5 ms·

Zuckerberg Seeks Personal Privacy, Then Removes Online Privacy Feature

61 points by talhof8 13y ago

Havoc 13y ago
Well he did famously say that users (are) “dumb f*#ks” for trusting him with their data.
- ryanmerket 13y ago
  Users are dumb f%#@$ for trusting ANYONE with their data.
- deleted 13y ago
  [deleted]
bsullivan01 13y ago
Zuckerberg Seeks Personal Privacy, Then Removes Online Privacy Feature Zuckerberg Pays $30 Million For Personal Privacy, Then Removes Online Privacy Feature. The evil twins, Google and FB, got almost nothing on me because I rarely post and use them from a separate browser.
- TomaszZielinski 13y ago
  Fuzzy matching does wonders.
gtCameron 13y ago
It's a high bar to clear in today's media, but I think this might be the dumbest article I have ever read. I guess the original headline "Rich guy in big house doesn't want close neighbors" didn't generate enough Internet Outrage (tm).
blakesterz 13y ago
"But as Facebook makes it more difficult for users to maintain privacy, its co-founder is taking drastic measures to protect his own. Ironic timing, isn't it?" Doesn't it seem like we're conflating 2 really different definitions of privacy here? One being online, on facebook, and the other offline, at home. This doesn't seem ironic at all, we're talking about one person's decision to do something that he thinks will make his life better vs. a corporation's decision to try and make more money. (I'm in no way defending Facebook here, just seems silly to think these 2 things are at all really related. It's like saying Ronald McDonald at a vegetable and it's ironic McDonalds just introduced a triple giant bacon burger or something)
- selmnoo 13y ago
  I see what you're getting at, and I kind of agree, but the comparison isn't altogether wrong, it's just a little stretched. Anyway, we should really make something out of the frustration we feel over getting our privacy rights trampled upon by the likes of Facebook. What can we do to bring it down? Make privacy-oriented alternative networking sites? Maybe ones that operate on a pay-model, so there isn't a grotesque incentive to violate basic rights? Or maybe tell Facebook to buckle down and change direction in favor of the common user's interests?
- oscargrouch 13y ago
  Yeah the logic behind it its kind of flawed and are trying to sensacionalize over the issue.. But the two things together can make us think about the privacy issue.. the thing is, we all need privacy, and need to have control of it.. thats what we value in real life.. In the virtual life front we dont have that sort of control, we need to obey whatever they think we should do.. we dont have the control.. that is the irony when we compare how much we can control privacy in real life vs. in virtual life.. and in the virtual case; who really controls it, is a corporation.. they dont allow us to control our own privacy.. Once you adopt their social networks its not harsh or ilusory to say they control us more than we think
RafiqM 13y ago
Bit of a stretch, no? I agree that any removal of privacy features isn't good, but what Zuckerberg did was stop someone else cashing in on his name/reputation. Not entirely about privacy.
- bsullivan01 13y ago
  but what Zuckerberg did was stop someone else cashing in on his name/reputation. That's the official line, it may not be entirely true. Although super rich, he still has the "I wear a hoodie" shtick so he might have felt his average guy rep going down if seen as buying 4-5 houses to build a bigger one.
  - jack-r-abbit 13y ago
    but he's not building a bigger one. He is leasing those newly purchased houses back to their owners. So he has paid to ensure he knows exactly who is living next door to him.
    - bsullivan01 13y ago
      but he's not building a bigger one....yet.
      - jack-r-abbit 13y ago
        There is an endless list of things he has not done... yet. We should focus on what is he is doing... which is leasing the homes back to the previous owners.
DigitalSea 13y ago
This is like comparing apples to oranges here. Two completely different forms of privacy, it was a nice attempt, but this just came across as a desperate attempt to try and write an article that didn't really make an impact.
melling 13y ago
It would be great if we could limit the spin on HN. I had to go to the WSJ to get the fact that he bought the houses then leased them back. He got wind of a developer considering buying up nearby property, developing it then selling the location next to Zuckerberg as a "feature." It might not change your mind about any irony, but it's certainly worth mentioning.
- rwmj 13y ago
  Off topic, but is living next to Mark Zuckerberg a thing? You can ask him over aperitifs for an angel investment in your social network company, is that the thinking?
  - fiatmoney 13y ago
    More indicative of "this is likely a Good Neighborhood with low crime, good schools, etc. if a man who can live anywhere lives here".
Sagat 13y ago
No matter how many times people bring up privacy issues or the "haha users are dumb fucks" quote in order to characterize Zuckerberg as evil, the fact remains that he has absurd amounts of money and power and is likely to remain that way for a very, very long time if medical science continues to advance in leaps and bounds. It's his company, and he can do what he wants. Your opinions are insignificant to him. We as a society need to start learning how to deal with this, accept our place in the food chain, and obey those more fortunate. We created Zuckerberg ourselves by collectively choosing to use Facebook to regulate our social lives; we must now accept the consequences and embrace the loss of our rights. Zuckerberg will forever win, and you will forever lose. He will own you for the entire duration of your life. You won't enjoy it, and neither will I, but it is a fact as immutable as the human condition itself.
- antoko 13y ago
  Or you know, you can just not use facebook. I closed my account 4 years ago. Never looked back.
  - Sagat 13y ago
    You might not use it, but the websites you frequent and the people you socialize with will do so, and in some cases will be unable to live without it. You can try to escape, but you will still be within Zuckerberg's grasp, no matter how far you hide. He will hang over your life like a digitized sword of Damocles. Deep down, no matter what you tell yourself, you know you belong to him. His shadow will color every single thought you will ever conceive and every movement you will ever make. If you want a vision of the future, imagine Zuckerberg's boot stamping on a human face - forever.
    - de_monkey 13y ago
      no offence, but you sound like you've been brainwashed
      - Sagat 13y ago
filestar 13y ago
Reminds me of when CNET reporters got blacklisted by Google in 2005 for posting publicly available information about their CEO. http://money.cnn.com/2005/08/05/technology/google_cnet/ http://money.cnn.com/2005/08/05/technology/google_cnet/ Also, this line from that article is very interesting and almost prescient, given that it was in 2005 and the events that transpired since then making every claim below true. >Cnet reported that some analysts fear it is becoming a great risk to privacy, because it would be a tempting target for hackers, "zealous government investigators, or even a Google insider who falls short of the company's ethics," the article said.
pasbesoin 13y ago
I live close to an area where, in a previous "gilded age", business magnates acquired large tracts upon which they established estates. Over the subsequent decades, many of those were sold off and turned into -- often quite nice -- housing... well, "tracts", doesn't really fit. Nor does "sub-division"; the use of that word came later and also does not connote the upper scale nature many of these areas. (Hey, as I suddenly recall, my home is more modest and is not located in the heart of the area I'm thinking of, but I live on what was formerly a substantial country estate of one of these magnates.) Anyway, my point is, the trend for several decades has been that old estates have been broken up into smaller units. Sometimes, a smaller "core" of the estate remains as an actual estate, perhaps even in the original family, but land-wise, people have "downscaled". Now... We in the U.S. appear to on the verge of having a new round of estate creation. Gilded age, indeed.

