Slashdot Mirror
Facebook Retroactively Makes More User Data Public
mjn writes "In yet another backtrack from their privacy policy, Facebook has decided to retroactively move more information into the public, indexable part of profiles. The new profile parts made public are: a list of things users have become 'fans' of (now renamed to 'likes'), their education and work histories, and what they list under 'interests.' Apparently there is neither any opt-out nor even notice to users, despite the fact that some of this information was entered by users at a time when Facebook's privacy policy explicitly promised that it wouldn't be part of the public profile."
..that I left that sinking ship (Facebook) a long time ago. It wasn't easy (litterally), but worth it.
Anyone who ever had even a passing interest in personal data security and privacy has left Facebook months ago (or, like me, never considered it a great idea to put your life online for public review). Everyone left will probably think it's a great feature.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
at any time without notice. It is your responsibility to check the license page periodically for changes.
Yes, this is bad. No, this is not unexpected. Facebook is about sharing information and always has been. This means you should assume that Facebook will always err on the side of social exhibitionism instead of privacy.
Expecting data you put on Facebook to be private in any respect is like telling someone a secret and following up with "but don't tell anybody else". Everybody will promise they won't tell, but it never works.
I saw an opt-in/opt-out notice last night on Facebook for this change. I'm not sure why others have not. Perhaps they are rolling it out in waves or perhaps it depends on country (I'm in Canada).
So if it's not even close to true, instead of standing on the mountain going "THIS ISN'T TRUE! YOU ALL ARE IDIOTS!" whu don't you provide some concrete information about WHY it's not true? I too am skeptical of the hysteria about the article, and I always look for collaborating information (more than everyone re-posting status updates "Facebook is at it again!") To quote an old friend of mine. "Don't flame, inform!" So? Where is your info?
Event Management Solutions : http://www.stonekeep.com/
Uncheck any Page you don't want to link to. Linking to education and work Pages may also create additional Pages, such as for your major or job title. If you don't link to any Pages, these sections on your profile will be empty. By linking your profile to Pages, you will be making these connections public. [emphasis mine]
You are about to remove this information
If you don't link to any Pages, the following sections on your profile will be empty:
So your options are all or nothing.
Why be on Facebook at all? They don't run it for warm fuzzy feelings. The bulk of the $$$$ is contained in its user data so they'll tap that well more and more as time goes on, not less.
This terms of use agreement is subject to change at any time without notice. It is your responsibility to check the license page periodically for changes.
Lots of 'agreements' have terms like that. In a lot of jurisdictions they carry no weight at all.
The data is valuable to them when it's valid so change it to nonsense.
How long until identity thieves, 419 scammers & spammers create software that can
trawl sites like facebook for useful info?
Seriously, what are they going to find that will be so useful? "Hello, sir -- I note that you went to the University of Nebraska and worked for a while at Cargill. Because of this, I am interested in repatriating my family's fortune to your bank account, for which you will get a fee." Get real...
The realistic threat of facebook vis a vis privacy is that of your youthful indiscretions being on wide display for coworkers and bosses to see.
From the article, it seems as if this new move is only useful to data miners, not Facebook users. So they're basically screwing with us (I use, albeit sparingly, Facebook).
Facebook's done similar things to user's data before, and we've have had some success in protesting those changes. But I'm getting fed up. I don't want to have to worry about every single time Facebook has some sort of an update, that my personal data is going to be distributed publicly. I've had to change my privacy settings before, where stuff that I previously had private was suddenly public. Now it seems I have no option but to delete part of my profile in order to keep my stuff private.
What I wonder is how long Facebook thinks they'll get away with this until everyone is fed up and leaves?
I am not a vegetarian werewolf.
eff is getting pissed at facebook because facebook is doing hysterical shit themselves.
might want to try not to spin it the other way around.
You used to be able to click on a link to anything you had listed in music and be able to see anyone else in your network who had also listed the same band/musican in their profile.
Changing things like "Become a fan" to a "like" is relying on people not noticing and cliking Like because their used to doing that on friend's status updates.
