Facebook

[hobbsyoyo]

So I'm sure no one is surprised but Facebook has admitted that their already-laughable controls on data-mining and sharing were basically unenforced. Cambridge Analytica created an app/page that was supposedly a personality test when in reality it just existed to scrape user data. That's bad enough, but the app went further and scraped data from friends of the people who used the app. In this way they wound up with data on 50 million people, the vast majority of which never used their app in the first place. This data was mined and used to target people with ads and stories meant to rile them up for various political causes. These actions were against Facebook policy and while they did confront CA on their actions, they did nothing to enforce their own rules other than saying 'hey stop that'.

Cambridge Analytica has been accused of far worse things but let's try and stick to the Facebook angle. Has this revelation changed your perception of Facebook? Will it change your use of the platform? Are there any reforms they could put in place to make it a less awful product?


This whole episode reminded me I need to get around to deleting my Facebook page. I started it solely to advertise for my defunct blog but it was absolutely horrible at that since I wasn't willing to pay them for ads. Reddit easily drove an order of magnitude more traffic to my blog than Facebook ever did. And within just a few days on the platform I had to mute so many people that my feed was forever empty. Which was fine by me because most of what people post there is garbage hate mongering or pitty partying and I just didn't care for any of it.

What's your experience with the platform been like?

 

[civvver]

I deleted my facebook page like 6 years ago. It's stupid, it's just a way for people to endlessly compare themselves to others and get depressed about it. It all the bad things about social media and then commercialized so companies can sell you stuff. Does anyone truly engage on facebook? No, they just post self absorbed crap to make themselves feel good and try to impress others. If you want to actually have discussions with friends do it in person. If you want to have internet debates there are a bunch of other better forum platforms. The only thing it's decent for is announcements like hey we're having a party, but you should be able to just text message or email everyone the same info. Facebook is only a tiny bit more convenient in that regard.

 

[Gori the Grey]

This news won't change my use of the platform one whit.

 

[Synobun]

My experience has been fine. Very useful for staying in-the-know with people's lives and collaborating with others in relevant industries.

This news won't change my perception at all. I figured this was already common knowledge.

 

[Silurian]

Cambridge Analytica has been accused of far worse things but let's try and stick to the Facebook angle.

Why do you just want to stick to the facebook angle. What about the Trump election angle. the Brexit angle. etc

http://money.cnn.com/2018/03/21/technology/facebook-and-2018-midterm-elections/index.html

 

[Samson]

What I would like to know is what the mistakes that facebook made are. Data scraping, and using that data in advertising is pretty much the business model of facebook and most of "new media". It seems like the only distinguishing feature of Cambridge Analytica is that they did it well. My suspicion is that they are saying "sorry" as much as possible, but the business model and activity such as this will continue.

I have never used facebook because it has always been obvious that this is how they make their money, so it will not effect my use.

 

[Lexicus]

Data scraping, and using that data in advertising is pretty much the business model of facebook and most of "new media".

This is why Facebook's assurances about it's users' privacy is a genre of comedy.

 

[Kyriakos]

This won't really damage FB much. What will damage FB is its likely addition of more charges for 'optional stuff'. Eg currently it charges for things like promoting your post (i never did that, i have no money to spend anyway, and the way of promotion seems shady), but if it moves on to have quota (eg each registered user gets one free other page, and has to pay after that) it will cause a lot of people who stay there due to equilibrium, to finally move to something closer to being job-related (many such sites already exist).

I don't have Twitter, though, cause i use FB to post passages, so Twitter makes no sense for my line of work.

 

[HEF]

It's a glorified global un-moderated online bulletin board service.

Wasn't impressed at its inception and not impressed now.

I look forward to Congress either shutting the entire operation down indefinitely or acquiring the junk by means of confiscation in the near future.

 

[stinkubus]

Dude the Feds wouldn't go after HSBC when they got caught red handed laundering money from drug cartels and known terrorist organizations. The worst case scenario for Facebook is a fine which they will easily be able to pay.

 

[HEF]

Dude the Feds wouldn't go after HSBC when they got caught red handed laundering money from drug cartels and known terrorist organizations. The worst case scenario for Facebook is a fine which they will easily be able to pay.

