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Comment by mbid | Hacker News Reader

> Protecting people’s information is at the heart of everything we do

Thanks for striking down the bad guys, Facebook, our ever vigilant guardian of personal information.

That's exactly what I wanted to say. Talk about the fox guarding the hen house... none of these parties--Facebook included--can be trusted with any data. They're all out to make a buck with it!

I 100% believe in the fox to guard the hen house...from the other foxes.

No point in sharing dinner.

Exactly. Facebook really wants to protect your personal information - it's their competitive advantage. If other companies all have your personal info too, then it's less valuable to Facebook. The last thing they want to do is let it get out.

If you've decided to share your info with Facebook, well, that's on you. But Facebook isn't going to share it.

Are you serious, defending Facebook here?

There can't be a single repository of online data, which by design gives the repository owner too much power and control. Blaming the users for falling for it is like saying we can't have regulation because markets can self-regulate themselves.

After the last 3 years, anyone who defends Facebook comes across as disingenuous, naive or for a lack of a better word, a shill in my book.

Saying Facebook wants to protects your personal information is the most hypocritical statement, I've heard yet.

sarcasm

I don't think you and parent disagree. Facebook will do a good job of 'protecting' your personal data because that allows them —exclusively— to benefit from it. Though the definition of 'protecting' might differ, Facebook's might sacrifice that protection to benefit at any point. As a user, you're not in control of that transaction and will never benefit.

Also lets not forget Facebook as to appear somewhat protective of data, or they'll scare off even more user. Negative consequences of users sharing their data have to appear dystopian fiction.

This fallacy of pre-defending a corporation from ever doing anything wrong or acting against their own (short term) self interests because "their business depends on it" needs to stop immediately.

Uhm, there are many companies that have access via the FB API to users' data and the data of their friends. E.g. CA/SCL. The TOS says you're not allowed to pass it on to third parties but that is exactly what CA/SCL did and FB didn't do much about it when they found out.

So much for protecting your personal info. That is why such a stink is being made about this story.

> They're all out to make a buck with it!

It's not even that though. If someone is reselling your companies data to a third party without authorization, you put both the company and it's key people on the persona non grata list. Large well run corporations and a lot of smaller companies have black lists like that and they use them.

It's a fucking joke, their way of protecting is to say, "app developer, you're not allowed to do these things.". It's like a bank who leaves people's money in a field, and "protects" it by putting up a sign that says "dear visitors, you are not allowed to steal this money.".

The best way for them to maintain their walled garden is by restricting 3rd party access to the data. This isn't to protect users, it's to maintain and improve their wall.

You don't remember all their silly breaches and lapses of security about a decade ago do you?

Or are they reformed now?

They do want to protect its profitability for them ;)

And politics aside, this is analogous to Craigslist vs 3Taps, Radpad and so on.

well, you need to have it in order to protect it

It is as weird as we define how to kill a lobster is more humane.

"humane" does not mean "human".

Excuse me, I think you dropped this -> "</s>"

Just as a great comedian doesn't laugh at their own joke, great sarcasm is best served without a sarcasm tag.

Most insightful thing I read today.

All my favorite comedians laugh at their own jokes... Dave Chappelle, Chris D'elia, and Bill Burr.

I disagree when the medium is text; it's harder without tone to hear.

You have a point there. It is definitely harder to hear tone in text.

But does that mean one should always put in a </s> tag? It may ruin the joke.

As an example, this was one (or two) of my highest-voted HN comments ever:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8690893

If I'd added a '/s' tag to those comments, it would have spoiled it, wouldn't it? Part of what made it funny was that I played it straight, and people believed I was sincere almost to the end - or beyond.

But now I fear I have led us far off topic. Back to our regularly scheduled discussion of Facebook, watchful defender of our privacy.

And the funniest part is, you're essentially describing jitter, which is timing differences between successfully and accurately reconstructed bits, and jitter can really wreck audio quality. So you only think you're being sarcastic, while on a higher level you're alluding to a deeper understanding of known audio playback issues that are quite real and legitimate :)

So the joke was on me all along... Now that's funny.

Sarcasm doesn't work in short text. It just causes confusion and adds nothing, since it just relies on the reader to decided whether the utterance means its face value or opposite.

I think Poe's law isn't that absolute. Given HN style, I could tell his post was sarcastic.

Among other things it's virtually a HN rule at this point that the top voted post is critical. A purely positive post is a clear red flag and indicates sarcasm or some other snark.

I have never been prouder of a negative 4 votes. I will carry them with pride.

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