Is there something like Facebook but which doesn't suck so much? It shouldn't be impossible to have something which users like, and which the owners can make a profit from. Actually, I don't even care about the profit part. Seems like something Google would be interested in. I guess they have Orkut, but that never really went anywhere. Perhaps Wave?
You still use Facebook? Call me a troll, but think. Are you being intelligent if you still use Facebook after all this?
After my last Slashdot comment, I deleted my profile. One of the sub-comments explains how to delete it instead of just disabling it.
Banu
I have to be amused that the first two lines of the page for me currently read:
Become a fan of Slashdot on Facebook
Your Rights Online: Facebook Retroactively Makes More User Data Public
I suppose that since Slashdot is on the internet, and nothing on the internet is private, I shouldn't mind anyone knowing, right?
Girls, where are you going? Oh, come back, it's not that bad, really! I just do it for the karma!
IIRC, "About Me" is not covered by this. You can put info there to keep it private (for now, at least).
"The use-mention distinction" is not "enforced here."
What I wonder is how long Facebook thinks they'll get away with this until everyone is fed up and leaves?
Easy, when will you get fed up and leave? Apparently not yet.
Don't ask how long the public is going to put up with something, if you are putting up with it.
Or to paraphrase Pastor Martin Niemöller:
First they came for me, but I said nothing for I was to busy consuming.
Then they might come for some other people after that but I was long gone by then.
God paraphrasing in a different tense is difficult.
MMO Quests are like orgasms:
You may solo them, I prefer them in a group.
I was always taught not to accept candy from strangers that wanted to give me a free car ride. It looks like the ruse still works. I don't use facebook either.
but I'll keep on lovin' you just the same..
For justice, we must go to Don Corleone
People need to understand once something hits the internet its out there, no privacy promise by a huge corporation (that probably owns the data once it hits its servers and gave it self the right to change policy whenever they want in the wall of text) is going to protect it.
The Cloud sound nice and all but the hype often forgets (intentionally ?) to make the dumb user aware of the consequences and dangers of putting something in a hard drive they cannot control
I don't use my real name. My profile information is junk data. Thus I don't care about any connections that can be inferred based on posts I make, posts my friends make to me, and I don't become a fan of anything. On top of this, whatever privacy settings there are on facebook, I've turned them all on to "Just Friends" settings.
This is not a perfect setup, since there are photos. But if a photo is taken of me doing something that is immature/illegal or while intoxicated, it won't be tagged with my name, and I can rely on the friends of mine who generally take a lot of photos not to post those kinds of photos up on Facebook in the first place.
there are of course, many avenues to take when wanting to link my facebook profile to my real name/address, it's not 100% safe. But then again, neither is this comment. The internet isn't really a place for off-the-grid type of folks. Don't get me wrong, I'm not a fan of the whole erosion of privacy thing and it just seems to keep getting worse and worse. But I proactively try to take steps to mitigate it, and so should you.
If you're not hiding anything... you have nothing to fear. Isn't that what we keep hearing from the government?
just choose to be 10 and your personal information will be 'more' protected; according to ... another news
Just one more reason I will never create a Facebook page. It's a no-benefit time suck with no apparent purpose except to facilitate attention whores and their ilk.
Yes, it makes it easy to keep in touch with your friends. You know what else does that? A phone. A letter. Walking to their house and knocking on the door.
Further eliminating direct interpersonal communications in favor of digital communication is absolutely not beneficial for this society, country, or planet. If their wanton lack of regard for privacy and their users' data isn't enough to drive you away, I hope the chair ass and jelly rolls it induces will be.
Go throw a damn baseball with a real friend instead.
If the only way you can accept an assertion is by faith, then you are conceding that it can't be taken on its own merits
Never say on the Internet what you wouldn't want shouted from mountaintops.
