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Former Facebook Employees Say The Company's Prioritization Of Privacy is About Optics (buzzfeednews.com)
Last May, Facebook promised to launch a "Clear History" feature that it said would give users more control over their data. 9 months later it's nowhere to be found and now a report claims that it's a key example of the company's "reactionary" way of dealing with privacy concerns. From a report: Thus far, Facebook's public discussions of Clear History appear to have been more about communications strategy than charting a new course. In a Facebook post looking back on 2018, Zuckerberg pointed to the tool as one that would "give people more transparency" while Sandberg highlighted it to show Facebook's willingness to change during a speech at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, last month.
Still, nine months after its initial announcement, Clear History is nowhere to be found. "We want to make sure this works the way it should for everyone on Facebook, which is taking longer than expected," the company said in a statement to BuzzFeed News. It's unclear if new high-profile hires, like Nate Cardozo (formerly of EFF) and Robyn Greene (formerly of New America's Open Technology Institute), will work with Facebook's new privacy unit or if they will be involved with Clear History. It has reached out to groups like Access Now, the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF), and the Center for Democracy and Technology (CDT), as well as academics. Sources confirmed that CDT and EFF were advising Facebook on its Clear History tool, but could not disclose specifics of their meetings due to nondisclosure agreements. Access Now's Masse confirmed Facebook had reached out on a number of issues, including Clear History, in the last few months, but called the conversations "punctual and limited." "Despite repeated statements and apologies from the company, we are not seeing a shift in Facebook data practices or an attitude that would suggest that they take data protection seriously," she said.
Still, nine months after its initial announcement, Clear History is nowhere to be found. "We want to make sure this works the way it should for everyone on Facebook, which is taking longer than expected," the company said in a statement to BuzzFeed News. It's unclear if new high-profile hires, like Nate Cardozo (formerly of EFF) and Robyn Greene (formerly of New America's Open Technology Institute), will work with Facebook's new privacy unit or if they will be involved with Clear History. It has reached out to groups like Access Now, the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF), and the Center for Democracy and Technology (CDT), as well as academics. Sources confirmed that CDT and EFF were advising Facebook on its Clear History tool, but could not disclose specifics of their meetings due to nondisclosure agreements. Access Now's Masse confirmed Facebook had reached out on a number of issues, including Clear History, in the last few months, but called the conversations "punctual and limited." "Despite repeated statements and apologies from the company, we are not seeing a shift in Facebook data practices or an attitude that would suggest that they take data protection seriously," she said.
I don't have a problem with 'optics', I have a problem with the fact that they are collecting data to begin with. This is not their right. What is difficult to understand about this? Keep slapping pretty paint on that turd, Zuck. It still stinks to high heaven.
Linear or nonlinear?
Fuck you and your moronic use of words.
Go buy a dictionary, or even better die in a fire, /. editor.
is about it being easy for everyone to see.
Grass is green
Sky is blue
Did anyone expect anything else?
I mean of course its about optics. Most of the privacy concerns around the practices people are upset with facebook over have been discussed now for at least 15 years by literally everyone doing anything remotely connected to (ugh about to use horrid buzzword) web 2.0.
Everyone in facebook leadership was aware of privacy issues, they made the decisions they made anyway and are only now backing off even a little for reasons of public perception. If they "sincerely cared" there would never have been an issue. They care no only to the point where it concerns their marketability. Until something like Zuck getting doxed or something and it causing his marriage to melt down no they won't really care about privacy issues; at least not beyond the optics.
Repeal the 17th Amendment TODAY! Also Please Read http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/right-to-read.html
Also, water is wet.
Bears shit in woods.
And the sun is bright.
captcha: arraign (we can only hope that's what happens to Fuckerberg)
Reactionary describes a person or attitude opposed to liberalising tendencies.
