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There's no way to provide access to the social graph in a privacy preserving way. It's not okay to allow a third party to access the data your friends have shar

There's no way to provide access to the social graph in a privacy preserving way. It's not okay to allow a third party to access the data your friends have shared with you without your friends consenting. Unencumbered API access to the social graph is exactly what led to the Cambridge Analytica scandal, and promising to restrict API access was part of Facebook's settlement with the FTC.

civilized 6y ago
But you could get your own data and the list of people authorized to see it, and pass that to a third party. If you and one of your friends both move to another network, you get to see each other's data. Any problem with this?
- x86_64Ubuntu 6y ago
  What if I don't want you telling folks that you are my friend? Why do you get to divulge this information to a third party that I know nothing about?
  - mindcrime 6y ago
    Can you stop your real-world friends from divulging your friendship to 3rd parties? Would you even presume to have any standing to do so? I think a case could be made that knowledge that <A friend B> belongs to A and B equally and that neither has standing to preclude the other from sharing that fact. Of course they could both mutually agree to such an arrangement ahead of time, but outside of such an agreement, I have a hard time seeing the case for "B prevents A from telling C that A and B are friends". Another aspect of this though, is "how much can A tell C about B without permission from B?" We know that IRL, people do get angry when friends reveal overly personal details about their lives to others, so this is definitely something to consider.
    - sogen 6y ago
      Like that Seinfeld episode where George _happily_ gives Jerry's address to the dog owner...
    - x86_64Ubuntu 6y ago
      So there aren't things known between my friends and I that we wouldn't want divulged to a third-party?
      - alisonkisk 6y ago
        Want is different from entitled.
        x86_64Ubuntu 6y ago
        Then we have to dispense away with the whole privacy nonsense that runs rampant on HN concerning things such as ad tracking, location tracking and other data metrics. Because in that case, instead of the friend giving away our data, it's a 3rd party with whom we have a voluntary relationship with who is giving away THEIR data that we generate.
      - mindcrime 6y ago
        So there aren't things known between my friends and I that we wouldn't want divulged to a third-party? I'm not sure how you got that from what I said above. Obviously there are such things. But I do think it's an open question to what extent we can compel our friends to keep things private. Of course if someone is really a "friend" you would expect them to keep confidences if requested... that's part of the definition of "friend" in my mind.
    - alisonkisk 6y ago
      Many states have two party consent for audio recording, for example. Not every interaction is or should be freely licensed to both parties.
      - mindcrime 6y ago
  - gampleman 6y ago
    Surely that could be solved by crypto? I.e. you don't actually get a list of names, but list of asymmetric keys, and when your friend joins their key can match the one in my list?
- stinkytaco 6y ago
  I think it becomes a "defaults" problem. Lots of people do not understand or care about "the social graph" so when prompted for consent to allow someone else to export them in a social graph, they simply click whatever gets them into Facebook the fastest. That also has the negative effect of giving companies an out when confronted with privacy concerns. It's like shrink wrap licenses. You can always say someone agreed, even if they didn't understand it in any meaningful way.
ikiris 6y ago
It's kind of amazing how most even tech people don't seem to understand this.
- xmprt 6y ago
  The comment says "there's no way." I can think of at least one which involves a user manually downloading the data and then manually uploading it to another service.
  - simpss 6y ago
    This is one of the things GDPR tries to achive. > To further strengthen the control over his or her own data, where the processing of personal data is carried out by automated means, the data subject should also be allowed to receive personal data concerning him or her which he or she has provided to a controller in a structured, commonly used, machine-readable and interoperable format, and to transmit it to another controller. https://gdpr-info.eu/recitals/no-68/ https://gdpr-info.eu/recitals/no-68/
    - robin_reala 6y ago
      And for a successful action on the same subject, see this recent Spotify / Songshift request from a user: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24764371 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24764371
  - twblalock 6y ago
    That's not the problem. The problem is that if I export my social graph and share it with another company, it includes information about who my friends are -- at the very least, it shows that they are my friends. That violates their privacy. Maybe they did not want their relationship with me to be known outside the social network where they established it.
    - monetus 6y ago
