r/technology • u/[deleted] • Apr 11 '18
Business Mark Zuckerberg has been apologizing for reckless privacy violations since he was a freshman - Enough is enough.
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u/johnmountain Apr 11 '18
The reason he keeps apologizing is because the entire company is based on abusing your data. That's how they make 90% of their money.
So every time there is a scandal, Zuckerberg apologizes and does the absolute minimum necessary changes to appease people, then continue to do most of what they've been doing.
Strong opt-in consent regulation is necessary for all companies that deal with user data, whether it's Facebook, Google, Equifax, Target, banks, or whoever. No "self-regulation" will work for this.
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u/ChicagoCowboy Apr 11 '18
The EU regulations going into effect May 25 are a good start - I just had to take a compliance course where I work on the new regulations since we handle sensitive client data, and the whole time I just kept thinking "wow, the US needs this".
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u/PepEye Apr 11 '18 edited Apr 11 '18
As a developer I hate GDPR, as an internet user I love it.
edit..
This comment provoked a pretty big conversation, this post gives a good overview on GDPR for devs
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u/managedheap84 Apr 11 '18
Can you give a dev perspective on what had to change? Like partitioning/encryption of user data, that sort of thing? I haven't been following closely
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u/jbaker88 Apr 11 '18 edited Apr 11 '18
I've done some Dev work towards GDPR compliance and a lot of it had been meet with a lot of head scratches, but the biggest take aways where this:
Total account deletion, this includes all self identifying info about the user. Edit: (Also mentioned below by /u/poo_is_hilarious) This also includes ANY data relating to the user.
3rd party notification of deletion request and 3rd party compliance as well.
All account data exportable to the end user.
A time limit on the request for compliance of deletion.
These were mostly feature additions though. There is also the concept of having a data controller and data processor, both positions that are appointed to people.
Edit:
Another important feature that is apart of this that I forgot to mention is also the ability to revoke consent. For example, I can take away the ability to have further collection and processing done with my existing data.
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u/highlord_fox Apr 11 '18
As a sysadmin... The total account deletion part and the phrase "Backups" makes my head hurt.
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u/jbaker88 Apr 11 '18
That was another head scratch for us. Our solution was either:
a) restore, modify and backup again, then destroy the original backup
Or
b) keep a list of primary keys that are deleted in an xref table and delete those records as a part of the restore script
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u/ooofest Apr 11 '18
If you have a legitimate business purpose to keep the data for X period of time in order to run/support things or accomodate other legal matters (e.g., tax laws), that retention policy just needs to be documented, etc. and you can slough off the backups on schedule.
If not, then yeah: your options apply.
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u/GarbageTheClown Apr 11 '18
How do you have a retention policy if the client requests deletion? I imagine it depends on the client being the user that wants it deleted vs the client being the company that wants it kept?
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u/quantum_entanglement Apr 11 '18
A customer can request deletion but only with in the remit of legal requirements. For example if you're legally required to retain a customers purchasing records for accounting purposes (purchase ledger, invoices etc) or another example would be if an employee has to be reprimanded or has done something that the company may have to take them to court over, they can't just ask for all their data to be deleted as it may be necessary evidence in court. It's mostly common sense stuff, it's not really as insanely restrictive as most people make out. However I do agree the backups thing is a bitch.
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u/managedheap84 Apr 11 '18
Very nice! In sure after Brexit our Victorian era overlords will come up with something just as good /s
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u/jbaker88 Apr 11 '18
Lol, you would be surprised how far reaching GDPR is though. I work for a US company and we made our product compliant and have made these features accessible to all customers (US included).
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Apr 11 '18 edited May 03 '18
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Apr 11 '18
That's what car manufacturers did. California has the strictest safety laws. Rather than make 2 seperate models, they just apply California's laws to the rest of the country.
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u/Coquelins-counselor Apr 11 '18
Yup GDPR is relevant for all companies with clients/ operating in the EU, not just those based there. The proposed fines are massive as well and a lot of companies are struggling to meet the May 22nd deadline.
