Without going into the political aspect, what does everybody think of Facebook (along with other social media platforms that are similar) as some of this stuff comes to light? Just curious.
... acquire information about us and sell it. If all Amazon did was transact business, no problem. But they don’t. If all FB did was provide an online community for people to stay in touch, great. But they don’t. All of these companies use our information to manipulate our lives and line their pockets at all cost. Privacy is history. I would rather go back to 1985 than deal with what is in store in the future.
The CEO makes my skin crawl. Yet, I can interact with my kids and old buddies. I get to see people that I like, like Ben Shapiro, Pamela Gellar, and solid info that Eric submits. I skirt around any trash that the CEO and his ilk are behind. And Ben, I believe you are correct that they sell everything including their souls.
Honestly, it bothers me a little bit, but at the same time, it's completely needed in many cases. I think I'd just prefer a heavier hand and cut people right off who violate the TOS. Yeah, they can re-up, but toss them at the next instance of the same garbage.
Boils down to this: Be decent and you don't have to worry about it.
Oh, if life were so simple, eh?
People suck.
I've never used Facebook, sort of a job hazard.... Â
In addition to what came out this week, there has also been the revelation that they were writing their algorithms to purposely addict the user and a lot of those early guys left Facebook over moral reasons to start a coalition against this practice, as well as the uptick in cyber bullying among the younger generation. Plus the big companies that began asking to look into the affect of mental health on children that participate in social media, and the links to depression.
targeting people based on their facebook information. If you value your privacy why put all of your info in one place like that? Facebook is idiotic IMO. Why on earth would you post all of your private information, photos, and opinions for the world to see? Nobody gives a shit. Except people will like or comment on your stuff so you like and comment on theirs and it's one gigantic circle jerking waste of time. It boggles my mind. I really can't wrap my head around it.
Social media in all of it's forms seems to just be a narcissistic cesspool of nonsense.
Here I am adding to it. Irony meter is broken.
At basic level I find facebook useful for keeping vaguely in touch with extended family, but I never actually post on it.
Honestly, it bothers me a little bit, but at the same time, it's completely needed in many cases. I think I'd just prefer a heavier hand and cut people right off who violate the TOS. Yeah, they can re-up, but toss them at the next instance of the same garbage.
Boils down to this: Be decent and you don't have to worry about it.
Oh, if life were so simple, eh?
People suck.
No, it's about turning over all of it's users data to outside, third party data analysis parties.
and havent had facebook for 6 years. It came to me that I was wasting time following what other people were doing with their day to day lives for no other reason than because I could. I otherwise didnt give a shit.
I am fine with my decision but have to say that I don't personally know anyone my age or younger who doesnt have it. All through my time dating and as a young adult I've gotten a variety of reactions to my lack of facebook. Most girls I met would like that about me though some thought it made me a creep.
There are some uses for it. Long distance friends/family, maybe different professional aspects. All in all I felt it was a lot of look at me BS and living in the past.
There's a lot of evidence that in the West at least, those under 21 are avoiding Facebook like the plague.
I got rid of Facebook a while ago. Glad I did. Such a waste of time.
As opposed to BBI, a great use of time and a sign of a productive life.
lol!
I don't think Facebook or any of the other big tech companies and platforms are evil by any stretch. While they accept money for advertising and even targeted advertising, most users understand that is part of the bargain of having a free service to use their platform. However, they have probably not gone far enough to eradicate the bad actor users and shadier developers. they are starting to do so with more content modetators and software to detect prohibited content.
was a way to connect with old high school and college friends.
It has helped a lot with meeting up with people when I've traveling.
Don't know how so many people have gotten pulled into the news aspect of it.
Sounds like it was by design, and that's the problem.