And never before has this been true. There is almost nothing on my Facebook profile I wouldn't mind being shouted from mountaintops. And for those few things I might care about are things I wouldn't want my Ex knowing about. But she hardly lacks the sophistication to discover these things. :-)
Ruby Neural Evolution of Augmenting Topologies
The "real danger" isn't youthful indiscretion. It's profiling in a giant model by Government AND commercial interests in ways that will forever affect your ability to get a job, find insurance or even your ability to freely travel.
How do you build a panopticon, a prison for a society in which real power lies outside of government, in the hands of private commercial and financial interests? Honeypots. Google and Facebook and whatnot. Everyone is so anti-Government, like the stupid Reaganites. That's like being against a small-town cop. He's got the gun, alright - but he works for the man in the big house, at the edge of town. Hired. The enemy isn't Barney Fife - It's Old Man Potter.
How does this relate to Facebook?
You present a real, but minor threat, versus the real evil Facebook represent - along with the darkest nightmare of Google.
Remember, Watson, at IBM supplied tabulation equipment for improving the German Census in the 1930's. Technology was welcomed, and was going to modernize, to improve every German life. Except for a minority or two, of 11 million...
Cypher: "All I see now is blonde, brunette, redhead."
Facebook has been gradually boosting its profile in Washington D.C. over the past year and is on the hunt for a second senior lobbyist to add to its office of four. Disclosures released a few days ago show that, on top of lobbying the usual suspects Internet companies reach out to like the Federal Trade Commission and the U.S. senators and representatives, the fast-growing social network has also been busy deepening ties to government intelligence and homeland security agencies. ...
What's interesting about Facebook's lobbying in D.C. is what it spends money on despite its small size. It was the only consumer Internet company out of Google, Amazon, eBay, Microsoft, Yahoo and Apple to reach out to intelligence agencies last year, according to lobbying disclosure forms. It has lobbied the Office of the Director of National Intelligence -- an umbrella office founded in the wake of Sept. 11 that synthesizes intelligence from 17 agencies including the CIA and advises the President -- for the last three quarters on privacy and federal cyber-security policy. It has reached out to the Defense Intelligence Agency too.
Well, Facebook has always been an "op" http://cryptogon.com/?p=13749
Now, combine those observations with the next two pieces of information:
Virginia Tech Is Building an Artificial America in a Supercomputer
As many as 163 variables, mostly drawn from the U.S. Census, come into play for each synthetic American. Called EpiSimdemics, the model almost perfectly matches the demographic attributes of groups with at least 1500 people, according to Keith Bisset, a senior research associate who works on the simulation's software. The software generates fake people to populate real communities and assigns each person characteristics such as age, education level, and occupation to mirror local statistics derived from the most recent national census. In accordance with the data, some individuals are clustered into families, while others live alone.
Every synthetic household is assigned a real street address, based on land-use information from Navteq, a digital-mapping company. Using data from a business directory, each employed individual is matched to a specific job within a reasonable commute from the person's home. Similarly, actual schools, supermarkets, and shopping centers identified through Navteq's database are also linked to households based on their proximity to the home. When an artificial American goes grocery shopping, the simulation algorithm assigns probabilities that
"Speaking the Truth in times of universal deceit is a revolutionary act." -- George Orwell
I'm amused by the constant uproars people make every time facebook changes something. what the hell do they think the whole point of facebook is? that they are just providing this service for free? this is a classic case of people wanting their cake and eating it too.
meanwhile, government already has complete access to everyone's communication. you don't hear nearly so much about that anymore. I'm a lot more worried about law enforcement abuse than marketing products I might actually want at some point.
In this case, particular bits of data were disclosed to Facebook with the written understanding that they would remain private. That was according to Facebook's own privacy policy. Later, Facebook reneged on this understanding and unilaterally decided to made them retroactively public. They did this without giving anyone a chance to opt-out and there was no period of notice (between announcing this and actually doing it) to give users a chance to remove or edit that data. This is your classic bait-and-switch. They said one thing, got people to accept what they said on good faith, and then they did another thing.