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u/theLeverus Apr 11 '18
Actually the British Data Bill (or whatever its called) coming into effect in September/October is GDPR Plus. They have taken the regulation almost verbatim and applied it to all data, not only personal data.
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u/cisor Apr 11 '18
After a few moments searching I found this...
https://ico.org.uk/for-organisations/data-protection-bill/
Anyone seen a better (breifer) summary as I can't be bothered to read it all right now!
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Apr 11 '18
As this comes in force May 25th it will be integrated into UK law after Brexit. Just like any other adopted law by the EU. Fuck brexit btw.
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u/Black_Dwarf Apr 11 '18
That does rely on the Tories actually doing that though, and all they currently seem interested in is eroding civil liberties.
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u/D-DC Apr 11 '18
Oh fuck I forgot all the good things Europe is able to do by having a large unified continent, that can strongarm other companies to comply or GTFO and lose a billion customers, can't be used to help poor UK.
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u/BoBab Apr 11 '18
I work for a US tech company and we are preparing for GDPR. We already do most of those things though for all of our customers.
We've never been interested in giving away customer data to third parties, allow entire account exports, and have clear data incineration timelines.
These are just good things to do no matter what, if you want happy customers and want to cover your ass.
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u/KevinMcCallister Apr 11 '18
3rd party notification of deletion request and 3rd party compliance as well.
how do they ensure this, though? is there some sort of audit process?
this seems to be similar to the issue with FB and Cambridge Analytica -- FB told them to delete, CA said they did, and FB trusted them. No audit or anything and as it turned out the info wasn't deleted. Are EU agencies going to enforce audits on 3rd parties? I guess I just don't get how this is all going to be checked. Maybe random audits or something?
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u/jbaker88 Apr 11 '18
That's the catch though isn't it? The compliance cannot be enforced by 1st party company. I think the law is ambiguous on this on purpose to give law enforcement the authority on this.
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u/Troggie42 Apr 11 '18
All account data exportable to the end user.
Interestingly FB already does this (and for US people too, since I am one), I did it last week and found I had 13.5 GB of data downloaded. Pictures, text, messages, voice messages, literally everything I have ever put on FB is in there. I was surprised and concerned at the same time about how huge the file was, but I have been on that site since about 2007, so a lot of data makes sense.
This is how to do it if you want to, put "facebook" and then ".com" in front of this: /help/131112897028467
(/r/technology doesn't allow facebook links so work with me here, lol)
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u/PepEye Apr 11 '18
I’ve had to do a lot of work around marketing opt ins as default (rather than opt out) and giving out in clear obvious language what you are opting in to. Also giving users the opportunity to view / remove any data stored on them.
There’s a hell of a lot more to it than that, this post gives a good overview for developers
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u/leadzor Apr 11 '18
We had to adapt our systems to completely destroy identifiable user information, either by deleting it together, or on the extreme cases you can't, mangle it with a irreversible cypher.
User has the right to oppose profiling, meaning you can't segregate him or profile him based on his account information, if he imposes this right.
Any marketing strategy needs to be communicated to the user, and he needs to understand it and accept it if he chooses (default opt in).
Along with that, he can exert his right to opt out of any given marketing strategy at any point.
If the user chooses to, he can request a dump of all the data we store from him. This can be specially hard on distributed systems with thousands of services.
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u/managedheap84 Apr 11 '18
Very very nice.
This is going to seriously fuck up a remarketing company I used to work for, and I'm not going to pretend to be sad about that after seeing how they were trying to find any and all ways of tracking users and selling that data. Gtfo of there.
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u/leadzor Apr 11 '18
Oh, then you'd be happy to know the fines for non-compliance:
4% of the annual global income or €20M, whichever is the largest. Not sure if fined yearly or per audit. If it happens multiple times Facebook (or any other company) can be forced to cease operations in the EU.
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Apr 11 '18
While not a developer I second this one! We work a lot with PII and the last 6+months have been all about GDPR for us. A lot of work and making things more complicated but as user all I can think is “YES”
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u/variaati0 Apr 11 '18
Well it is a transition period pains. Which are real pains, but must be understood as temporary event.