I dunno who this post was directed at but I'll volunteer a reply by saying:

I don't believe you understand the severity of the offense. What facebook is involved in is a 'serious threat to our democracy and quality of life."


...and leave it at that.

 

[Samson]

I dunno who this post was directed at but I'll volunteer a reply by saying:

I don't believe you understand the severity of the offense. What facebook is involved in is a 'serious threat to our democracy and quality of life."


...and leave it at that.

Sure, and that has always been obvious from at least when I first heard about them. This has not stopped half the world signing over their data to them, so why would it make any difference to anyone else at this point?

 

[stinkubus]

@HEF I understand the severity; I'm just not certain it's going to matter to the current DOJ. The people who would need to get the ball rolling (at least in the states) directly benefited from Facebook's malfeasance.

 

[Snerk]

I guess it's too big to fail by now. In some ways I hate fb but deleting it is out of the question. I could live without the pictures of peoples kids and stuff but I'd need for other stuff like messenger.

 

[uppi]

What I would like to know is what the mistakes that facebook made are. Data scraping, and using that data in advertising is pretty much the business model of facebook and most of "new media". It seems like the only distinguishing feature of Cambridge Analytica is that they did it well. My suspicion is that they are saying "sorry" as much as possible, but the business model and activity such as this will continue.

I have never used facebook because it has always been obvious that this is how they make their money, so it will not effect my use.

To me it looks like the only activity that was against the facebook rules (at that time) was the transfer of the data to Cambridge Analytica. That is something that is hard to prevent and the end it doesn't matter that much how many middlemen were involved. I concur that they're saying sorry mostly for damage control, because they're not bold enough to admit: Yeah, that's what we do.

 

[Samson]

I guess it's too big to fail by now. In some ways I hate fb but deleting it is out of the question. I could live without the pictures of peoples kids and stuff but I'd need for other stuff like messenger.

One of my biggest bugbears is people who insist on using these proprietary, tracked and monetised means of communication such that I am excluded. I get that the chat client are pretty good compared to the current open alternatives, the cost is so high. As I understand it there are coming extensions to the email protocol that you should be enable chat over common infrastructure so that may help.

 

[civvver]

I guess it's too big to fail by now. In some ways I hate fb but deleting it is out of the question. I could live without the pictures of peoples kids and stuff but I'd need for other stuff like messenger.

No you don't, there are a ton of other im platforms that work perfectly fine. Facebook is only better because it's ubiquitous- everyone has it. It's like saying we couldn't survive without google. Sure we could, we'd just use bing or something else at this point. At one point it was unique but now there are tons of other options.

I use groupme app with many of my friends for example.

 

[Snerk]

One of my biggest bugbears is people who insist on using these proprietary, tracked and monetised means of communication such that I am excluded. I get that the chat client are pretty good compared to the current open alternatives, the cost is so high. As I understand it there are coming extensions to the email protocol that you should be enable chat over common infrastructure so that may help.

I hear you, and I applaud you. But life has enough problems to deal with, man.

No you don't, there are a ton of other im platforms that work perfectly fine. Facebook is only better because it's ubiquitous- everyone has it. It's like saying we couldn't survive without google. Sure we could, we'd just use bing or something else at this point. At one point it was unique but now there are tons of other options.

I use groupme app with many of my friends for example.

When it comes to social media and specially communication platforms, user base is 99% of it's value. My friends/family all use fb. I have to use it too, or inconvenience myself. And life is short.

 

[Takhisis]

When it comes to social media and specially communication platforms, user base is 99% of it's value. My friends/family all use fb. I have to use it too, or inconvenience myself. And life is short.

It boils down to that… FB is almost like a second email inbox. Check it once or twice a week and that's it. Contact numbers always in single-digits, always only people I know IRL. No wall, no pics, no polls, no personal information, and that's it.

What's worrisome is that polls consistently report large numbers of people using Facebook as a news source.

 

[Narz]

I got a love/hate relationship with it. On the other hand it provides useful info (friends inviting me to parties, potentially way to meet friends/mates, learn new things, etc.) but it's an utter time sink mostly.

Same as forums really except more pretty pictures to look at.