61 points by talhof8 13y ago

Havoc 13y ago

Well he did famously say that users (are) “dumb f*#ks” for trusting him with their data.

ryanmerket 13y ago
Users are dumb f%#@$ for trusting ANYONE with their data.
deleted 13y ago
[deleted]

bsullivan01 13y ago

Zuckerberg Seeks Personal Privacy, Then Removes Online Privacy Feature Zuckerberg Pays $30 Million For Personal Privacy, Then Removes Online Privacy Feature. The evil twins, Google and FB, got almost nothing on me because I rarely post and use them from a separate browser.

TomaszZielinski 13y ago
Fuzzy matching does wonders.

gtCameron 13y ago

It's a high bar to clear in today's media, but I think this might be the dumbest article I have ever read. I guess the original headline "Rich guy in big house doesn't want close neighbors" didn't generate enough Internet Outrage (tm).

blakesterz 13y ago

"But as Facebook makes it more difficult for users to maintain privacy, its co-founder is taking drastic measures to protect his own. Ironic timing, isn't it?" Doesn't it seem like we're conflating 2 really different definitions of privacy here? One being online, on facebook, and the other offline, at home. This doesn't seem ironic at all, we're talking about one person's decision to do something that he thinks will make his life better vs. a corporation's decision to try and make more money. (I'm in no way defending Facebook here, just seems silly to think these 2 things are at all really related. It's like saying Ronald McDonald at a vegetable and it's ironic McDonalds just introduced a triple giant bacon burger or something)

selmnoo 13y ago
I see what you're getting at, and I kind of agree, but the comparison isn't altogether wrong, it's just a little stretched. Anyway, we should really make something out of the frustration we feel over getting our privacy rights trampled upon by the likes of Facebook. What can we do to bring it down? Make privacy-oriented alternative networking sites? Maybe ones that operate on a pay-model, so there isn't a grotesque incentive to violate basic rights? Or maybe tell Facebook to buckle down and change direction in favor of the common user's interests?
oscargrouch 13y ago
Yeah the logic behind it its kind of flawed and are trying to sensacionalize over the issue.. But the two things together can make us think about the privacy issue.. the thing is, we all need privacy, and need to have control of it.. thats what we value in real life.. In the virtual life front we dont have that sort of control, we need to obey whatever they think we should do.. we dont have the control.. that is the irony when we compare how much we can control privacy in real life vs. in virtual life.. and in the virtual case; who really controls it, is a corporation.. they dont allow us to control our own privacy.. Once you adopt their social networks its not harsh or ilusory to say they control us more than we think