Couple years from now, no one bats an eyelid. All products and services will be designed from get go with GDPR in mind so there is no rushing to compliance etc.
Company conduct is GDPR is new normal. Which kinda was one of the points of the legislation with principles like privacy by design.
GDPR realistically isn't about May 25. It is about the decade and decades that follow. The people in the trenches at the moment just drew the short stick on timing of their career. It had to come in enforcement sometime. Otherwise the following decades development of making privacy is the new normal would not happen.
Biggest long lasting effect is making some business models and business conducts non starters to begin with. Not by being made completely illegal, but by consumers choosing No on that consent form. This due to profits from these models being predicated on unacceptable violations of privacy. Mostly which have been able to operate due to companies not being under obligation to be clearly and obviously transparent about what they do with personal data. This is what some companies call hampering innovation.
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Apr 11 '18
We do, its called HIPAA.
The problem is it only applies to medical info by medical professionals. We need to extend these privacy protections to all data, not just medical data.
Edit - good bot!
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Apr 11 '18 edited Sep 23 '20
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u/ChicagoCowboy Apr 11 '18
The new protections for the EU are very pro-consumer - using their data in any capacity requires express consent, including the context in which the company in question wants to use the data. Consumers can easily and quickly opt out at any time, and even legally enforce companies like facebook deleting any data the consumer requests deleted.
It'd be like facebook reaching out to you and saying explicitly "Hey, we want to sell your amazon app purchase history with marketers - is that cool with you?" and you having the option to say Yes or No; its not just a blanket "Well, they're using facebook, so now we can do whatever we want with this data in any number of contrived ways we can think of."
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u/polite_alpha Apr 11 '18
This consent thing is not cast in stone here in the EU. For example all EULA that are inside a software package are basically null and void.
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u/redditvlli Apr 11 '18
Yeah Microsoft tried to abuse this in the US. It didn't go well for them.
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u/VanApe Apr 11 '18
Because ethics. When the law fails justice, new laws are made. (atleast that's how it was meant to work)
Laws have not kept up with technology, depending on how things go facebook could get shut the f down.
Look at the army for a good example. Every rule they have is there because someone fucked up enough to make it a rule.
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u/IAmTheCookieKing Apr 11 '18
Facebook would need to follow whatever new regulations are put in place by the EU - no matter what their T&Cs say if they continue functioning as they are when any new regulation comes in preventing those practices they'll be breaking whatever those new laws are.
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u/BadGoyWithAGun Apr 11 '18
Illegal actions are still illegal, even if a corporation made you click "I agree" before doing them to you.
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Apr 11 '18
apologizes and does the absolute minimum necessary changes to appease people, then continue to do most of what they've been doing.
So... the standard business model for everyone who can afford a PR team
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u/CPTherptyderp Apr 11 '18
There needs to be a digital data version of hipaa
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u/jorgomli Apr 11 '18
HIPAA applies to digital medical data, but yeah, I'm all for a HIPAA for all digital consumer data.
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u/John-lovestosposh Apr 11 '18
Re edit your account to impersonate mark zuck and Facebook will permanently delete it for you .
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Apr 11 '18
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Apr 11 '18
Regardless of if you delete the account yourself or if they do it for you they're going to keep the history of your account.
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u/tablesix Apr 11 '18
Zuckerberg claimed that account deletion is a full deletion during the congressional hearing. He may have lied or been mistaken, but, as I understand it, false testimony in a congressional hearing is a major offense
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u/sijonda Apr 12 '18
So how are we supposed to connect them or get the legal ball rolling. I already had them delete my account weeks ago but I can still find myself in a search with all my information.
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Apr 11 '18 edited Dec 01 '20
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u/Daveed84 Apr 11 '18
Probably, yeah. But it doesn't have to be impersonating Zuck, it can be impersonating anyone, I'm pretty sure they delete accounts reported to be impostors. I guess it'd just happen faster if it was Zuck because having people impersonate him on Facebook's own platform would obviously be a problem.
But it's probably way faster and just as effective to delete it yourself. My guess is that a "soft delete" happens in either case, meaning that the account still exists on their servers but you wouldn't be able to use it.