Quote:
SOMETIMES OUR SMART phones are our friends, sometimes they seem like our lovers, and sometimes they’re our dope dealers. And no one, in the past 12 months at least, has done more than Tristan Harris to explain the complexity of this relationship. Harris is a former product manager at Google who has gone viral repeatedly by critiquing the way that the big platforms—Apple, Facebook, Google, YouTube, Snapchat, Twitter, Instagram—suck us into their products and take time that, in retrospect, we may wish we did not give. He’s also launched a nonprofit called Time Well Spent, which is devoted to stopping “tech companies from hijacking our minds.” Today, the TED talk he gave last April was released online. In it, he proposes a renaissance in online design that can free us from being controlled and manipulated by apps, websites, advertisers, and notifications. Harris expanded on those ideas in a conversation with WIRED editor in chief Nicholas Thompson. The conversation has been edited for clarity and concision.
deleted it over addiction fears, and now has joined the coalition to inform the public about the addictive nature (deliberate) of the platform and others like it.
What's fucked about what Facebook did is that they allowed MY data to go to a third party if one of my friends took a stupid survey. This, right off the bat, is asinine. They did change these TOS at some point, but not at the time of the CA issue.
What is equally bad IMO is that after they realized the data was supplied to an org it shouldn't have been supplied to (it was allegedly used for academic research purposes, and that was the only authorization FB gave for the data), they did NOTHING to follow up on whether it was still in CA's hands.
My other issue with Facebook (and tech in general) is the way they hide behind this mask of altruism. Facebook is not altruistic, and they are just as much of a media and ad company as they are a tech company. They hide behind these bullshit platitudes of being a tech company that is creating something for the greater good in order to skirt the responsibility and regulations of being a media and advertising company.
Most people in this thread seem to be missing a big point here Â
Facebook allowed user data to be harvested from users who did not consent to the installation of this app.
If someone was my FB friend and I installed the survey app in question, not only did FB get my data, but they received all the information of my friends also - none of whom consented.
THAT is one of the big fundamental pieces here.
Quite frankly, Google (and to an extent, FB, mostly due to FB messenger) add enough value to my life that I don't mind giving them information to target me with ads for COMMERCIAL goods. It gets into murky waters where untruths are used to manipulate people, when data is being scraped off of people who didn't authorize it, and when the said data is being passed along to a third party who isn't supposed to have access to it.
Until Google allows one person's decision to give the data of all their Gmail contacts up as well, finds out this information wasn't even used for the purpose it was authorized for, then does literally nothing to ensure the data was deleted, I genuinely do not think Google does worse.
Someone's gotta pay for the services they provide. Data is free - I'd rather give my data than pay an arm and a leg for their services. But I'm not the one who should be making a decision about handing over my friends' data.
RE: I personally don't mind giving my own personal data for free online... Â
And that's the deal you make. I don't have a Facebook account but I use Google so I'm only slightly less pregnant. Any use they put to the data they collect is at risk of being misused/abused. Also, search results can be slanted by intent. You just have to know the risks are there.
Only time I had one was when my son was at basic Â
They would post pictures of them every week. Now I only go on to look at some funny pictures and memes on there. But I always used a fake name and my junk email
RE: RE: I personally don't mind giving my own personal data for free online... Â
And that's the deal you make. I don't have a Facebook account but I use Google so I'm only slightly less pregnant. Any use they put to the data they collect is at risk of being misused/abused. Also, search results can be slanted by intent. You just have to know the risks are there.
I agree, and I do.
Like I said though, the thing here that nobody in this thread is discussing is that people who did *not* consent had their data harvested.
Facebook allowed user data to be harvested from users who did not consent to the installation of this app.
If someone was my FB friend and I installed the survey app in question, not only did FB get my data, but they received all the information of my friends also - none of whom consented.
THAT is one of the big fundamental pieces here.
Quite frankly, Google (and to an extent, FB, mostly due to FB messenger) add enough value to my life that I don't mind giving them information to target me with ads for COMMERCIAL goods. It gets into murky waters where untruths are used to manipulate people, when data is being scraped off of people who didn't authorize it, and when the said data is being passed along to a third party who isn't supposed to have access to it.
agree and obviously that raises some thorny issues. however, the gap was facebook's internal controls and due diligence over the developers who push out those surveys. I'm willing to give them the benefit of the doubt that they are going to follow through on their audits of the developer community and ability of users to see where their data went and what ads or stories they saw as a result and will ban apps and developers that
I use facebook from time to time - wish people a happy birthday, catch up on friends and family who are situated all over the world and organize events. It's a handy tool even if you are not active in sharing posts and pictures (I find that 5% of my contacts produce 90% of the posts).
