I understand and agree that facebook and Cambridge Analytica did a lot of really awful things, and they should pay a price for that. But if you want to know the real problem, look in the god damned mirror. Every time one of you jackasses authorized one of those stupid god damned third party apps so you could spam my timeline with “what kind of dog are you” or “what’s your real political persuasion” or “if you were a jelly what flavor would you be” or “which member of Friends are you” you were giving them permission to collect all your data.
You did this, you dumb fuckers. Why don’t you start reading shit before you go “oh fuck yeah” and click on it. You stupid pricks haven’t learned a god damned thing since Kevin Poulsen social engineered his ass into jail.
Gin & Tonic
I think you’re confusing Kevin Poulsen with Kevin Mitnick.
different-church-lady
ABSO-FUCKING-LUTELY AND AMEN.
Now, uh… when are you going to take the Facebook logo off your blog?
Major Major Major Major
So I should unsubscribe from the balloon-juice Facebook page, or…?
Jewish Steel
Righteous fire John Cole is my favorite John Cole.
Butthurt Jordan Trombone (fka XTPD)
Speaking as someone who absolutely refused to engage with Facebook after setting it up in August 2014, I believe I now have the right to pretend this was out of moral rectitude rather than just crippling introversion. As such:
NYAHNYAHNYAHNYAHNYAHNYAHNYAHNYAHLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOL
Steeplejack (phone)
I would read a “Dear Abby” type column by Cole. I think it would be a great success.
different-church-lady
@Butthurt Jordan Trombone (fka XTPD): You and I are going to drink 19 Five-Hour Energys and GO ON A RAMPAGE!!!!!
BlueDWarrior
Just like in the previous thread, I believe this is a problem endemic to social media as a whole.
I don’t know how you get around people being stupid en masse and a few being so unscrupulous to take advantage of it.
AnotherBruce
@Steeplejack (phone): Yes, this is a great idea. An abusive “Dear John”. Miles of fun!
Ella in New Mexico
and might I say that anybody who believed the shit that helped elect Trump-from the anti-Hillary bullshit to the vote third party shit to the outright lies and falsehoods getting people to vote FOR Trump: you people were also the fucking idiots.
different-church-lady
@BlueDWarrior:
Zuckerberg is what evil would be if you could place it in the body of a golden retriever puppy.
Ruckus
I beg your pardon!
I’ve never taken a quiz or poll or whatever on FB. Of course I do have an account so that I can stay in touch with a number of people, some of whom even live in other countries. So yes I’m guilty as fuck but not stupid about it.
Omnes Omnibus
And yet many of the people who didn’t have sufficient cynicism to foresee CA were smart enough not to vote for any Bush or support the Iraq war.
BlueDWarrior
@different-church-lady: but it’s the entire model of the whole tech bro ethos. Maker money however you can, and to hell with ethics. Old money never gave a damn about it, so why should they?
BGinCHI
@Steeplejack (phone): Larry from Topeka, you’re on the air: “Dear John, I’ve been having some issues with my—”
JC: “FUCK Subaru and fuck you for being stupid enough to buy one of those cars.”
Larry:”…my co-workers. Um, they’re….”
JC: “Next caller.”
NotMax
P. T. Barnum redux. Now with more underhanded malice!
Mary G
Dagnabit, every time I put up a comment a new thread appears.
But, anyway, I have a question for the hive mind. I have extremely limited exposure on Facebook; they’ve spent the last ten years telling me I need to finish my profile, and I ignore them. It’s good to keep contact with far flung casual friends, but I could count my comments and likes on one hand, because it’s always seemed creepy to me.
Amazon and Google probably know every last detail of my life, but aside from trying to sell me more things like the stuff I’ve already bought, I don’t see much exposure. I always go to the privacy policy and select the least intrusive option.
I wanted to leave a comment on Trip Advisor once, and they wouldn’t allow me to do it without consenting to them taking my Facebook friend list, my email lists, my browsing history and Dog knows what else, so I didn’t.
But I do have a fondness for stupid quizzes. I do them on Buzzfeed, where I don’t have a profile, and they reel me in on Twitter all the time. They bug me to share my results, but I don’t. Is that bad? Should I stop?
J R in WV
Don’t use Facebook, have never used Facebook, won’t ever use Facebook, even though many friends do use it effectively. To make money, in other words.
Interestingly, Facebook appears as a misspelled work in my comment edit window, funny, huh?
Gin & Tonic
@Ruckus: The problem is if you have stupid “friends” on FB who took those quizzes. They leaked your info as well as their own.
