Facebook "PLEASE DO ME A FAVOR" request is rubbish, a good explanation why... | Hacker News Reader

Facebook "PLEASE DO ME A FAVOR" request is rubbish, a good explanation why...

nakedsecurity.sophos.com

37 pointsjackreichert14 comments

If you want to stop strangers from seeing everything you do then you're probably better off just not using Facebook. Seriously. They're never going to shut off these eavesdropping things because that's the only online way they can grow the interconnectedness of their network - and the denser the network, the more value. To Facebook.

> If you want to stop strangers from seeing everything you do then you're probably better off just not using Facebook. Seriously.

I don't use Facebook. But other people in my home use Facebook which means they're tracking what I do—as a non-user and someone that hasn't agreed to their terms or privacy policy—anyway. The only solution to this is for Facebook to stop tracking people when they log out. The government needs to step in because they obviously won't do that on their own.

The corollary to that argument is if you want to send someone a message without other people seeing it, writing on their "wall" probably isn't the best way of going about it.

There are some pretty reasonable objections to Facebook revealing things unexpectedly: this isn't one of them. If you wish to control who reads a message you've left on a someone else's quasi-public wall then Facebook certainly isn't the service for you.

If you wish to control who reads a message you've left on a someone else's quasi-public wall then Facebook certainly isn't the service for you.

While I understand what you're trying to say and agree with that, I think that the issue people have is that Facebook is giving them a mechanism to exert that control and then that mechanism doesn't work.

Telling somebody something on facebook is like talking to them at a party. I actually think it's cool that this sort of serendipity becomes possible. And I don't even like facebook anymore.

Except that most parties don't include live streaming to strangers. Nowadays it's a lot easier to have something you said or did exposed to the whole world.

True, although you can install a plugin like csfire and block the off-site stalking.

The whole friends of friends setting was never really an awesome way to limit sharing, in my mind, since it isn't possible to know how many people that actually is. Facebook's definitely phased it out recently, so that's why you only have 'Friends' and 'Public' now (or 'Custom', but the average user won't use that). This article is really sensationalist, and contains some incorrect information:

> Custom means that the post will be safe to comment on with no leakage to strangers via the ticker/news feed.

No it doesn't. It means you don't know the privacy of the post, and it may be more or less limited than the 'Friends' setting.

The best advice from the article:

> And don't forget - next time you leave a comment on someone else's Facebook post, don't say something that you may later regret.

Never do this on HN either. Same concept.

Friends of friends is a joke the second your cousin goes to college and friends the entire freshman class.

My personal privacy was magically changed to "friends of friends" on my newest posts, so I don't know that it's been phased out!

Demanding that someone take action to protect you from your own ignorance is rubbish.

...and another good explanation why.

What the hell does this stuff do on HN front page?!

Their privacy settings are a huge mess...

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