Facebook have broken "actual laws". There are so many cases were facebook have broken the law. [2] [3]
Also, please read up on Fallacy of relative privation ("not as bad as").
[1] https://boingboing.net/2017/11/08/involuntary-profiling.html
[2] https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2018/feb/12/facebook-...
[3] https://techcrunch.com/2018/02/19/facebooks-tracking-of-non-...
Yet websites try again and again to load the facebook like button.
As per GDPR, which is in effect but not enforced until May, tracking me without explicitly and clearly asking me if that is okay is not allowed and anything else, like withdrawing service until I agree to be tracked, does not construct consent.
When I visit a new website I do not know if they have facebook like buttons. I have to load the page to check that and without a script or ad blocker I will also load the like button and facebook will track that.
At which point in that process did I consent to any and all scripts on that webpage leeching of my personal data?
Take that up with the websites, not Facebook.
Vast numbers of websites use Google Web Fonts which enables Google to track users. I didn't opt in to that so I just block it.
Visiting a website is not consent for tracking.
So people should know a site uses Facebook share buttons before opening it through Google search. Then, they should keep closing pages until they find the one that don't have share buttons. Then, memorize a list of "safe sites?"
For this I suggest dynamic filtering[1], as this guarantees there will be no connection to sites with block rules, and block rules can be easily locally overridden in case it is needed for a specific site.
[1] https://github.com/gorhill/uBlock/wiki/Dynamic-filtering:-to...
When you access a website with facebook tracking installed, you are consenting to being tracked.
Bury it in long legalese isn't accepted either.
If you break up the major US tech platforms, it cedes leadership of those sectors to Chinese competitors. Something to think about in discussions about breaking up Facebook, Amazon, and Google.
If you break of the platforms into smaller separate companies, why would that cede leadership to Chinese companies?
> why would that cede leadership to Chinese companies?
It cedes leadership because the Chinese companies, modeled after the un-splintered US platforms, have more resources, capability to undertake coordinated action, and can take advantage of greater network effects.
But I do think the best solution is very strict privacy regulation, similar to GDPR. The so-called free market has failed to manifest a good solution to privacy issues, mostly because the harm done isn't directly visible and hard to contextualize for most people. But it is very real, and can have massive consequences.
They'll adapt. Facebook isn't even the trendy social network anymore.
It's not like Facebook really does much that's innovative for users anymore. Their only real innovation was to couple a real-names policy along with social exclusivity, but the value to users of that was lost long ago during their race to 2 billion users.
They would get over it pretty fast and adapt.
The Chinese platforms could be banned from the US for a whole host of reasons. China does the same to US platforms and they're unlikely to reverse course on that any time soon.
Fine, I won't. That won't stop society in general being surveilled though, and all the attendant ills of that that the article suggests. Further: more and more apps require me to use Facebook to sign in.
You have not understood what this outrage is about. Trump's campaign didn't use data from the Equifax breach to win the election, so it doesn't matter.
No, it also doesn't matter that Obama did the same and boasted about it. He is a visionary, Trump is a baddie.
Do you get it? Trump baddie, all other politicians, unless Republicans, goodies.
If I had known that Trump winning would be enough to get some of my friends off Facebook, I would have urged all my American friends to vote for him!
Oh, well.
Note they‘ve been doing this for a long time (the article is from 2013).