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Facebook/Meta blocks accounts for posting link to EFF privacy tips
- jqpabc123 3y agoThis is about as clear as it can possibly get --- if you value privacy, you shouldn't value Facebook.
- smoldesu 3y agos/Facebook/any privately owned and controlled hardware-software platforms
- digging 3y agoYes, but that's a separate point entirely. The point here is that facebook is particularly abhorrent. It's a risk to offload any data to anyone outside of your own self, but it's a serious mistake to interact with a zuck product in any way.
- dylan604 3y agoIs FB privately owned? I disagree with your sentiment. Being public/private doesn't make one more/less trustworthy. I would posit it is the business model of the company itself that should be given scrutiny.
- Zambyte 3y ago> Is FB privately owned? Yes. It's privately owned, and publicly traded. Publicly owned would be like the USPS or national parks.
- dylan604 3y agoIs this the normal understanding of private/public companies? I don't own the USPS nor do I own the national parks. However, taxes pay for them, so we are given access to them. NASA is another example. I can't just walk into the JPL and start using a computer. However, any data that is produced by NASA, I can use just like I can use the national parks.
- sidfthec 3y ago> I don't own the USPS nor do I own the national parks. Yes we do (if you're a US citizen). You even get to vote for the "board of directors" so to speak (the legislative/executive branches of the US gov). As for your other example, I can own quite a bit of a company and still get denied access to their offices and computer systems.
- dylan604 3y agoIf I own it, I can take it home with me. If I own it, I can get a permit to build on it. If I own it, I can refuse to allow everyone else to use it. This high minded notion of "public owned" is quite different than what we are discussing here. The fact we're having this goofy conversation is sad.
- sidfthec 3y ago> I can take it home with me. I own part of Google. I can't take it home with me. I don't even know what that would mean. > If I own it, I can get a permit to build on it. It is indeed possible to get a permit to build on/use public grounds. > If I own it, I can refuse to allow everyone else to use it. You can vote for representation that could in theory restrict access to just you. The other owners probably wouldn't agree to it, though. There are a lot of owners who want open access. I think you're confusing things here. You seem to be talking about having full ownership of something, as if partial ownership isn't a thing.
- Zambyte 3y agosidfthec is a little confused, but they've got the spirit. Here is the key: the public owns it. Not any individual member of the public. The public doesn't have a home, but if it did, it already took the national parks there. The public can get a permit to build there. The public can refuse to allow anyone else to use it. Remember: members of the public are not the public. "Anyone else" here actually includes members of the public (ie: you and I).
- blackmesaind 3y agoI've never heard someone confuse private sector with privately owned. What do you think is being traded publicly? (Hint: it rhymes with blownership)
- Zambyte 3y agoJust because the public can trade it doen't mean the public owns it. Just because I can (legally) buy a Ferrari doesn't mean I own one.
- blackmesaind 3y agoThe public have bought stock (a.k.a partial ownership of the company), so the public owns it. You have bought a Ferrari, so you own it. Having performed an "Initial Public Offering" (IPO) means explicitly that the public has purchased, at least in part, ownership of your company. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stock https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stock https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Public_company https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Public_company https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Public_sector https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Public_sector
- Zambyte 3y ago> The public have bought stock (a.k.a partial ownership of the company), so the public owns it. No. Members of the public can own stock. The public does not own stock. > You have bought a Ferrari, so you own it. No. I have not purchased a Ferrari, so I do not own one. > https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Public_company https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Public_company This link does not talk about public ownership. > https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Public_sector https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Public_sector This link talks about public ownership in the same way I have explained. You are not the public. You are a member of the public.
- blackmesaind 3y ago> No. Members of the public can own stock. The public does not own stock. Members of the public own stock, so the public owns stock. Your distinction here is pedantic at best, but generally plain wrong. > No. I have not purchased a Ferrari, so I do not own one. It seems the concept of a metaphor struggles to take grasp. I'll leave progress in this area to those certified. > This link does not talk about public ownership. It's very literally the first line. If you're going to be a pedant, be right.