I work in IT / media so I have to be on FB. I don’t post pictures of my family or people I know. I don’t write anything I wouldn’t say in public, because, you know, it’s public. It’s cool for following music and other business and personal interests. Not so sure what the big deal is about the information FB may or may not have on me. Data profiling is everywhere so it’s kind of odd to single out FB.
I do find it troubling that people are so easily duped by obviously fake news. Regardless of your politics, it should be fairly obvious that politicians weren’t actually running a sex slave business out of a Washington pizza parlor. But people aren’t just swayed by social media, there’s a particular global news network that runs what I’m sure is at least half horse hockey 24s a day. Those on the left think I’m talking about Fox and those on the right think I’m talking about CNN. At least with social media there’s the chance for dialogue. We used to have some pretty good yarns here on economics and politics. Not saying I miss the politics - I understand the ban - just pointing out that reasonable people can have different POVs and we can talk and sometimes even change each other’s minds. On balance I think social media is a positive. Use your mind and don’t feed the trolls.
But people aren’t just swayed by social media, there’s a particular global news network that runs what I’m sure is at least half horse hockey 24s a day. Those on the left think I’m talking about Fox and those on the right think I’m talking about CNN. At least with social media there’s the chance for dialogue.
Person 1: Posts fake news.
Person 2: Posts link to show that news is false.
Person 1: Unfriends Person 2. Posts more bullshit.
and twitter and BBI and almost everywhere else anyone has an opinion.
Confirmation bias was already a thing, it's been known about and discussed for decades and probably around forever, but social media amplifies it by a billion since access to "information" is infinitely faster than other eras.
We can separate out the fake news aspect of it all, as well as how data was used during elections.
The real scandal here is the way Facebook acted after learning their policies were broken due to an unauthorized entity getting data, as well as their initial policy of allowing data scrapes off of people who didn't explicitly authorize it (they removed this from their TOS a year or so later).
Additionally, how they acted after finding out their TOS were broken with regards to improper access to data. And of course, all of this combined with how they present themselves and repeatedly hide from culpability from their responsibilities as a media company, data company, and advertising company.
while a lot of the banter here can be childish, mainly due to trolls or just a poster being set in their ways (I’m guilty of this at times), you can atleast have a discussion here.
There’s absolutely, positively, zero reason to have an opinion about anything on Facebook. My last straw was commenting a friends post back in maybe 2014 about Carmelo Anthony. I said the Knocks should trade him, they won’t win with him, etc. It turned into nothing but obscenities and threats.
BBI would probably get to that point if it wasn’t policed, and maybe that’s what this thread is about. But there’s is no redeeming quality of Facebook for me, just trash from top to bottom and anyone I need to talk to or contact I can just text or email.
But I do have it in my portfolio. I’m holding - thinking this will eventually blow over and the media vultures will tire - but concerned that we haven’t gotten to the bottom of this pullback and this could be a longer, bumpier ride...
...but the Cambridge Analytica 'situation' is well worth spending some time researching.
We are living history.
And I'll leave it at that.
Bingo...as I said this has little to do with the fact that Facebook harvests and uses information. If you didn't know that was happening you were clueless.
The issue is HOW it was used...in 2008, 2012 AND 2016. I'll leave it at that.
RE: I personally don't mind giving my own personal data for free online... Â
What's fucked about what Facebook did is that they allowed MY data to go to a third party if one of my friends took a stupid survey. This, right off the bat, is asinine. They did change these TOS at some point, but not at the time of the CA issue.
What is equally bad IMO is that after they realized the data was supplied to an org it shouldn't have been supplied to (it was allegedly used for academic research purposes, and that was the only authorization FB gave for the data), they did NOTHING to follow up on whether it was still in CA's hands.