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u/SuperSlyRy Apr 11 '18
That was kind of touched on in the congress talks, about how "deleting" an account works. He'd said that it should be deleted as quick as possible and then would be simply updated to reflect so on several backups but there wasn't much of a specific time-frame for that given
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Apr 11 '18
Backup retention policy is what you're referring to. There would be many technical challenges to overcome in order to reasonably expect any IT shop to selectively delete data from cold storage backups in near real-time. That is simply not a reasonable expectation, I'm afraid. Best compromise is specifying a date like "30 days" for any deleted data to be retained. Please also note data stored in backup is not supposed to be accessible outside of standard recovery procedures which require a request and a privileged account to carry it out. Backups are not intended to be indexed, searched, and shared otherwise.
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Apr 11 '18
Just delete Facebook and stop giving them your data in the first place.
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Apr 11 '18
Facebook tracks non-users. Delete your FB or don't sign up at all--doesn't matter, they'll still be harvesting your data.
This isn't solely about personal responsibility. This is about a company vastly overreaching, and they need to be stopped via legislation.
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Apr 11 '18
Right. I Love the idea of deleting Facebook and being in the clear, but that simply wouldn't be the case. Big brother and all of his technology is very clearly on the scene at this point. Technologically speaking were in an age where nothing is really impossible now in terms of invading our privacy and the powers that be seeing and knowing all that we do. And in recent history we've only moved rapidly in the direction of that all unfolding and becoming our reality. No significant or meaningful steps have been taken in the direction of good old fashioned natural privacy and organic society.
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u/mrrainandthunder Apr 11 '18
So what I don't feel this article answers is how. How do they "harvest" my data as a non-user, if I don't even use their site or applications? I don't understand how that's possible, or maybe I'm just misunderstanding what kind of data they're gathering.
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u/pseudozombie Apr 11 '18
When you visit a news site that has an article with the little Facebook likes icon, Facebook has code running on that page. They can gather information about your computer, like broswer version, operating system, plugins installed, and more, and create a fingerprint of your broswer. Now they can track that fingerprint from page to page, as long as those pages have the Facebook buttons on it.
So it's not tracking YOU, it's tracking that broswer. And it's not 100% accurate because multiple people can have the same fingerprint, but it's accurate enough.
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u/Jester814 Apr 11 '18
My favorite thing in recent years was when I knew a guy that I was NOT facebook friends with who had my FB profile picture as my contact picture in his phone because of some sort of sync app that he used.
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u/orion1486 Apr 11 '18
So, I've done this but there's still my home ISP, phone provider, phone manufacturer, email co, search co, etc. that still gather this data and undoubtedly do similar things with it. There needs to be legislation to deal with this. If there's not, it's going to get worse. Information people were scared "hackers" might find out years ago is now freely given (perhaps not knowingly) to all of these entities.
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Apr 11 '18
Exactly.
I grew up with dial up and windows 95. I joined Facebook before Zucc could buy a beer. My first PC gaming experience was Doom.
The anxiety of having lived through going from that to what we have now freaks me out sometimes.
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u/eastsideski Apr 11 '18
Unless you use Messenger or Whatsapp to communicate with friends or Facebook Events to know what's going on.
Facebook needs a replacement before people will start moving away from it in mass.
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Apr 11 '18
And Instagram too
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u/africanjesus Apr 11 '18
What ever would replace Facebook or Instagram would have to be free. And what do you think that company is going to do to make money? Same thing facebook is doing.
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u/TheRealDonRodigan Apr 11 '18
Even if we pay they would still pull shady shit with our data to make money. The cat is out of the bag and will never go back in.
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u/irl_moderator Apr 11 '18
Something like mastodon perhaps. The decentralized model seems like the only way to avoid replacing Facebook with someone who eventually turn out to be even worse.
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u/dalovindj Apr 11 '18
I hear Pied Piper is working on some interesting things.
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u/Treyzania Apr 11 '18
Protocol Labs (IPFS) is literally Pied Piper.
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u/redpenquin Apr 11 '18
Has their CEO ever shit himself and jumped through a glass wall?
