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Anyone trusting Facebook to follow basic human decency and, yes, laws, is a fool.

by renegade-otter 9mo ago

dang 9mo ago
Maybe so, but please don't post unsubstantive comments to Hacker News. We're trying for something different here.
- renegade-otter 9mo ago
  Point taken, but I feel like going into details at this stage is redundant. There have been probably hundreds of discussions on this site regarding this topic. Books have been written about Facebook's and Zuckerberg's absent moral compass. To wit, from three days ago: https://www.msn.com/en-in/money/news/meta-ceo-mark-zuckerberg-rejected-turn-off-switch-for-teen-ai-chatbots-lawsuit-alleges/ar-AA1Vavum https://www.msn.com/en-in/money/news/meta-ceo-mark-zuckerber... "While Zuckerberg reportedly wanted to prevent "explicit" conversations with younger teens, a February 2024 meeting summary shows he believed Meta should be "less restrictive than proposed" and wanted to "allow adults to engage in racier conversation on topics like sex." He also rejected parental controls that would have let families disable the AI feature entirely. Nick Clegg, Meta's former head of global policy, questioned the approach in internal emails, asking if the company really wanted these products "known for" sexual interactions with teens, warning of "inevitable societal backlash."
  - dang 9mo ago
    Let's assume you're right that going into details is redundant. In that case, however, so is the generic putdown. Put differently: even if you don't owe megacorps that don't follow basic human decency better, you owe this community better if you're participating in it. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
  - Revolution1120 9mo ago
    Over a decade ago, when Facebook held a monopoly, having one's first sexual experience at age 12 or even earlier was an incredibly prestigious and fashionable thing. If Zuckerberg truly held this view, it wouldn't be surprising at all; it would even be considered perfectly reasonable. And those who want to censor these things aren't leftists, but genuine conservatives. Despite the efforts of Musk and other Silicon Valley figures to distort the definition of conservative through their propaganda, and even with many people having short memories, their lies are easily exposed. Unless "having sex at age 12" is a long-standing American traditional value, it's no closer to conservatism than the so-called Muslim immigrants. Looking back now, the propaganda advocating for sex at age 12 may very well have been a carefully orchestrated global pedophile ideology infiltration by elite pedophiles of Epstein's class. It wasn't limited to the Americas or Europe; it was also widespread and accepted in China, Japan, South Korea, Taiwan, and Southeast Asia. After Epstein's death in 2019, has such propaganda decreased significantly? Is this a coincidence? It's very likely not a coincidence. This argument is worth exploring; following this line of thought might uncover even more valuable research on field of deep state. While Epstein was a billionaire, he wasn't exceptionally wealthy on paper and shouldn't have possessed such immense influence and control. Therefore, there's only one possibility is profound: Epstein was Satoshi Nakamoto!
Forgeties79 9mo ago
They got caught torrenting unbelievable amounts of content, an act that committed even just a few times can get my home Internet shut down with no recourse (best outcome). Literally nothing happened. Combine the fact that nothing legally significant ever happens to them with zuckerburg’s colossal ego and complete lack of ethical foundation, and you have quite the recipe. And I’m not even getting into the obvious negative social/political repercussions that have come directly from Facebook and their total lack of accountability/care. They make the world worse. Aside from the inconvenience for hobbyist communities and other groups, all of which should leave Facebook anyway, we would lose nothing of value if Facebook was shut down today. The world would get slightly better.
- gruez 9mo ago
  >an act that committed even just a few times can get my home Internet shut down with no recourse (best outcome). No, the best (and also most likely) outcome is you using a VPN and nothing happens, like 99.9% of pirates out there. >Literally nothing happened. Isn't there a lawsuit in the works?
  - Forgeties79 9mo ago
    If you have to do a thing that obscures your act it doesn’t change the fact that there are rules for me and not them. We know for a fact they did it. Did their ISP threaten them? Did they get their internet service shut off? Edit: they already won their first case in June against authors. I am very curious to see how that lawsuit goes. Obviously we don’t know the results yet but I would be incredibly surprised to see them lose and/or have to “undo” the training. That’s a difficult world to imagine, especially under the current US admin. Smart money is the damage is done and they’ll find some new way to be awful or otherwise break rules we can’t.
    - gruez 9mo ago
      >If you have to do a thing that obscures your act it doesn’t change the fact that there are rules for me and not them. We know for a fact they did it. Did their ISP threaten them? Did they get their internet service shut off? Is there any indication they didn't use a VPN? If they did use a VPN, how is it "there are rules for me and not them", given that anyone can also use VPN to pirate with impunity?
xvector 9mo ago
Anyone blindly believing every random allegation is also a fool, especially when the app in question has been thoroughly reverse engineered and you can freely check for yourself that it's using the same protocol as Signal for encryption
- jlarocco 9mo ago
  That raises the question of why not just use Signal and avoid a company whose founder thinks we're all "dumbfucks" and has a long history of scandals and privacy violations? The evidence is pretty clear that Facebook wants to do everything they legally can to track and monitor people, and they're perfectly okay crossing the line and going to court to find the boundaries. Using a company like that for encrypted messaging seems like an unnecessary risk. Maybe they're not decrypting it, but they're undoubtedly tracking everything else about the conversation because that's what they do.
- gherkinnn 9mo ago
  Allegations against a company who circumvented Android's security to track users? I don't have any proof that Meta stores WhatsApp messages but I feel it in my bones that at the very least tried to do so. And if ever that comes to light, precisely nobody will be surprised. https://cybersecuritynews.com/track-android-users-covertly/ https://cybersecuritynews.com/track-android-users-covertly/
  - gruez 9mo ago
    >And if ever that comes to light, precisely nobody will be surprised. The amount of ambient cynicism on the internet basically makes this a meaningless statement. You could plausibly make the same claim for tons of other conspiracy theories, eg. JFK was assassinated by the CIA/FBI, Bush did 9/11, covid was intentionally engineered by the chinese/US government, etc.
    - gherkinnn 9mo ago
      Meta storing WhatsApp messages requires one mental leap: they found a secret way to hoover up WhatsApp messages. Everything else is their MO, including breaking systems to their advantage and having absolutely no scruples. On the other hand, Occam's razor can barely keep up with the mental gymnastics required to paint Bush (or even Cheney) as the mastermind behind 9/11.