They don't have a right? It's their platform son. They make money doing this. You give them the right when you use their shit. When you go to a third party website that's using their code to track you, you've given that website permission to collect data on you and send it to Facebook. Stupidity is not understanding that the services you consume, including this one, costs a shit of money to run and manage. The people doing the work need/want paid for it. I don't want to be on an internet where everything is behind a paywall. Most people don't either - they bitch about them. But that's where we'll go to at some point. $50/year for 90 minutes/day for Youtube, $100/year for unlimited Google searches that return back 2 pages of results, $10/month for Facebook, $10/month for Snapchat, $10/month for whatever else.
I didnt give them my info. Some idiot person sits next to me while im having a conversation, and their stupid phone's fb app records the audio. They collect shit that i never consented to. Same with photos, or address book contacts where i maybe in someon elses phone or photo. They join all this data together and i haven't been on fb in like a decade..
Fuck them.
that the best you can do quote liars? they probably made up the entire interview.
Paranoid aren't youb
And to add another point, those other people may not even be actively using that fb app. It was just preloaded in their phone and mining data. Scum of the scummiest companies and people working for them.
They don't have a right? It's their platform son.
Ummm, they have a "right" to surreptitiously gather all the information about you that they can vacuum up? And then use that data, correlated with data sucked from all over, to dig into your life?
They explicitly stated that in the obscure "terms of service"?
Yeah, you know they didn't.
They make money doing this.
Yep, so the consequences of de facto lying on their "contract" terms should be costly.
VERY $$costly$$.
You give them the right when you use their shit.
Did you now? Did they make it CLEAR how much data they'd be collecting?
Yeah, they didn't.
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> You give them the right when you use their shit.
I don't use their shit. Yet they collect data on me (as does LinkedIn and all those other gangsters), just because they nudge their users who know me to cough up as much as they know about me.
> It's their platform son.
Condescending asshole. Besides, you are wrong.
I guess the strange, other-dimension-y thing here is that thirty years ago, if a newspaper or a phone company or even a television station pulled this crap fucking Congress would call for an investigation. Now it's all just "They Have A Right!" and we all turn away.
By the way, moron, they do not have a right. No where in the constitution does it say a corporation/person has the right to lie, cheat and steal to make money. It ain't there. I checked.
you clearly haven't been paying attention
They have no right and we have the power to force legislation, just a choice and the will to implement that choice by applying political pressure and not the nonsense of we won't vote for you but the in your face, we will campaign against you. You want action, you make sure politicians fear your campaign efforts, not one vote they are losing but potentially hundreds or even thousands of votes.
Facebook will try to buy off politicians but all they are doing in reality is trying to pay the cost of gaining your vote via advertising and well, not only have they spent money advertising to you fruitlessly but you have gone on to campaign against them for free, taking away as many votes as you can. Even better, trying to get as many people as possible to campaign with you to take even more votes away, votes they have wasted millions advertising to pointlessly.
Chaos - everything, everywhere, everywhen
People with axe to grind, grind their axe.
Well for one, as others mentioned even if *you* try to have no relationship with these companies, they still capture data about you, so it's not only the willing.
Also, it takes an even more 'shit of money' to do broadcast television and somehow it's been being provided free to viewers without surreptitious monitoring of its consumption. So it's not a given that free or reasonable pricing can only come with excessively intrusive mining.
XML is like violence. If it doesn't solve the problem, use more.
All they do is give lip service while turning around and continuing the same bullshit
They might be the platform, but make no mistake, YOU are the product they're monetizing. As such, people should have a say in how they're used.
~Any apparent grammatical or typographic errors are caused by defects in your display device.
Facebook is still a thing?
I am sure that some company out there is building something great that will eat Facebook's lunch. They will release a great social app that is free for all to use and they won't sell advertising at all. They won't collect personal information on any of their users and will make their terms of service easy to read and understand. Of course, once they are wildly successful, they won't sell out to the highest bidder who will come in and change everything in order to 'monetize' the product. I'm sure this (as yet unknown) company is full of ideological people who work for free and love to serve people for nothing. They are undoubtedly funded by a rich philanthropist who happily pays all the costs needed to build and service this vast network of services. I can't wait for them to announce their product to the market!
... , but called the conversations "punctual and limited."
In other words: "No".
Nae king! Nae laird! Nae yurrupiean pressedent! We willna be fooled again!