I understand that Facebook wants to make money. Every for-profit corporation wants to make money. However, that doesn't give them the right to use deception and that's what happened here. Reputable companies manage to make profit without making promises they refuse to keep to their users or customers. What Facebook did is like moving the goalposts or changing the rules while the game is being played. Can you understand now why saying "did you think they were providing you a free service" is a strawman and fails to address the actual issue here?
It is a miracle that curiosity survives formal education. - Einstein
Phew, good thing this doesn't apply to me. I managed to retroactively reject their privacy policy update.
I see a lot of comments saying to delete your account.
Personally I have an FB account but it doesn't really have any personal information.. Just the school I went to (which anyone could find by googling my name anyways) and my "friends." The only reason I have it is to once in a while get updates on people I havnt seem in years.
There's no privacy concern; there's nothing private of mine on it. Why don't people (as in, /. Users) do this more often than full out cancelling their account? I don't get it.
Lots of 'agreements' have terms like that. In a lot of jurisdictions they carry no weight at all.
First you need to find out what jurisdiction. Facebook dosn't exactly go out of its way to tell you where they actually are. Their map implies they are in Western US, Eastern Canada, North West Europe (except Iceland), Russia, Japan, India, Egypt, Brazil, Colombia, Chilie, Nigeria, South Africa and South East Australia. Does selecting Canadian French mean that the jurisdiction is Canada; French French mean that it is France; Welsh that it is Wales; Czech that it is The Czech Republic; Catalan that it is Spain; etc.
I am referring, of course, to the same sort of people who are not sure what a web browser is or which browser they are using -- which appears to be the overwhelming majority.
Yea, I've noticed these are some of the same people who buy Apple products. Honestly, if you have a business that caters to the lowest forms of intelligence, you WILL make a lot of money. Anyone who cares about security, privacy, and price-per-features will be shown the door.
I think P.T. Barnum had something to say about this.
Its possible the retroactive parts of these changes are in breach of UK/EU data protection laws. The issue is that a holder of personal data may only use information for the purposes for which it was provided. If the person supplying the data wished to keep it relatively private and Facebook then later make it public without the informed prior consent of the user then there is a probable breach of the regulations.
Of course Facebook will say that they are not based in the EU but they probably do have servers and interests there and gain revenue from EU based advertisers.
That sounds an awful lot like sim city 2000....
Can you be Even More Awesome?!
Imagine Facebook being composed mostly of misinformation.
So everyone go out and start changing your info... maybe several times a year.
Just as I saw GFP and was so aghast that someone who more than likely is a /. regular could even be so naive, I started figuring out how to refute him/her. Thanks for doing such a good job for me. I, being former military, and having plenty of contacts in DIA, State Department, Interpol and other intel agencies have been the guy crying wolf to my family and friends about facebook. Who really doesn't think that something so popular (usage of facebook surpassed usage of google recently) is going to get jumped on by at least a couple of agencies? It is quite sad that even people on /. fall for this. I recently had a similar argument with a friend. She asked, "I don't do anything bad over the phone, and though I might have personal conversations there really isn't anything you could find out about me that would be worth it.", I replied, assuming I have the ability to tap all your phone calls for a month, I probably have the following information, where and who you call, and how often, would probably also tell me the places you do business and where you are at certain times of the day. What kind of travel and what airlines you use. Called your bank? I know you last 4 and your credit card number, and its security code and expiration date. Starting to get the picture? I call it the google effect, where one little piece of information seems innocuous, so people keep throwing it out there, but it all adds up into one giant pile of knowledge about you, and anybody who values privacy should run, not walk, away from at least two services, google and facebook.
"It's ok, I'm completely secure as long as my iron is off"
Ok after reviewing your links, your claims seem to be a bit over the top, but the idea behind your post still stands.
"It's ok, I'm completely secure as long as my iron is off"
If i put "Baby raping" as an acticity (which of course it isn't),
they will make a page for that as well? I have to get rid of my
FB page now, since all of this is getting out of hand
I'm here for the experience, not the Hyperbole.
http://biggovernment.com/capitolconfidential/2010/03/30/google-buzz-privacy-flaw-snags-another-victim-white-house-deputy-cto-andrew-mclaughlin/
President Obama's Deputy Chief Technology Officer Andrew McLaughlin got snagged pretty badly and I hear there might be an investigation.