- sircastor 3y ago> Is FB privately owned? Ostensibly, no. But practically, there is a single majority shareholder who can choose to do pretty much whatever he wants with the company. So... kind of?
- j45 3y agoSome would say lots there
- loteck 3y agoWhat if I highly value privacy but also need to function in a world that often doesn't prioritize my values?
- efdee 3y agoIt might be hard to imagine now, but it was only 15 years ago that we were able to function in a world without Facebook.
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- wizzwizz4 3y agoBe strategically annoying about your values, whenever it comes up (but almost never when it doesn't: don't be a vegan stereotype). You can get, amortised, a few organisations to change their behaviour per year, if you find someone interested, make a good case, get your timing right, and there are people with the required know-how.
- clnq 3y agoCan't one value both social media and privacy? I don't think we need to be very one-dimensional about this - "either privacy or Facebook". You know, ultimately, you can choose to not share that much with Facebook. There are tools for privacy that don't let Facebook get too much from you. The easiest one is clearing cookies automatically in a browser to disrupt long-term tracking. Beyond that, there are VPNs and burner phone numbers. I feel like people are not as powerless against Facebook as you might mean to say, and it's not that hard to care about privacy and value Facebook.
- jqpabc123 3y agoHello Facebook marketing. Facebook has a very long history with privacy that speaks for itself.
- gaius_baltar 3y agoHope I did not wander out of the non-editorializing guidelines, but summarizing that toot in 80 chars is not trivial.
- smashah 3y ago....and they send legal threats and harassment to 15 year old OSS project maintainers.
- distantsounds 3y agowould be helpful to post the actual link from the EFF.
- kristianpaul 3y agohttps://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2023/09/how-turn-googles-privacy-sandbox-ad-tracking-and-why-you-should https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2023/09/how-turn-googles-priva...
- GuB-42 3y agoA completely unremarkable article. By that I don't mean it is bad, just that it is business as usual for the EFF. The article is expected and not particularly provocative. There are dozens like this on the EFF own Facebook page. That's what makes me think the content of the article and the fact it comes from the EFF doesn't have much to do with the blocking.
- bri3d 3y agoIt's always worth thinking a little more about these things than "Facebook is blocking EFF privacy tips." Maybe: * This account already scored poorly on spamminess and attempting to post a bare link (with no content) on their page pushed them over the edge? * The EFF Privacy Tips link was somehow used in a parallel spam campaign, or some characteristic of the page itself causes it to be flagged as spammy? * Something about this specific browser session was flagged, preventing posting? (this might go along with the No Violations observation about the page). I find it much more interesting to try to reverse engineer these strange behaviors of some spam detection systems than to just chalk them up to a "Facebook hates the EFF" conspiracy theory - if this happened to me, I'd be doing some more tests to try to see what's up.
- Eumenes 3y agoStop giving FB the benefit of the doubt
- madsmith 3y agoHaving worked at Facebook, albeit a long time ago. It’s far more likely that a conflict of events caused a false positive of an Automated spam system than Facebook giving a crap about privacy campaigns that hurt revenue. But alas, we humans love our conspiracy theories because they tell a more interesting story.
- guax 3y agoI agree. I don't think Facebook thinks for a second about privacy related issues.
- freedomben 3y agoI love the EFF, but let's be honest: they're not a threat to Facebook. It's like the elephant thinking about the ant. I would be overjoyed if someday that changes, but that still wouldn't be relevant to a flagging today.
- jrmg 3y agoIt’s not at all clear to me that the account in question isn’t just banned from posting links, and they happened to try to post this one. And without more evidence, that seems more plausible to me than Facebook banning links to the EFF.
- draw_down 3y ago[dead]
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- pacifika 3y agoYou can get upset that the net is closing around you … or talk somewhere less user hostile.