      If your friend isn't a user of the company to which the data is exported, then maybe that friend's data could be served from FB's servers, or your own, and only decypted client side. This of course cuts them off from being able to monetize swaths of user data which isn't unilaterally owned by one user, but it would be privacy respecting to your friend wouldn't it? Open protocols with medical-data like regulation right?
victor9000 6y ago
You encrypt user data and provide decryption keys to the service once a user actually signs up.
- sib 6y ago
  "As a user, I want to be opted out of this 'feature' by default"
i_see_things 6y ago
> There's no way to provide access to the social graph in a privacy preserving way. Multiparty secure computation is one possible way. There are a few, emerging implementations.
munk-a 6y ago
> There's no way to provide access to the social graph in a privacy preserving way. If we're not okay with other companies having access then why is it okay for a single company to have that access? Do you know and trust every facebook employee including those that don't work there yet with your data? Do you trust that that data will be securely handled when the company is sold after declaring bankruptcy? I think your objection is an accidental straw-man. I don't think it was intentionally made, it is a valid thought to ponder but it should exist independent of the question of sharing data.
- vladmk 6y ago
  I think the accidental straw-man is actually your reply. People give Facebook their access willingly and they know what information they input into Facebook. Should Facebook have all the info your bank has for instance? Or auto mechanic, your realtor? This is a slippery slope of logic of shared data for all leads to.
  - arilotter 6y ago
    > People give Facebook their access willingly and they know what information they input into Facebook. I don't think this is true. Facebook tracks your activity all over the web on thousands of third-party sites and builds a unique profile to identify you, without regard for you having an account. You can't opt out of this if you don't have a Facebook account. Some of these "social graph" features will do things like link two people as friend suggestions if they both have your phone number in their contacts book, even if you haven't consented to Facebook building up some information about you. This doesn't sound like willing access & knowledge of what information you provide to Facebook.
    - vladmk 6y ago
      I guess that’s what separates me and you I have more faith in humanity. I think all this false outrage about data being sold on systems that are free to use will die down and people overtime understand that the Internet doesn’t run on pixie dust and fairy magic. PS by fighting this point you’re merely pointing out that giving more businesses this data isn’t a good idea
kickscondor 6y ago
I think there is a lack of imagination here. Perhaps a "social graph" shouldn't belong to any company. The concept itself might be anti-privacy. Perhaps it's time to move back to simpler things like OPML. (Which people seem more comfortable sharing freely - not sure if that's still a "social graph" tho.) Perhaps specific relationship details shouldn't be housed in the social network - just the permission to follow. Perhaps companies who house a "social graph" should be regulated - similar to what is done with medical data. It should be a toxic substance. I just think we're a long way from doing this right and there are a lot of untried options - and I lack imagination as well.
- arthurcolle 6y ago
  Social graphs are really useful for detecting idea contagion though. Facebook obviously has the tools to fight propaganda, they have one of the most granular datasets of people data ever assembled in human history. They are just addicted to the ad dollars. It is a shame they killed their delightful API. Good riddance to them.
  - readams 6y ago
    Seeing sharing in a social graph is easy. Defining what is "propaganda" is all but impossible.
    - arthurcolle 6y ago
      Idk, I really don't think so. shrugs
      - meekmind 6y ago
        It is. It's possible to have two completely valid, objective, and opposed positions in an argument where multiple different groups have a vested interest in one position being more popular than the other. Which one is propaganda? The one you disagree with? The one that doesn't fit with your preconceived notions? The one that doesn't fit with your personality profile? Both positions? Neither position? Do we just shut down all thinking on the internet? Who watches the watchers?
grishka 6y ago
Meanwhile in the parallel universe, in Russia, VKontakte provides full API access to anyone who clicks the button to create an API app. You only need manual review if you want access to messaging from user tokens, and that's a relatively recent change. Somehow, this hasn't turned into a privacy nightmare in more than 10 years the API was available. I'm not defending VK — it does some increasingly user-hostile stuff too after having been acquired by Mail.Ru Group — but you can still integrate it into whatever the hell you want with ease.
- gumby 6y ago
  > Somehow, this hasn't turned into a privacy nightmare in more than 10 years the API was available. How would you know?
  - grishka 6y ago
