9 ms·

I mean this is why they do it. You knew it was wrong, you knew they were going to take that data and mine it, and you still said sure.

arkitaip 6y ago
Fomo is a helluva drug.
bogwog 6y ago
In my case, I don't even remember giving them permission to use my contacts, yet I got accepted because one of my contacts sent me an invite. I might have given them permission without realizing it, but what could've also happened is that they saw my phone number in someone else's contact list, and assumed we were contacts.
- evanmoran 6y ago
  You probably didn’t share, as I didn’t. I believe the contacts permission is only required if you want to share an invite, not to accept one.
ganstyles 6y ago
Correct. I've been a member for going on a year now and I have scores of invites I don't appear to be able to send because I won't share my contacts. Not that I care enough to invite people, but it's a dark pattern to even require it. I have heard there's a way to share invites without sharing contacts, but I haven't cared enough to even do a cursory search on that.
- chipsa 6y ago
  unsync your contacts from whatever service provider you're using, make sure they're gone, go ahead and share the contacts (which are now empty) with Clubhouse, get the invites, then revert everything back?
kzrdude 6y ago
They do it because all the successful social apps need to make contact discovery easy. The ones that don't use this trick - ethical - we don't hear so much about, maybe they don't succeed.
- forgotmypw17 6y ago
  There are quite a few that have not done it. I don't think it's necessary for success at all. HN seems to be doing pretty well, and it's never done this sort of thing, as far as I know. Reddit never did it during their growth phase, instead they provided their own seed content. Metafilter has never done anything unethical to my knowledge. There are many, many successful social networks which have not performed unethical contact harvesting and other shady things.
  - skinnymuch 6y ago
    Clubhouse raised money at a billion dollar valuation. Hacker News specifically and Metafilter aren’t in the same stratosphere
    - forgotmypw17 6y ago
      What are you trying to say? That because they have a lot of VC money riding on it, they have to do "growth hacking" in order to justify the funds and grow quickly enough to satisfy the investors? Well, I guess I have to agree.
      - skinnymuch 6y ago
        I assumed the OP saying successful social apps as in successful to the point of being known by at least some average people. Metafilter and Hacker News are both very niche and tiny. Hacker News doesn’t have the same business model as others either. It’s to help the namesake incubator. It succeeds with that. Getting contacts etc wouldn’t benefit Hacker News. Hacker News could lose a decent amount of money yearly without any prospect of breaking even and still be run. Most other apps of any kind can’t be run that way, including Reddit and Metafilter.
tonylemesmer 6y ago
That means that more than likely clubhouse have our details even if we have no desire to be part of it.
- srockets 6y ago
  It’d be fun once they’ll have EU presence.
  - jimkleiber 6y ago
    I think they had a wave of people join from Germany either earlier this month or last month, so I imagine there are already plenty of Europeans on the app. Plus, doesn't GDPR apply even if there's just one user who resides in the EU?
    - srockets 6y ago
      Having European data subjects is enough ground to ask them to abide by the GDPR. But assume they won't, then you'll have to go to a European court, which could rule whatever, but it can't do much to a company that has no money or persons in the EU to collect from.
      - jimkleiber 6y ago
        Yup, I've been wondering just how inept national and local government seem to be in regulating a global internet. Seems that if we want to have global internet, we eventually might have to come up with a more coherent form of global governance.
jancsika 6y ago
Are you writing that to emphasize the urgency for the government to pass legislation to reign in unregulated online casinos as they continue refining their dark patterns? (I.e., without legislation, these companies will continue finding more and more sophisticated ways to get the user to act against their own interest.) Or do you mean imply that a practical approach to reign in unregulated online casinos is to spread the message of, "Just Say No," in web forum comments to the ostensible addicts? Or to be fair, something else entirely? My point is I can't tell without context there whether you are sympathizing with the user ("ah yes, something needs to be done because they've found your weak spot"), or chastising them for not having the force of will to resist dark patterns. Edit: clarification
- DevKoala 6y ago
  Not the poster you are replying to, but I stopped feeling empathy for people who complaint about lack of privacy, yet willingly give up their data to non-essential services that ask for it with all the proper disclosures. If you agreed to sharing all your contacts to listen to “musical tweets”, I don’t see why you’ll be complaining. You willingly made a trade off.
  - WA 6y ago
    ... willingly give up other peoples‘ data.
    - DevKoala 6y ago
      Exactly. What a jerk right? “Oh noes I had to give up all of my contact’s personal information... but I got into that beta!!”
  - bonoboTP 6y ago
    Social status is a hell of a drug. Clubhouse is a place where people like Elon Musk and famous successful scientists and businesspeople hang out so all the hustler startup get-rich people want to be on board. It's exclusive, it's just for fancy iPhone users. Finally an elite place where you can only get in by invite, most cannot resist. If they miss out on the bandwagon, how can they call themselves an early adopter on the bleeding edge? What will their friends thi k of them? Almost as if they used Android or something.
toss1 6y ago
And this tells me that there is a need for another step up for this app - to not only poison the contacts, but to temporarily 1) backup => 2) delete => 2a) share poisoned list => 3) restore contacts. So we can share the list, but they'll never get our real contacts, only trash data. Enough use it, maybe they'll stop
- a3n 6y ago
  But wouldn't this company have to periodically review your contacts, to slurp up new ones?
  - toss1 6y ago
    Yup, probably their next move would be to require constant access to contacts list and check whenever the app runs. The next move on this side would be to keep contacts in a separate app from the std Android/Apple app, and then have to make calls, texts, etc. from there. If only there weren't so many sociopaths running these companies... sorry, wrong planet

arkitaip 6y ago

Fomo is a helluva drug.