Why is this so difficult? Repeat after me "I will not post anything to the Internet that I do not want the whole world to know". And also "I will not trust a third party company to keep my data private ever even if they pinky swear to it". Then if you don't post things you do not want revealed then when the company (facebook in this case) makes the data public or gets hacked then nothing of value will be lost.
I also don't understand people who have facebook pages set all to private. What is the point of that. If you want to send information to a small group of people then set up a mailing list. Why you would use facebook for that purpose is completely beyond me. Instead tap into the fantastic intrinsic value that facebook has in building a brand identity and value for YOUR name. Post things that will make future employers, future lovers and your parents proud. Then you'll have nothing to hide because what you want hidden you never posted in the first place.
This story confirms one thing, only stupid people will use stupid site like Facebook, and share all details abouth themselves.
So long as you include the 'and share all details about themselves', I'd certainly agree: if there's something you don't want your boss or your relatives to find out then... duh... don't post it on the Internet. In my case that's easy because my boss and my relatives are on my Facebook friends lists so I know not to post anything they wouldn't want to see.
eliminate income tax for everyone below $100,000
Good luck with THAT.
Realize that the forces that have the greater portion of control of the government are the very rich.
In order for the rich to stay rich, the poor must stay poor. The imbalance of wealth is what gives wealth its motivational power.
How do you motivate a farmer to grow food for you? By paying him. But if he is already nearly as wealthy as you, then the money you would give will lack that motivational power, and you would have to grow your own food yourself (which, obviously, is utterly unacceptable).
So the government takes half the money away from anyone trying to climb out of middle class, ostensibly to fund the military and infrastructure, but with the beneficial side-effect of ensuring that there are enough workers to keep things moving.
If we did eliminate that income tax as you suggest, I predict the first impact would be lower wages. People would be willing to work less since they get to keep more of it. After an adjustment period, most people would be right back where they were in terms of net income.
There would also be faster inflation.
Longer-term I would predict a very stagnant stock market (or perhaps another adjustment like the one we just saw). Once too many members of the upper-middle class think they can retire, and start cashing in, the values will drop and force many of them back into the working world, as always happens when our economy gets too stock-wealthy.
It is a noble idea you have, but the net effect wouldn't be what you are aiming for. The notion that every American can work hard to better his lot (and that of his children) is only true if a small handful actually do it. When the poor class as a while starts reaching up, adjustments are made to keep them down.
You literally have to be an Internet Olympic hero to delete or remove your Facebook account after these changes. But I found this story/guide, by Mathew Ingram very useful when I removed my facebook presence.
http://gigaom.com/2010/04/22/your-moms-guide-to-those-facebook-changes-and-how-to-block-them/
Even if you are not logged into facebook, due to instant personalization, many websites that partner with fb can track you.
FACEBOOK is at it again...violating your personal information: As of today, there is a new privacy setting called "Instant Personalization" that shares data with non-facebook websites and it is automatically set to "Allow." Go to Account > Privacy Settings > Applications and Websites and uncheck "Allow".
Comment removed based on user account deletion
Eben Moglen:
We have a kind of social dilemma which comes from architectural creep. We had an Internet that was designed around the notion of peerage - machines with no hierarchical relationship to one another, and no guarantee about their internal architectures or behaviours, communicating through a series of rules which allowed disparate, heterogeneous networks to be networked together around the assumption that everybody's equal.
In the Web the social harm done by the client-server model arises from the fact that logs of Web servers become the trails left by all of the activities of human beings, and the logs can be centralised in servers under hierarchical control. Web logs become power. With the exception of search, which is a service that nobody knows how to decentralise efficiently, most of these services do not actually rely upon a hierarchical model. They really rely upon the Web - that is, the non-hierarchical peerage model created by Tim Berners-Lee, and which is now the dominant data structure in our world.