    Most of the data you can access through the API is public anyway. You could as well scrape it off the website, API just provides it in a more convenient format. For example, you're able to get profiles and friend lists and posts of arbitrary people, as long as they're publicly visible, without real authentication (but you do need a "service token" you get on the app settings page). The worst thing to ever happen with that open data was that some debt collection agencies used it to threaten people and their friends, and I believe that's why those service tokens were introduced. And that story was rather widely publicized: https://www.the-village.ru/business/finance/217569-banki-pishut-dolzhnikam https://www.the-village.ru/business/finance/217569-banki-pis... for example.
    - alisonkisk 6y ago
      That's a pretty quick backpedal from your previous post.
  - musicale 6y ago
    Federal Security Service assures us there is no privacy problem.
- 6y ago
abecedarius 6y ago
If you can see the data, you can share the data. Preventing sharing is exactly as possible as DRM, i.e. only doable by outlawing general-purpose computing. So while I value privacy, I'm not sympathetic to using privacy as an argument to restrict your own access to your Facebook data, for you to decide yourself on how that's shared. If you misuse your view of your friends' data, that's on you and up to your friends to punish/discourage you for.
- nine_k 6y ago
  Technically you can, but should you? Your sharing your FB friends data with third parties, could be seen by the friends as impolite or even hostile. It's a matter of trust between friends, not technical ability.
deevolution 6y ago
Multisig encryption? Revoke key access to anyone you don't want to share your info with. Not sure if this is actually practical. Just a hunch on a potential solution.
p1necone 6y ago
Sure you can - store social graph data on users local machine or some trusted third party, ship the social media application code to the data.
pmoriarty 6y ago
"It's not okay to allow a third party to access the data your friends have shared with you without your friends consenting." Facebook itself is a third party.
raiyu 6y ago
When i add phone numbers to my phones contact list i don’t expect Apple to own it. And if i want another app to use my contacts on my phone I’m ok with that. I think opening up the social graph via API would be essential to real competition and a wealth of other apps and companies can be created. Granular access can be given so that isn’t exploited. They have the funds needed to build it out from their billions of profits.
slim 6y ago
wow, that's the "non proliferation" argument. it's the first time I see it applied since the cold war. I guess I should have expected it. it's the nuclear warhead equivalent argument when you're justifying a monoply
3131s 6y ago
This is pretty rich consider that people don't even hesitate to put your literal face on Facebook whenever they please. The point is to move toward standards around social data and then force the big tech companies to allow each user to export their own data, quickly, in these interoperable formats.
headmelted 6y ago
This. The counter-argument to this is having the government provide the graph and an API to allow networks like Facebook connect to it. This should rightly terrify just about everybody. I like the concept Diaspora had back in the day, it just wasn't workable really as your mum/aunt/non-tech friend wouldn't be able to understand how something like that works and would ultimately lose/delete/corrupt their tokens.
throwaway9d0291 6y ago
> There's no way to provide access to the social graph in a privacy preserving way. It's not okay to allow a third party to access the data your friends have shared with you without your friends consenting. If the API is open and there's forced interoperability, the client device can call the service's API directly with the user's own credentials. No need for a third-party middleman, so no need to give a third-party access to the data. It can work the same way IM applications like Pidgin work: one app, multiple accounts.
gray_-_wolf 6y ago
> It's not okay to allow a third party to access the data your friends have shared with you without your friends consenting. Why? If they shared it with me, that should mean they trust me to decide to whom I delegate the access no? I could as well just screenshot it and post it to twitter, what does make the social graph so special?
- nulbyte 6y ago
  I was thinking the same thing. How many of us blindly save contact data to our phones or other PIM software, then back it up online to a Google, Apple, or Samsung service? Do they need my contacts' consent? If I were to ask my friends, "Is it okay if I back up your contact informarion to Samsung's online service?" they would think I was weird for asking.
prepend 6y ago
I heard the same argument about providing personal health data, then CMS eventually started pushing Project Blue Button [0] allowing users to get api access to their own data. And that’s helped quite a bit. There is risk, but saying that users can’t be trusted with an API to their own social graph seems to be throwing the baby out with the bath water. [0] https://www.healthit.gov/topic/health-it-initiatives/blue-button https://www.healthit.gov/topic/health-it-initiatives/blue-bu...

