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Comment by antoncohen | Hacker News Reader

I got nearly the same notification, except mine defaulted to off, it said "This setting is off, but you can turn it on any time".

My guess is that they based the setting on another setting. For example there was some photo tagging thing added years ago, and I disabled that. Most of my timeline and tagging settings are set to Custom or require review.

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Mine was the same, it was already set to off.

Can't find it in my Facebook settings - can you give us a pointer where to find these settings in Facebooks cesspool of anti-patterns they like to promote as the "settings" page...

There's a "Face Recognition" tab that's new to the settings page since the last time I went through disabling things. For me, it shows up on the left side right under "Language".

Okay, I don't see it. Maybe its a USA-only thing? (Europe here.)

Nope, I'm in Europe and got it. Try using this link:

https://www.facebook.com/settings?tab=facerec&section=face_r...

I don't see it in Canada.

Me neither.

Maybe it's something they're A/B testing?

It would appear to be the case - I don't see it, but others in Europe do... its maybe also related to local laws (Austria) disallowing such things, and if that is the case I sure am thankful.

I think so... I'm not seeing it (in the US)

For me I had a related setting under the "Timeline and Tagging" tab (set to "No One"), there was no "Face Recognition" tab... until I click "Go to Settings" in the notification, then the "Face Recognition" tab appeared, and the similar setting was removed from "Timeline and Tagging".

How many pictures do you have of yourself on Facebook? I see the setting, but it states that 'this is not yet available to you'.

No idea. I joined early and didn't really think through some of the privacy ramifications until 2008 or even 2010. Then there are the friends who don't think about them at all, and I assume that Facebook puts some stock in their tags, even if I delete them later.

It's probably based on a conservative guess about your location:

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-02-26/facebook-...

Same here. Defaulted to off. They could be running an experiment. Roll it out to X percent of people, default half on and see who turns it off, default half off and see who turns it on.

Mine defaulted to on... hmmmm

"You control face recognition. This setting is on, but you can turn it off any time, which applies to features we may add later."

Facebook is notorious for doing A/B testing and feature flipping. It's very possible they are testing defaulting to on vs defaulting to off and measuring how many people turn it off and how many turn it on after the notification.

Echoing this, mine was defaulted to off. I imagine it's correlated to another privacy setting, so for those of us who keep it fairly locked down it will likely default off, although it's entirely possible that it's an A/B test and everyone should be sure to check the setting (Hamburger -> Account Settings -> Face Recognition Settings)

Just adding my name to the rolls of people for whom the setting defaulted to "off." Facebook loves to A/B test these things, which you'd think people would applaud.

I think people are overly hard on Facebook honestly, such that they assume ill intent with everything including assuming it's just default on for everyone.

Yeah when I read the notification I thought it was saying it was on so I clicked through to discover that it had defaulted to off.

A/B testing?

Countries laws? Are you in Europe perhaps?

Mine was off in the US

Mine was off by default, and I'm in the US. I think it was based on the older face recognition setting which I disabled when it first came out.

Same here.

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