You've been a lab rat for Facebook

[RKenshin]

/shrug

I'm not surprised by any of this stuff, nor have I been for the past couple of years now. It should be pretty well-known by now that nothing you post online is private, and all of these companies are harvesting all the data they (both legally & illegally) can from you. It's how they make most of their money (targetted advertising and marketing). Anyone who expects or thinks otherwise is niave, in denial, living in a box and/or dumb.

That doesn't make it right, but it's tough to feel bad for people that get played by this over and over. It's like the guy that has "password" as his password for everything, and one day is up in arms about getting their banking info stolen.

I still have a facebook, but I might post like 4-5 things a year and I rarely like, comment, or upload anything. I don't list interests or go around liking tons of pages, clicking advertisements, etc. I couldn't care less what they do with the very limited info I give them.

[Mertron]

i would like to apologize to my fellow bg bookface frens for probably depressing you

[Quicklet]

/shrug

I'm not surprised by any of this stuff, nor have I been for the past couple of years now. It should be pretty well-known by now that nothing you post online is private, and all of these companies are harvesting all the data they (both legally & illegally) can from you. It's how they make most of their money (targetted advertising and marketing). Anyone who expects or thinks otherwise is niave, in denial, living in a box and/or dumb.

That doesn't make it right, but it's tough to feel bad for people that get played by this over and over. It's like the guy that has "password" as his password for everything, and one day is up in arms about getting their banking info stolen.

I still have a facebook, but I might post like 4-5 things a year and I rarely like, comment, or upload anything. I don't list interests or go around liking tons of pages, clicking advertisements, etc. I couldn't care less what they do with the very limited info I give them.

I'm not one to tell people that not caring is silent complicity, but apathy is a big reason why this problem is getting worse.

[Teryu]

Didn't Kohan make a bunch of really good posts about complacency in types of situations? I think they would apply here.

[hey]

I'm not one to tell people that not caring is silent complicity, but apathy is a big reason why this problem is getting worse.

I think most people are honestly happy with the situation. Companies like facebook and google spend tons of money creating some of the best stuff on the internet, and then just give it away for free. I think most people are fine with having some information about them stored on a computer somewhere in order to pay for this. I doubt too many people who are actually bothered by this are using facebook in the first place.

[Ksandra]

I hate how they did this. It's fucking stupid.

FB in general pisses me off because it keeps hiding people's posts when I want to see them. Dude on my fb had a kid and I didn't even know his girl was preggo 'cause his status wasn't showing up on my feed at all.

With that said, I am tied to it. I would gladly leave it for something else, but only once everyone else does. Heck, with my dad passing away, fb is really the only way to have some connection to his family in Egypt. I just can't quit it.

[RKenshin]

I'm not one to tell people that not caring is silent complicity, but apathy is a big reason why this problem is getting worse.

Don't mistake my shrinking levels of surprise and sympathy to those effected with complicity for it being done. I am absolutely against the abuse and exploitation here, which is a big part of why I minimize my participation in it.

Again, not to overuse a metaphor but just because I think the person with "password" as the password for everything is an idiot, and I wouldn't be surprised if one day they had their bank accounts cleaned out... doesn't mean I'm complicit and/or OK with people brute forcing account logons and stealing money/making life miserable for them.

[Quicklet]

Don't mistake my shrinking levels of surprise and sympathy to those effected with complicity for it being done. I am absolutely against the abuse and exploitation here, which is a big part of why I minimize my participation in it.

Again, not to overuse a metaphor but just because I think the person with "password" as the password for everything is an idiot, and I wouldn't be surprised if one day they had their bank accounts cleaned out... doesn't mean I'm complicit and/or OK with people brute forcing account logons and stealing money/making life miserable for them.

Right. I just take issue with the notion that this is an individual responsibility problem. Companies actively obfuscate their data collection policies, often burying policy changes in places where the average user isn't going to be aware of it. Facebook is easy to single out because it's one of the worst ones and because it has a founder who has publicly stated that he doesn't believe in the concept of privacy. You can be completely off Facebook, yet Facebook will still attempt to create a shadow profile of you where you can be tagged in other people's photos, etc. Other companies (e.g. Verizon) are moving towards more aggressive data collection models that track you even when you're not actively using their service or website. Most of this stuff goes beyond whether or not someone has good password habits. When arguably the largest security issues happen on the company's end now (e.g. Target, Sony, Amazon), the individual may not even be able to do much to stop their data getting into the hands of those with nefarious intent.

Pointing at other people's lack of technological awareness or cognizance and saying it's no surprise this happened to them is like looking at the poor/unemployed and saying they're just not working hard enough to get a job / stop being poor. Companies want this to be the discussion because it takes the focus off of them. We're living in a society right now where opting out of data collection is opting out of most of the benefits of modern technology.

