5 ms·

The recurring Facebook privacy hoax

27 points by SimplyUseless 12y ago

deleted 12y ago
[deleted]
- Kronopath 12y ago
  There are plenty of ways of being critical of something without being inflammatory. In your earlier post, which I assume is this one[0], from the banned account called "wastebook", you refer to everyone who uses Facebook as "narcissistic", imply that they're liars, and state they have no "real friends". That's a massively wide brushstroke to use given the size of Facebook's userbase, and doesn't lead to constructive discussion. The worst part is that it undermines your own point, which is a shame, because when put more sensibly it could actually be reasonable: your argument, once you strip out the vitriol, is that social media is reducing the ability of modern people to nurture deep interpersonal relationships. That's the kind of opinion that can lead to a good discussion, with points to be made on either side, but it's impossible to have that discussion if you start it by pre-emptively insulting everyone who would disagree with you. I can absolutely understand why the mods would choose to immediately ban you, given that it was an insulting comment, the first comment on a new account, and an account which, based on the username, appears to be crafted for the sole purpose of disseminating those insults. All that is enough to ban you, and you don't have to run to the flimsy assertion that your comments on Hacker News are going to be affecting Facebook's stock prices. [0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8852896 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8852896 Edit: For the record, the comment that was deleted was a comment from a throwaway account "warning" people that anyone who would post anything negative about Facebook would get their account hellbanned because "pg and other YCombinator investors have plenty of facebook stock". By the time I hit the "submit" button it had already been deleted. Pardon me for falling into the temptation of feeding the troll, but I felt I could make an interesting point.
  - throwawaydav 12y ago
    I deleted the post because I felt truly stupid afterwards and hoped nobody would see it, my account was actually hellbanned long ago and for a good reason (personal insults). I've just been on a slow boil afterwards and after I posted my thoughts instead of just thinking about them, I realized how childish they were. Also realized I should take a break from HN, if I can't be civilized about commenting here. Sorry.
    - mikeash 12y ago
      Good on you for realizing it! Seriously, not sarcastic. Knowing is half the battle, and all that.
    - Kronopath 12y ago
      A lot of people never have that realization. Good on you for being a better person.
IvyMike 12y ago
Including this link on HN and a few friends on facebook linking to the same article, I've seen five people talking about this hoax. And zero people actually spreading the hoax. Is this a hoax hoax?
- JamyDev 12y ago
  It passed Belgium a few weeks ago, it's actually pretty interesting how it moves through the network :P
  - Fuzzwah 12y ago
    Saw it this week from an Australian friend. It went through a few of the same circle a year or so back too.
- Falling3 12y ago
  I see people being taken by the actual hoax weekly. Maybe your friends just have better critical thinking skills than mine.
- aroberge 12y ago
  I see variations of this, in French and English, every 3 or 4 months or so appearing on some friends posts. Every time, I point out that it is a hoax ... and it doesn't prevent some people from reposting it again some months later. I guess it depends to some extent on how tech-savyy your friends are.
- msisk6 12y ago
  My Facebook feed is mostly non-technical friends and family and I see someone seriously posting the hoax disclaimer weekly.
- mikeash 12y ago
  I wish. I have a fair number of Facebook friends who fall for chemtrails, anti-vaccine propaganda, various wacky alternative medicine, etc. (they have good qualities too!) and this shows up with some regularity among them.
- 12y ago
mutagen 12y ago
The resurgence of the hoax shows that some of our FB friends are gullible and don't understand TOS, copyrights, etc. This is obvious and we probably knew who would fall for it because we used to send Snopes links to them. I think it also shows a deeper unease with the pervasive and fast moving technology and surveillance in their lives. Rather than learning what rights they have, what protection the law does and does give them and what they might be able to do about it, they're happy to imitate what they see others doing in a cargo cultish sort of way. I posted a snarky rewrite [1] of the hoax to my FB feed and got predictable responses. First was a predictable 'its a hoax' from someone that stopped reading at the first sentence. A few lulz and one person who wanted to persist in the disbelief "What if the hoax is a hoax?". [1] http://pastebin.com/m3nkq98N http://pastebin.com/m3nkq98N
MattHeard 12y ago
Couldn't Facebook detect these posts from their keywords and insert a box above or below the post reminding the reader of Facebook's actual copyright terms? Such as: "We wanted to take a moment to remind you: when you post things like photos to Facebook, we do not own them. Click here to read our full terms and conditions for more information."
pavedwalden 12y ago
I understand why this keeps recurring, but the part I can't get my head around is how it started. Who was the first person who posted all that fake legalese? As hoaxes go, it doesn't seem funny enough to have been done for the lulz, so somebody actually wrote all that thinking it would work.
seanp2k2 12y ago
"People think Facebook and Google are sucking up all their personal details so even people who don’t have anything to hide get quite worried. " https://www.aclu.org/blog/national-security/you-may-have-nothing-hide-you-still-have-something-fear https://www.aclu.org/blog/national-security/you-may-have-not...
gnu8 12y ago
This is how it should be done, ideally. Facebook and similar services behave unilaterally, changing their agreements at will while keeping them dense and obscure, and intentionally make it impossible to communicate with them. Therefore, it's reasonable and valid to simply type into whatever text input Facebook provides "I hereby alter our agreement in the following way" and this should be considered valid.
- jeremysmyth 12y ago
  ...and it's reasonable and valid for them (or in fact either party) to have a blanket "We don't accept your modifications and therefore terminate our agreement." Your move.
UrMomReadsHN 12y ago
The thing is - almost everyone lacks any sort of critical thinking skills. You see this everyday with all types of stuff that's why these things spread... Perhaps humans are just bad at critical thinking and skepticism or it is cultural. I'm leaning towards the former.
joshschreuder 12y ago
I wrote a post on this, mainly to give to my friends and explain why posting the status doesn't work. http://joshschreuder.me/owning-what-you-do-online/ http://joshschreuder.me/owning-what-you-do-online/