The services are centralised for commercial purposes. The power that the Web log holds is monetisable, because it provides a form of surveillance which is attractive to both commercial and governmental social control. So the Web, with services equipped in a basically client-server architecture, becomes a device for surveillance as well as providing additional services. And surveillance becomes the hidden service wrapped inside everything we get for free.
The cloud is a vernacular name which we give to a significant improvement in the server-side of the web - the server, decentralised. It becomes, instead of a lump of iron, a digital appliance, which can be running anywhere. This means that for all practical purposes servers cease to be subject to significant legal control. They no longer operate in a policy-directed manner, because they are no longer iron, subject to territorial orientation of law. In a world of virtualised service provision, the server which provides the service, and therefore the log which is the result of the hidden service of surveillance, can be projected into any domain at any moment and can be stripped of any legal obligation pretty much equally freely.
This is a pessimal result.
read the rest here.
if you're too lazy to read watch it here.
"It's because they're stupid, that's why. That's why everybody does everything." -Homer Simpson
But with your data - and trillons of data rows.
"Speaking the Truth in times of universal deceit is a revolutionary act." -- George Orwell
Implication, triangulation and extrapolation.
Where will this be in 5-7 years?
Additional tidbit: Google is off and running to be the network and intelligence for your US "Smart Power Grid". A google tap on the meter outside your house. Did you see Brazil?
"Speaking the Truth in times of universal deceit is a revolutionary act." -- George Orwell
Beyond that, you can use Facebook to present an image of yourself that has nothing to do with your real-life self. I "like" my local baseball team, but have little to no interest in baseball.
This is just like actual society, and in fact is actual society. If you have "social skills," you can use "social networking" safely. If you don't, watch out. Be a shut-in. It doesn't matter. It's going to reflect your own common sense and "social IQ."
--
Toro
Queue the litany of moronic douchebag Slashdot users whose only contribution to the thread will be a variant of "I don't use Facebook, and people who do are dumb." That may be true, but you're still a douchebag that didn't add anything to the conversation except to boost your own flagging self-esteem with a not-so-subtle "I told you so, and look how smart I am... I'm SO much better than people who use Facebook" statement. Do you feel better about yourself now? Thanks for adding nothing to the dialogue.
---As my daddy used to tell me: "You gotta be smart before you can be a smartass."
I don't know if it's just coincidence, but i'm editing my profile to remove details right now and all of a sudden facebook is unavailable and takes several minutes to seem back online... It happens every time i remove details in my profile and try to save the changes. And I also noticed i'm in a group ("help fight against lyme disease" wtf is that anyway?), that i've not joined. And no my account has not been hacked.
In light of the above, I'd recommend the following article (and series) at Global Research: The Transnational Homeland Security State and the Decline of Democracy
( http://globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=18676 )
There are two bits here, relevant to the "Super Simulation" being built by NSA - and the role of ordinary Internet activity and Social Networks in functioning as data-sources:
In November of 2007, Keith Olbermann interviewed Mark Klein on MSNBC, where Klein elaborated on the secret program, saying that virtually all internet traffic in the entire country was handed over to the NSA. He appeared on MSNBC at a time when Congress was debating whether or not to grant the telecom companies legal immunity for participating in the NSA program, which would thus shut down all pending legal action being taken against the companies for their involvement in the illegal program. Klein reflected on his job, saying that, "Here I am, being forced to connect the Big Brother machine."
and:
In September of 2003, Congress ended funding for the program. The media then hailed the TIA program as "dead and gone." Yet, the funding was cut for the specific program as envisaged under the umbrella of TIA. The various programs within TIA could continue as separate projects, with the full funding and support of Congress. ...
In 2006, it was revealed that TIA stopped "in name only" and in fact does live on, and it "was moved from the Pentagon's research-and-development agency to another group, which builds technologies primarily for the National Security Agency." Interestingly, "Two of the most important components of the TIA program were moved to the Advanced Research and Development Activity, housed at NSA headquarters in Fort Meade, Md." The program has heavy involvement from private defense and intelligence contractors, highly secretive corporations that get major contracts from US intelligence agencies to be able to undertake intelligence activities that aren't subjected to Congressional oversight.