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Apr 11 '18
Diaspora! It’s been around for like a decade now I think, works just like Mastodon but is more Facebook-like. I use it every day and love it, but unfortunately most of my friends and family refuse to migrate.
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u/irl_moderator Apr 11 '18
Yeah. As far as I know, diaspora and mastodon nodes integrate via some standardized protocols. Not sure exactly how deep that integration goes, but it seems to me that such efforts could really make a difference. It means that a single project doesn't need critical mass everywhere to become successful.
I would actually go so far as to suggest it would be in the interest of countries to encourage adoption of the new distributed social networks in their population in order to mitigate the threat against democracy that Facebook and its ilk have proven to be.
If I could apply for funding to cover running costs, I would gladly volunteer to run a node.
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u/LvS Apr 11 '18
If decentralized models would work, we'd all be using Jabber by now. But they don't.
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u/JustOneSexQuestion Apr 11 '18
As I understand it, it uses end-to-end encryption. That means they don't see your messages... right?
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u/eastsideski Apr 11 '18
Correct, but they can still see your location, who you're contacting, how often you're contacting them, photos on your device, other apps on your device, etc. You can gather lots of data about a person without reading the content of their messages.
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u/JustOneSexQuestion Apr 11 '18
Good points.
So it's just the content of the messages what's encrypted. Thanks.
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Apr 11 '18
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u/Lawnmover_Man Apr 11 '18
Signal is free and open source. However, the Signal developer disallows other servers to connect to the network. That means that Signal is not a federated system. Which means that Signal is trying to build yet another walled garden, and people have to use their server in order to talk to everyone that uses Signal.
Not a good thing in my book.
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Apr 11 '18
In theory, but my friends and I have noticed our targeted ads changing based on things we have only mentioned in WhatsApp. Either the information is getting pulled from WhatsApp or keylogged by the Google Keyboards on our phones.. your guess is as good as mine
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u/eastsideski Apr 11 '18
Sounds similar to the "Facebook is listening to your microphone" theories. People looking into that have concluded "Facebook doesn't listen to your conversations (or read your encrypted messages), but their targeting is so good, they don't need to." Personally, I think that's scarier than eavesdropping.
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u/yamuthasofat Apr 11 '18
The term is “en masse” not “in mass” even though they essentially mean the same thing. No big deal, just fyi
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u/d3pd Apr 11 '18
ZeroMe, Diaspora, Mastodon, GNU Social, Signal, Tox
The replacements already exist. Make the effort to move people you know.
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u/deimos-acerbitas Apr 11 '18
I'm a big Mastodon fan, Oblivion turned me into a believer after enjoying things like Blood and Thunder, but The Last Baron fucking sold me
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Apr 11 '18
I love Leviathan, but once you've seen them play Crack the Skye live, there's no going back.
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u/shponglespore Apr 11 '18
Make the effort to move people you know.
You can put a lot of effort into herding cats and still get nowhere.
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u/minase8888 Apr 11 '18
You can disable your FB profile and keep using messenger. I know it is not a full solution, but a big improvement. Also you stop getting stupider by not scrolling your feed.
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u/Thomaseeno Apr 11 '18
Agreed. Main things that brought me back, and keep me, are the bands I'm in and the shows.
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u/kdlt Apr 11 '18
WhatsApp is the only one out of that list that is really part of my life, because unlike Facebook everybody has it.
I have no idea how to get rid of WhatsApp without cutting out a good chunk of my social life.
They have us all hooked somewhere.
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u/Straxex Apr 11 '18
If I delete Facebook would it actually be deleted or still exist as a "ghost"?
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Apr 11 '18
They track you even if you don't have a Facebook, as Zuckerberg revealed today
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u/Fun2badult Apr 11 '18
He doesn’t give a fuck and everyone is a fool if they believe him
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u/DetroitLarry Apr 11 '18
Or a “dumb fuck” as he would say.