Once upon a time (and Jesus H Christ am I getting tired of telling wet-behind-the-ears morons about this) the internet was free and open. It was a communications platform much like a telephone for text files.
All of this stuff, all of this buying and selling and entertainment crap came long afterwards and it can all go away. Do I care if Netflix vaporises and all the entertainment goes back to cable? No I do not because nothing of value will be lost. Do I care if Amazon opens Amazon Web and charges me twenty a month to buy camo-printed underwear? No I do not because if I need what Amazon sells I will find a way to pay for it and if I don't want to pay, well then I will find it somewhere else.
The current internet is a marvel in some respects. In other respects its a... how did Obi Wan put it? "You will never find a more wretched hive of scum and villainy". Yeah, that about covers it. Zap it all back to email and UseNet. I do not give a rats ass.
. I don't want to be on an internet where everything is behind a paywall. Most people don't either - they bitch about them. But that's where we'll go to at some point. $50/year for 90 minutes/day for Youtube, $100/year for unlimited Google searches that return back 2 pages of results, $10/month for Facebook, $10/month for Snapchat, $10/month for whatever else.
Most of the replies ignore your very valid point. I'm not sure if it's because they don't have a response or because they didn't read beyond your first few sentences.
Heck, California recently introduced legislation that Google and other companies will have to pay residences for money these companies make using their info. Google paying people to use it's search engine.
Honestly, what amazes me is that google, facebook, etc keep funding the politicians pushing these things.
'Optics' used in this way is a lame buzzword millenials use to sound smart. Just stop.
Bullshit. 90's internet was way better. Shit ton of money my ass.
"They "trust me". Dumb f*cks"
That's all you need to know. They might as well have a gigantic sign in the lobby of Facebook headquarters. Facebook is Zuckerberg and he's a sociopath and is incapable of change. Therefore Facebook will never change.
Also, only optics matter at every public company so Facebook's not unique in that regard.
Totally agree. These greedy assholes ruined what was once a great platform. I'd gladly go back. Never asked for this, don't need it.
troublemakers, always have been, always will, its their culture, lie and deceive the goy. middle east has always been a hotbed of incest and shithole culture, their people reflect that, unless its pure coincidence that Facebooks management seems to be primarily Kike based.
You will never get your due from a Jew
Do you think the average person's search activity costs Google even remotely close to what they make by gathering and monetizing data about you? Every interaction you have with them increases the value of the dataset they have about you.
~Any apparent grammatical or typographic errors are caused by defects in your display device.
I addressed this point already. You decided to have a relationship with a company who has a relationship with the social media company you're trying to avoid. You're still not able to really claim any sort of "right". As far as your other point, it's called commercials. The program/show/movie you're watching is literally paused and you are bombarded with ads. On most networks the amount of ads comes in fairly often. The average 30 minute sitcom is only 22 minutes long. So more than a quarter of the show is advertisement. The put that in perspective, it'd be like Facebook stopping you from seeing or doing ANYTHING on their website for 16 seconds every 1 minute. And extensive research is done, certain families are paid to take on boxes that record what they watch and how long.
What are you rambling about?
Collecting user data and selling to whomever IS their business model. If they stop doing that they will no longer be profitable.
Aaaaah, 8 bit porn on the newsgroups, those were the days!
BookDetective.net - book search engine and ranker I donate my skills to.
People just don't understand - these companies are run by unqualified people who are only in it for the money. No one at Facebook has done anything in their life that makes them better than the person sitting next to you at work, on the bus, at a restaurant....
Don't expect anything but fud from these people - ever - they are not special, rich, yes, but by luck as much as anything else - certainly nothing to do with having helped society or the world
Corporate Progressive nazis sure do love boot licking.
The ONLY people who say "They Have A Right!" are bought & paid for shills.
Do you think the average person's search activity costs Google even remotely close to what they make by gathering and monetizing data about you?
I don't. Nor do I think the coffee that Starbucks makes is remotely close to their cost. That said, I'm not sure your point.
I'd love for Google to shut down today due to their intrusion into politics but not for making money from usual products