4 ms·

Can you not just make a throw away account?

by jayd16 6y ago

cma 6y ago
Facebook will typically lock such accounts until you give him pictures of yourself in your house with your driver's license.
- bilkow 6y ago
  I'm not sure why you're getting downvoted, they actually lock people out asking for an government ID[0] (AFAIK not necessarily yourself in the photo). I also know someone who wanted to change their last name (their current one is already fake) and the system didn't let them without sending an ID. [0] https://www.facebook.com/help/community/question/?id=101616510396306 https://www.facebook.com/help/community/question/?id=1016165...
  - prophesi 6y ago
    Yeah, I created an account a few years ago, since a few of my friends relied on Messenger / FB Events to coordinate plans. I used anti-tracking plugins, on mobile I used an unofficial F-Droid client for Messenger, desktop only used the mbasic.facebook.com It was probably two months before my account was flagged for "suspicious activity" and asked that I submit a photo of a government-issued ID, which I never obliged.
    - mroche 6y ago
      You’re lucky. I made it 30 minutes after changing all the privacy settings and not providing a phone number then signing in on my phone browser. I accidentally sent in my profile pic for the “suspicious activity” verifier which is totally on me. Instantly got my account disabled and have been unsuccessful at recovering it since June 2019 despite several attempts at sending in my ID as they requested. However, now the create a new account page says there’s an existing disabled account with this email address, but the account support portal says one doesn’t exist! Top notch engineering. Luckily I have my IG account for Messenger login, but I can’t use it for desktop sign-on’s which is pretty dumb.
  - squeaky-clean 6y ago
    My group of friends has an in-joke about an imaginary friend of ours that we blame whenever small inconveniences happen. ("I didn't eat the the last slice of pizza! Marcelo did it!") We made a Facebook account for Marcelo a few years back as a joke. One day a couple years in, we could no longer log into his account without proving his identity. We probably tripped some internal flags because it was being logged into by several IPs that also had their own Facebook accounts is my guess, that or someone not in on the joke reported Marcelo. Either way, Marcelo can't use Facebook anymore... A small inconvenience in our case, but this is definitely something that can and does happen to fake accounts. Annoyingly, someone/somebot made a full mirror of my Facebook account one day and sent me a friend request as well as several of my friends and family. I reported it and eventually got back a response that the account was not in violation of any rules. That was years ago and I had forgotten about it until just now. Just checked today and it seems it's actually gone, but it was very creepy at the time.
  - cma 6y ago
    I've seen them ask for the person to be in the photo with the license.
Nextgrid 6y ago
The problem with creating a Facebook account is that you have to agree to their ToS & privacy policy and thus give them legal permission ("consent" in GDPR terms) to stalk you in every way possible and they are very good at that (in fact they already have a "shadow profile" on you, but as long as you haven't agreed to the terms they are doing so in breach of the law). If you really want to use a throwaway account and have a chance to escape their surveillance engine, use it on a separate machine, VPN'd to a separate network (where none of your real traffic ends up) and do not do anything on that machine that can be correlated to your real activity (no playing with friends for example).
- gjs278 6y ago
  imagine actually worrying about this
txsoftwaredev 6y ago
This is what I did as I had deleted my Facebook account years ago. I haven't run into any issues so far and it's been working with my Oculus.
- an_opabinia 6y ago
  I guess the funny thing about this EU law is, does Facebook know any less about you when you don’t sign into Oculus with your Facebook account? They are the same company.
  - Barrin92 6y ago
    Oculus is a subsidiary of Facebook, they're not the same company. Facebook cannot legally use Oculus userdata in Facebook products, at least in the EU that is.
    - Nextgrid 6y ago
      Facebook could not legally use phone numbers provided by users for two-factor verification either. They still did it and suffered near-zero consequences. Currently there is no reason to believe that Facebook should be trusted for anything (based on their past actions) or that the current regulatory environment (both US and EU) is effective at discouraging and punishing violations.
      - Barrin92 6y ago
        > They still did it and suffered near-zero consequences. Wasn't this part of the settlement with the FTC for about 5 billion dollars? I'll agree with you it evidently is not enough to really deter Facebook but I wouldn'T call it nothing, that was one of the largest fines ever handed out. Same in Europe, Google has taken significant fines. Those companies are not untouchable any more. And yeah I don't trust facebook that much either but I don't think they'll blatantly ignore the law intentionally.
    - dathinab 6y ago
      Well once you log into it with you FB account you also might have signed a (likely illegal) TOS/AGB which allows them just that under some esoteric reason like giving you the more person specific advertisement you want by including all you Oculus interactions. Also don't forget that there is quite a social factor to VR and they are pretty much going in the "single player only usage without FB account direction".
snapetom 6y ago
Don't they require a cell phone? I got rid of Facebook years ago, but they have my phone number tied to that old account. I was going to get a Quest for Star Wars Squadrons until this came out. I don't care how much more the Vive is or how many features it's behind. Not worth reactivating FB for it.
dathinab 6y ago
Leagally no. They legally require you to give them honest/correct personal information. Practically maybe. But there is all the pairing with phone etc. requirement. There are also all the information they likely will collect about usage patters, interactions and your PC. So if you don't also use a isolated throwaway PC/console account and don't use social features you can be sure they will be able to somewhat link your information anyway. It not just about forcing increased FB marked share. It's also about an additional source of information they can link and combine. (Due to GDPR they are quite restrict about what data Oculus can share with the rest of FB.)

