7 ms·

A reminder that Facebook's VP of integrity (Guy Rosen)[1] co-founded the spyware company, Onavo, that Facebook acquired. Onavo made a VPN that collected user ac

A reminder that Facebook's VP of integrity (Guy Rosen)[1] co-founded the spyware company, Onavo, that Facebook acquired. Onavo made a VPN that collected user activity and delivered it to Facebook.[2] [1] First temporary (https://gizmodo.com/facebook-exec-gets-new-title-as-vp-of-integrity-for-les-1833487854 https://gizmodo.com/facebook-exec-gets-new-title-as-vp-of-in...), then long-term (https://www.theverge.com/2021/10/17/22731214/facebook-disputes-report-artificial-intelligence-hate-speech-violence https://www.theverge.com/2021/10/17/22731214/facebook-disput...) [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Onavo https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Onavo

strulovich 5y ago
I see this mentioned on multiple threads. What is the accusation here? (FB employee, opinions are my own)
- tedivm 5y ago
  The person created spyware for profit- something that clearly lacks of integrity. The fact that this is even a question shows why no one who worked at Facebook should be in charge of any integrity project.
  - strulovich 5y ago
    So it’s a linguistic issue. You’re lumping integrity as “do people abuse our system” with “does person A follow the same morals as me”. Specifically, looks like your morals are that products that are free in exchange for anonymously analyzing your data are immoral. (Remember: Onavo gave free VPN to users) It’s a reasonable position to take, but it’s unclear it’s necessarily true and that everyone who doesn’t agree with you has no integrity, more so, it definitely doesn’t imply they can’t achieve results. There’s plenty of criticism to give on Facebook’s integrity efforts. I just don’t think yours is helping the discussion. And as an example, I think the linked article is a great idea and hope the founders succeed.
    - 0x4d464d48 5y ago
      "So it’s a linguistic issue." Only in the same way that you can dismiss misaligned values as a 'linguistic issue'.
    - jonny_eh 5y ago
      > Remember: Onavo gave free VPN to users IIRC, it wasn't just a free VPN, it also did extra compression of data like images to speed up site loading on mobile. This eventually stopped working when https became more popular.
    - splistud 5y ago
      Were 'anonymously analyzing your data' either true, or the complete extent of the exchange, then you might have a point
    - tedivm 5y ago
      This is part of the problem with talking with Facebook engineers. Most of society is against spyware. It's not a controversial topic- spyware is pretty frowned upon. Spying on people does, to most people, show a lack of integrity. So does much of the other actions Facebook has taken and which are now coming out in these leaks. If you bring this up with Facebook engineers it turns into a "linguistic" issue. You're told that integrity only applies in the computer science sense of the word, and are then told by the engineer what you "actually" think. All of this is condescending and distracting from the main point- which seems to be the point.
      - strulovich 5y ago
        I’m sorry if my tone is not coming across as I intended. I think there’s plenty of arguments to be made against Facebook’s integrity effort, and plenty of that work happened on Guy Rosen’s shift. But your feedback is not nuanced and seems to be avoiding a lot of the context on purpose. It seems to be about getting people enraged through an implied accusation in your first comment. In reality there’s some things you should consider: - Onavo started as a “compress your data to save you money app” (I used it back then for a while) - Seems like they found making money from selling market research data from aggregated users is a more visible business than getting customers to pay (way before