RafiqM 13y ago

Bit of a stretch, no? I agree that any removal of privacy features isn't good, but what Zuckerberg did was stop someone else cashing in on his name/reputation. Not entirely about privacy.

bsullivan01 13y ago
but what Zuckerberg did was stop someone else cashing in on his name/reputation. That's the official line, it may not be entirely true. Although super rich, he still has the "I wear a hoodie" shtick so he might have felt his average guy rep going down if seen as buying 4-5 houses to build a bigger one.
- jack-r-abbit 13y ago
  but he's not building a bigger one. He is leasing those newly purchased houses back to their owners. So he has paid to ensure he knows exactly who is living next door to him.
  - bsullivan01 13y ago
    but he's not building a bigger one....yet.
    - jack-r-abbit 13y ago
      There is an endless list of things he has not done... yet. We should focus on what is he is doing... which is leasing the homes back to the previous owners.

DigitalSea 13y ago

This is like comparing apples to oranges here. Two completely different forms of privacy, it was a nice attempt, but this just came across as a desperate attempt to try and write an article that didn't really make an impact.

melling 13y ago

It would be great if we could limit the spin on HN. I had to go to the WSJ to get the fact that he bought the houses then leased them back. He got wind of a developer considering buying up nearby property, developing it then selling the location next to Zuckerberg as a "feature." It might not change your mind about any irony, but it's certainly worth mentioning.

rwmj 13y ago
Off topic, but is living next to Mark Zuckerberg a thing? You can ask him over aperitifs for an angel investment in your social network company, is that the thinking?
- fiatmoney 13y ago
  More indicative of "this is likely a Good Neighborhood with low crime, good schools, etc. if a man who can live anywhere lives here".

Sagat 13y ago

No matter how many times people bring up privacy issues or the "haha users are dumb fucks" quote in order to characterize Zuckerberg as evil, the fact remains that he has absurd amounts of money and power and is likely to remain that way for a very, very long time if medical science continues to advance in leaps and bounds. It's his company, and he can do what he wants. Your opinions are insignificant to him. We as a society need to start learning how to deal with this, accept our place in the food chain, and obey those more fortunate. We created Zuckerberg ourselves by collectively choosing to use Facebook to regulate our social lives; we must now accept the consequences and embrace the loss of our rights. Zuckerberg will forever win, and you will forever lose. He will own you for the entire duration of your life. You won't enjoy it, and neither will I, but it is a fact as immutable as the human condition itself.

antoko 13y ago
Or you know, you can just not use facebook. I closed my account 4 years ago. Never looked back.
- Sagat 13y ago
  You might not use it, but the websites you frequent and the people you socialize with will do so, and in some cases will be unable to live without it. You can try to escape, but you will still be within Zuckerberg's grasp, no matter how far you hide. He will hang over your life like a digitized sword of Damocles. Deep down, no matter what you tell yourself, you know you belong to him. His shadow will color every single thought you will ever conceive and every movement you will ever make. If you want a vision of the future, imagine Zuckerberg's boot stamping on a human face - forever.
  - de_monkey 13y ago
    no offence, but you sound like you've been brainwashed
    - Sagat 13y ago

filestar 13y ago

Reminds me of when CNET reporters got blacklisted by Google in 2005 for posting publicly available information about their CEO. http://money.cnn.com/2005/08/05/technology/google_cnet/ http://money.cnn.com/2005/08/05/technology/google_cnet/ Also, this line from that article is very interesting and almost prescient, given that it was in 2005 and the events that transpired since then making every claim below true. >Cnet reported that some analysts fear it is becoming a great risk to privacy, because it would be a tempting target for hackers, "zealous government investigators, or even a Google insider who falls short of the company's ethics," the article said.

pasbesoin 13y ago

I live close to an area where, in a previous "gilded age", business magnates acquired large tracts upon which they established estates. Over the subsequent decades, many of those were sold off and turned into -- often quite nice -- housing... well, "tracts", doesn't really fit. Nor does "sub-division"; the use of that word came later and also does not connote the upper scale nature many of these areas. (Hey, as I suddenly recall, my home is more modest and is not located in the heart of the area I'm thinking of, but I live on what was formerly a substantial country estate of one of these magnates.) Anyway, my point is, the trend for several decades has been that old estates have been broken up into smaller units. Sometimes, a smaller "core" of the estate remains as an actual estate, perhaps even in the original family, but land-wise, people have "downscaled". Now... We in the U.S. appear to on the verge of having a new round of estate creation. Gilded age, indeed.