4 ms·

What in Meta's history would lead you to give them the benefit of the doubt like this?

by roughly 8mo ago

chwahoo 8mo ago
Perhaps I'm ignorant. I know some of the criticism of Meta: many people don't like the way their products are optimized for engagement. I've heard about their weird AI bots interacting on their platform as if they were people. And I know people of all political stripes have had complaints about content moderation and their algorithm. But all of that is within the bounds of the law and their terms of service. None of it would remotely approach something like: bypassing the well-advertised features in the glasses that show when the camera is in use and secretly recording things to train AI. It's hard to imagine any company's lawyers approving something like that. (this sounds like what many commenters believe is happening) FWIW, I suspect this is the relevant section of the Privacy policy: > "When you use the Meta AI service on your AI Glasses (if available for your device), we use your information, like Media and audio recordings of your voice to provide the service." from: https://www.meta.com/legal/privacy-policy/ https://www.meta.com/legal/privacy-policy/ if so, "to provide the service" is doing a lot of work
- awesomeusername 8mo ago
  Please disclose your affiliations
  - chwahoo 8mo ago
    Hah, not meta or anything related
- macNchz 8mo ago
  Meta has consistently and repeatedly shown an absolute lack of respect for user privacy for basically as long as they’ve existed as a company. I’m honestly not certain there’s anything fully out of the question as far as things they might do, regardless of what their policies might say. Two examples that are top of mind… They exploited browser vulnerabilities not unlike malware to track users’ behavior across the web: https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2025/06/protect-yourself-metas-latest-attack-privacy https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2025/06/protect-yourself-metas... They bought a “privacy” VPN app and used it to harvest data, then abused Apple’s enterprise app deployments to continue to ship the app after it was banned from the app store: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Onavo https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Onavo
- 1shooner 8mo ago
  I'm not an expert on all of Meta's historical criminal activity, but just going back a few months: https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2025/08/jury-finds-meta-broke-wiretap-law-by-collecting-data-from-period-tracker-app/ https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2025/08/jury-finds-meta-...
- rebolek 8mo ago
  Optimized for engagement? I guess heroin is "optimized for engagement" too.
- kuschku 8mo ago
  You missed the cases where the facebook app ran a local webserver on your smartphone which the facebook ad trackers would send data to to be able to track you across all websites, breaking GDPR laws and circumventing browser third-party cookie controls?

What in Meta's history would lead you to give them the benefit of the doubt like this?

by roughly 8mo ago

What in Meta's history would lead you to give them the benefit of the doubt like this?

Perhaps I'm ignorant. I know some of the criticism of Meta: many people don't like the way their products are optimized for engagement. I've heard about their weird AI bots interacting on their platform as if they were people. And I know people of all political stripes have had complaints about content moderation and their algorithm. But all of that is within the bounds of the law and their terms of service. None of it would remotely approach something like: bypassing the well-advertised features in the glasses that show when the camera is in use and secretly recording things to train AI. It's hard to imagine any company's lawyers approving something like that. (this sounds like what many commenters believe is happening) FWIW, I suspect this is the relevant section of the Privacy policy: > "When you use the Meta AI service on your AI Glasses (if available for your device), we use your information, like Media and audio recordings of your voice to provide the service." from: https://www.meta.com/legal/privacy-policy/ https://www.meta.com/legal/privacy-policy/ if so, "to provide the service" is doing a lot of work

awesomeusername 8mo ago
Please disclose your affiliations
- chwahoo 8mo ago
  Hah, not meta or anything related
macNchz 8mo ago
Meta has consistently and repeatedly shown an absolute lack of respect for user privacy for basically as long as they’ve existed as a company. I’m honestly not certain there’s anything fully out of the question as far as things they might do, regardless of what their policies might say. Two examples that are top of mind… They exploited browser vulnerabilities not unlike malware to track users’ behavior across the web: https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2025/06/protect-yourself-metas-latest-attack-privacy https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2025/06/protect-yourself-metas... They bought a “privacy” VPN app and used it to harvest data, then abused Apple’s enterprise app deployments to continue to ship the app after it was banned from the app store: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Onavo https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Onavo
1shooner 8mo ago
I'm not an expert on all of Meta's historical criminal activity, but just going back a few months: https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2025/08/jury-finds-meta-broke-wiretap-law-by-collecting-data-from-period-tracker-app/ https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2025/08/jury-finds-meta-...
rebolek 8mo ago
Optimized for engagement? I guess heroin is "optimized for engagement" too.
kuschku 8mo ago
You missed the cases where the facebook app ran a local webserver on your smartphone which the facebook ad trackers would send data to to be able to track you across all websites, breaking GDPR laws and circumventing browser third-party cookie controls?