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Facebook Scans What You Send Other People on Messenger App (bloomberg.com)
Sarah Frier, reporting for Bloomberg: Facebook scans the text and images that people send each other on Facebook Messenger, making sure it all abides by the company's rules governing content. If it doesn't, it gets blocked. The company confirmed the practice after an interview published earlier this week with Chief Executive Officer Mark Zuckerberg raised questions about Messenger's practices and privacy. Zuckerberg told Vox's Ezra Klein a story about receiving a phone call related to ethnic cleansing in Myanmar. Facebook had detected people trying to send sensational messages through the Messenger app, he said.
"In that case, our systems detect what's going on," Zuckerberg said. "We stop those messages from going through." Some people reacted with concern on Twitter: "Was Facebook reading messages more generally?" Facebook has been under scrutiny in recent weeks over how it handles users' private data and the revelation struck a nerve. Messenger doesn't use the data from the scanned messages for advertising, the company said, but the policy may extend beyond what Messenger users expect.
"In that case, our systems detect what's going on," Zuckerberg said. "We stop those messages from going through." Some people reacted with concern on Twitter: "Was Facebook reading messages more generally?" Facebook has been under scrutiny in recent weeks over how it handles users' private data and the revelation struck a nerve. Messenger doesn't use the data from the scanned messages for advertising, the company said, but the policy may extend beyond what Messenger users expect.
Google has admitted to doing it since gmail first came out
It gets better, actually...
On any phone older than 1-2 generations back (and on most basic entry-level new phones), FB now has had a habit of forcing your mobile browser to a limited-functionality mode (m.basic.facebook.com), and disabling messaging on the browser entirely, even if the browser (e.g. Brave, Chrome) is the latest version and perfectly capable of rendering and using the pages. The only way past it is (for now) requesting Desktop pages. At the bottom of every basic page (or if you attempt to use the Message functions on their pages) they happily tell you that you should install their apps instead.
Guess they really want to shove you into their spyware ecosystem, no?
Quo usque tandem abutere, Nimbus, patientia nostra?
It has been dumbfounding that so many people have chosen these proprietary messaging apps. Before you even hear any stories about how awful they are, the first thing you encounter with any of them, is that they don't interoperate with anything else. That is, if you want to talk to someone who uses that app, you have to use the same app. Simply through this, you know the protocol is undocumented and therefore very likely to be substantially worse than the state-of-the-art 20 years ago.
But people ignore that.
But now we're having some refreshing (and surprising!) moments of honesty. That Microsoft scans Skype looking for dirty words was not only hilarious, but an amazing thing for them to admit. Now we have another one (Facebook, this time) admitting that their app is completely and utterly insecure.
These companies didn't get exposed by security researchers. They didn't get exposed by something embarrassing getting leaked. They didn' get exposed by common sense and people thinking about how they could prove the platforms were secure. They exposed themselves, admitting to the public that their products are worthless. They're telling us, explicitly. What more can you want? If you use these things, it's your problem. Just don't pretend you have a reasonable expectation of privacy.
The only way this might be bad, is that they're giving people the answers "too easily" so people won't get any smarter and might come to the weird conclusion that if a messaging app isn't secure, the company will own up to it. Well, I totally disagree with that. The people already failed and weren't going to learn anything anyway. So tell them the answer to this quiz, just in the desperate hope that they realize the answer next time. Maybe some day, when people are offered products that apprear to be insecure, they'll treat them as though they realize they're probably insecure. No, not everyone, but a few more percent than last time.
Thank you, Facebook and Microsoft. I say this without irony. I don't know your motives, but your actions are about as close to teaching as anyone could ever expect from you. And you did this teaching to our most disadvantaged students, the ones who most needed it.
"Believe me!" -- Donald Trump