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This actually tripped up a friend of mine a couple of years ago. She left a comment on a photo of someone holding a toy gun saying "You look like <insert-name-o
by sriramk 14y ago
This actually tripped up a friend of mine a couple of years ago. She left a comment on a photo of someone holding a toy gun saying "You look like <insert-name-of-well-known-terrorist>" followed by a smiley. Within hours, she got a message and a phone call from someone claiming to be working for FB's security who asked her some basic questions on why she left that comment. The whole experience scared her from using FB for a long time.
I thought the whole thing was adhoc and confusing. Anyone who saw the comment could easily see that it was a joke. Also, if it wasn't a joke, why is FB calling her and not someone from law enforcement?
Would love it if someone from FB here on HN could comment.
- nbarlow 14y agoIt sounds like your friend got trolled. We don't call users whom we suspect are criminals, and we certainly wouldn't call someone we suspect of being a terrorist. Especially on the grounds of a terrorism joke - believe it or not, we do have a sense of humor. I work for Facebook's User Operations team and, as the Reuters article says, this specific tool targets the (thankfully) rare cases of adults trying to use the site for the purpose of grooming kids. We use advanced technical systems to specifically identify grooming situations and strive for a low false positive rate. We have strong internal controls around these tools to prevent misuse or abuse, and stringent guidelines for the way we cooperate with law enforcement. For whatever it's worth, I have been at Facebook for several years, and I am so amazed every time we're able to help a child avert an absolute worst-case scenario. These cases are rare, but they do happen, and I'm grateful we have the tools necessary to keep the worst of the worst from unfolding in the real world.
- pilif 14y agoYou shouldn't be striving for a low false positive rate, but for a zero false positive rate. "Think of the children" doesn't rationalize even one wrongly accused person - especially in today's society where an accusation is enough to completely ruin ones life.
- taligent 14y agoMaybe they live in the real world where a zero false positive rate simply doesn't exist. And be serious. Getting asked a question from Facebook is hardly going to ruin someone's life is it now ?
- pilif 14y agoOP said they aren't calling users but passing information on to law enforcement. Getting a call by Facebook for a bad joke is one thing. Getting the door busted in by police and subsequently shamed and fired from your job because of a bad joke you thought you made in private is another. in case of law enforcement, the only acceptable false positive rate is zero.
- jiggy2011 14y agoThe only way to achieve this would be to have no law enforcement.
- tatsuke95 14y ago>"a zero false positive rate simply doesn't exist." Laughable. It does when Facebook are going out of their way to read something that is absolutely none of their business. You can easily obtain zero false positives by not turning anything over the the police.
- richardw 14y agoI'm very sure a lot of things have to happen before a weird private message thread ends up in an accusation that ruins someone's life. A false negative could ruin the child's life just as easily, so I suspect most parents might think that's more important. It's not necessary to choose either "privacy uber alles" or "think of the children". As with most things in life, there's likely a good balance somewhere between the extremes.
- flyinRyan 14y ago>A false negative could ruin the child's life just as easily For example? A child being preyed on by a pedophile? What would stop that from happening in real life? Maybe we should set up cameras every five feet since obviously if we could stop it (no matter how immoral we have to act to do so) we have an obligation to, right?
- Produce 14y agoSpeaking for the internet and most of humanity here - go fuck yourself and get a real job. Anyone who argues that everyone should be spied upon in order to protect a minority is an idiot who does not understand the concept of freedom. Privacy is a right.
- _debug_ 14y agoOP wrote in another message that "her account got temporarily disabled within a short time of her posting that comment". Is that possible for non-Facebook employees to effect somehow? If not, then it was one of your colleagues, not a troll.
- sriramk 14y agoI'm the OP. It could be possible that someone knew how to get into her account and had just done a self disable/enable. Far fetched though.
- HeyLaughingBoy 14y agoConsidering how dumb most people's passwords are, it's likely easier than you think.
- flyinRyan 14y ago> I am so amazed every time we're able to help a child avert an absolute worst-case scenario. These cases are rare, but they do happen, and I'm grateful we have the tools necessary to keep the worst of the worst from unfolding in the real world. Example? Because it sounds like justification bullshit.
- qq66 14y agoIt could also be a "friend" who saw the status update and had a sick sense of humor...
- rationalbeats 14y agoHow could the friend even find a way of contacting someone at facebook. That is near impossible.
- gojomo 14y agoThere's almost always been some form of 'flag'/'report as inappropriate' button.
- slig 14y agoI think he meant the friend called her pretending to be from FB, as a in phone prank.
- sriramk 14y agoNope, her account got temporarily disabled within a short time of her posting that comment, got unlocked after a day or two (I'm not sure how long it took to become available). Sure, some friend could theoretically have found a way to get into her account, done the locking and unlocking but seems pretty far fetched.
- personlurking 14y agoReminds me of Apple sec. pretending to be police in order to track the missing iPhone.
- antidoh 14y agoNever forget.
- einhverfr 14y agowe should have a day of protest doing exactly this to eachother......
- flyinRyan 14y agoWhy didn't your friend just hang up on them? If someone is that stupid, don't give them the time of day. Though, I might ping my lawyer after laughing at them and hanging up just so someone knows if I suddenly disappear.