6 ms·

This is the clear history feature that was announced a year ago: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16969325 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16969325. Se

This is the clear history feature that was announced a year ago: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16969325 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16969325. See also the engineering post that explains some of the challenges in implementing this: https://engineering.fb.com/data-infrastructure/off-facebook-activity/ https://engineering.fb.com/data-infrastructure/off-facebook-...

tobr 7y ago
This comment is by Jérôme Pesenti, VP of AI at Facebook.
eropple 7y ago
Respectfully: if your employer (for as I understand it you are a Facebook employee) encounters "challenges" to treating people decently and not running a panopticon on humanity at large, it is hard to see a reason why your employer should be allowed to continue as a going concern.
jforberg 7y ago
> challenges rm -rf /var/tracking_data/jforberg
- fuzz4lyfe 7y ago
  > challenges "How do we delete the data, and still profit from it?"
Nextgrid 7y ago
If it’s challenging to make a feature treat users with respect then maybe you shouldn’t have built the feature in the first place? It’s like designing a dangerous rollercoaster with no concern for safety, and then when people start dying complaining about how hard it was to make it safe. Nasty, unethical, criminal and morally bankrupt company. There are no other words to describe it.
- lokedhs 7y ago
  Did you read the article? If you read between the lines is really tells you what they think of user's privacy. Apparently their systems was never designed to allow deletion of data, and they had to do investigations just to figure out what the different teams were doing with it. There is no way they found everything. If I was investing a a GDPR complaint, this article contains a lot of information that would be useful when asking questions to FB.
  - Nextgrid 7y ago
    I think you are either completely unaware of the whole situation with Facebook and their business model or you have ulterior motives. When I read between the lines I see just a nasty attempt at PR to keep naive users & clueless regulators happy by offering the illusion of choice and control over your data. The reality is that they designed malicious infrastructure akin to a spyware’s command and control center (but at scale, while the other spyware usually gets by with brittle PHP scripts dropped on a hacked shared host) and are now offering you tools to (supposedly) opt-out from a threat they created in the first place.
    - lokedhs 7y ago
      I don't know why you suggest I'm unaware. I'm completely in agreement with you. You might have thought I was making excuses for them. On the contrary, they clearly never designed a system to delete data because the mere idea of actually deleting information associated with a user is so alien to them that they never even thought of it.
      - Nextgrid 7y ago
        Apologies - I guess I was in the wrong state of mind when I read it yesterday as now it appears completely clear what you meant.
        lokedhs 7y ago
        Actually, when I read my original message, I can see how it can be mistaken for making the opposite statement. I usually try to be as clear as possible, but when it comes to that company I just don't see how anyone could be apologetic for them, so I never read my own post from that perspective.
nod 7y ago
Why is it no longer a "clear history" feature?
- olliej 7y ago
  money? Or maybe just Facebook is at its core opposed to the idea of not misleading their users. I mean it's also worth noting that to access the misleading "clear history" feature you have to create an FB account so they can track you more.
amaccuish 7y ago
It's like how the scale of Google forced them to come up with Spanner to solve their engineering challenges: Facebook collects so much data it's now having to develop new systems and ingenious methods to allow users to delete said data.
bubble_talk 7y ago
Since no one else has asked yet: You seem like a nice guy who could probably get a job elsewhere easily. Why are you still at FB?
- krn 7y ago
  Maybe the position of VP of AI at other FAANG companies was already taken, and there were no other alternatives at the similar level of prestige and compensation in the job market.
  - bubble_talk 7y ago
    >>similar level of prestige Assuming this isn't sarcasm, this is how the word prestige is defined - "denoting something that arouses widespread respect or admiration". Facebook lied to ad buyers (customers) about video views https://www.theverge.com/2018/10/17/17989712/facebook-inaccurate-video-metrics-inflation-lawsuit https://www.theverge.com/2018/10/17/17989712/facebook-inaccu... Facebook lied to users about their spying app https://www.forbes.com/sites/zakdoffman/2019/03/02/facebook-caught-lying-about-spying-on-teenage-users-data-yet-again/#b5b53b142888 https://www.forbes.com/sites/zakdoffman/2019/03/02/facebook-... Facebook lied to regulators about its ability to combine user data https://www.theverge.com/2019/2/7/18215143/facebook-whatsapp-instagram-third-party-user-data-combined-banned-germany-fco-competition https://www.theverge.com/2019/2/7/18215143/facebook-whatsapp... Facebook lied to journalists about the CA issue https://www.vice.com/en_in/article/qv777x/facebook-lied-to-journalists-about-how-bad-the-cambridge-analytica-scandal-was https://www.vice.com/en_in/article/qv777x/facebook-lied-to-j... They don't mind doing mood manipulation experiments https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2014/06/everything-we-know-about-facebooks-secret-mood-manipulation-experiment/373648/ https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2014/06/every... They have absolutely no qualms stooping low enough to steal money from kids https://www.consumerreports.org/privacy/facebook-friendly-fraud-scandal-what-parents-need-to-know/ https://www.consumerreports.org/privacy/facebook-friendly-fr... Based on the definition above, there is only one prestigious job left at Facebook. Whistle-blower.
    - krn 7y ago
olliej 7y ago
This is at best disingenuous - you are a VP at facebook and should preface a comment that tries to claim FB is respecting people's privacy with a comment to the effect of: "I am a VP at Facebook and my income is based on how effectively we track and abuse the privacy of the general public, whether or not they are user's or have agreed to any contract with my employer"
- pesenti 7y ago
  I do add a disclaimer when I express an opinion. I didn't mean to imply anything here, I was just really pointing people to extra information. But I guess if that came across differently, it would have been safer to add the disclaimer anyway.

tobr 7y ago

This comment is by Jérôme Pesenti, VP of AI at Facebook.

eropple 7y ago

Respectfully: if your employer (for as I understand it you are a Facebook employee) encounters "challenges" to treating people decently and not running a panopticon on humanity at large, it is hard to see a reason why your employer should be allowed to continue as a going concern.

jforberg 7y ago

> challenges rm -rf /var/tracking_data/jforberg

fuzz4lyfe 7y ago
> challenges "How do we delete the data, and still profit from it?"