My other issue with Facebook (and tech in general) is the way they hide behind this mask of altruism. Facebook is not altruistic, and they are just as much of a media and ad company as they are a tech company. They hide behind these bullshit platitudes of being a tech company that is creating something for the greater good in order to skirt the responsibility and regulations of being a media and advertising company.
Well said.
These SM companys come off like their shit dont stink and they are the dirtiest companies on the planet. Google, facebook, twitter, youtube all censor views they dont like and prop up the ones do. They also make a shit load of money selling all our info.
I quit twitter,
I quit facebook.
And i stop using google.
it took 30 seconds for my wife to set it up, find out it saved a bunch of voice recordings of her mother, and that was that. Didn’t want it in the first place, got rid of that shit real quick.
Eighteen enforcement officers have entered the Cambridge Analytica headquarters in London’s West End to search the premises after the data watchdog was granted a warrant to examine its records.
Four days after the information commissioner, Elizabeth Denham, first announced plans to raid the offices, a judge issued a warrant on Friday evening.
Denham has been seeking access to records held by the London-based data analytics company which faces allegations it may have illegally acquired the information of millions of Facebook users and used it to profile and target voters during political campaigns.
For a while, then it turned into what most other things on the internet turned into, white noise from idiots interspersed with horrible advertisements. I actually deactivated my account yesterday after a stroll through my "friends" newsfeeds. What people consider to be post worthy or note worthy is mind numbing. I don't give a fuck where you just ate lunch or that your 8 year old graduated from 3rd grade. It's not even remotely interesting anymore, I just couldn't care less what 99% of people are doing, thinking or thinking about doing. The only value it has for me is to see how my family members in far off lands are doing and even that's tiring at times.
I just don't understand that when a synapse fires, some people have to get it out there and get it commented on, judged, ranked or observed.
I agree, I don't think anyone's opinions on any social media forum should be censored by the application owners.
Period.
They should not be the arbiters of what constitutes hate speech or what is morally "acceptable".
problem is they each set up their own tos which give them that right.
I don't agree with it and they only censor content one way from what I have seen
Honestly, it bothers me a little bit, but at the same time, it's completely needed in many cases. I think I'd just prefer a heavier hand and cut people right off who violate the TOS. Yeah, they can re-up, but toss them at the next instance of the same garbage.
Boils down to this: Be decent and you don't have to worry about it.
Oh, if life were so simple, eh?
People suck.
In addition to what came out this week, there has also been the revelation that they were writing their algorithms to purposely addict the user and a lot of those early guys left Facebook over moral reasons to start a coalition against this practice, as well as the uptick in cyber bullying among the younger generation. Plus the big companies that began asking to look into the affect of mental health on children that participate in social media, and the links to depression.
There's a lot not to like.
Social media in all of it's forms seems to just be a narcissistic cesspool of nonsense.
Here I am adding to it. Irony meter is broken.
At basic level I find facebook useful for keeping vaguely in touch with extended family, but I never actually post on it.
Honestly, it bothers me a little bit, but at the same time, it's completely needed in many cases. I think I'd just prefer a heavier hand and cut people right off who violate the TOS. Yeah, they can re-up, but toss them at the next instance of the same garbage.
Boils down to this: Be decent and you don't have to worry about it.
Oh, if life were so simple, eh?
People suck.
No, it's about turning over all of it's users data to outside, third party data analysis parties.
I am fine with my decision but have to say that I don't personally know anyone my age or younger who doesnt have it. All through my time dating and as a young adult I've gotten a variety of reactions to my lack of facebook. Most girls I met would like that about me though some thought it made me a creep.
There are some uses for it. Long distance friends/family, maybe different professional aspects. All in all I felt it was a lot of look at me BS and living in the past.
There's a lot of evidence that in the West at least, those under 21 are avoiding Facebook like the plague.
Quote:
I got rid of Facebook a while ago. Glad I did. Such a waste of time.
As opposed to BBI, a great use of time and a sign of a productive life.