An infallible method of conciliating a tiger is to allow oneself to be devoured.
-- Konrad Adenauer
"Speaking the Truth in times of universal deceit is a revolutionary act." -- George Orwell
Makes no difference where they are. A case between you and Facebook would almost certainly be filed in your district, not in Facebook's. They must comply with all applicable privacy laws everywhere they do business, not just in their own district. Sure, they could try to get a change of venue to a court in California or whatever, but it is unlikely that this would be granted, as holding the case in CA would be a significant hardship for you, but holding the case elsewhere would not be a significant hardship for a large corporation like Facebook.
Check out my sci-fi/humor trilogy at PatriotsBooks.
A lot of people really do not keep up with the latest decisions Facebook is making with regard to personal privacy, or are even aware that Facebook can, at any time, reveal their data.
You make the assumption that these people are uninformed, but I think in actuality most simply DON'T CARE. Most people do not live at the same high level of paranoia that Slashdotters do. Many people really could not care less who knows where and with whom they par-teyed with last weekend or that they are killer at Mafia Wars or that they live in Portland Oregon and read bodice rippers and think Kim Kardashian is HOT. Most people don't care if the CIA or NSA or whatever government spooks know this tripe. And most are aware that after they graduate from college, they can delete or lock down their Facebook so that "potential employers" can't see.
Those that are "alarmed" by Facebook don't use it. Those that do don't care. It's a mistake to assume that Facebook users don't know the "risks".
If you want news from today, you have to come back tomorrow.
Completely off-topic, but did your friend perhaps say "Don't inflame, inform."
We are the product. We're what Facebook sells to advertisers in order to bring in their business. Facebook needs to offer just enough privacy and control to keep most of us, but not so much as to ruin the value of the product.
I'm glad some attention is finally being brought to this. I edited my profile a couple of days ago, and hit the new interests-to-fan page conversion. It did not do a great job at all; I ended up a fan of some really off-the-wall, incorrect things (because the same word or title can have multiple meanings or belong to multiple organizations). My immediate concern was that there is still no way to make membership to a fan page private. So I immediately checked the privacy settings, and while I had been opted in (without consent) to display my likes and interests, there is a privacy option to make them private. The *HUGE* catch in the fine print is that people can still check to see if you are the member of any fan page simply by looking through the group's members, where you'll be visible. Unless I am mistaken, only reliable option for people with legitimate concerns about human rights violations, nosy employers, angry exes, or nosy family members is now to enter absolutely no interests, things to do, music, movie, or books on Facebook, as all of this data is now at least partially public, regardless of how security settings are configured. I just read an article that discussed identifying intimate details, such as a person's sexuality, using only this publicly available data and statistical data. While things like that are generally protected in the US, consider Facebook members abroad - people who practice a religion or philosophy in countries where there is religious persecution could be at tremendous risk now, and not even know it. All their government would have to do is start scanning certain fan pages. Obviously, Facebook's income does not come from members, it comes from advertisers, who are its real customers. However, for the last couple years, they have made Buzz-worthy privacy moves that its millions of members really need to stand up to, before somebody gets hurt.
I do use the strictest 'privacy' settings, but that is just to put a little more control over companies using my information for their monetary gain
You do realize that the information you listed *IS* being used for monetary gain regardless of what your "Privacy" settings are? You do realize that is the entire point of this article and Facebook, in general. Your data is already being sold.
Ironically, I was facebooked by my former boss about this assault on my privacy.
So if it's not even close to true, instead of standing on the mountain going "THIS ISN'T TRUE! YOU ALL ARE IDIOTS!" whu don't you provide some concrete information about WHY it's not true?
