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Comment by venantius | Hacker News Reader

I think you're missing the point. It's not about MZ's motivations or even how FB thinks about things internally. It's about the perception by significant numbers of people - and, critically, their elected representatives - that FB is fundamentally shady.

There is a very good chance the path we're on ends with FB and potentially all of the social networks being considerably more regulated than they are currently, and I'd argue GDPR shows that we're already well on our way down that path.

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Although this seems like a popular opinion here, the only thing that concerns me about Facebook is the potential for the govt to get access to the data fb has on me. I actually trust fb with my data because I know that they don’t care what I do online and no one will ever look at it individually. They are just going to Hoover up as much data as possible to target me with better ads, but it’s not like a human being is looking at my data, it’s just a bunch of ML code.

However if the govt can subpoena them and I’m on trial, the prosecution could probably make anyone look like a phsychopath and twist the data to look however they want.

What about where Facebook has wholesaled your information to companies like Cambridge Analytica?

You could say they "learned their lesson" and will focus on ads now, but this pattern of behavior is exactly why people distrust Facebook and find it shady.

Re "Facebook has wholesaled your information": FB does not sell user data (it doesn't need to, it makes so much on ads). CA gained user information on people who installed one of their FB apps whose purpose was to specifically get user data, and additionally because of a shitty choice FB made, it allowed apps like this to also access friends-of-friends data, afaik. Additionally, there was no monitoring in place to detect when an app is mass-downloading user data [through the API]. Overall, I think the most accurate thing to say is that CA was "scraping" user information, saying it like "Facebook has wholesaled your information" is misleading, nothing was "sold" by FB.

Oh no, Facebook sold 50M users worth of data to Cambridge Analytica through API access.

The fact that FB didn't charge more to make it comparable to ads revenue is their own fault. The user data access was a feature, meant to entice more companies like CA to use Facebook APIs.

Again, this flagrant violation of privacy is why people distrust Facebook, because they have proven they will fork over user information wholesale if it means continued company growth.

I take it you work at Facebook, right?

Re "Facebook sold API access to Cambridge Analytica": it was free, CA didn't pay any money to FB, they simply had an app on FB.

Re "they have proven they will fork over user information wholesale if it means continued company growth": that's very fair criticism imo. I would just note that "fork over" here means "give access to apps on the platform". Also, they changed this mechanism years ago, this scraping vector is no longer around.

Re "I take it you work at Facebook, right?": as I wrote in the original comment, I worked there for 18 months in 2016-2017, I no longer work there nor do I own any stock. I'm a heavy FB user since 2013 when I got divorced, the net of FB for me as a user is very positive, every day. Based on seeing FB internally, I think it's a great company, and I'm comfortable to entrust them my data (I was a Data Engineer, so I have an idea what they do with data).

>"Scraping Vector"

This is the most slanted, disingenuous way to describe a fully-documented feature of an API I've encountered in a while, and the fact you're an ex-FB employee makes it seem like you're astroturfing HN. What CA did was bad, but FB enabled them regardless of how you spin it.

> Overall, I think the most accurate thing to say is that CA was "scraping" user information

That sounds like the least accurate way to describe API access.

So you're betting Facebook will always be on top of the world.

Otherwise in ten, twenty, however many years, when Facebook is churning through ideas to stay profitable and relevant, "selling our user's data" becomes a very attractive one.

Re regulation: I think regulation wouldn't help Snapchat, as any regulation would also apply to them. Actually, you could even argue that it's harder for a small(er) company to comply to regulation. (And btw. regulation is good, at this point MZ also thinks it's good and wants it.)

Re people think FB is shady: that seems to be true, but FB's MAU and DAU keeps going up, whereas Snapchat's has stalled. Actions speak louder than words, literally.

I'm not saying "Snapchat is f-cked", I'm just saying it will be very tough for them.

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