I don't think Facebook or any of the other big tech companies and platforms are evil by any stretch. While they accept money for advertising and even targeted advertising, most users understand that is part of the bargain of having a free service to use their platform. However, they have probably not gone far enough to eradicate the bad actor users and shadier developers. they are starting to do so with more content modetators and software to detect prohibited content.
It has helped a lot with meeting up with people when I've traveling.
Don't know how so many people have gotten pulled into the news aspect of it.
It has helped a lot with meeting up with people when I've traveling.
Don't know how so many people have gotten pulled into the news aspect of it.
Sounds like it was by design, and that's the problem.
OUR MINDS HAVE BEEN HIJACKED BY OUR PHONES. TRISTAN HARRIS WANTS TO RESCUE THEM - ( New Window )
Link - ( New Window )
I knew it was gonna get ugly.
What's fucked about what Facebook did is that they allowed MY data to go to a third party if one of my friends took a stupid survey. This, right off the bat, is asinine. They did change these TOS at some point, but not at the time of the CA issue.
What is equally bad IMO is that after they realized the data was supplied to an org it shouldn't have been supplied to (it was allegedly used for academic research purposes, and that was the only authorization FB gave for the data), they did NOTHING to follow up on whether it was still in CA's hands.
My other issue with Facebook (and tech in general) is the way they hide behind this mask of altruism. Facebook is not altruistic, and they are just as much of a media and ad company as they are a tech company. They hide behind these bullshit platitudes of being a tech company that is creating something for the greater good in order to skirt the responsibility and regulations of being a media and advertising company.
If someone was my FB friend and I installed the survey app in question, not only did FB get my data, but they received all the information of my friends also - none of whom consented.
THAT is one of the big fundamental pieces here.
Quite frankly, Google (and to an extent, FB, mostly due to FB messenger) add enough value to my life that I don't mind giving them information to target me with ads for COMMERCIAL goods. It gets into murky waters where untruths are used to manipulate people, when data is being scraped off of people who didn't authorize it, and when the said data is being passed along to a third party who isn't supposed to have access to it.
Someone's gotta pay for the services they provide. Data is free - I'd rather give my data than pay an arm and a leg for their services. But I'm not the one who should be making a decision about handing over my friends' data.
And that's the deal you make. I don't have a Facebook account but I use Google so I'm only slightly less pregnant. Any use they put to the data they collect is at risk of being misused/abused. Also, search results can be slanted by intent. You just have to know the risks are there.
Quote:
...services.
And that's the deal you make. I don't have a Facebook account but I use Google so I'm only slightly less pregnant. Any use they put to the data they collect is at risk of being misused/abused. Also, search results can be slanted by intent. You just have to know the risks are there.
Like I said though, the thing here that nobody in this thread is discussing is that people who did *not* consent had their data harvested.
We are living history.
And I'll leave it at that.
If someone was my FB friend and I installed the survey app in question, not only did FB get my data, but they received all the information of my friends also - none of whom consented.
THAT is one of the big fundamental pieces here.
Quite frankly, Google (and to an extent, FB, mostly due to FB messenger) add enough value to my life that I don't mind giving them information to target me with ads for COMMERCIAL goods. It gets into murky waters where untruths are used to manipulate people, when data is being scraped off of people who didn't authorize it, and when the said data is being passed along to a third party who isn't supposed to have access to it.
I use facebook from time to time - wish people a happy birthday, catch up on friends and family who are situated all over the world and organize events. It's a handy tool even if you are not active in sharing posts and pictures (I find that 5% of my contacts produce 90% of the posts).
I do find it troubling that people are so easily duped by obviously fake news. Regardless of your politics, it should be fairly obvious that politicians weren’t actually running a sex slave business out of a Washington pizza parlor. But people aren’t just swayed by social media, there’s a particular global news network that runs what I’m sure is at least half horse hockey 24s a day. Those on the left think I’m talking about Fox and those on the right think I’m talking about CNN. At least with social media there’s the chance for dialogue. We used to have some pretty good yarns here on economics and politics. Not saying I miss the politics - I understand the ban - just pointing out that reasonable people can have different POVs and we can talk and sometimes even change each other’s minds. On balance I think social media is a positive. Use your mind and don’t feed the trolls.
