Facebook deceived users about the way it used phone numbers, FTC to allege

I’m glad someone else ran into this same problem.

Unfortunately, I texted back “f* off” and I deleted the post as quickly as possible. Just one of the worst “features” of a social media app I’ve ever seen.

Good Lord that is some dystopian irony. Sounds like something a sick company would do in a Phillip K. Dick short story.

So you're telling me for the low low cost of porting someone's 2FA cell phone, I could use it to post to their page and they wouldn't know about it? No need to reset password, just use the phone number straight to account.

I remember Facebook asking for my mobile number for 2FA purposes, with an explicit note that would be the only purpose.

I didn't trust them then; so didn't hand it over; but is this where they then re-used the mobile number anyway?

Facebook allows you to target an ad based on mobile numbers. So obviously they use them for reasons beside security.

When I got my first Yubikey the first thing I did was start securing all of my accounts with 2FA. Facebook was one of the few accounts I had at the time that supported U2F, which is what I wanted to try the most. Foolishly, I saw no harm in giving up my phone number for the purposes of enabling it, but only two weeks later I was receiving daily updates from my Facebook feed that I never asked for. Oddly, the text messages stopped on their own but not before they continued a month later, with Facebook asking me why I haven't been logging in and to tell me what I've been "missing." Again, this stopped a few days afterwards.

Then, about three months ago I had a privacy scare, courtesy of Facebook. I was exchanging contact information with a friend several states away whom I had just recently met, and the moment she added my phone number to her contacts list, her Pixel phone had automatically associated my phone number with as much information about me from Facebook without my knowledge, apparently by performing a lookup that can also be done using someone's email address. This exact thing was brought to more public attention with an article that was posted here to HN a week after this happened to me, but I can't seem to find it.

Thankfully, the person that I had this scare with is someone I can trust, but the plausibility that anyone could do this again with just a phone number or email address was enough for me to finally delete my Facebook account since I could not find a way to dissociate my number now that I had given it to them. I figure that even though my information is still stored somewhere on their systems, deleting my account is as much as I can do to try and mitigate/prevent further damage.

I created an Outlook email address a month ago and Microsoft blocked it until I entered my mobile number. Sneaky bastards.

I did give it to them specifically for 2FA, and that's the reason I'm kinda pissed. It's still weird for me sometimes. I feel like logging in with my phone number didn't work for a long time. Mostly because I feel I'm not 100% sure it works right now.

Anyways, that came with the promise they would only use it for 2FA. What happens when they see it in contact lists then? I'm 100% sure they hoover up the goodies. Ask forgiveness not permission?

I signed up for FB 14 years ago last Sunday. Putting the dorm building and room number where I lived was a requirement of the signup process. I openly lived my dorm life on this site. The feds were not on it. Cops? I don't think so. My mother was _never_ supposed to show up for the party.

On the other hand, seeing Grandma there was dope.

Mark Effing Zuckerburg xD, and he still runs the place!

I’m not sure what data TikTok has exactly. What else beyond an email address, a username, and a user-supplied password?

Reminds me of the time my aunt got an SMS saying reply 1 to post happy birthday to my dad's wall, she replied 1 and it posted 1 to his wall.

https://www.reddit.com/r/facebook/comments/2qbg9j/reply_1_to...