Major Major Major Major
@Mary G: if it’s a buzzfeed quiz that doesn’t require a login or anything, then I don’t think that’s the sort of thing he’s talking about. Buzzfeed probably does have some internal trackers on you though.
different-church-lady
@Mary G:
Congratulations, you’ve passed the test.
As I was saying…
Never click on an ad. NEVER. N-E-V-E-R.
Ivan X
Couldn’t agree more. Now take it the next step and challenge us to implicate ourselves all the way, in our thirst for stimulation that results in the constant stream of unresearched bothsiderism spat out every few minutes by our media overlords. It pains me every time I read an article, whether here, or in a so called MSM media outlet, that my hunger is why the news is garbage. I hate it, but I make it.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
Uh oh. I click on them by accident with fair regularity
NotMax
Where have you gone, Marshall McLuhan
Our nation turns its lonely eyes to you
James E. Powell
@Omnes Omnibus:
Ouch!
oatler.
Does that mean my Myspace account is compromised?
different-church-lady
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: Everyone does. I believe a lot of websites make it a deliberate “accident” by linking blank space to ads, or deliberately offsetting close-boxes so that you click through to the advertiser instead of closing the pop-over ad.
maeve
And fuck you too, John Cole
Tenar Arha
@J R in WV: Hah, another rare member of the rare sub-species Facebookless Hooman.
ETA But seriously I’ve always been a day late and completely uninterested in joining anything on the internet that used my real name.
different-church-lady
@NotMax:
Chet Murthy
John I think you’re going to far. Look: I work in this biz. I was there in 1996, building one of the first dynamic web-app sites (1996 Olympics). I spent *years* cleaning up dumpster-fires in the websites of big banks and other corps. I’ve seen that stuff from the inside. I’ve seen the *complexity* of what these fuckers do, both in tech, and finance. Indeed, the parallels in these two domains are pretty instructive. In both domains, they *make* it complicated, so that nobody can tell what’s actually happening.
And quite simply, you’re asking too much of people. And lemme be clear: I’ll bet I’m far, far, far more paranoid than you are. [For example, what do you think about 23andMe, Ancestry, etc? Will you let them perform genetic tests on you? I sure as hell won’t, and with good reason.]
Asking people to be sufficiently {technically,financially} savvy to not get robbed is never going to work. Look at Birmingham AL, and how they got raped by Goldman on those interest-rate swaps. And it’s happened all over the place, with supposedly sophisticated investors who got robbed by fast-talkers with fancy mathematical models. You’re asking 100-IQ[*] folks to be able to win in mental combat with 130+-IQ people who’ve decided to side with evil. It’s a completely unfair contest.
The proper thing is for those 100-IQ people to ask why their tribunes have left them defenseless. The proper thing is to ask why a *human* gets sent to jail for vehicular manslaughter, but a corp skates clean. And much more, of course.
[*] I’m not trying to talk down to 100-IQ people. Lots of smart people get robbed too: I remember several colleagues who were trading based on tips they got in chatrooms back in the late 90s; I was …. shocked, and esp. b/c one of them told me she’d stop, but first she had to make up her losses from the bad trades she’d already made. This, from someone who was actually a not-bad programmer — you’d think she could engage in simple reasoning, like “sunk cost fallacy”. Crrrrikey.
john r
i never saw the sense in putting all your personal info on the internet, especially via “social media.” look at what some of the consequences that people suffer when their racist, etc posts are brought to light. will admit that i use twitter and have a fakebook page, but none of the info i used is correct other than name is close to actual. i may eventually get a visit from the ss for some of the tweets i send donnie hitler trumpf though.
Chet Murthy
Urk, I got caught in moderation. hellp?
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@different-church-lady: and, like most people, I could never resist finding out what secret Pernell Roberts hid from Gunsmoke fans for years! Or see what Cheryl Ladd looks like now. I couldn’t believe it!
Old Dan and Little Anne
It’s all too late. Shit, I was paranoid when someone mentioned weed on the phone 25 years ago.
Major Major Major Major
You know what other social network enabled the rise of cheeto benito and the slavering hordes of gamergate Nazis? I’ll give you a hint, Cole uses it all day every day.
randy khan
I never click on the quizzes because they all seem stupid to me.
I said this on LGM, I believe, but one reason I stay on Facebook is because it’s a resource I can use for some level of political activism, both to get friends moving and to push back against some of the stupidity (nearly always more nicely than the stupid people deserve). It’s also a good place to find out what the latest RWNJ talking points are, as the RWNJs appear to have them beamed directly to what passes for their brains. Also, it’s a really good way to keep up with people from my life, which actually is what makes it addictive.
