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I know my comment will get downvoted. But there's a lot of misconception about Facebook, and the other counter-arguments are worth mentioning too. Facebook do

I know my comment will get downvoted. But there's a lot of misconception about Facebook, and the other counter-arguments are worth mentioning too. Facebook does not sell our data, in fact, they keep it very secure. Facebook merely allows advertisers to target you based on your interests (which it learns from your activities). Advertisers cannot identify anyone, they just select categories for which they want their ad shown to (example categories might be: Between 18 and 25, into IT, servers, hacking, living in Vancouver > Show ad for Vancouver Hacking Conference). I don't see anything immoral about this. I remember when ads were flashing red/blue and said "You won $1M, click here to claim your prize". If I must be shown ads, I prefer ads that are relevant to my interests.

rhencke 6y ago
Alas, this is not true: https://nakedsecurity.sophos.com/2020/01/20/facebook-and-instagram-ban-alleged-brainwashing-service/amp/ https://nakedsecurity.sophos.com/2020/01/20/facebook-and-ins...
thih9 6y ago
> I prefer ads that are relevant to my interests. A third party company that buys ads will decide on the content. What ads you see will be aligned with their interests, not yours; e.g. if you're a "high earner", you might see ads for more expensive products and no cheap alternatives. If you're "expecting a child", the ads might scare you into buying more child safety products than you need; etc.
- aminozuur 6y ago
  It's in Facebook interests to show you ads that you like seeing, or feel are relevant. Facebook gives you a lot of control to manage your 'interests'. You can do so here: https://www.facebook.com/ads/settings https://www.facebook.com/ads/settings If you're scrolling your feed and see an ad you don't like, you can click the three dots, and select "Hide this Ad". Facebook learns from this.
  - soupson 6y ago
    That’s the problem. It’s in Facebook’s interest to show me ads. And I don’t want to see ads. Ads are merely professionals paid to convince me I need things and should buy them from their client, placed at the edge of my perception when I’m getting a dopamine hit from something else. It’s psychological manipulation and it’s morally wrong.
  - smolder 6y ago
    It's exceedingly poor at "learning" from the Hide this Ad button. I got approximately 3 dozen of the same style "were you abused in the boyscouts?" Ads from law firms despite clicking hide on every one of them. It's worthlessness drove me to cut through their obfuscation BS and write an ad blocker specific to FB. I have to update it now and then, but it's worth the effort to not see the garbage ads people target me with.
  - theshrike79 6y ago
    What FB learns from this is not the fact that you don't like ads, it makes their ad targeting even better. This is like A/B testing, they can show you two kinds of ads for one category and learn what kind of ad won't make you hide it. Then you'll get served more ads of that type.
DSingularity 6y ago
I’m not going to down vote you for being incorrect. You are wrong because you are focused on FB abalone and ignoring the system. You are wrong because you are focused on what FB exports and ignoring what they import. You are wrong because you are focused on the present and ignoring the past history of abuses.
badRNG 6y ago
> If I must be shown ads, I prefer ads that are relevant to my interests. Excellent, feel free to Opt-In when given the prompt next time you use Facebook on an iOS device. That's a solution that satisfies everyone's interests.
nlitened 6y ago
You're free to enable personalized ads (and tracking) in privacy settings though.
bgrsgeg 6y ago
You shouldn't get (be) downvoted for having an unpopular opinion. Unfortunately, I think this is a dangerous path we're on as a society. But I do think you're wrong. 1. It's unlikely that FB doesn't sell your data if the buyer is willing to pay enough, have close enough connections. There's an asymmetry in your relationship with FB. You have no way of verifying that they behave in a way they say they do, while FB has huge incentives to behave in a way they say they don't. 2. Binning people is information about who they are. There are 2^33 people in the world. With 33 50-50 bins you can de-anonymize anybody. If you have an idea or a target in mind (say Italians, and then you bin by language), you can do much better than 23 bins. For example, I could target my wife with personalized ads with, maybe, 5 bins - very unlikely nationality, unlikely job for a woman, unique set of languages. In fact, without knowing the nationality, job, or language, you can now probably target my wife fairly easily. You example for Vancouver illustrated this. There's maybe a few thousand 18-25 year old security specialists that live in Vancouver. I'd guess less than 10k, certainly less than 100 000. A small group of people can manually comb through 100 000 profiles in a few days. 3. Given the spectacular security failures in this business, a mere claim of secure isn't good enough. Surely FB hires top talent, but they also have a history of epic failures or disregard for security to deliver early. If I can't trust Sony, a large tech (if not IT) company, to upgrade basic security after getting PWND the same way thrice, why should I trust FB? After all, Sony had great programmers before Zuckerberg was born. 4. Personalized ads necessitate a model of each individual. Most lay people never stop and think that that is the case, but most people are loath to have any profile of them being built and stored by anyone. Nevermind a company that has a (I believe a well earned) reputation for being sleazy. 