civilized 6y ago

But you could get your own data and the list of people authorized to see it, and pass that to a third party. If you and one of your friends both move to another network, you get to see each other's data. Any problem with this?

x86_64Ubuntu 6y ago
What if I don't want you telling folks that you are my friend? Why do you get to divulge this information to a third party that I know nothing about?
- mindcrime 6y ago
  Can you stop your real-world friends from divulging your friendship to 3rd parties? Would you even presume to have any standing to do so? I think a case could be made that knowledge that <A friend B> belongs to A and B equally and that neither has standing to preclude the other from sharing that fact. Of course they could both mutually agree to such an arrangement ahead of time, but outside of such an agreement, I have a hard time seeing the case for "B prevents A from telling C that A and B are friends". Another aspect of this though, is "how much can A tell C about B without permission from B?" We know that IRL, people do get angry when friends reveal overly personal details about their lives to others, so this is definitely something to consider.
  - sogen 6y ago
    Like that Seinfeld episode where George _happily_ gives Jerry's address to the dog owner...
  - x86_64Ubuntu 6y ago
    So there aren't things known between my friends and I that we wouldn't want divulged to a third-party?
    - alisonkisk 6y ago
      Want is different from entitled.
      - x86_64Ubuntu 6y ago
        Then we have to dispense away with the whole privacy nonsense that runs rampant on HN concerning things such as ad tracking, location tracking and other data metrics. Because in that case, instead of the friend giving away our data, it's a 3rd party with whom we have a voluntary relationship with who is giving away THEIR data that we generate.
    - mindcrime 6y ago
      So there aren't things known between my friends and I that we wouldn't want divulged to a third-party? I'm not sure how you got that from what I said above. Obviously there are such things. But I do think it's an open question to what extent we can compel our friends to keep things private. Of course if someone is really a "friend" you would expect them to keep confidences if requested... that's part of the definition of "friend" in my mind.
  - alisonkisk 6y ago
    Many states have two party consent for audio recording, for example. Not every interaction is or should be freely licensed to both parties.
    - mindcrime 6y ago
- gampleman 6y ago
  Surely that could be solved by crypto? I.e. you don't actually get a list of names, but list of asymmetric keys, and when your friend joins their key can match the one in my list?
stinkytaco 6y ago
I think it becomes a "defaults" problem. Lots of people do not understand or care about "the social graph" so when prompted for consent to allow someone else to export them in a social graph, they simply click whatever gets them into Facebook the fastest. That also has the negative effect of giving companies an out when confronted with privacy concerns. It's like shrink wrap licenses. You can always say someone agreed, even if they didn't understand it in any meaningful way.

ikiris 6y ago

It's kind of amazing how most even tech people don't seem to understand this.

xmprt 6y ago
The comment says "there's no way." I can think of at least one which involves a user manually downloading the data and then manually uploading it to another service.
- simpss 6y ago
  This is one of the things GDPR tries to achive. > To further strengthen the control over his or her own data, where the processing of personal data is carried out by automated means, the data subject should also be allowed to receive personal data concerning him or her which he or she has provided to a controller in a structured, commonly used, machine-readable and interoperable format, and to transmit it to another controller. https://gdpr-info.eu/recitals/no-68/ https://gdpr-info.eu/recitals/no-68/
  - robin_reala 6y ago
    And for a successful action on the same subject, see this recent Spotify / Songshift request from a user: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24764371 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24764371
- twblalock 6y ago
  That's not the problem. The problem is that if I export my social graph and share it with another company, it includes information about who my friends are -- at the very least, it shows that they are my friends. That violates their privacy. Maybe they did not want their relationship with me to be known outside the social network where they established it.
  - monetus 6y ago
    If your friend isn't a user of the company to which the data is exported, then maybe that friend's data could be served from FB's servers, or your own, and only decypted client side. This of course cuts them off from being able to monetize swaths of user data which isn't unilaterally owned by one user, but it would be privacy respecting to your friend wouldn't it? Open protocols with medical-data like regulation right?