NotMax
@different-church-lady
Actually, was gonna change “lonely eyes” to “FB eyes” but then thought that would be a cute bridge too far.
Washburn
Why limit this to playing games on facebook?
How about telling a for profit company your name, date of birth, where you went to school, where you are employed, and give them a list of your friends and family? Oh and then post about where you ate dinner, what TV shows you watch, what you think about every hot-button political issue, what you got your niece for her birthday. And then load their app on your phone and let them record your location minute by minute?
Yes, people are the problem, for sure.
Amir Khalid
@J R in WV:
I don’t use Faceook at all either. The only social media app I use is Whatsapp, which I use only very seldom, and that only because my family insists. When I have an itch to comment about something, I scratch it here at Balloon Juice.
Walker
All I have to say is that Person of Interest was a show way ahead of its time. It ended too soon. But Cambridge Analytica is attempting a solid reboot here.
Omnes Omnibus
@Major Major Major Major: No, but that one is totally cool. You have to understand…
different-church-lady
@Major Major Major Major: Different degrees of evil, but yes.
FlyingToaster
@J R in WV: I’m in the same boat, though I’d given some pointed advice about locking things down to family members who do have accounts (My mom, who uses it primarily to look at her great-grandaughter and some great nieces and nephews).
I’m not righteous about it; I spent too much time locking down stuff in educational software that I was writing, in order to comply with COPPA. I saw no way of locking down a Facebook (or MySpace, or LinkedIn) account.
I’m fine with Twitter. If they can figure out how to monetize my re-tweeting EffinBirds or SwearWho or TBogg or Soledad O’Brien, more power to them. I just use a 3rd party tweetreader on the laptop and ignore all of their “suggestions” and “surveys” in the phone app.
JGabriel
John Cole @ Top:
… W’the fuck? I don’t use Facebook, I don’t use third party apps, hell, I don’t use apps! I’ve never watched Friends, and I don’t give a good goddamned shit what flavor jelly you’d be!
I didn’t do any of those things!
Goddammit!
Steeplejack (phone)
@oatler.:
I canceled my AOL account, dagnab it, and I’m not sorry I did! So suck it, big media.
hellslittlestangel
Well said. But the only people who don’t have idiot friends are people who have no friends at all.
NotMax
@Amir Khalid
Yup. I don’t Face, I don’t Twit. I don’t cell phone. If someone from the past really wants to get in contact, I’m listed in the phone book.
Picking up the phone when it rings is not guaranteed, however.
different-church-lady
@hellslittlestangel: I’m clean.
eric U.
there were some apps on my facebook account I know I didn’t authorize. Bing — ha, I can’t close that site fast enough. I just deleted them all today. There were a couple I probably authorized, but don’t remember. My phone company somehow insinuated it’s app on there, gone. The only really stupid one is candy crush, I did that for a disabled cousin. I will take quizzes if they don’t require a login, otherwise no. Go to settings/apps and see what has insinuated itself into your account
MisterForkbeard
Ha! I haven’t done any of the things that John accuses me of. But then, I HAVE ‘liked’ NPR, so that was clearly my own contribution to this mess. :)
Omnes Omnibus
I wonder if Cole has a Twitter account. And if he knows how stupid people who post there are.
NotMax
So old remember when Xanga was a hot ticket. In internet years, about seven centuries ago.
hellslittlestangel
@NotMax: You have a phone? Ha! I respond only to registered letters, and I only allow visitors who have first sent a servant to deliver a calling card.
eemom
Could be wrong, but I don’t think John “Tough Love” Cole is joining in the idiot FB SUCKS, braaaaawk sheep bleat here.
I do loves me some Cole.
Ninedragonspot
Quizzes are a problem, to be sure, but I recall reading today that some 50 million accounts had their data swiped. That sounds more like an inside job and/or “ordinary” mass data breach than a stupendous aggregate of what-cat-are-you quizzes.
FlyingToaster
@hellslittlestangel:
That’s not true. My remaining friends are all fucking geniuses.
My family, OTOH, include some really embarrassing fools. One SIL is herself a reason to never ever ever have a Facebook account.
NotMax
@hellslittlestangel
The string between the empty frozen lemonade cans eventually disintegrated.