5. You prefer personalized ads. Most people don't, especially when you point out that personalized ads necessarily means that a profile of them is being built by FB. Most people prefer unobtrusive, lightweight irrelevant ads. Apple is not blocking personalized ads, they're changing their default settings to what it believes most of its consumers prefer. I have never met an Android user say they prefer Android for the better ad or privacy experience. It's always price premium, feature premium, UI, and tightly locked down phone. In fact, I've converted many would be Android users by pointing out Google's more interesting practices (personally I'd get a librephone, but my original SE is still going strong).
insert_coin 6y ago
Facebook has been caught selling your data (and also giving it away for free) but most damming of all, Facebook has also been caught BUYING your data. So, if they have as policy not to sell their own data, it doesn't go both ways. Facebook knows much more about you than your activities on facebook or facebook partners would have you believe.
AshamedCaptain 6y ago
You get downvoted because user poll after poll reveal that users find "ads relevant to their interests" creepy, specially when phrased that way and specially when accompanied with web history tracking and the like. In any case, I am sure Facebook does not sell their data. In fact, it would be suicidal for Facebook to sell their data. It's their goldmine; their only advantage. Why would they do it? But already what they do with it _themselves_ is a problem.
- dividedbyzero 6y ago
  > But already what they do with it _themselves_ is a problem. That they have it is a problem. That one entity knows so much about billions of people, in such intimate detail, that's a huge problem.
soupson 6y ago
Facebook doesn’t sell your data, they sell your future behavior. Being identified the advertisers hasn’t been the point for years. Facebook knows that, so they make a righteous play by saying they keep it safe from advertisers. Facebook doesn’t sell your data, they sell your attention, and that’s much more valuable.
- newbie578 6y ago
  What does that even mean?
  - zwkrt 6y ago
    What is an advertisement other than a calculated bet that X% of people will change their behavior because of it? What is a personalized ad other than a bet that /you/ will change /your/ behavior because of it? Facebook promises advertisers $Y billion user-hours per month by providing an enticing skinner box for social creatures and sells personalized ads to the highest bidder. “Sells your attention and future behavior” seems like a reasonable description.
  - deleted 6y ago
    [deleted]
  - soupson 6y ago
    Here’s some reading that helped me understand it: https://www.scmp.com/magazines/post-magazine/books/article/3110319/privacy-power-clarissa-veliz-warns-impending-data https://www.scmp.com/magazines/post-magazine/books/article/3... https://www.theguardian.com/books/2019/feb/02/age-of-surveillance-capitalism-shoshana-zuboff-review https://www.theguardian.com/books/2019/feb/02/age-of-surveil...
    - newbie578 6y ago
      Thank you
AlexandrB 6y ago
> I don't see anything immoral about this. What's immoral is that they collect and use data about my interests without my explicit consent. Having a stalker following you and recording your every move doesn't stop being creepy if he pinky swears to keep that data to himself.
theshrike79 6y ago
> Facebook merely allows advertisers to target you based on your interests (which it learns from your activities). Yes, but those activities may include "browsed a store's page for products in category X". Data, which I didn't explicitly give FB permission to have, nor did I know they would or could track me on said store's page. Still, their magic algorithms can combine my browsing activity on pages containing their tracker with my identity on FB and target ads based on that. It may not be "immoral", but it's really disturbing.
mekster 6y ago
Or don't show ads. I never bought anything from ads. Why do you even trust what they offer is any good? I'd rather search around and find what I actually want. Ads only give you false impression it's what people want by reaching to users first.
jdofaz 6y ago
I don't use any facebook product and I don't consent to them collecting information about me. Since I can't stop them I welcome any tool that helps me stop leaking my data to them.
sjs382 6y ago
> I prefer ads that are relevant to my interests I prefer contextual ads. They achieve similar goals for the advertiser without following me around the web.