- 15457345234 3y agoIt's so funny that literally every single other post in this thread is wordy overly politely-written 'this was absolutely a false-positive and we should really give the benefit of the doubt waffle waffle waffle' comments that just reek of AI with that cloying overly sanctimonious tone you can detect with the briefest of glances Actually it's not at all funny, it's horrifying It's getting a bit depressing that the only thing worth replying to so many comments is 'Bot.'
- whatamidoingyo 3y agoThey did this years ago (possibly 2015) on a UCLA article I tried to post about Facebook censorship. I posted a clip on YouTube (trying to find it, will edit if I do).
- clnq 3y agoIt could just be me, but I feel the offence/outrage culture is very tiring on social media. It seems like certain parts of the internet have become a sponge of human frustration, often misdirected, often unnecessary. Is it healthy for us to keep consuming these micro-outrages all the time?
- 93po 3y agoNope. Which is why I only read HN briefly every day and avoid pretty much everything else including corporate news
- colordrops 3y agoDo you not see the irony of the outrage here being precisely against one the social media outlets that generates attention-grabbing outrage culture?
- clnq 3y agoI don't blame you for seeing this as outrage or offence, or me victimizing the users of social media. But I think you're labelling this as outrage because we're so used to seeing outrage online. No, this is just an observation with no strong emotions or reactions attached - it's tiring and it's probably unhealthy. No one has wronged me or caused offence to me. If anything, it's self-inflicted. We all ultimately decide what we consume. Anyways, your comment was interesting in the way you see this, and I think, illustrative of the point I was making. Outrage online has become so normal it is to be expected.
- colordrops 3y agoI think you misunderstand me. If I understood your original comment, you are saying you are tired of the social media outrage culture, with the complaint about the EFF blockage being an example of said outrage. I was just saying that it's ironic that the outrage is being directed towards Facebook, which is usually the generator of social media outrage, and out of all the outrage you complain about, it's the one directed at the source.
- harles 3y agoThe editorialized title here seems deceptive at best. Near as I can tell from the tiny post, the user in question was restricted for something and then posted screenshots of trying to post links after being restricted. Unless we live in a world of time reversed causality, there’s no evidence for that sensational headline.
- factorymoo 3y agoAs someone who has worked at big social media companies, I can say the conventional wisdom about content moderation being a carefully planned process is off-base. The reality is that moderation relies heavily on imperfect machine learning models and overworked human reviewers making rushed judgments on hundreds of cases per day. There's no meticulous strategy document mapping out the pros and cons before banning accounts that upset the company. Mistakes inevitably happen when relying on this combination of flawed automation and human reviewers who are stretched too thin. The moderation policies may seem arbitrary or politically motivated from the outside, but much of it comes down to hasty human error and buggy algorithms rather than some malicious scheme.
- compiler-guy 3y agoAssume for the sake of argument that facebook users make one-million posts a day. Assume it's spam detector is 99.999% accurate at telling if a given post is spam or not. That's 10 false positives _every single day_. And in all likelihood their spam detector isn't that good, and there are many, many more posts than that. Every now and then one of those false positives will be an interesting web site or one that feels really obviously wrong. But that's just what statistics does. When you take enough samples from a distribution, even very low-probability events happen. Sometimes something will feel really out of the ordinary and wrong, but it happened entirely by chance. If there were evidence of systematic decisions like this, it would be more of a story. But what we have here is just a big nothing-burger.
- boomboomsubban 3y agoDoes Facebook still consider distrowatch spam? It was posted here a couple years ago now, and I was skeptical then and I've always wondered whether it was true/fixed. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29529312 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29529312
- DueDilligence 3y ago[dead]
- garba_dlm 3y agoyou know that semi-old saying "if you're not paying you're the product" well it's subtly wrong but points in the overall direction. the capacity to manipulate this kind of stuff, to sabotage ideologies such as EFFs privacy ideology IS the product. governments spend money for this, it's a product from governments to other governments. though I suppose this is an instance of FB dogfooding
- tamimio 3y agoClassic fecebook tactics, purely evil company leeching off of its user’s privacy, feels like it’s the cliche evil corp you read or see in scifi novels/movies.