;)
EBT
Closed my Facebook when they started their transphobic real name policy like a decade ago :smug:
Christopher H Green
Are you saying that you were aware of the buried “apps others used” and “facebook platform” settings and had the settings all cleared before learning the details about Cambridge Analytica?
FlyingToaster
@Omnes Omnibus: “Twitter. You will never find a more wretched hive of scum and villainy. We must be cautious.”
lumpkin
Ummm….the FB shit mostly worked on dumbshits who believe everything they see on FB or in email (that’s been forwarded many times, usually from AOL). I doubt that many BJ readers actually succumbed to this. But maybe you know your readers better than I do.
NotMax
@Ninedragonspot
One thing haven’t seen mention of, at least insofar as the elections are concerned, is how many of those 50 million are Americans of voting age. Doubtless a very significant portion of the total reported thus far, but strongly doubt they all are.
eemom
btw, sheeptards — if you honestly think FB is the only thing out there mining and exploiting your personal data, every. fucking. time. you use the internet for ANYTHING, including to comment here — well, I got a maniacal, delusional “president” to sell ya.
Major Major Major Major
@eemom: no, he’s too busy being on Twitter, which totally hasn’t enabled the rise of fascism in America.
different-church-lady
@eemom: Dead ending, I see.
Millard Filmore
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
When our capitalist overlords consolidate their power, you will be arrested for commercial sabotage by fraudulently skewing your preference profile.
danielx
@Steeplejack (phone):
Well, except for the part about each column ending with “go fuck yourself, do it today!”
MisterForkbeard
@eemom: Oh, I’ve ALWAYS known that John is selling my data. Between all the various posts here, he must know which of his commenters are really into food, pets, housing repair, housing repair horror stories…. and politics.
He’s getting a lot of data on the 30 or so people that read here.
efgoldman
@different-church-lady:
A breath of fresh air, as always.
No wonder Omnes adores her.
danielx
@different-church-lady:
I will never look at golden retrievers the same way again.
FlyingToaster
@eemom: Yeah, but you can control how much shit they can figure out about you, unless you’re the fucking product (e.g, Facebook).
Google, even knowing my real name, still shows me ads for Harry’s Razors and pre-boxed men’s outfits and Blue Apron. Since I’m a middle-aged married-to-an-amateur-chef woman with a 10-year-old daughter, I find that pretty encouraging.
Procopius
Well, I sometimes click on those quizzes that say “Only 2% of the population can pass this quiz.” Or, “Only a true midwesterner can answer these 20 questions.” I’m curious to see if they have any interesting questions. I don’t really give a shit how much of my data they collect. I’m not going to have any more or less money because of it. To me advertising is either useful information about something I need anyway, or irrelevant. I truly can’t imagine people who would be so dumb as to have their opinion changed by seeing a bunch of photos of Obama photoshopped to make him look like a shaman. The people who seek out stuff like that are already racists. I got a lot of that shit praising Hillary as the best, most qualified candidate ever and it didn’t make me feel one little bit better about being forced to vote for her. The advertising industry has been most successful at selling the idea that it’s an effective way to increase your sales. It’s a lie. There are public manias, like the McCarthy/HUAC years when I was young, but all the anti-communist propaganda was so obviously in bad faith that it had the opposite effect on my opinion. There’s a blog called Whatever It Is I’m Aganist It, which reprints stuff from 100 years ago today. World War I was a horrible time to be stuck living in the United States, and I’m not looking forward to the times of the Palmer Raids and Red Scare that followed, or Sacco and Vanzetti. Fvck Zuckerberg and Cambridge Analytica.
Mrs. D. Ranged in AZ
@Ruckus: Same here, hate those stupid quizzes. ONLY reason I am on it is to stay in touch with friends and family around the world. I’m single mom, 48 years, introverted, working about 60 hours a week, with two kids at home. Without social media I would literally have no social life at all. My exchanging cute photos of my kids and funny cat vids does not make me one of those fucking idiots.
NotMax
My #1 online friend is the ad blocker.
GregB
I am going to start posting some information to throw off the data aggregators.
The lunch lady runs like the winds and her apron tastes like Nilla Wafers.
Zuck it!
VeniceRiley
I know what kind of dog I am. What I want to know is my Game of Thrones House!
Those quizzes all have an edit permissions function right before you get into it. I always click on EDIT and uncheck everything. If it doesn’t let me proceed to the quiz or silly change-your-sex photomanip with just their ability to view my public profile (which everyone has access to anyway), then I don’t go.
Major Major Major Major
@NotMax: you should also use disconnect or ghostery.