Nextgrid 7y ago

If it’s challenging to make a feature treat users with respect then maybe you shouldn’t have built the feature in the first place? It’s like designing a dangerous rollercoaster with no concern for safety, and then when people start dying complaining about how hard it was to make it safe. Nasty, unethical, criminal and morally bankrupt company. There are no other words to describe it.

lokedhs 7y ago
Did you read the article? If you read between the lines is really tells you what they think of user's privacy. Apparently their systems was never designed to allow deletion of data, and they had to do investigations just to figure out what the different teams were doing with it. There is no way they found everything. If I was investing a a GDPR complaint, this article contains a lot of information that would be useful when asking questions to FB.
- Nextgrid 7y ago
  I think you are either completely unaware of the whole situation with Facebook and their business model or you have ulterior motives. When I read between the lines I see just a nasty attempt at PR to keep naive users & clueless regulators happy by offering the illusion of choice and control over your data. The reality is that they designed malicious infrastructure akin to a spyware’s command and control center (but at scale, while the other spyware usually gets by with brittle PHP scripts dropped on a hacked shared host) and are now offering you tools to (supposedly) opt-out from a threat they created in the first place.
  - lokedhs 7y ago
    I don't know why you suggest I'm unaware. I'm completely in agreement with you. You might have thought I was making excuses for them. On the contrary, they clearly never designed a system to delete data because the mere idea of actually deleting information associated with a user is so alien to them that they never even thought of it.
    - Nextgrid 7y ago
      Apologies - I guess I was in the wrong state of mind when I read it yesterday as now it appears completely clear what you meant.
      - lokedhs 7y ago
        Actually, when I read my original message, I can see how it can be mistaken for making the opposite statement. I usually try to be as clear as possible, but when it comes to that company I just don't see how anyone could be apologetic for them, so I never read my own post from that perspective.

nod 7y ago

Why is it no longer a "clear history" feature?

olliej 7y ago
money? Or maybe just Facebook is at its core opposed to the idea of not misleading their users. I mean it's also worth noting that to access the misleading "clear history" feature you have to create an FB account so they can track you more.

amaccuish 7y ago

It's like how the scale of Google forced them to come up with Spanner to solve their engineering challenges: Facebook collects so much data it's now having to develop new systems and ingenious methods to allow users to delete said data.

bubble_talk 7y ago

Since no one else has asked yet: You seem like a nice guy who could probably get a job elsewhere easily. Why are you still at FB?

krn 7y ago
Maybe the position of VP of AI at other FAANG companies was already taken, and there were no other alternatives at the similar level of prestige and compensation in the job market.
- bubble_talk 7y ago
  >>similar level of prestige Assuming this isn't sarcasm, this is how the word prestige is defined - "denoting something that arouses widespread respect or admiration". Facebook lied to ad buyers (customers) about video views https://www.theverge.com/2018/10/17/17989712/facebook-inaccurate-video-metrics-inflation-lawsuit https://www.theverge.com/2018/10/17/17989712/facebook-inaccu... Facebook lied to users about their spying app https://www.forbes.com/sites/zakdoffman/2019/03/02/facebook-caught-lying-about-spying-on-teenage-users-data-yet-again/#b5b53b142888 https://www.forbes.com/sites/zakdoffman/2019/03/02/facebook-... Facebook lied to regulators about its ability to combine user data https://www.theverge.com/2019/2/7/18215143/facebook-whatsapp-instagram-third-party-user-data-combined-banned-germany-fco-competition https://www.theverge.com/2019/2/7/18215143/facebook-whatsapp... Facebook lied to journalists about the CA issue https://www.vice.com/en_in/article/qv777x/facebook-lied-to-journalists-about-how-bad-the-cambridge-analytica-scandal-was https://www.vice.com/en_in/article/qv777x/facebook-lied-to-j... They don't mind doing mood manipulation experiments https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2014/06/everything-we-know-about-facebooks-secret-mood-manipulation-experiment/373648/ https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2014/06/every... They have absolutely no qualms stooping low enough to steal money from kids https://www.consumerreports.org/privacy/facebook-friendly-fraud-scandal-what-parents-need-to-know/ https://www.consumerreports.org/privacy/facebook-friendly-fr... Based on the definition above, there is only one prestigious job left at Facebook. Whistle-blower.
  - krn 7y ago

olliej 7y ago

This is at best disingenuous - you are a VP at facebook and should preface a comment that tries to claim FB is respecting people's privacy with a comment to the effect of: "I am a VP at Facebook and my income is based on how effectively we track and abuse the privacy of the general public, whether or not they are user's or have agreed to any contract with my employer"

pesenti 7y ago
I do add a disclaimer when I express an opinion. I didn't mean to imply anything here, I was just really pointing people to extra information. But I guess if that came across differently, it would have been safer to add the disclaimer anyway.