Anyone trusting Facebook to follow basic human decency and, yes, laws, is a fool.

dang 9mo ago

Maybe so, but please don't post unsubstantive comments to Hacker News. We're trying for something different here.

renegade-otter 9mo ago
Point taken, but I feel like going into details at this stage is redundant. There have been probably hundreds of discussions on this site regarding this topic. Books have been written about Facebook's and Zuckerberg's absent moral compass. To wit, from three days ago: https://www.msn.com/en-in/money/news/meta-ceo-mark-zuckerberg-rejected-turn-off-switch-for-teen-ai-chatbots-lawsuit-alleges/ar-AA1Vavum https://www.msn.com/en-in/money/news/meta-ceo-mark-zuckerber... "While Zuckerberg reportedly wanted to prevent "explicit" conversations with younger teens, a February 2024 meeting summary shows he believed Meta should be "less restrictive than proposed" and wanted to "allow adults to engage in racier conversation on topics like sex." He also rejected parental controls that would have let families disable the AI feature entirely. Nick Clegg, Meta's former head of global policy, questioned the approach in internal emails, asking if the company really wanted these products "known for" sexual interactions with teens, warning of "inevitable societal backlash."
- dang 9mo ago
  Let's assume you're right that going into details is redundant. In that case, however, so is the generic putdown. Put differently: even if you don't owe megacorps that don't follow basic human decency better, you owe this community better if you're participating in it. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
- Revolution1120 9mo ago
  Over a decade ago, when Facebook held a monopoly, having one's first sexual experience at age 12 or even earlier was an incredibly prestigious and fashionable thing. If Zuckerberg truly held this view, it wouldn't be surprising at all; it would even be considered perfectly reasonable. And those who want to censor these things aren't leftists, but genuine conservatives. Despite the efforts of Musk and other Silicon Valley figures to distort the definition of conservative through their propaganda, and even with many people having short memories, their lies are easily exposed. Unless "having sex at age 12" is a long-standing American traditional value, it's no closer to conservatism than the so-called Muslim immigrants. Looking back now, the propaganda advocating for sex at age 12 may very well have been a carefully orchestrated global pedophile ideology infiltration by elite pedophiles of Epstein's class. It wasn't limited to the Americas or Europe; it was also widespread and accepted in China, Japan, South Korea, Taiwan, and Southeast Asia. After Epstein's death in 2019, has such propaganda decreased significantly? Is this a coincidence? It's very likely not a coincidence. This argument is worth exploring; following this line of thought might uncover even more valuable research on field of deep state. While Epstein was a billionaire, he wasn't exceptionally wealthy on paper and shouldn't have possessed such immense influence and control. Therefore, there's only one possibility is profound: Epstein was Satoshi Nakamoto!

