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Facebook Transcription Opt-In Says Nothing About Human Listeners
- zaccus 7y agoWhatever happened to common fucking sense? If you use any kind of web service at all, any data you send to it that isn't specifically protected by law can and will be monitored and inspected by random employees and contractors who develop and maintain that service. I would think that goes without saying, but there you go. Now you've been warned.
- Nextgrid 7y agoCompanies go out of their way to give you the illusion of privacy even though it’s BS for many reasons (including legitimate ones like debugging). Maybe the other reason is that people expect accountability and legal consequences for companies that lie, but Facebook still being around clearly shows the legal systems of most countries don’t give a shit.
- pavel_lishin 7y agoI also blame the victims.
- zaccus 7y agoVictims are free to quantify their damages and sue FB. They're still, what's the term Zuckerberg used? Dumb fucks? Yeah that's the one. They're dumb fucks.
- geofft 7y agoOf course they are. They're humans. And a society and government of humans should be geared towards the needs of actual, fallible, gullible humans and not towards people who are experts on everything.
- CodiePetersen 7y agoProbably because the majority of the people using Facebook are neither programmers or employees that handle data so don't know the laws or methods used. So I would argue there isn't common sense around this issue because it's not a common issue for people.
- zaccus 7y agoI mean, if I give you a voice recorder, let you record secret stuff on it and give it back to me, do you really think it's reasonable to expect me to never listen to it under any circumstances? Really? It's not a technically complicated thing to think through is it?
- ziddoap 7y agoIf you buy a voice recorder to record your voice, you obviously know it is recording your voice. My parents, bless their hearts, can't even grasp the difference between a browser and an operating system. You're telling me they should just know the intricacies of data processing through... osmosis? Non-technical people may think that the data is being processed locally, if they even think about the data at all.
- danShumway 7y agoThere's a way of phrasing the arrangement that makes it sound obvious, but that's not how it's ever been phrased to consumers. I don't think that's a conclusion ordinary people are equipped to reach on their own. To be frank, we live in a world where consumers are apparently too stupid to understand what the "www" in a URL means, or that signing into a browser is different than signing into Google, but are also expected to understand that the magical witch-lady that caries out intelligent conversations during Superbowl commercials has to rely on manual classification by low-payed contractors in a low-security facility. If we in the tech community are annoyed that ordinary people don't realize that technology isn't magic, it's kind of our own fault. I personally think privacy is a continuum, and while I recognize that technically a company might hand-process some data, I have expectations about how often they'd do it, and what the context would be. Isn't it reasonable to expect that some tasks in a company (putting passwords into a database, scanning emails to update a calendar, etc...) shouldn't be handled by humans? If I tell an ordinary person that 'Google' is reading their emails, on average I think they're going to substitute 'Google' with 'a computer', not 'Greg from Sales.' Voice assistants and AI are the same way -- people assume the process is completely automated.
- ben_w 7y agoEvery time I encounter the claim that something is “common sense”, either the claim is false, or it’s not common knowledge. I believe most people neither know nor care how their devices and services function.
- Nextgrid 7y agoBeing surprised about this is like playing with radioactive sludge and then being surprised when you get cancer.
- deleted 7y ago[deleted]
- kbrwn 7y agoHas there ever been a time in history when a technology was so ubiquitous with so few people knowing how it actually works? Cars, television, plumbing all come to mind
- huntermeyer 7y ago`SELECT * FROM technologies;` Internet, radio, electricity, solar panels, lawn mowers...
- dsfyu404ed 7y agoElectricity and all the things we use it for is and was
- cryptoz 7y agoI think about this a lot, and how it happens in the Foundation novels. A whole galaxy-wide civilization with FTL spaceships and everything - but where nobody knows how anything works. The story vaguely resembles The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, which is also frequently discussed as an analogue for current times.
- nkrisc 7y agoFor the average person: light bulbs, air conditioners, refrigerators, microwaves, radios, etc., etc.
- b_tterc_p 7y agoPerhaps but I think there’s a difference. I don’t know how refrigerators work, but I can guess and within a few guesses I’ll probably get close. I don’t know if everyone can guess how comp tech works. I’ve heard comments about how hard it must be to code how software works. Or to understand that so much can happen behind the scenes
- nkrisc 7y agoI think most people probably can't guess how a refrigerator works. Maybe if they remember high school physics, but I wouldn't put money on it. Maybe I'm just pessimistic but I think you're overestimating the understanding of science the average person has.
- aquaticsunset 7y agoIs it any real surprise that policy and legislation in this country is so far behind technology? Of course not - the legislators and constituents are largely unaware of how deep data collection goes, and a lot of the watchdogs have a vested interest in keeping quiet (paychecks, profits). It doesn't leave much left for the watchdogs who have been screaming our eyeballs out over how pervasive and overstepping this has become.
- wang_li 7y agoI hope they had "permission" from both sides of the conversations that they recorded in states that require two-party/all-party consent. Otherwise, this is more than just a privacy issue, it's criminal.
- CodiePetersen 7y agoThat's actually a really good point. https://www.lawyers.com/legal-info/personal-injury/types-of-personal-injury-claims/wiretap-act-privacy.html https://www.lawyers.com/legal-info/personal-injury/types-of-...
- lostphilosopher 7y agoMy guess is that the T&C grants permission for FB to record the primary user, and then the liability for recording (via FB) _other_ people falls on the primary user for recording while other people were talking?
- garmaine 7y agoThat’s not how criminal law works.
- lostphilosopher 7y agoIf I use Facebook voice-to-text around you, why is that different from using a traditional recording device without your consent? Isn't that on me, not whomever listens to that recording?
- garmaine 7y agoTypically, intent is the distinguisher. You intended for the interaction to be transient and transactional—you say something and text appears on the screen. In reality and without your knowledge, the service provider intentionally recorded, kept, and shared that data. That puts the service provider at fault as they are the ones that arranged for he recording to happen, if if you are he one that pushed the button.
- daeken 7y agoThis is a surprise to ~no one here, but this is absolutely a surprise to at least a large portion of the general population. Why? Because they don't know how these things are developed, even at a high level. To most people, systems like these are a black box; they talk to it, it outputs text. They don't think -- or need to think -- about what the system is actually doing. There's nothing wrong with that.