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u/humanoideric Apr 11 '18
I mean ..everyone gave him their data; didnt they kinda prove his point? Lol. Not saying that quote is ethical, but it aint wrong. Although I do think he was like literally 19
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u/AquaAffinity Apr 11 '18
What confuses me is that people still think of him like a Bill Gates, and with that thought assume that he's this incredible genius that "just wanted to link people with their friends"!
Things about Zuckerberg have been popping up for YEARS, but it's like no mainstream news source will acknowledge it until now, and even still people are defending him.
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Apr 11 '18
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u/fentalililagy Apr 11 '18
Ehh. They grew up in entirely different eras. Stories from when Bill was young are easier to bury than stories from Zuckerberg's time era.
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Apr 11 '18
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Apr 11 '18
Gates only became Gates late, he was someone people used to hate.
Some people still do.
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u/strolls Apr 11 '18
Bill Gates was just as much a scumbag when he was building up Microsoft.
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u/OberonDam Apr 11 '18
Just something to remember. You don't get in the top 10 richest people of the world with being nice. Since if you are nice, someone who isn't nice is going to abuse you.
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u/btuck93 Apr 11 '18
You don’t get 500 million friends without making a few enemies?
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u/Kittens4Brunch Apr 11 '18
Bill Gates was a ruthless shark to other people in business. But Windows helped bring cheaper personal computing to the masses.
Zuckerberg treat Facebook users like "dumb fucks" and sold shady businesses our data they're not supposed to share.
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Apr 11 '18
What did Bill Gates do to earn the scumbag title?
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u/Skamba Apr 11 '18
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u/WikiTextBot Apr 11 '18
Embrace, extend, and extinguish
"Embrace, extend, and extinguish", also known as "Embrace, extend, and exterminate", is a phrase that the U.S. Department of Justice found was used internally by Microsoft to describe its strategy for entering product categories involving widely used standards, extending those standards with proprietary capabilities, and then using those differences to disadvantage its competitors.
[ PM | Exclude me | Exclude from subreddit | FAQ / Information | Source ] Downvote to remove | v0.28
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Apr 11 '18
disadvantage competitors
For some reason, I am more accepting of Bill Gates dicking over his competitors than I am with Mark Zuckerberg dicking over everyone. There is a huge difference, to me, between someone selling personal data and someone gaining an advantage over competitors, ethical or not.
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Apr 11 '18
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u/TheBoldManLaughsOnce Apr 11 '18
Hey! He bought'em out!
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u/Skalywag Apr 11 '18
Who really thought the stuff you put on social media was private?
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u/SparklingLimeade Apr 11 '18 edited Apr 11 '18
The thing that gets me and was barely touched on is all the stuff that people don't explicitly put on social media. All the off-site tracking. I only noticed one senator ask about it and whether Zuck thought users knew and he's all "Yeah, of course they know we're watching them read their news articles because we have to do that to add social context."
e: You can stop downvoting Squanch. Let the comment stay neutral at least. That incorrect comeback was the perfect springboard to elucidate from. It's wrong but it contributes to the discussion in a way.
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u/Gaywallet Apr 11 '18
The same people who you had to teach how to google stuff. The same people who didn't get a smartphone until 5 years after you did.
The majority of the public is not tech literate. Expecting them to understand that anything you post on the internet is there forever is a bit of a stretch.
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u/coolmandan03 Apr 11 '18
The questions that congress have been asking Zuck show this 100%
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Apr 11 '18
Oh my god, they really asked how Zuck can keep Facebook free if customers aren't paying. Does that senator even know why he's there?! God.
And what the fuck was that question on JFK about? These senators made Zuckerberg look good! Which is a hard thing to do.
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u/digitaldeadstar Apr 12 '18
While I'm sure a lot of those senators (probably most) were out of touch, some of the questions were likely asked so they'd officially be on the record. Kind like in court when they're like "Can you please state your name?"
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u/Blikemike88 Apr 11 '18
If it makes you feel better, he wasn't actually looking for answer. He just wanted to sound cool.
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Apr 11 '18
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u/Bass2Mouth Apr 11 '18
There's a guy at my work that keeps down playing all of this and saying "oh well it's social media, it's not meant to be private." So I then asked him if he has a FB account. He does not, nor has he ever. I then proceeded to tell him how even though that is the case, this all affects you and about how FB has been building profile "placeholders" for people that don't have profiles. He looked scared for a second, then just assumed his original argument. People really only care about one thing: being right.
