Facebook Back on the Defensive, Now Over Data Deals with Device Makers
nytimes.com
nytimes.com
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17229397 (272 points/251 comments)
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17223926 (700 points/200 comments)
The common understanding seems to be that Facebook is allowing device manufacturers to download user data the same way that Cambridge Analytica and other third party services did.
So far, they haven't shown that device manufacturers are siphoning that data to their own databases short of the statement "Facebook acknowledged that some partners did store users’ data — including friends’ data — on their own servers" (in the original article, no explanation of context). What they have shown is that Facebook gave device manufacturers the ability to let users use the device to interact with their Facebook accounts without using the web browser.
Let's just let this statement stand on it's own for a moment.
>"Facebook acknowledged that some partners did store users’ data — including friends’ data — on their own servers"
In other words, the "common understanding" is correct and Facebook has confirmed it.
Public outrage often results in low hanging fruit for political movements to pick and use for their own gain.
If this snowballs some more I expect reactionary politicians and reactionary policies to rear their ugly head.
It might be surprising if you don't feel the same way though and aren't exposed to it. In the same way that I wouldn't have noticed the brexit movement had even a handful of followers when infact it was a huge portion of people.
The lesson I took from that was that I have a world view but it is only a tiny fraction of possible world views, and I will never know or understand most of them.
I do wonder what sort of politics it will influence though, as it stands I can't really imagine many outcomes. These are new problems in a unique political climate, I haven't been able to read it well for a while now.
....except for when hardware partners are discovered to have had a breach, in which case Facebook officials said that those companies would be held liable.
The use cases of automatically adding your friends pictures and birthdays to matching phone contacts was awesome when I first used it in college. Games like Words with Friends are a lot more fun when I'm actually playing with people I know. Not everyone discovers and plays games at the same time so its nice seeing when someone new starts playing and also knowing not to pester friends that stopped playing long ago.
Being connected with actual people I know is nice, I just hope it doesn't all have to go away because there are so many people out there trying to abuse the data.
I don't mean to claim that Facebook's done nothing wrong. But ultimately, there are uncomfortable tradeoffs involved in friendship-as-a-service. Expecting an completely non-creepy version of Facebook is like expecting a completely non-controversial version of government.
Strange comparison. We should remember that the difference between a government and a company is who owns them. Governments are owned by the people, and many times throughout history, it became obvious to the population that they could not trust a private company to manage their fancy new communication network. And so, they had their government do it, so that they would have a say. That’s what democracy is all about.
They aren’t new problems. Facebook provides communication, not friendship. The friend component is just a network address book of sorts, effectively no different from a phone number. If the phone company were allowed to replace phone numbers with references to a centralized lookup table, they would certainly do it. But it’s illegal, thanks to over a century full of public outcry and contentions just like these.
Of course there are several attempts at building a decentralised 'social' network like this, e.g. Diaspora and GNU Social. Thus far they have not taken off other than in limited circles.
How is any of that "rehashing"? What lawmakers even knew about this at the time of the previous article?
> Facebook endured a new wave of criticism from lawmakers and regulators in the United States and Europe on Monday after disclosures that the social media giant had allowed dozens of hardware manufacturers access to its trove of personal user data.
I don't see any evidence of "defensive" action from fb. English is not my first language so maybe I'm misinterpreting being "on the defensive". If someone criticizes you are you automatically "on the defensive"?