Facebook knows what people are doing on their phones even if they don't use it

Discussed 18 days ago (270 points/96 comments):

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15007454

I found it hard to believe nobody would've posted this before but couldn't find it under the original title. Thanks for paying attention.

TL;DR - Facebook is running a free VPN service named Onavo Protect, which Facebook uses to monitor mobile users' network activity.

I like to see these articles on MSM sites but I really wish there was a little more doom and gloom about how these capabilities could be abused. Fear drives change.

If FB decides that adultery is the worst thing in the world they could easily drop hints in the right places to screw over people who do that. What's worse is that they could generalize for anything they don't like. If Zuck decides to buy an ISP or three net-neutrality could be the thing they go after.