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How Facebook Outs Sex Workers (gizmodo.com)
An anonymous reader shares a Gizmodo report: Leila has two identities, but Facebook is only supposed to know about one of them. Leila is a sex worker. She goes to great lengths to keep separate identities for ordinary life and for sex work, to avoid stigma, arrest, professional blowback, or clients who might be stalkers (or worse). Her "real identity" -- the public one, who lives in California, uses an academic email address, and posts about politics -- joined Facebook in 2011. Her sex-work identity is not on the social network at all; for it, she uses a different email address, a different phone number, and a different name. Yet earlier this year, looking at Facebook's "People You May Know" recommendations, Leila (a name I'm using in place of either of the names she uses) was shocked to see some of her regular sex-work clients. Despite the fact that she'd only given Facebook information from her vanilla identity, the company had somehow discerned her real-world connection to these people -- and, even more horrifyingly, her account was potentially being presented to them as a friend suggestion too, outing her regular identity to them. Because Facebook insists on concealing the methods and data it uses to link one user to another, Leila is not able to find out how the network exposed her or take steps to prevent it from happening again. "We're living in an age where you can weaponize personal information against people"Kashmir Hill, the reporter who wrote the above story, a few weeks ago shared another similar incident.
criminalizing prostitution.
This is probably due to someone posting a photo with both people in it. Facebook will use facial recognition on photos, and when it sees two people in the same photo, I would expect it to suggest a connection.
Don't use Facebook.
No! Are you crazy? I won't delete my Facebook account.
I'll keep it in the empty state it is now, lest someone creates one in my name and abuses it to slander me.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
A good reason to move to Signal, it is free and does not sell your data.
https://signal.org/
"The likes of Facebook and WhatsApp are free to those whose privacy is of zero value."
Stop being on Facebook.
Except Facebook will remember you even if you delete your account.
Except Facebook will remember you even if you have separate accounts.
Except Facebook will find out who you are if you have friends and family on Facebook. Especially if they mention you by name in a Facebook post.
Except Facebook is probably tracking you right now because of all those little "like" buttons you can see everywhere.
Except Facebook... Oh, fsck it, I give up.
Frankly, who needs the NSA when you have Facebook? Oh, wait, they are probably working together right now.
Wasn't there a story about that creep Zuckerberg wanting to become President of the United States of Facebook?
The right to offend is far more important than the right not to be offended. (Rowan Atkinson)
It trivial for Facebook to link the identities, she is using the same IP address to log in for both of them. It is then reasonable for the Facebook algorithm to guess that people logging in from the same IP address are related somehow.
There's also the much more critical question "Why the fuck are people still using Facebook after all these nightmarish news?"
#DeleteFacebook
That's what they SAY they need it all for. Do you really believe the cover story? Come on. All that data is valuable and can be sold. That's why there are ten zillion permissions.
Shutting down free speech with violence isn't fighting fascism. It IS fascism!
The criminalization of prostitution doesn't fix any of those negative aspects. Decriminalization allows us to tax it. When we tax something we keep records and make requirements/offer services to the workers in that industry. Those requirements/services would be aimed at reducing the issues you're speaking of above. There will still be illegal prostitution, but legalization would greatly diminish that.
Prohibition didn't solve the evils of alcohol, they exacerbated them. The war on drugs hasn't stopped drug us, it's simply exacerbated the negative affect it had on society.
The first-order vs. higher-order stuff you're prattling about above is not directly connected with party affiliation. Stupid people only think about first-order affects. There are stupid people on either end of the spectrum.
Meanwhile, please point me to one member of congress presenting a "proper solution that provides far more balance and tries to avoid unintended side effects" for the ills of sex workers and their clients. By which I mean a solution other than "more prison, bigger guns."
Which begs the question - why does Facebook suggest 'people you might know' based on anything other than their being Facebook friends of your Facebook friends? And how would it hurt them to let you opt out of that?
The weird thing is that, having put enough effort into this particularly creepy kind of 'connection', the actual 'search for people you know' functionality on Facebook is horrible. You can search by name - that's it. Useless for any kind of common name - and even when the person you're searching for shows up in the list, you can't narrow it down by searching on location or any other keywords, so if you don't recognize their photo, you're out of luck.
Posted from my Android phone. Oh, I can change this? There, that's better...