Ignorance-Based Witch Hunt

JCul

1077

**NOTE: This post is RETRACTED - you can read below in the 'EDIT' section!**

Online forms are LITERALLY the ONLY tool web companies can employ to get you to agree to something in a contractual way.

Facebook even reduces the amount of information in the legal contract making it easy to read through in their Data Policy with links to more in depth descriptions of policy. https://www.facebook.com/policy

Let's say you want to sign up for a third-party application. Guess what - you're required to fill out a form in which you're allowed to negotiate the terms of data sharing with that third party.

Hm, okay... I'm okay with them recieving my public profile - but I'm not willing to share with them who my friends are... let's see...

They require your public profile but request your friends list and email! I can uncheck those inputs.

Not only that, but I can renegotiate my contract with any app I have a contract with at any point in time...

The majority of people are too lazy or don't care enough to monitor any of this but suddenly when it becomes popular to bash a company, everyone jumps aboard the hate bandwagon.

Facebook is actually doing moderately well at protecting consumers privacy, it's just that consumers are too ignorant or unwilling to utilize even the most simple settings of the web service.

EDIT: ///////////////////////////////////////////////////////////

I've had some good conversations in the comments. One shared more in depth the data which was breached and the access to information third party apps had to private information - not just information about your own public profile. Thanks to @arkounteires.

Instead of deleting the post - as the situation is much more heinous than just third-party apps viewing your own data - I'll leave it up and add this edit, admitting my own ignorance of the full details and thanking people for having drawn out conversations with me to get to the root of my own shortcomings in understanding the situation.

The situation was far worse than I had originally deemed.
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/04/10/technology/facebook-cambridge-analytica-private-messages.htmlhttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2rnNHt84iRE

Sometimes unpopular opinions are unpopular for a reason. I'll admit I wasn't fully aware of all the details.

AlabasterSexington

A witch hunt? Are you saying there is heresy about?

8 years ago |

nutsacrilegious

I mean...sort of. They keep changing their TOS though.

Goddamnitletmechangethegoddamnname

Yep

Heywhatcouldgowrong

They do nothing different than Google, Twitter, Snapchat, etc. This day was nothing more than a show.

Strostkovy

Pop quiz! What's in imgur's TOS? Because you did read it, right?

EvilKrikkit

It shouldn't take a law degree for an average person to defend themselves against a powerful corporation.

SuperLuckyBlackCat

Did someone say "witch hunt"?

Lyijon9117

Not entirely true, courts have ruled that unconsionable terms in software agreements can be voided because it's unreasonable to expect 1/2

people to read and understand all of all of them. 2/2

Olestra

BS, default settings should be not share, instead of share everything

freiman

Nice try fuckerberg

+1 Hilarious

thirdeyefish

My only issue was that every new thing was opt-in by default, but we also knew they were doing that.

Yeah, but you can literally turn that off -> "You won't be able to log into apps or websites using Facebook"

xr1ssc0ttm

South Park did it.

dudebros

Months ago

GavManDu

Sure, I can be careful and responsible, but CA and their clients have my data because a friend allowed them access via their account.

I've added an edit/retraction.

It's pretty ridiculous to expect all users to not only safeguard themselves, but also keep their friends' app usage/agreements as well.

...but also POLICE* their friends' app usage/agreements as well

[deleted]

8 years ago (deleted Apr 5, 2019 9:51 AM) |

No, that's insane.

They compensate the users with the product that they run and maintain. That's the entire business model.

RonarOfTheRebellion

So where's the box I check to stop Cambridge Analytica from obtaining my info?

gospelofmillim

It's the one that says decline instead of the one that says agree

They stole it from someone else that legally obtained it the way described.

If by "stole it" you mean they gave money in exchange for it, then yes, they stole it.

I meant the action was illegal. So the data was indirectly stolen.

If you haven't signed a contract with them they don't have access to your data unless they scraped your profile which is entirely different.

Funfuhrer

Which is what they did. If you took the survey, Cambridge got the info of everyone on your friends list

If I have signed it, there should be an "app" I have allowed named "Cambridge Analytica" which I can delete from my list. Where is it?

https://www.facebook.com/settings?tab=applications

You seem to confuse "business name" with "application name". They collected data through a quiz.

You seem to confuse "what they say they do" with "what they do". The quiz was not deployed by CamAn, but a third company that shared (1)

the info with them. Also, only 270.000 people took that quiz but taking it meant it would collect data off of your friends profile (2)

DeadeicPrints

That's pretty much wrong since the whole issue is because Cambridge Analytica are the ones who took the data. Once one person clicked accept

On their survey app to allow access to their Facebook, they them took all the data on their friends that they had added too.

Other people are having a lot of trouble answering this. What specific data? Public data? Private data? If public data (i.e. comments)...

...then that's publicly available information. Please source they they attained PRIVATE non-public data. Scraping websites is public data.

orangebicx

We agreed to let them use our info to better the site not sell it on for a profit but nice to see you doing 0 research

https://techcrunch.com/2018/04/10/mark-zuckerberg-we-do-not-sell-data-to-advertisers/

They don't sell data for profit. They use our data to give us targeted advertising so if you live in LA you don't get ads for China.

StarvingGarbage

Except they did exactly that. It's literally what the congressional hearing is about.

That is absurdly false. Did you watch it?

ryedriping

Bullcrap im in canada , im french and i get ads in russian every now and then

Okay - so you have a problem with the efficiency of their algorithm? Or their data isn't effective in your case? What's your point?

You said if you live in l.a. you wont get ad for china .in wich case i say bullcrap im french canadian and get russian ads

retepronnoco

Or you keep browsing Russian porn or Russian mail order brides and their algorithm is working just fine.

Comments (102)