27 points by SimplyUseless 12y ago

deleted 12y ago

[deleted]

Kronopath 12y ago
There are plenty of ways of being critical of something without being inflammatory. In your earlier post, which I assume is this one[0], from the banned account called "wastebook", you refer to everyone who uses Facebook as "narcissistic", imply that they're liars, and state they have no "real friends". That's a massively wide brushstroke to use given the size of Facebook's userbase, and doesn't lead to constructive discussion. The worst part is that it undermines your own point, which is a shame, because when put more sensibly it could actually be reasonable: your argument, once you strip out the vitriol, is that social media is reducing the ability of modern people to nurture deep interpersonal relationships. That's the kind of opinion that can lead to a good discussion, with points to be made on either side, but it's impossible to have that discussion if you start it by pre-emptively insulting everyone who would disagree with you. I can absolutely understand why the mods would choose to immediately ban you, given that it was an insulting comment, the first comment on a new account, and an account which, based on the username, appears to be crafted for the sole purpose of disseminating those insults. All that is enough to ban you, and you don't have to run to the flimsy assertion that your comments on Hacker News are going to be affecting Facebook's stock prices. [0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8852896 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8852896 Edit: For the record, the comment that was deleted was a comment from a throwaway account "warning" people that anyone who would post anything negative about Facebook would get their account hellbanned because "pg and other YCombinator investors have plenty of facebook stock". By the time I hit the "submit" button it had already been deleted. Pardon me for falling into the temptation of feeding the troll, but I felt I could make an interesting point.
- throwawaydav 12y ago
  I deleted the post because I felt truly stupid afterwards and hoped nobody would see it, my account was actually hellbanned long ago and for a good reason (personal insults). I've just been on a slow boil afterwards and after I posted my thoughts instead of just thinking about them, I realized how childish they were. Also realized I should take a break from HN, if I can't be civilized about commenting here. Sorry.
  - mikeash 12y ago
    Good on you for realizing it! Seriously, not sarcastic. Knowing is half the battle, and all that.
  - Kronopath 12y ago
    A lot of people never have that realization. Good on you for being a better person.