rhencke 6y ago

Alas, this is not true: https://nakedsecurity.sophos.com/2020/01/20/facebook-and-instagram-ban-alleged-brainwashing-service/amp/ https://nakedsecurity.sophos.com/2020/01/20/facebook-and-ins...

thih9 6y ago

> I prefer ads that are relevant to my interests. A third party company that buys ads will decide on the content. What ads you see will be aligned with their interests, not yours; e.g. if you're a "high earner", you might see ads for more expensive products and no cheap alternatives. If you're "expecting a child", the ads might scare you into buying more child safety products than you need; etc.

aminozuur 6y ago
It's in Facebook interests to show you ads that you like seeing, or feel are relevant. Facebook gives you a lot of control to manage your 'interests'. You can do so here: https://www.facebook.com/ads/settings https://www.facebook.com/ads/settings If you're scrolling your feed and see an ad you don't like, you can click the three dots, and select "Hide this Ad". Facebook learns from this.
- soupson 6y ago
  That’s the problem. It’s in Facebook’s interest to show me ads. And I don’t want to see ads. Ads are merely professionals paid to convince me I need things and should buy them from their client, placed at the edge of my perception when I’m getting a dopamine hit from something else. It’s psychological manipulation and it’s morally wrong.
- smolder 6y ago
  It's exceedingly poor at "learning" from the Hide this Ad button. I got approximately 3 dozen of the same style "were you abused in the boyscouts?" Ads from law firms despite clicking hide on every one of them. It's worthlessness drove me to cut through their obfuscation BS and write an ad blocker specific to FB. I have to update it now and then, but it's worth the effort to not see the garbage ads people target me with.
- theshrike79 6y ago
  What FB learns from this is not the fact that you don't like ads, it makes their ad targeting even better. This is like A/B testing, they can show you two kinds of ads for one category and learn what kind of ad won't make you hide it. Then you'll get served more ads of that type.

DSingularity 6y ago

I’m not going to down vote you for being incorrect. You are wrong because you are focused on FB abalone and ignoring the system. You are wrong because you are focused on what FB exports and ignoring what they import. You are wrong because you are focused on the present and ignoring the past history of abuses.

badRNG 6y ago

> If I must be shown ads, I prefer ads that are relevant to my interests. Excellent, feel free to Opt-In when given the prompt next time you use Facebook on an iOS device. That's a solution that satisfies everyone's interests.

nlitened 6y ago

You're free to enable personalized ads (and tracking) in privacy settings though.

bgrsgeg 6y ago

You shouldn't get (be) downvoted for having an unpopular opinion. Unfortunately, I think this is a dangerous path we're on as a society. But I do think you're wrong. 1. It's unlikely that FB doesn't sell your data if the buyer is willing to pay enough, have close enough connections. There's an asymmetry in your relationship with FB. You have no way of verifying that they behave in a way they say they do, while FB has huge incentives to behave in a way they say they don't. 2. Binning people is information about who they are. There are 2^33 people in the world. With 33 50-50 bins you can de-anonymize anybody. If you have an idea or a target in mind (say Italians, and then you bin by language), you can do much better than 23 bins. For example, I could target my wife with personalized ads with, maybe, 5 bins - very unlikely nationality, unlikely job for a woman, unique set of languages. In fact, without knowing the nationality, job, or language, you can now probably target my wife fairly easily. You example for Vancouver illustrated this. There's maybe a few thousand 18-25 year old security specialists that live in Vancouver. I'd guess less than 10k, certainly less than 100 000. A small group of people can manually comb through 100 000 profiles in a few days. 3. Given the spectacular security failures in this business, a mere claim of secure isn't good enough. Surely FB hires top talent, but they also have a history of epic failures or disregard for security to deliver early. If I can't trust Sony, a large tech (if not IT) company, to upgrade basic security after getting PWND the same way thrice, why should I trust FB? After all, Sony had great programmers before Zuckerberg was born. 4. Personalized ads necessitate a model of each individual. Most lay people never stop and think that that is the case, but most people are loath to have any profile of them being built and stored by anyone. Nevermind a company that has a (I believe a well earned) reputation for being sleazy. 5. You prefer personalized ads. Most people don't, especially when you point out that personalized ads necessarily means that a profile of them is being built by FB. Most people prefer unobtrusive, lightweight irrelevant ads. Apple is not blocking personalized ads, they're changing their default settings to what it believes most of its consumers prefer. I have never met an Android user say they prefer Android for the better ad or privacy experience. It's always price premium, feature premium, UI, and tightly locked down phone. In fact, I've converted many would be Android users by pointing out Google's more interesting practices (personally I'd get a librephone, but my original SE is still going strong).