Can you not just make a throw away account?

by jayd16 6y ago

Can you not just make a throw away account?

cma 6y ago

Facebook will typically lock such accounts until you give him pictures of yourself in your house with your driver's license.

bilkow 6y ago
I'm not sure why you're getting downvoted, they actually lock people out asking for an government ID[0] (AFAIK not necessarily yourself in the photo). I also know someone who wanted to change their last name (their current one is already fake) and the system didn't let them without sending an ID. [0] https://www.facebook.com/help/community/question/?id=101616510396306 https://www.facebook.com/help/community/question/?id=1016165...
- prophesi 6y ago
  Yeah, I created an account a few years ago, since a few of my friends relied on Messenger / FB Events to coordinate plans. I used anti-tracking plugins, on mobile I used an unofficial F-Droid client for Messenger, desktop only used the mbasic.facebook.com It was probably two months before my account was flagged for "suspicious activity" and asked that I submit a photo of a government-issued ID, which I never obliged.
  - mroche 6y ago
    You’re lucky. I made it 30 minutes after changing all the privacy settings and not providing a phone number then signing in on my phone browser. I accidentally sent in my profile pic for the “suspicious activity” verifier which is totally on me. Instantly got my account disabled and have been unsuccessful at recovering it since June 2019 despite several attempts at sending in my ID as they requested. However, now the create a new account page says there’s an existing disabled account with this email address, but the account support portal says one doesn’t exist! Top notch engineering. Luckily I have my IG account for Messenger login, but I can’t use it for desktop sign-on’s which is pretty dumb.
- squeaky-clean 6y ago
  My group of friends has an in-joke about an imaginary friend of ours that we blame whenever small inconveniences happen. ("I didn't eat the the last slice of pizza! Marcelo did it!") We made a Facebook account for Marcelo a few years back as a joke. One day a couple years in, we could no longer log into his account without proving his identity. We probably tripped some internal flags because it was being logged into by several IPs that also had their own Facebook accounts is my guess, that or someone not in on the joke reported Marcelo. Either way, Marcelo can't use Facebook anymore... A small inconvenience in our case, but this is definitely something that can and does happen to fake accounts. Annoyingly, someone/somebot made a full mirror of my Facebook account one day and sent me a friend request as well as several of my friends and family. I reported it and eventually got back a response that the account was not in violation of any rules. That was years ago and I had forgotten about it until just now. Just checked today and it seems it's actually gone, but it was very creepy at the time.
- cma 6y ago
  I've seen them ask for the person to be in the photo with the license.

Nextgrid 6y ago

The problem with creating a Facebook account is that you have to agree to their ToS & privacy policy and thus give them legal permission ("consent" in GDPR terms) to stalk you in every way possible and they are very good at that (in fact they already have a "shadow profile" on you, but as long as you haven't agreed to the terms they are doing so in breach of the law). If you really want to use a throwaway account and have a chance to escape their surveillance engine, use it on a separate machine, VPN'd to a separate network (where none of your real traffic ends up) and do not do anything on that machine that can be correlated to your real activity (no playing with friends for example).

gjs278 6y ago
imagine actually worrying about this

txsoftwaredev 6y ago

This is what I did as I had deleted my Facebook account years ago. I haven't run into any issues so far and it's been working with my Oculus.

an_opabinia 6y ago
I guess the funny thing about this EU law is, does Facebook know any less about you when you don’t sign into Oculus with your Facebook account? They are the same company.
- Barrin92 6y ago
  Oculus is a subsidiary of Facebook, they're not the same company. Facebook cannot legally use Oculus userdata in Facebook products, at least in the EU that is.
  - Nextgrid 6y ago
    Facebook could not legally use phone numbers provided by users for two-factor verification either. They still did it and suffered near-zero consequences. Currently there is no reason to believe that Facebook should be trusted for anything (based on their past actions) or that the current regulatory environment (both US and EU) is effective at discouraging and punishing violations.
    - Barrin92 6y ago
      > They still did it and suffered near-zero consequences. Wasn't this part of the settlement with the FTC for about 5 billion dollars? I'll agree with you it evidently is not enough to really deter Facebook but I wouldn'T call it nothing, that was one of the largest fines ever handed out. Same in Europe, Google has taken significant fines. Those companies are not untouchable any more. And yeah I don't trust facebook that much either but I don't think they'll blatantly ignore the law intentionally.
  - dathinab 6y ago
    Well once you log into it with you FB account you also might have signed a (likely illegal) TOS/AGB which allows them just that under some esoteric reason like giving you the more person specific advertisement you want by including all you Oculus interactions. Also don't forget that there is quite a social factor to VR and they are pretty much going in the "single player only usage without FB account direction".

snapetom 6y ago

Don't they require a cell phone? I got rid of Facebook years ago, but they have my phone number tied to that old account. I was going to get a Quest for Star Wars Squadrons until this came out. I don't care how much more the Vive is or how many features it's behind. Not worth reactivating FB for it.

dathinab 6y ago

Leagally no. They legally require you to give them honest/correct personal information. Practically maybe. But there is all the pairing with phone etc. requirement. There are also all the information they likely will collect about usage patters, interactions and your PC. So if you don't also use a isolated throwaway PC/console account and don't use social features you can be sure they will be able to somewhat link your information anyway. It not just about forcing increased FB marked share. It's also about an additional source of information they can link and combine. (Due to GDPR they are quite restrict about what data Oculus can share with the rest of FB.)