Person 1: Posts fake news.
Person 2: Posts link to show that news is false.
Person 1: Unfriends Person 2. Posts more bullshit.
Confirmation bias was already a thing, it's been known about and discussed for decades and probably around forever, but social media amplifies it by a billion since access to "information" is infinitely faster than other eras.
In hindsight it seems crazy, but how could anyone have known at the time.
We can separate out the fake news aspect of it all, as well as how data was used during elections.
The real scandal here is the way Facebook acted after learning their policies were broken due to an unauthorized entity getting data, as well as their initial policy of allowing data scrapes off of people who didn't explicitly authorize it (they removed this from their TOS a year or so later).
Additionally, how they acted after finding out their TOS were broken with regards to improper access to data. And of course, all of this combined with how they present themselves and repeatedly hide from culpability from their responsibilities as a media company, data company, and advertising company.
Of course they do, why else would the product be free? That's something everyone should have realized long ago.
What is NOT okay is another company getting your data because your dumbass friend took a mind-reader Facebook App survey.
There’s absolutely, positively, zero reason to have an opinion about anything on Facebook. My last straw was commenting a friends post back in maybe 2014 about Carmelo Anthony. I said the Knocks should trade him, they won’t win with him, etc. It turned into nothing but obscenities and threats.
BBI would probably get to that point if it wasn’t policed, and maybe that’s what this thread is about. But there’s is no redeeming quality of Facebook for me, just trash from top to bottom and anyone I need to talk to or contact I can just text or email.
Besides the abuse of both 2016 and 2012 organizations of it for polling reasons, its massive drawbacks that don't offset the occasional utility.
And Zuckerberg is a lucky, predatory douche, though that's neither here nor there.
We are living history.
And I'll leave it at that.
Bingo...as I said this has little to do with the fact that Facebook harvests and uses information. If you didn't know that was happening you were clueless.
The issue is HOW it was used...in 2008, 2012 AND 2016. I'll leave it at that.
What's fucked about what Facebook did is that they allowed MY data to go to a third party if one of my friends took a stupid survey. This, right off the bat, is asinine. They did change these TOS at some point, but not at the time of the CA issue.
What is equally bad IMO is that after they realized the data was supplied to an org it shouldn't have been supplied to (it was allegedly used for academic research purposes, and that was the only authorization FB gave for the data), they did NOTHING to follow up on whether it was still in CA's hands.
My other issue with Facebook (and tech in general) is the way they hide behind this mask of altruism. Facebook is not altruistic, and they are just as much of a media and ad company as they are a tech company. They hide behind these bullshit platitudes of being a tech company that is creating something for the greater good in order to skirt the responsibility and regulations of being a media and advertising company.
Well said.
These SM companys come off like their shit dont stink and they are the dirtiest companies on the planet. Google, facebook, twitter, youtube all censor views they dont like and prop up the ones do. They also make a shit load of money selling all our info.
I quit twitter,
I quit facebook.
And i stop using google.
I have been a happier person for it.
Oh and Amazon is the worst!
"Alexa....who is realy listening"
CIA bedfellows for a very long time
Eighteen enforcement officers have entered the Cambridge Analytica headquarters in London’s West End to search the premises after the data watchdog was granted a warrant to examine its records.
Four days after the information commissioner, Elizabeth Denham, first announced plans to raid the offices, a judge issued a warrant on Friday evening.
Denham has been seeking access to records held by the London-based data analytics company which faces allegations it may have illegally acquired the information of millions of Facebook users and used it to profile and target voters during political campaigns.
Investigators raid offices of Cambridge Analytica after search warrant granted - ( New Window )
I just don't understand that when a synapse fires, some people have to get it out there and get it commented on, judged, ranked or observed.
Social media - the new "Opiate of the masses" (religion was at one point - according to Marx)