Facebook Turned Off Search Features Used To Catch Bad Actors | Hacker News Reader

Facebook Turned Off Search Features Used To Catch Bad Actors

buzzfeednews.com

20 pointsmzs7 comments

Why is the headline not "Facebook turned off features used by Cambridge analytica to datamine, microtarget and interfere in an election"? What a biased headline. Facebook really is damned if they do, damned if they don't according to the MSM.

When there was a shooting nearby and I was worried about my friend not responding to my message who lived on the same corner I was very disappointed that FB live map had been removed. Now FB has done more to only let me find products and public figures in search results.

... because the MSM is not a monolithic organization?

I think as long as Comcast, AT&T, Viacom, Fox, CBS and Disney own over 90% of news media by viewership, I will keep referring to it as MSM since that is practically an oligopoly by any definition of the term

This article is so twisted. The less search options other people have with public facebook data the better. Facebook is already privacy nightmare as it is.

Probably an article by some lobbists in some company that doesn't care about war criminals at all but is just upset by the change which would make the data less accessible to them. I say good riddance.

Definitely a one-sided title designed to get clicks and drive outrage, but we are talking about buzzfeed news here.

Dismissing a valid (albeit sensationalized) point by saying "probably an article by some lobbyists" doesn't help. It just indicates you have your own agenda and are not willing to take an objective view.

Sorry... catching bad actors you say, Buzzfeed?

This feature was MORE THAN LIKELY USED BY BAD ACTORS IN PARTICULAR to do considerable physical harm to innocent people. For example it was possible to plug the following query into Graph Search and GET ACTUAL RESULTS BACK:

"Find all men with a sexual preference for other men within Teheran, Iran"

Now combine the knowledge you could enter that query with the terrible privacy tools and defaults (designed that way for a reason, by the way) on Facebook. If your mind is exploding imagine mine the day I've put things together.

(And you could replace Iran with any other Islamic country too).

And this was more than likely known by all people involved from the get go. That no human rights - or gay rights - organisation with considerable amounts of power EVER (because this tool has been in production for several years) complained to Facebook for releasing a tool which could so much harm to so many people is beyond me.

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