I don't expect people to just drop social media or stop using a lot of these services which do have benefits to them. I just think it's counterproductive to put the onus on the user when it should be primarily on the company to behave more responsibly.

[Serra]

I hate how they did this. It's fucking stupid.

FB in general pisses me off because it keeps hiding people's posts when I want to see them. Dude on my fb had a kid and I didn't even know his girl was preggo 'cause his status wasn't showing up on my feed at all.

With that said, I am tied to it. I would gladly leave it for something else, but only once everyone else does. Heck, with my dad passing away, fb is really the only way to have some connection to his family in Egypt. I just can't quit it.

From what I've read, Facebook's algorithms for what they show are actually kinda impressive. Spoilered for size:

Spoiler: show

http://rack.3.mshcdn.com/media/ZgkyM...nk-101-972.jpg

From what I understand, that's just the basics of it because Facebook keeps a lot of it secret.

I think most people are honestly happy with the situation. Companies like facebook and google spend tons of money creating some of the best stuff on the internet, and then just give it away for free. I think most people are fine with having some information about them stored on a computer somewhere in order to pay for this. I doubt too many people who are actually bothered by this are using facebook in the first place.

Also, this. It's a free service, of course they're going to do whatever they want to make money. If you don't like it or what they're doing, don't use the service.

[RKenshin]

Right. I just take issue with the notion that this is an individual responsibility problem. Companies actively obfuscate their data collection policies, often burying policy changes in places where the average user isn't going to be aware of it. Facebook is easy to single out because it's one of the worst ones and because it has a founder who has publicly stated that he doesn't believe in the concept of privacy. You can be completely off Facebook, yet Facebook will still attempt to create a shadow profile of you where you can be tagged in other people's photos, etc. Other companies (e.g. Verizon) are moving towards more aggressive data collection models that track you even when you're not actively using their service or website. Most of this stuff goes beyond whether or not someone has good password habits. When arguably the largest security issues happen on the company's end now (e.g. Target, Sony, Amazon), the individual may not even be able to do much to stop their data getting into the hands of those with nefarious intent.

Pointing at other people's lack of technological awareness or cognizance and saying it's no surprise this happened to them is like looking at the poor/unemployed and saying they're just not working hard enough to get a job / stop being poor. Companies want this to be the discussion because it takes the focus off of them. We're living in a society right now where opting out of data collection is opting out of most of the benefits of modern technology.

I don't expect people to just drop social media or stop using a lot of these services which do have benefits to them. I just think it's counterproductive to put the onus on the user when it should be primarily on the company to behave more responsibly.

I agree with most of what you said, but I do disagree with the metaphor and whether pointing out the obvious is putting onus on the users.

Knowing that anything put on the internet/social media sites in particular is no longer private isn't something that requires great technical knowledge or cognitive ability. It takes a little more than common sense, a vague idea of current events/news/pop culture, and/or a google search to get out of poverty. (you'd have to live in a box to not at least hear about security/data/privacy issues and victims over the last few years)

I've never said or tried to imply that any of this is their own fault or that they're to blame either; all I've said is I'm not surprised or particularly sympathetic anymore.

Just like I'm not surprised or particularly concerned by the American that thinks it's a good idea to visit North Korea with a bible in hand, and then ends up in jail. Or the guy that smokes 10 packs a day and ends up with lung cancer. Or the Americans that went hiking in a war zone and were captured.

Does this think I mean North Korea being a twatfield dictatorship is now OK? Or that the smoker deserved cancer? Or the hikers deserved capture? No. But I'm not surprised by any of it, and truthfully neither should they be... and with that my sympathy dwindles.

[Galkaeater]

facebook is for girls anyway

[Meresgi]

I agree with most of what you said, but I do disagree with the metaphor and whether pointing out the obvious is putting onus on the users.
Knowing that anything put on the internet/social media sites in particular is no longer private isn't something that requires great technical knowledge or cognitive ability. It takes a little more than common sense, a vague idea of current events/news/pop culture, and/or a google search to get out of poverty. (you'd have to live in a box to not at least hear about security/data/privacy issues and victims over the last few years)
.

I agree that by now, everyone should know that anything put on the internet is going to be made public. That said, a lot of people understand that when talking about sites like facebook, or twitters or what have you. Most don't understand it applies to fucking EVERYTHING. Facebook tracks you even after you've left the page and many other sites harvest everything they can about you. Unless you know what you're doing, the illusion of anonymity online is completely gone when it comes to corporations. The methods employed are shady at best when it comes to metadata, and it's well beyond the scope of a lot of laws because technology is leaps and bounds ahead of what stuffy old white men can dream up.

tumblr is for "girls" anyway

ftfy