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Comment by dwetterau | Hacker News Reader

If Gmail reads private emails to target ads [1], why would people think that Facebook isn't doing the same thing? Also many companies (including Facebook) have agreed to share hashes and cooperate to "remove extremist content from their websites" [2]. It would be naive to think that they are excluding private messages from their searches.

[1] https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2014/apr/15/gmail-sca... [2] http://www.reuters.com/article/us-internet-extremism-databas...

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I forgot that google did that, but facebook was just in your face with it. I was talking to a friend on facebook about some ice climbing and if it was ok for a beginner, and very shortly after I saw ads on my facebook for ice climbing lessons. With google the worst I see if I search for something sometimes I see ads for those.

Zuckerberg was a creeper, if you look at what he did initially with Facebook and people's information who trusted him with that information, you can tell what his basic operating premises are. And they are anti-social. He never has cared for what people might think of him or fb, as long as they keep using it. And so I think that's Zuck's deep insight into people, anti-social behavior does not matter. People are stupid and they will keep using the platform anyway. Regardless of the total and complete lack of privacy and social skills.

If he can detect bullying where people are afraid to report it. Then going forward with the authoritarian shit happening in government, what's next? Hear people verbally fighting and report that to the police. Hear kids getting yelled at and report it to the police as child abuse. Disputes and altercations are always reported to the police. The walls have ears. All this is possible with FB. It's a surveillance nightmare as bad as anything Orwell could've prophesied and yet people continue to use FB.

People continue to use it because it provides value to them. Additionally they either don't have concern for your worries or are naive and unaware of the implications. Regardless it won't change any time soon because most are not interested in becoming more technical or trying to understand a magic black box that shows them family and friend happenings.

And Googles version is probably much more successful. I noticed the same with Facebook and I don't think it's very effective. Talk once about a topic or like a page and you'll see related ads for a long time. Google seems to have smarter algorithms that try to detect a trend to figure out if you're really interested in something or just mentioned it once.

Google doesn't need a better algorithm; search is simply a stronger buy-signal than conversation.

Amazon is a similar offender.

"Oh, you bought a fridge yesterday? How about you buy another one?"

Actually,the really creepy thing about Amazon is that if I use their iPhone app to browse for stuff I get ads on my Facebook account for the stuff I searched.

Mind you, I am near tinfoil-level conscious of "cross contamination". I use Firefox on iOS for Facebook, and I never use it for any other browsing other than FB. My name is not my real name on FB, and it's written in a non-latin alphabet. I never discuss products on Facebook, and besides these events happen immediately after.

I have no idea how Facebook is targeting me with Amazon ads for things I just browsed on the Amazon app.

IP.

Facebook isn't targeting you, Amazon is. Amazon is targeting you on Facebook for things you just browsed on Amazon's app.

If you're logged in during your browsing, Amazon knows who you are. If you're not logged in, they presumably have enough heuristics to estimate who you are (based on previous logins from the device).

I don't know about their current programmatic bidding capabilities, but even on their Facebook's normal self-serve platform you can be targeted specifically by email (there's a minimum audience size for pseudo-anonymity purposes, but it's only like ~20 individuals).

Edit: You can go here[1] to see the list of advertisers that currently have you in their audience lists for ad targeting. Currently mine has Amazon.com, Amazon.co.uk, one of Netflix's new shows listed, and some weird political thing that isn't even for the state that I live in.

[1] https://www.facebook.com/ads/preferences/edit/

Thanks for that link. It says Amazon has my contact info, but I'm not sure what they could have that ties my Amazon identity to my Facebook identity. I use a different email, different name, no phone number, no address on FB... I don't get it. It would be good if FB said what info they have.

I agree that it'd be nice to know which data point was used for audience building.

   > I use a different email, different name, no phone number, no address on FB... I don't get it.

Not sure if phone number can be used for audience targeting (it's not available to self-service, normal advertisers iirc). But wanted to clarify this part. Just because you haven't added it in no way means that Facebook doesn't have your phone number. Or your alternate name. Or your different email address. With the way that the Facebook app syncs to most people's phones, all it'd take is one person associating your Facebook account with their phone contact of you for Facebook to start associating those alternative contact/data points with your Facebook profile.

Interesting. Now that I think of it, for the last few months FB has been relentlessly trying to get me to associate my phone number with my account - and they even display it in Firefox (which was surprising that a browser could pull a phone number). After what you said, I wouldn't be surprised if they associated it anyway.

Try it with a vpn, I use airVPN, https://airvpn.org/?referred_by=287899. There are plenty of alternatives.

Not to mention, with google I actually get something out of it. Instant search for my flight info (even my Google home knows about it) is still my favorite thing.

Seems like the ice climbing lesson ads were very relevant and something you might actually be interested in?