insert_coin 6y ago

Facebook has been caught selling your data (and also giving it away for free) but most damming of all, Facebook has also been caught BUYING your data. So, if they have as policy not to sell their own data, it doesn't go both ways. Facebook knows much more about you than your activities on facebook or facebook partners would have you believe.

AshamedCaptain 6y ago

You get downvoted because user poll after poll reveal that users find "ads relevant to their interests" creepy, specially when phrased that way and specially when accompanied with web history tracking and the like. In any case, I am sure Facebook does not sell their data. In fact, it would be suicidal for Facebook to sell their data. It's their goldmine; their only advantage. Why would they do it? But already what they do with it _themselves_ is a problem.

dividedbyzero 6y ago
> But already what they do with it _themselves_ is a problem. That they have it is a problem. That one entity knows so much about billions of people, in such intimate detail, that's a huge problem.

soupson 6y ago

Facebook doesn’t sell your data, they sell your future behavior. Being identified the advertisers hasn’t been the point for years. Facebook knows that, so they make a righteous play by saying they keep it safe from advertisers. Facebook doesn’t sell your data, they sell your attention, and that’s much more valuable.

newbie578 6y ago
What does that even mean?
- zwkrt 6y ago
  What is an advertisement other than a calculated bet that X% of people will change their behavior because of it? What is a personalized ad other than a bet that /you/ will change /your/ behavior because of it? Facebook promises advertisers $Y billion user-hours per month by providing an enticing skinner box for social creatures and sells personalized ads to the highest bidder. “Sells your attention and future behavior” seems like a reasonable description.
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
- soupson 6y ago
  Here’s some reading that helped me understand it: https://www.scmp.com/magazines/post-magazine/books/article/3110319/privacy-power-clarissa-veliz-warns-impending-data https://www.scmp.com/magazines/post-magazine/books/article/3... https://www.theguardian.com/books/2019/feb/02/age-of-surveillance-capitalism-shoshana-zuboff-review https://www.theguardian.com/books/2019/feb/02/age-of-surveil...
  - newbie578 6y ago
    Thank you

AlexandrB 6y ago

> I don't see anything immoral about this. What's immoral is that they collect and use data about my interests without my explicit consent. Having a stalker following you and recording your every move doesn't stop being creepy if he pinky swears to keep that data to himself.

theshrike79 6y ago

> Facebook merely allows advertisers to target you based on your interests (which it learns from your activities). Yes, but those activities may include "browsed a store's page for products in category X". Data, which I didn't explicitly give FB permission to have, nor did I know they would or could track me on said store's page. Still, their magic algorithms can combine my browsing activity on pages containing their tracker with my identity on FB and target ads based on that. It may not be "immoral", but it's really disturbing.

mekster 6y ago

Or don't show ads. I never bought anything from ads. Why do you even trust what they offer is any good? I'd rather search around and find what I actually want. Ads only give you false impression it's what people want by reaching to users first.

jdofaz 6y ago

I don't use any facebook product and I don't consent to them collecting information about me. Since I can't stop them I welcome any tool that helps me stop leaking my data to them.

sjs382 6y ago

> I prefer ads that are relevant to my interests I prefer contextual ads. They achieve similar goals for the advertiser without following me around the web.