FB purchased them) - customers willingly installed the app, they got value from it, and not one customer actually got hurt (correct me if I’m wrong) - Onavo was popular in countries with censored internet as a free workaround - selling or using aggregated market research data is not illegal. It’s practiced by all of FB’s competition at the time (Apple and Google have control of their platforms and I’ll guess use this data). Other equivalents include Uber’s credit card as a way to see where people spend money on what transportation and restaurants. I’m sorry if you find any of this condescending, this is not my intention. I just wanted to clarify what’s your issue with Guy is. That is all.
- frob 5y ago
  FB branded Onavo as a free VPN to protect your privacy. Instead, it routed all of your traffic through FB-owned machines so that they could profile your connections and get an idea of how much you were using other apps.
  - deleted 5y ago
    [deleted]
- qqtt 5y ago
  I think most would consider facebook’s usage of onavo pretty gross from an integrity perspective https://www.wsj.com/amp/articles/facebooks-onavo-gives-social-media-firm-inside-peek-at-rivals-users-1502622003 https://www.wsj.com/amp/articles/facebooks-onavo-gives-socia... The characterization as Spyware seems pretty accurate. You are correct there is a balance between offering free services in exchange for data collection, and likely most people in tech misinterpret how the general public views this balance, but at the same time it’s reasonable to assume that the general public isn’t fully aware of the extent of these data collection practices. There is a reason Facebook is constantly mired in controversy- especially compared to their social media peers.
- yumraj 5y ago
  This here folks is why hiring out of FB is dangerous. They've accepted the Zen of Zuck as being the way and are unable to see any moral or ethical ambiguity.
- 1vuio0pswjnm7 5y ago
  This comment demonstrates FB's lack of self-awareness. From the outside, people see poor judgment and lack of basic moral fiber. From the inside, people see their own behaviour and decision-making as normal. Thus, we get a question like this: "I do not understand. What is the accusation?" https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Onavo https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Onavo One can imagine their thought process is something like: "If it is not illegal, then what is the problem?" This is not how normal people think. It is like an inability to grasp the moral of the Trojan Horse. Facebook's response when accused of deceptive practices was "We gave users a beautiful wooden horse. Users knew exactly what they were getting. We will defend ourselves in court."
- TwiceCubed 5y ago
  Go fuck yourself, you despicable subhuman piece of filth. Unless you're a troll just trying to make Facebook employees look bad, in which case, lol, well done.
liuliu 5y ago
Facebook Integrity team is about user's integrity of not abusing Facebook services. It doesn't manage Facebook's integrity towards its users. There are overlaps (for example, some people may abuse the system by trick people to like a piece of content to promote misinformation). But the focus is about protecting Facebook services, not the user. Certainly not user's privacy in the realm of how Facebook uses it (how other actors use it may fall into "abuse" category).
- akomtu 5y ago
  Related note: the famous "we value our users" means "we increase the lifetime value of our users" and that's not a snarky speculation.
  - deleted 5y ago
    [deleted]
  - kwertyoowiyop 5y ago
    They apparently value users at around $1,500/year.
    - bognition 5y ago
      Do you have a citation here? I thought it was on the order of $30-$50
      - kwertyoowiyop 5y ago
        You’re so right. Don’t know where I got the other figure.
deleted 5y ago
[deleted]

