pornography, possibly resulting in Human operators reading your communication. Much of what facebook does, and what we actually want it to do for us, is not possible with a reasonable expectation of privacy. If I put a photo on facebook, I know that the whole world has access.
alexandercrohde 7y ago
>>> But most participants on social media don't understand that. So you actually are conceding the point. You agree that "most participants" actually do have an expectation of privacy.
- qes 7y ago
  an unreasonable expectation
- bayesian_horse 7y ago
  A common expectation may well be unreasonable. In my opinion it is unreasonable to expect friends not to share private information about you. And I see a lot of evidence, both in my life and from observation of other people, that people consistently underestimate the probability of friends breaking that trust.

kevincox 7y ago

I don't agree. You set a list of people you want to share it with. Obviously those people have the ability to forward but I would expect (or would like to expect) that only those on the recipient list would be able to access it directly.

bayesian_horse 7y ago
That's not a reasonable expectation in my opinion, but a fairly common one. For example I never understood how people would want to send intimate pictures to someone else (even in the case of on-paper or video phones) and expect them not to share it.

coldtea 7y ago

>Data you put on social media is basically public. It may not be easily discoverable by the public at large, but that lack of discoverability is not a perpetual guarantee at all. That's an individuals own risk, and not the same as whether Facebook should treat them as private, and don't sell them, expose them, etc. Sure, I should be cautious of what I say in social media, because e.g. the other side could leak it, the servers could be hacked and the contents exposed, etc. The same holds for my snail mail or what I type in my laptop. But I still expect those to be kept private (and even more importantly, want them to be kept so, and want the law to enforce that). Just because there's no "perpetual guarantee" doesn't mean there shouldn't be company closing fines for selling your data, or showing negligence in making them private (e.g. unencrypted passwords come to mind) etc.

bayesian_horse 7y ago
I don't think fines about selling data can be enforced without explicit contracts about keeping data confidential. Such contracts don't exist for information Facebook gathers from your data, even if a lot of that data is indeed non-public. In the case of privacy-endangering malpractice like unencrypted passwords, that is already happening through GDPR for example. It is also, however, affected by the contract the individual has with the company. I don't think that social media interactions, especially on facebook, fall under that umbrella, in general. Private chats, maybe. But even there you know that friends may share the texts or get hacked, and the facebook system monitors such communication for certain things like child pornography, possibly resulting in Human operators reading your communication. Much of what facebook does, and what we actually want it to do for us, is not possible with a reasonable expectation of privacy. If I put a photo on facebook, I know that the whole world has access.

alexandercrohde 7y ago

>>> But most participants on social media don't understand that. So you actually are conceding the point. You agree that "most participants" actually do have an expectation of privacy.

qes 7y ago
an unreasonable expectation
bayesian_horse 7y ago
A common expectation may well be unreasonable. In my opinion it is unreasonable to expect friends not to share private information about you. And I see a lot of evidence, both in my life and from observation of other people, that people consistently underestimate the probability of friends breaking that trust.