victor9000 6y ago

You encrypt user data and provide decryption keys to the service once a user actually signs up.

sib 6y ago
"As a user, I want to be opted out of this 'feature' by default"

i_see_things 6y ago

> There's no way to provide access to the social graph in a privacy preserving way. Multiparty secure computation is one possible way. There are a few, emerging implementations.

munk-a 6y ago

> There's no way to provide access to the social graph in a privacy preserving way. If we're not okay with other companies having access then why is it okay for a single company to have that access? Do you know and trust every facebook employee including those that don't work there yet with your data? Do you trust that that data will be securely handled when the company is sold after declaring bankruptcy? I think your objection is an accidental straw-man. I don't think it was intentionally made, it is a valid thought to ponder but it should exist independent of the question of sharing data.

vladmk 6y ago
I think the accidental straw-man is actually your reply. People give Facebook their access willingly and they know what information they input into Facebook. Should Facebook have all the info your bank has for instance? Or auto mechanic, your realtor? This is a slippery slope of logic of shared data for all leads to.
- arilotter 6y ago
  > People give Facebook their access willingly and they know what information they input into Facebook. I don't think this is true. Facebook tracks your activity all over the web on thousands of third-party sites and builds a unique profile to identify you, without regard for you having an account. You can't opt out of this if you don't have a Facebook account. Some of these "social graph" features will do things like link two people as friend suggestions if they both have your phone number in their contacts book, even if you haven't consented to Facebook building up some information about you. This doesn't sound like willing access & knowledge of what information you provide to Facebook.
  - vladmk 6y ago
    I guess that’s what separates me and you I have more faith in humanity. I think all this false outrage about data being sold on systems that are free to use will die down and people overtime understand that the Internet doesn’t run on pixie dust and fairy magic. PS by fighting this point you’re merely pointing out that giving more businesses this data isn’t a good idea

kickscondor 6y ago

I think there is a lack of imagination here. Perhaps a "social graph" shouldn't belong to any company. The concept itself might be anti-privacy. Perhaps it's time to move back to simpler things like OPML. (Which people seem more comfortable sharing freely - not sure if that's still a "social graph" tho.) Perhaps specific relationship details shouldn't be housed in the social network - just the permission to follow. Perhaps companies who house a "social graph" should be regulated - similar to what is done with medical data. It should be a toxic substance. I just think we're a long way from doing this right and there are a lot of untried options - and I lack imagination as well.

arthurcolle 6y ago
Social graphs are really useful for detecting idea contagion though. Facebook obviously has the tools to fight propaganda, they have one of the most granular datasets of people data ever assembled in human history. They are just addicted to the ad dollars. It is a shame they killed their delightful API. Good riddance to them.
- readams 6y ago
  Seeing sharing in a social graph is easy. Defining what is "propaganda" is all but impossible.
  - arthurcolle 6y ago
    Idk, I really don't think so. shrugs
    - meekmind 6y ago
      It is. It's possible to have two completely valid, objective, and opposed positions in an argument where multiple different groups have a vested interest in one position being more popular than the other. Which one is propaganda? The one you disagree with? The one that doesn't fit with your preconceived notions? The one that doesn't fit with your personality profile? Both positions? Neither position? Do we just shut down all thinking on the internet? Who watches the watchers?

grishka 6y ago

Meanwhile in the parallel universe, in Russia, VKontakte provides full API access to anyone who clicks the button to create an API app. You only need manual review if you want access to messaging from user tokens, and that's a relatively recent change. Somehow, this hasn't turned into a privacy nightmare in more than 10 years the API was available. I'm not defending VK — it does some increasingly user-hostile stuff too after having been acquired by Mail.Ru Group — but you can still integrate it into whatever the hell you want with ease.