strulovich 5y ago

I see this mentioned on multiple threads. What is the accusation here? (FB employee, opinions are my own)

tedivm 5y ago
The person created spyware for profit- something that clearly lacks of integrity. The fact that this is even a question shows why no one who worked at Facebook should be in charge of any integrity project.
- strulovich 5y ago
  So it’s a linguistic issue. You’re lumping integrity as “do people abuse our system” with “does person A follow the same morals as me”. Specifically, looks like your morals are that products that are free in exchange for anonymously analyzing your data are immoral. (Remember: Onavo gave free VPN to users) It’s a reasonable position to take, but it’s unclear it’s necessarily true and that everyone who doesn’t agree with you has no integrity, more so, it definitely doesn’t imply they can’t achieve results. There’s plenty of criticism to give on Facebook’s integrity efforts. I just don’t think yours is helping the discussion. And as an example, I think the linked article is a great idea and hope the founders succeed.
  - 0x4d464d48 5y ago
    "So it’s a linguistic issue." Only in the same way that you can dismiss misaligned values as a 'linguistic issue'.
  - jonny_eh 5y ago
    > Remember: Onavo gave free VPN to users IIRC, it wasn't just a free VPN, it also did extra compression of data like images to speed up site loading on mobile. This eventually stopped working when https became more popular.
  - splistud 5y ago
    Were 'anonymously analyzing your data' either true, or the complete extent of the exchange, then you might have a point
  - tedivm 5y ago
    This is part of the problem with talking with Facebook engineers. Most of society is against spyware. It's not a controversial topic- spyware is pretty frowned upon. Spying on people does, to most people, show a lack of integrity. So does much of the other actions Facebook has taken and which are now coming out in these leaks. If you bring this up with Facebook engineers it turns into a "linguistic" issue. You're told that integrity only applies in the computer science sense of the word, and are then told by the engineer what you "actually" think. All of this is condescending and distracting from the main point- which seems to be the point.
    - strulovich 5y ago
      I’m sorry if my tone is not coming across as I intended. I think there’s plenty of arguments to be made against Facebook’s integrity effort, and plenty of that work happened on Guy Rosen’s shift. But your feedback is not nuanced and seems to be avoiding a lot of the context on purpose. It seems to be about getting people enraged through an implied accusation in your first comment. In reality there’s some things you should consider: - Onavo started as a “compress your data to save you money app” (I used it back then for a while) - Seems like they found making money from selling market research data from aggregated users is a more visible business than getting customers to pay (way before FB purchased them) - customers willingly installed the app, they got value from it, and not one customer actually got hurt (correct me if I’m wrong) - Onavo was popular in countries with censored internet as a free workaround - selling or using aggregated market research data is not illegal. It’s practiced by all of FB’s competition at the time (Apple and Google have control of their platforms and I’ll guess use this data). Other equivalents include Uber’s credit card as a way to see where people spend money on what transportation and restaurants. I’m sorry if you find any of this condescending, this is not my intention. I just wanted to clarify what’s your issue with Guy is. That is all.
frob 5y ago
FB branded Onavo as a free VPN to protect your privacy. Instead, it routed all of your traffic through FB-owned machines so that they could profile your connections and get an idea of how much you were using other apps.
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
qqtt 5y ago
I think most would consider facebook’s usage of onavo pretty gross from an integrity perspective https://www.wsj.com/amp/articles/facebooks-onavo-gives-social-media-firm-inside-peek-at-rivals-users-1502622003 https://www.wsj.com/amp/articles/facebooks-onavo-gives-socia... The characterization as Spyware seems pretty accurate. You are correct there is a balance between offering free services in exchange for data collection, and likely most people in tech misinterpret how the general public views this balance, but at the same time it’s reasonable to assume that the general public isn’t fully aware of the extent of these data collection practices. There is a reason Facebook is constantly mired in controversy- especially compared to their social media peers.
yumraj 5y ago
This here folks is why hiring out of FB is dangerous. They've accepted the Zen of Zuck as being the way and are unable to see any moral or ethical ambiguity.
1vuio0pswjnm7 5y ago
This comment demonstrates FB's lack of self-awareness. From the outside, people see poor judgment and lack of basic moral fiber. From the inside, people see their own behaviour and decision-making as normal. Thus, we get a question like this: "I do not understand. What is the accusation?" https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Onavo https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Onavo One can imagine their thought process is something like: "If it is not illegal, then what is the problem?" This is not how normal people think. It is like an inability to grasp the moral of the Trojan Horse. Facebook's response when accused of deceptive practices was "We gave users a beautiful wooden horse. Users knew exactly what they were getting. We will defend ourselves in court."
TwiceCubed 5y ago
Go fuck yourself, you despicable subhuman piece of filth. Unless you're a troll just trying to make Facebook employees look bad, in which case, lol, well done.

liuliu 5y ago

Facebook Integrity team is about user's integrity of not abusing Facebook services. It doesn't manage Facebook's integrity towards its users. There are overlaps (for example, some people may abuse the system by trick people to like a piece of content to promote misinformation). But the focus is about protecting Facebook services, not the user. Certainly not user's privacy in the realm of how Facebook uses it (how other actors use it may fall into "abuse" category).

akomtu 5y ago
Related note: the famous "we value our users" means "we increase the lifetime value of our users" and that's not a snarky speculation.
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
- kwertyoowiyop 5y ago
  They apparently value users at around $1,500/year.
  - bognition 5y ago
    Do you have a citation here? I thought it was on the order of $30-$50
    - kwertyoowiyop 5y ago
      You’re so right. Don’t know where I got the other figure.

deleted 5y ago

[deleted]