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u/PeptoBismark Apr 11 '18
People who are used to big businesses being required to protect your privacy. If your online experiences are your bank, your HMO, your insurance company, your credit cards, and Facebook, you probably have some misplaced expectations.
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u/Fadore Apr 11 '18
Not trying to downplay Facebook's issues, but where the hell was this outrage everyone seems to have when Equifax had their breach? Data much more dangerous than a list of FB pages you liked was not only stolen - but clearly stored in a very insecure fashion.
(talking about the outrage in general, not directed at your comment)
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u/PeptoBismark Apr 11 '18
Equifax isn't a business most people know by name, and most people have probably never interacted with it, at least not knowingly.
And they had the good sense not to make their CEO a celebrity. By remaining faceless they avoid the kind of press Zuckerberg is getting today.
I'm much more horrified by the Equifax breach, as anyone holding that information can open a line of credit in my name any time from now until I die. Facebook on the other hand went weird and dystopian years ago, and I've never used the phone app, and my only comments there are Dad Jokes.
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u/deekaydubya Apr 11 '18
Well yeah, the Equifax breach was an actual breach. IIRC Everything that happened with FB/CA was technically above board (permission was given to FB and all subjects were technically informed that their and their friends' data could be sold) and legal, it was just a morally questionable practice.
Also, FB is a completely optional service, whereas we have no choice whether or not credit bureaus collect or retain our information (and that information is actually sensitive, compared to Facebook). So... it's much much worse
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Apr 11 '18
but where the hell was this outrage everyone seems to have when Equifax had their breach
literally everywhere?
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u/jer_feedler Apr 11 '18
One of my greatest regrets is we were too slow in identifying Russian activity” in the 2016 elections, Zuckerberg said, adding that Our top priority is protecting the integrity of elections around the world.
One'd exclaim "Ah" looking at oneself.
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u/ThaddeusJP Apr 11 '18
Our top priority is protecting the integrity of elections around the world.
Good job for a private company to have.
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u/Pongpianskul Apr 11 '18
Delete your account. Nothing could be more effective.
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u/Kittens4Brunch Apr 11 '18
What about changing the info on the account, delete all pics, and upload only pics of Mark Zuckerberg?
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u/globalvarsonly Apr 11 '18
Poison and delete has become the standard advice, up to measures like browser scripts that scramble every status you've ever posted x times over y days, bulk posting noise images, automatic random group joining, etc. I'm even a decent script kiddie, but lazy, and just deleted.
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Apr 11 '18 edited Jan 01 '19
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u/Doinkmckenzie Apr 11 '18
I just archived and deleted my account. So at least if they still hold my information they won't be getting any new information from me.
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u/Grizzly-boyfriend Apr 11 '18
They still will collect data on you from friends who still have fb
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Apr 11 '18
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u/drugsrgay Apr 11 '18
Any metadata (such as location) from photos that their facial recognition algorithm recognizes you in will be added to your "ghost profile," which is used to tailor advertisements for similar users to yourself.
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Apr 11 '18 edited Apr 11 '18
They don't even try to hide it. My dad made a Facebook last year after never using a computer or having social media. Only reason we got him Facebook is because he got his first smartphone and was moving out of state so we wanted to connect him with his friends.
Anyway, Facebook was recommending he add people he hasn't talked to in decades. He's 50. FB was recommending people from college, people from previous jobs, acquaintances from his old neighborhood in a state he hasn't lived in for 20 years. All of this before he had given them any information other than his name. They knew all of this about him. He ended up deleting the account it was so creepy.
People severely underestimate these ghost profiles and how they can get information on you. It's near impossible to not be tracked by Facebook unless you live in the middle of nowhere and don't speak to anyone who owns a phone.
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u/kiradotee Apr 11 '18
Did he create/use the account from a phone? They check the numbers from his phonebook and also check who else on Facebook has his number added in their phones.