gumby 6y ago
> Somehow, this hasn't turned into a privacy nightmare in more than 10 years the API was available. How would you know?
- grishka 6y ago
  Most of the data you can access through the API is public anyway. You could as well scrape it off the website, API just provides it in a more convenient format. For example, you're able to get profiles and friend lists and posts of arbitrary people, as long as they're publicly visible, without real authentication (but you do need a "service token" you get on the app settings page). The worst thing to ever happen with that open data was that some debt collection agencies used it to threaten people and their friends, and I believe that's why those service tokens were introduced. And that story was rather widely publicized: https://www.the-village.ru/business/finance/217569-banki-pishut-dolzhnikam https://www.the-village.ru/business/finance/217569-banki-pis... for example.
  - alisonkisk 6y ago
    That's a pretty quick backpedal from your previous post.
- musicale 6y ago
  Federal Security Service assures us there is no privacy problem.
6y ago

abecedarius 6y ago

If you can see the data, you can share the data. Preventing sharing is exactly as possible as DRM, i.e. only doable by outlawing general-purpose computing. So while I value privacy, I'm not sympathetic to using privacy as an argument to restrict your own access to your Facebook data, for you to decide yourself on how that's shared. If you misuse your view of your friends' data, that's on you and up to your friends to punish/discourage you for.

nine_k 6y ago
Technically you can, but should you? Your sharing your FB friends data with third parties, could be seen by the friends as impolite or even hostile. It's a matter of trust between friends, not technical ability.

deevolution 6y ago

Multisig encryption? Revoke key access to anyone you don't want to share your info with. Not sure if this is actually practical. Just a hunch on a potential solution.

p1necone 6y ago

Sure you can - store social graph data on users local machine or some trusted third party, ship the social media application code to the data.

pmoriarty 6y ago

"It's not okay to allow a third party to access the data your friends have shared with you without your friends consenting." Facebook itself is a third party.

raiyu 6y ago

When i add phone numbers to my phones contact list i don’t expect Apple to own it. And if i want another app to use my contacts on my phone I’m ok with that. I think opening up the social graph via API would be essential to real competition and a wealth of other apps and companies can be created. Granular access can be given so that isn’t exploited. They have the funds needed to build it out from their billions of profits.

slim 6y ago

wow, that's the "non proliferation" argument. it's the first time I see it applied since the cold war. I guess I should have expected it. it's the nuclear warhead equivalent argument when you're justifying a monoply

3131s 6y ago

This is pretty rich consider that people don't even hesitate to put your literal face on Facebook whenever they please. The point is to move toward standards around social data and then force the big tech companies to allow each user to export their own data, quickly, in these interoperable formats.

headmelted 6y ago

This. The counter-argument to this is having the government provide the graph and an API to allow networks like Facebook connect to it. This should rightly terrify just about everybody. I like the concept Diaspora had back in the day, it just wasn't workable really as your mum/aunt/non-tech friend wouldn't be able to understand how something like that works and would ultimately lose/delete/corrupt their tokens.

throwaway9d0291 6y ago

> There's no way to provide access to the social graph in a privacy preserving way. It's not okay to allow a third party to access the data your friends have shared with you without your friends consenting. If the API is open and there's forced interoperability, the client device can call the service's API directly with the user's own credentials. No need for a third-party middleman, so no need to give a third-party access to the data. It can work the same way IM applications like Pidgin work: one app, multiple accounts.

gray_-_wolf 6y ago

> It's not okay to allow a third party to access the data your friends have shared with you without your friends consenting. Why? If they shared it with me, that should mean they trust me to decide to whom I delegate the access no? I could as well just screenshot it and post it to twitter, what does make the social graph so special?

nulbyte 6y ago
I was thinking the same thing. How many of us blindly save contact data to our phones or other PIM software, then back it up online to a Google, Apple, or Samsung service? Do they need my contacts' consent? If I were to ask my friends, "Is it okay if I back up your contact informarion to Samsung's online service?" they would think I was weird for asking.

prepend 6y ago

I heard the same argument about providing personal health data, then CMS eventually started pushing Project Blue Button [0] allowing users to get api access to their own data. And that’s helped quite a bit. There is risk, but saying that users can’t be trusted with an API to their own social graph seems to be throwing the baby out with the bath water. [0] https://www.healthit.gov/topic/health-it-initiatives/blue-button https://www.healthit.gov/topic/health-it-initiatives/blue-bu...