IvyMike 12y ago

Including this link on HN and a few friends on facebook linking to the same article, I've seen five people talking about this hoax. And zero people actually spreading the hoax. Is this a hoax hoax?

JamyDev 12y ago
It passed Belgium a few weeks ago, it's actually pretty interesting how it moves through the network :P
- Fuzzwah 12y ago
  Saw it this week from an Australian friend. It went through a few of the same circle a year or so back too.
Falling3 12y ago
I see people being taken by the actual hoax weekly. Maybe your friends just have better critical thinking skills than mine.
aroberge 12y ago
I see variations of this, in French and English, every 3 or 4 months or so appearing on some friends posts. Every time, I point out that it is a hoax ... and it doesn't prevent some people from reposting it again some months later. I guess it depends to some extent on how tech-savyy your friends are.
msisk6 12y ago
My Facebook feed is mostly non-technical friends and family and I see someone seriously posting the hoax disclaimer weekly.
mikeash 12y ago
I wish. I have a fair number of Facebook friends who fall for chemtrails, anti-vaccine propaganda, various wacky alternative medicine, etc. (they have good qualities too!) and this shows up with some regularity among them.
12y ago

mutagen 12y ago

The resurgence of the hoax shows that some of our FB friends are gullible and don't understand TOS, copyrights, etc. This is obvious and we probably knew who would fall for it because we used to send Snopes links to them. I think it also shows a deeper unease with the pervasive and fast moving technology and surveillance in their lives. Rather than learning what rights they have, what protection the law does and does give them and what they might be able to do about it, they're happy to imitate what they see others doing in a cargo cultish sort of way. I posted a snarky rewrite [1] of the hoax to my FB feed and got predictable responses. First was a predictable 'its a hoax' from someone that stopped reading at the first sentence. A few lulz and one person who wanted to persist in the disbelief "What if the hoax is a hoax?". [1] http://pastebin.com/m3nkq98N http://pastebin.com/m3nkq98N

MattHeard 12y ago

Couldn't Facebook detect these posts from their keywords and insert a box above or below the post reminding the reader of Facebook's actual copyright terms? Such as: "We wanted to take a moment to remind you: when you post things like photos to Facebook, we do not own them. Click here to read our full terms and conditions for more information."

pavedwalden 12y ago

I understand why this keeps recurring, but the part I can't get my head around is how it started. Who was the first person who posted all that fake legalese? As hoaxes go, it doesn't seem funny enough to have been done for the lulz, so somebody actually wrote all that thinking it would work.

seanp2k2 12y ago

"People think Facebook and Google are sucking up all their personal details so even people who don’t have anything to hide get quite worried. " https://www.aclu.org/blog/national-security/you-may-have-nothing-hide-you-still-have-something-fear https://www.aclu.org/blog/national-security/you-may-have-not...

gnu8 12y ago

This is how it should be done, ideally. Facebook and similar services behave unilaterally, changing their agreements at will while keeping them dense and obscure, and intentionally make it impossible to communicate with them. Therefore, it's reasonable and valid to simply type into whatever text input Facebook provides "I hereby alter our agreement in the following way" and this should be considered valid.

jeremysmyth 12y ago
...and it's reasonable and valid for them (or in fact either party) to have a blanket "We don't accept your modifications and therefore terminate our agreement." Your move.

UrMomReadsHN 12y ago

The thing is - almost everyone lacks any sort of critical thinking skills. You see this everyday with all types of stuff that's why these things spread... Perhaps humans are just bad at critical thinking and skepticism or it is cultural. I'm leaning towards the former.

joshschreuder 12y ago

I wrote a post on this, mainly to give to my friends and explain why posting the status doesn't work. http://joshschreuder.me/owning-what-you-do-online/ http://joshschreuder.me/owning-what-you-do-online/