Forgeties79 9mo ago

They got caught torrenting unbelievable amounts of content, an act that committed even just a few times can get my home Internet shut down with no recourse (best outcome). Literally nothing happened. Combine the fact that nothing legally significant ever happens to them with zuckerburg’s colossal ego and complete lack of ethical foundation, and you have quite the recipe. And I’m not even getting into the obvious negative social/political repercussions that have come directly from Facebook and their total lack of accountability/care. They make the world worse. Aside from the inconvenience for hobbyist communities and other groups, all of which should leave Facebook anyway, we would lose nothing of value if Facebook was shut down today. The world would get slightly better.

gruez 9mo ago
>an act that committed even just a few times can get my home Internet shut down with no recourse (best outcome). No, the best (and also most likely) outcome is you using a VPN and nothing happens, like 99.9% of pirates out there. >Literally nothing happened. Isn't there a lawsuit in the works?
- Forgeties79 9mo ago
  If you have to do a thing that obscures your act it doesn’t change the fact that there are rules for me and not them. We know for a fact they did it. Did their ISP threaten them? Did they get their internet service shut off? Edit: they already won their first case in June against authors. I am very curious to see how that lawsuit goes. Obviously we don’t know the results yet but I would be incredibly surprised to see them lose and/or have to “undo” the training. That’s a difficult world to imagine, especially under the current US admin. Smart money is the damage is done and they’ll find some new way to be awful or otherwise break rules we can’t.
  - gruez 9mo ago
    >If you have to do a thing that obscures your act it doesn’t change the fact that there are rules for me and not them. We know for a fact they did it. Did their ISP threaten them? Did they get their internet service shut off? Is there any indication they didn't use a VPN? If they did use a VPN, how is it "there are rules for me and not them", given that anyone can also use VPN to pirate with impunity?

xvector 9mo ago

Anyone blindly believing every random allegation is also a fool, especially when the app in question has been thoroughly reverse engineered and you can freely check for yourself that it's using the same protocol as Signal for encryption

jlarocco 9mo ago
That raises the question of why not just use Signal and avoid a company whose founder thinks we're all "dumbfucks" and has a long history of scandals and privacy violations? The evidence is pretty clear that Facebook wants to do everything they legally can to track and monitor people, and they're perfectly okay crossing the line and going to court to find the boundaries. Using a company like that for encrypted messaging seems like an unnecessary risk. Maybe they're not decrypting it, but they're undoubtedly tracking everything else about the conversation because that's what they do.
gherkinnn 9mo ago
Allegations against a company who circumvented Android's security to track users? I don't have any proof that Meta stores WhatsApp messages but I feel it in my bones that at the very least tried to do so. And if ever that comes to light, precisely nobody will be surprised. https://cybersecuritynews.com/track-android-users-covertly/ https://cybersecuritynews.com/track-android-users-covertly/
- gruez 9mo ago
  >And if ever that comes to light, precisely nobody will be surprised. The amount of ambient cynicism on the internet basically makes this a meaningless statement. You could plausibly make the same claim for tons of other conspiracy theories, eg. JFK was assassinated by the CIA/FBI, Bush did 9/11, covid was intentionally engineered by the chinese/US government, etc.
  - gherkinnn 9mo ago
    Meta storing WhatsApp messages requires one mental leap: they found a secret way to hoover up WhatsApp messages. Everything else is their MO, including breaking systems to their advantage and having absolutely no scruples. On the other hand, Occam's razor can barely keep up with the mental gymnastics required to paint Bush (or even Cheney) as the mastermind behind 9/11.