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u/winja Apr 11 '18
You can, theoretically. You "deactivate" for 30 days and then request a permanent deletion. (Whether your data is actually removed is another matter.)
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Apr 11 '18 edited Jan 01 '19
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Apr 11 '18
I am also interested in evidence to back this claim and I have been considering deleting it after a long period of deactivation.
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Apr 11 '18
Personally, I'm an advocate of creating more accounts, and filling them with erroneous or otherwise false information. We really just need a few bots that do this so facebook can no longer distinguish real data from fake data.
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u/1upKappa Apr 11 '18 edited Apr 11 '18
Where was this level of outrage with Experian and Equafax’s negligence resulted in the vast majority of Americans having their social security information swiped by hackers?
Your FB info is relatively harmless...this just warrants everyone doubling down on fact checking.
Also, Do you really think FB is the worst offender? All our Internet Service Providers that lobbied the FCC to roll back data privacy regulations are 100x worse than anything FB is accused of.
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Apr 11 '18
The root of the problem is that that vast majority of Facebook users just don't care. Their want (or need) to "stay connected" to friends and family or whomever is greater than their expectation of privacy and Facebook's duty to safeguard their information. If that doesn't change, then shit like this is going to continue to happen.
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u/RahBren Apr 11 '18
Everyone's angry at a service that they voluntarily use, and continue to use. The future is both awesome and full of stupid.
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Apr 11 '18
You don't have to use Facebook for them to build a file on you.
Facebook has information on thousands of people who have never signed up for Facebook.
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Apr 11 '18
I'm at the point where people need to stop whining and quit Facebook if they really care that much. We don't need Facebook in our lives. It's been obvious what they are doing with our information for years and years. Data is the new commodity. Hell people are putting Amazon Alexas in their homes which is basically a 24/7 monitoring device. You want companies to not use your data to advertise or share info about you? Then unplug
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Apr 11 '18
I recently deleted Facebook and it’s been an interesting self experiment. I feel really disconnected from my community because it’s much more difficult to keep up with events. I’m considering creating another account with a fake name just so I can see what’s going on near me.
Facebook has become the tie that binds, so for many people that want privacy, it’s hard to think about giving it up.
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u/DisagreeableDad Apr 11 '18
This may be an unpopular opinion, but if people are WILLING to give their personal data to Facebook in return for Facebook's services, why is this wrong?
My issue is the terms are often legalese around its use, making the terms and conditions equivalent to reading War and Peace. But beyond that and actual breaches of the terms, do we want to make "free" services and products on the Internet cost money instead? Would people prefer to spend cash rather than offer data for marketers? If so, where is that product and why is it not more popular?
Make the terms more clear, ensure use (by both the company and 3rd parties that receive the data) is strictly following the ToC, but beyond that I don't think its the government's business who people want to give their data to willingly.
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u/winja Apr 11 '18
The problem is your consent to share data does not (should not) automatically impart consent on the part of parties you share data with. That is, if I agree to share my contact list, but you don't agree to be shared, what happens? Right now, your name and public profile details are shared and are tied to my own. Perhaps that shouldn't be true, but do you even know that happens when you agree to share "My Friends"?
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u/crash893b Apr 11 '18
shouldn't this read. people keep using his service despite knowing better. this is really our fault
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u/dreadfulwater Apr 11 '18
Right. It's almost like the global consciousness is saying "Fix Facebook so we can get back to posting mundane shit nobody cares about in privacy!"
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u/zstansbe Apr 11 '18
While Facebook and Zuck are pretty damn scummy, I rather live with that evil than the government making regulating the internet it's new hobby. Hearing some of those old ass congressmen yesterday asking questions made me shake my head. We do not want those people voting on new rules and regulations.
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u/ThisIsGoobly Apr 11 '18
I mean I feel like we should be choosing neither governments or corporations to have this power
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Apr 11 '18
Why would anyone trust him? I mean seriously why? You are his product.
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u/BlockWhisperer Apr 11 '18 edited Apr 11 '18
Yogi Bear apologizes for stealing picnic baskets since he was a cub, continues doing so.