According to the article (and the Facebook blog post that it refers to) the links aren't public unless/until you opt-in. The issue that the EFF has is that the only opt-out is to remove them as interests:
Update: A few people have contacted us by email and through Facebook to ask for clarification about this post. They're confused by the language in Facebook's announcement, which describes the new changes as "opt-in".
The issue with Facebook's latest change is not that they force you to link your interests without permission, but rather that they remove an option to express yourself on the profile without links.
I can't confirm or deny this myself because my Facebook profile is devoid of information, but the summary here implies that your interests are moved over to the new system automatically and without notification. Neither the EFF article nor the Facebook blog announcing this feature says that though, in fact they say just the opposite
It's like the dude who promises to pull out before ejaculating. Oops, sorry, couldn't help myself.
Besides, you people are using real info on a website? Damn.
Sure, Slashdot editors might not bother to fix typos or any of the other errors we see every day on Slashdot. But one would expect them to be a little bit careful about defamation and check before posting blatant lies like this.
Stalkface (as I now call it) has become such an integral social platform that it really does have us by the 'nads. I'm middle-aged, and Stalkface has enabled a certain level of ambient social chatter for me which ranges from elementary school deaf kid cohorts to contemporary friends, acquaintances and correspondents. Then again, I've been on-line in one forum or another since 1989, circa the cold fusion debacle, so I figure that getting screwed by the panopticon became the default long ago.
Where would I find these girls who stalk Geeks? Curious minds want to know.
Civilized life requires even more labor.
If everyone is rich, who will harvest the crops, ship them, prepare them, serve them?
Who will clean the toilets, maintain the sewers, fix your broken pipes?
Who will maintain the roads, buildings, storefronts, and so on?
Whenever a society starts reaching a point where too many people are wealthy enough that they don't have to work, a financial adjustment of some sort happens to correct the situation. Inflation usually but also stock market and wage fluctuation etc.
I see my original post got modded troll as of this writing. I am not entirely sure how I feel about that.
After deliberating for the last few months, I have just deleted my facebook account.
It feels very liberating. I'm looking forward to all the free time I will have. Looking at all the crap that your "friends" post is such a waste of time.
Yay :)
I don't quite understand what the author means by not having an option. There is an option not to have your profile show up in search results.
http://img.phyrefile.com/endtro/2010/04/24/facebook.png
Facebook was always a corporate jerkfest - it only had to come to the slow boil... and now it smells of shit.
.
Voting up, Voting down - If I really gave a fuck about your approval or not, I'd come and ask you.
I cannot think of a single friend of mine that does not have a profile.
That's sad. You should really have at least one friend with a different opinion...at least about whether FaceBook is a good thing.
And get off my lawn, I suspect.
[UID-HeinzIntel]
I use Facebook and almost all of my "personal" info is a lie or a smart ass answer, like just listing "Apathy" for "Interests". If someone is stupid enough to believe what I said in the info section, I don't want to talk to them anyway. Only tell the truth on the web when you absolutely have to.
They should be held accountable for sure, but at the same time, i never would have put so much info about myself there in the first place...takes 2 to tango and i think both parties are to blame, facebook for misleading the public, and the public for putting their info there in the first place. Facebook has its uses...but i think if i wanted to set up a way to track my population in case i needed a government operation to have quick access to all that info, it would be pretty obvious.
Also now that you know, change your info ...all of it, replace it with funny things to say or fake stuff, most of your real friends know you already, if they don't recognize something, it wont hurt.
If you're afraid of their intelligence gathering and profiling, the worst action you could take would be removing yourself from the honeypots. That's like waving a giant red flag saying "I've caught on to the scam!" If they're using the data for nefarious reasons, you're going to be identified as someone who, early on, proved troublesome. If you're already on the networks, you'd be far more likely to fly under the radar by gently subverting your profile into something that will be perceived innocuous instead of an abrupt removal. Corrupting their data is far more protective than merely limiting what they have available.
That's funny; there are many university students as well as community college and high school students that use Facebook. As for Community Colleges they're not conservative brain washing colleges as there are instructors who are modern liberals just as there are those who are conservative.