It doesn't seem like they are actually targetting "extremists" since islamist sharia groups get to stay on facebook while all groups opposing such a movement gets shutdown instantly.

Islamist groups get shut down on Facebook all the time.

And not because they are islamist per se.

There is a difference between sharia groups and extremists. They are not at all the same.

One group ponders on the implifications and simplifications of rules, and how they can follow it with ease.

While extremists try to take the most painful interpretation of rules and use demagogue speech to enforce it.

Wierd how Sharia is not extremism as it encourages death for apostacy among other harsh rules...

Doesn't the bible? Exodus 35:2 " For six days, work is to be done, but the seventh day shall be your holy day, a Sabbath of rest to the LORD. Whoever does any work on it must be put to death."

Most Christians will interpret this in an enlightened way, either death meaning "spiritual death" or some other explanation. However if you are a biblical literalist, I mean the bible encourages death for nonbelievers, among other troubling stuff.

Many, perhaps most, Christians (especially Biblical literalists) would also point out that Acts (particularly 15:22-29) explicitly states that requirements and penalties of the Jewish law, but for a short list of enumerated exceptions, do not apply to non-Jews (particularly, non-Jewish Christians), only Jews (whether or not they are actually Christians), whether or not they also view the penalty in an "enlightened" way where it does apply.

So, they cherry pick. I don't know anything about Sharia but I'm sure there are lots of cherry pickers among its followers as well.

If we are trully being literal, the 10 commandments only applies to the Jews as well. Gentiles only had to follow Noahide laws which doesn't even require worship or acknowledgement of the one true God. They tend to leave those bits out.

Maybe because moxie marlinspike keeps telling the general public WhatsApp is using signal? Which is bullshit... because WhatsApp isn't auditable, it admits it uses metadata collection, it has the ability to cache identical messages (supposedly notnpossible with unique encryption keys, right?) amongst a host of other super suspicious shit. Now Facebook can audit the content of those messages, well big fucking surprise it's not private or the same as signal then is it?

I would be surprised if [random company] would read private messages only to "serve ads".

WhatsApp is from Facebook and it implements the Signal protocol which offers end-to-end encryption. That's why Facebook with WhatsApp cannot do the same as Google does with Gmail. If they do, then their E2E encryption is fucked up.

That's WhatsApp, but I doubt it applies to Facebook Messenger.

I've always assumed my Facebook Messenger (and other private messages) were being monitored or otherwise datamined.

Corporate surveillance, with the intention of advertising to me no doubt, or selling what they can learn about me to advertisers.

I also assume any text messaging over Facebook Messenger can be used against me in a court of law. I don't imagine it's encrypted whatsoever.

Going on a tangent. I don't like Facebook as a company due to its policies. I wouldn't be surprised in the least if one of these days the WhatsApp end-to-end encryption is "discovered" as broken, followed by a quick scramble to explain it was a temporary glitch and that they found it quickly and closed it. It would just make the headlines for a day or two and then be forgotten. Most people using WhatsApp never cared about any kind of encryption or thought a lot about privacy, and most people using it now still don't.

Hasn't that already happened a couple times ? (except they not pretended to a temporary glitch and fixed it, they just went and said this is not a security flaw, this is a feature!).

Whatsapp is from whatsapp inc, founded by two former yahoo emplyees, then facebook bought for 19 billions dollar. Very different from "being from facebook".

You can probably trust whatsapp end to end encryption as much as you can trust facebook to protect your privacy [1][2].

[1]: https://www.ghacks.net/2017/01/13/whatsapp-security-make-thi... [2]: http://www.ibtimes.co.uk/israeli-firm-allegedly-selling-spy-...

I'm aware Facebook bought WhatsApp. I don't think that changes matters much though. WhatsApp is one of the "private channels" that Facebook Inc owns, and in Zuckerberg's manifesto [1] you can read:

"We are strong advocates of encryption and have built it into the largest messaging platforms in the world -- WhatsApp and Messenger."

My point is that "end-to-end encryption in private channels" and "using AI to analyze data in private channels" is incompatible.

[1] https://www.facebook.com/notes/mark-zuckerberg/building-glob...

Who's to say that they aren't purposefully using encryption that they've made breakable so they can read the messages while making it difficult for anyone else to do so (other than the intended recipient?)

Historically speaking, Zuckerberg isn't trustworthy. The "Stupid fucks" comment from long ago should've been the first indicator of his shady character.

> WhatsApp is from Facebook and it implements the Signal protocol which offers end-to-end encryption

You have no way to know what is actually running on their servers.

True. It's possible they _might_ lie and they don't implement E2E encryption correctly.

However, saying that they implement E2E encryption and at the same time they will use AI to analyze what goes through the connection doesn't have to do with lies. It's just impossible. To analyze data you need to be able to read it. And you cannot read it if it's encrypted.

Well, Whatsapp does have an app on your phone that can read your decrypted messages

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