Why I don't have a Facebook account
zacharymaril.com
zacharymaril.com
"$100 says that Facebook can predict, with a 95% confidence interval of 5 years, when you will die and how."
No they can't, at least not with any specificity. What a load of tripe. Actuarial science can do just that in the aggregate, and facebook will be able to do that in the aggregate as well. But on an individual basis, short of hiring assassins they won't know when you will die or how.
The 5 year / 95% leaves enough of a loophole to drive a truck through, you could take that bet with anybody and say '70', cancer for smokers, heart attack for overweight people and old age for the rest and you'd probably make money, maybe vary up by one year for females and down by one for males.
Similar flaws exist in the rest of these, I'll leave those as an exercise for the reader.
I don't have a facebook account either, it doesn't matter that I don't (and sometimes is a slight inconvenience), mostly because I think they're an unethical company but that's based on past behaviour, I don't need a crystal ball or a bunch of tea-leaves to tell me that in the future they'll likely mis-behave again.
Facebook datamining your profile is a fact, but I highly doubt they care about your menstrual cycle (which I believe applies only to a subset of the population) and if they do they're even more perverted than I thought they were.
Facebook engineers are welcome to confirm or deny this.
btw, it's 'a facebook account'.
Mostly this came about from a thought experiment in guessing what information they can figure out about you based on your profile. Do I honestly think that there is a whole team of engineers sitting around charting out menstrual cycles for 50% of their users? Nope. Is there a nonzero chance that it might be happening or could happen soon? Yeah I think so. My main beef is that facebook can infer a ton of information about me that I don't want them to know and that they could someday be selling to people who I really don't want to know that information.
Also 6 billion people don't have a Facebook account, but condition on Americans between the ages of 18 and 30, and the rate of account ownership will probably go way way up. Those are the people who always ask me why I don't have one. Almost everyone I know has one and I really do have to explain once a week why I don't have one and don't want them to make one for me.
Facebook is but one of a large number of companies that hold private data and use it to their own advantage.
In fact, even without a facebook account they'll know about as much about you unless you've blocked their domain/ips on all your devices because those like buttons are everywhere.
Why do you feel the need to justify yourself about not having a fb account? Simply blackhole and ignore them, then get on with your life and if people ask you why not 'because I don't trust them' should be more than good enough, no need to go into paranoid fantasies about what they could do.
If facebook wants EU style data protection / privacy laws in the US then they should definitely try to sell your private data to insurance companies. I'm pretty sure that would sway even the most pro-business anti-consumer legislative body.
And yeah, I'm worried about google, my bank, my phone operator(no smartphone though), and my ISPs. Just because all of these other companies do it doesn't mean it's alright for them to do. I hate that there are hundreds of files out there that have data along the lines of "Zack Maril, Male, 21". I'd like to find ways to prevent companies from collecting all of that information about me. (Using DuckDuckGo and cash only would probably be a great start.)
Second of all, why am I the only person here that trusts Zuckerberg and the goal he plans to accomplish with Facebook?
Let them data mine my account! Learn everything you want to know about me and the interactions I have with my friends! So what? What difference does that make to my life?
And lastly, I really doubt FB is having or going to have money problems anytime soon. If they do they'll probably just 1-up advertising.
Again, these are all relatively unlikely hypotheticals, but it is admittedly unnerving that the potential could exist.
I don't care.
If you are this paranoid, you should stop using credit cards, phones, and emails, as all that data is similarly being mined and sold or capable of such.
I do think we should have strong disclosure and privacy laws - I don't know detail but I believe the EU does a better job of this than the US. We should be entitled to know what data is gathered about us and what is sold, and much of that should require consent.
Why so cautious? If facebook gets caught doing any of this stuff they're going to implode like a balloon you should stick all your savings on put options. The infinite downside should not concern you since you are so sure that they will do all this and presumably more.
I'm not so sure that they are doing any of this. I have no proof at all, I don't think anyone outside of Facebook could have proof of anything. The point of the article isn't that I think they are doing this right now, but that they might have reason to do so in the future. Like you've pointed out, they would be fucked if they tried any of this, but it doesn't mean they won't try something similar in terms of data mining and selling your derived personal information to interested 3rd parties.
- Facebook will make enough money from advertising
- They will make tons of money from all kinds of sources
- They will be here, and strong, in 10 years
- You will reactivate your account, eventually
You know, just like everything else on the internet.
Also; https://disconnect.me
Readers: dismiss these warnings at your own peril.
EDIT: Looks like the crybabies and Facebook stockholders are flagging this. You must have hit a sensitive nerve Zack. Good job.
Simply install ghostery and adblock, delete your fb account and call it a day.
Facebook will not be selling of the information he suggests they've got on you to insurance companies within 5 years. Not of they want to continue to exist in some form.
You can't tell whether someone is an alcoholic by looking at their pictures, most alcoholics are pretty quiet about it and manage to get away with it for decades right under the noses of friends and family (son of an ex (deceased) alcoholic here).
Facebook won't know you're sick before you and your doctor know about it. Doctors have a hard enough time to figure out what you've got and if you've got something when you're in front of them.
Facebook does not know how many sexual parters you've had, most spouses don't even know how many sexual partners their significant other has had (I'll give you that they might think they know).
They couldn't care less about your menstrual cycle, assuming they could detect that you have one.
In fact, facebook finds it next to impossible to get rid of fake accounts, can't deal with real names, has to accept pseudonyms (thanks .de!) and so on.