bogwog 6y ago

In my case, I don't even remember giving them permission to use my contacts, yet I got accepted because one of my contacts sent me an invite. I might have given them permission without realizing it, but what could've also happened is that they saw my phone number in someone else's contact list, and assumed we were contacts.

evanmoran 6y ago
You probably didn’t share, as I didn’t. I believe the contacts permission is only required if you want to share an invite, not to accept one.

ganstyles 6y ago

Correct. I've been a member for going on a year now and I have scores of invites I don't appear to be able to send because I won't share my contacts. Not that I care enough to invite people, but it's a dark pattern to even require it. I have heard there's a way to share invites without sharing contacts, but I haven't cared enough to even do a cursory search on that.

chipsa 6y ago
unsync your contacts from whatever service provider you're using, make sure they're gone, go ahead and share the contacts (which are now empty) with Clubhouse, get the invites, then revert everything back?

kzrdude 6y ago

They do it because all the successful social apps need to make contact discovery easy. The ones that don't use this trick - ethical - we don't hear so much about, maybe they don't succeed.

forgotmypw17 6y ago
There are quite a few that have not done it. I don't think it's necessary for success at all. HN seems to be doing pretty well, and it's never done this sort of thing, as far as I know. Reddit never did it during their growth phase, instead they provided their own seed content. Metafilter has never done anything unethical to my knowledge. There are many, many successful social networks which have not performed unethical contact harvesting and other shady things.
- skinnymuch 6y ago
  Clubhouse raised money at a billion dollar valuation. Hacker News specifically and Metafilter aren’t in the same stratosphere
  - forgotmypw17 6y ago
    What are you trying to say? That because they have a lot of VC money riding on it, they have to do "growth hacking" in order to justify the funds and grow quickly enough to satisfy the investors? Well, I guess I have to agree.
    - skinnymuch 6y ago
      I assumed the OP saying successful social apps as in successful to the point of being known by at least some average people. Metafilter and Hacker News are both very niche and tiny. Hacker News doesn’t have the same business model as others either. It’s to help the namesake incubator. It succeeds with that. Getting contacts etc wouldn’t benefit Hacker News. Hacker News could lose a decent amount of money yearly without any prospect of breaking even and still be run. Most other apps of any kind can’t be run that way, including Reddit and Metafilter.

tonylemesmer 6y ago

That means that more than likely clubhouse have our details even if we have no desire to be part of it.

srockets 6y ago
It’d be fun once they’ll have EU presence.
- jimkleiber 6y ago
  I think they had a wave of people join from Germany either earlier this month or last month, so I imagine there are already plenty of Europeans on the app. Plus, doesn't GDPR apply even if there's just one user who resides in the EU?
  - srockets 6y ago
    Having European data subjects is enough ground to ask them to abide by the GDPR. But assume they won't, then you'll have to go to a European court, which could rule whatever, but it can't do much to a company that has no money or persons in the EU to collect from.
    - jimkleiber 6y ago
      Yup, I've been wondering just how inept national and local government seem to be in regulating a global internet. Seems that if we want to have global internet, we eventually might have to come up with a more coherent form of global governance.

jancsika 6y ago

Are you writing that to emphasize the urgency for the government to pass legislation to reign in unregulated online casinos as they continue refining their dark patterns? (I.e., without legislation, these companies will continue finding more and more sophisticated ways to get the user to act against their own interest.) Or do you mean imply that a practical approach to reign in unregulated online casinos is to spread the message of, "Just Say No," in web forum comments to the ostensible addicts? Or to be fair, something else entirely? My point is I can't tell without context there whether you are sympathizing with the user ("ah yes, something needs to be done because they've found your weak spot"), or chastising them for not having the force of will to resist dark patterns. Edit: clarification

DevKoala 6y ago
Not the poster you are replying to, but I stopped feeling empathy for people who complaint about lack of privacy, yet willingly give up their data to non-essential services that ask for it with all the proper disclosures. If you agreed to sharing all your contacts to listen to “musical tweets”, I don’t see why you’ll be complaining. You willingly made a trade off.
- WA 6y ago
  ... willingly give up other peoples‘ data.
  - DevKoala 6y ago
    Exactly. What a jerk right? “Oh noes I had to give up all of my contact’s personal information... but I got into that beta!!”
- bonoboTP 6y ago
  Social status is a hell of a drug. Clubhouse is a place where people like Elon Musk and famous successful scientists and businesspeople hang out so all the hustler startup get-rich people want to be on board. It's exclusive, it's just for fancy iPhone users. Finally an elite place where you can only get in by invite, most cannot resist. If they miss out on the bandwagon, how can they call themselves an early adopter on the bleeding edge? What will their friends thi k of them? Almost as if they used Android or something.

toss1 6y ago

And this tells me that there is a need for another step up for this app - to not only poison the contacts, but to temporarily 1) backup => 2) delete => 2a) share poisoned list => 3) restore contacts. So we can share the list, but they'll never get our real contacts, only trash data. Enough use it, maybe they'll stop

a3n 6y ago
But wouldn't this company have to periodically review your contacts, to slurp up new ones?
- toss1 6y ago
  Yup, probably their next move would be to require constant access to contacts list and check whenever the app runs. The next move on this side would be to keep contacts in a separate app from the std Android/Apple app, and then have to make calls, texts, etc. from there. If only there weren't so many sociopaths running these companies... sorry, wrong planet