MoCA Ace
No FB or twitter, and I only use those reward cards at the grocery store to purchase large quantities of mayonnaise, saran wrap, and adult diapers… Lets see what big brother makes of that!
afanasia
@Butthurt Jordan Trombone (fka XTPD): I didn’t join Facebook, years ago, because they own your data. I’m not that clued in, so I thought that was common knowledge. I am very confused now. And smug.
FlyingToaster
@MoCA Ace: No diet soda? No crates of 8oz milk boxes?
Falling down on the job, bubba.
NotMax
@Major Major Major Major
NoScript, Ghostery, Better Privacy, a cookie manager and Privacy Badger all installed since forever and hum along nicely and unobtrusively doing their thing, among other add-ons.
RandomMonster
You’re right to hate on the stupid people, John. I’m sure no data is collected on you from your avid Twitter use. You’re fine.
Steeplejack (phone)
@MisterForkbeard:
So there are more commenters than readers on Balloon Juice? . . . Hmm, actually, that makes things a lot clearer to me.
eemom
@efgoldman:
No wonder you adore Omnes.
Chet Murthy
Has anybody here used 23andMe? Or Ancestry? My understanding is, their DNA services take ownership of any data the extract from your genome. Full ownership. You have no rights to that data or what they do with it.
What about our credit files? The credit bureaus have no contractual responsibilities to us. None.
And it goes on and on. I’m not saying we shouldn’t be vigilant. I have 3 third-party apps on my Android phone. I run Linux, not that ridiculously-porous Windows shite. I don’t do internet banking. And for many months, I got a fresh swipe-to-enter MUNI (mass transit) Clipper card each month (until they charged a fee for the card), just so The Man couldn’t track me.
But it’s pretty hopeless. Your data is going to get used in ways you will regret, unless we collectively create laws to forbid it, and enforce those laws with corporate death penalties.
Fair Economist
@Steeplejack (phone):
I love it! I also agree it would be a great success.
FlyingToaster
@Major Major Major Major: Or both ? . None of my browsers allow Facebook tracking at this point; my work browser has ghostery & noscript and a cookie manager and a siteblocker to keep certain adservers from fucking crashing my work browser.
Looking at the time, I should get to bed because I have to meet with [redacted] tomorrow morning, and I should try to be coherent, which implies being alert. Much as I would prefer to walk in burping beer breath (at 10am)…
eemom
I take it from the comments that some of you folks understand exactly how data mining is done and from what sources, including how the miners can or can’t get info from things like blog comments, and how all the other shit you do online is different from FB in that respect.
Can you please enlighten us? I’m all ears.
NotMax
@Chet Murthy
E-Z Pass and similar electronic toll collection thingies probably know more about the habits of people who use them than their mother does.
danielx
@MoCA Ace:
Conclusion: you have really weird fetishes.
guachi
I use a plug-in called FB Purity when I use Facebook. It doesn’t block the information gathering but it does severely limit what you see.
You can block almost anything. I block ads, the trending news bar, all posts my friends ‘like’ or comment on but aren’t directly posted or shared by them.
It’s a much better experience.
I also don’t use Facebook on my phone.
RIc Drywall
Is this like complaining that people don’t read the EULA or the full prospectus? Is it wrong to imagine a world in which people can participate in admittedly trivial social activities without, you know, worrying about giving away so much personal info?
Regulate it and enforce it.
Fair Economist
@JGabriel:
You can write the column when John goes on vacation.
afanasia
@VeniceRiley: I don’t even know what house in Hogwarts I’d be in. I do worry about that sometimes.
different-church-lady
@NotMax: That’s why I keep mine under my tinfoil hat. [nods]
mart
Maybe paranoid rantings… but seemed to me Disqus (sp?) or something similar linked my comments on a company Pulse Secure network, and a couple other internet venues. The targeted ads across the spectrums freaked me out. Do we have to worry about commenting on blogs? I think we do…
danielx
@Steeplejack (phone):
AND making serious bank from it….I suspect he secretly drives a Porsche.
Actually I imagine Cole loses money on this whole deal. It may be worth it to him for such things as opportunities to toast McMegan.
Suffragette City
I just read this aloud to hubby. When you rant it’s like the greatest thing ever.
different-church-lady
I think a lot of people are missing a point: FB is not just evil because of data mininig. It’s also evil because it encourages shallow non-interactions with “friends” and tries to sell the idea that such non-interactions are enriching your life, rather than impoverishing it. (And then does so to mine your behavioral data.)
piratedan
from what I understand its worse than that.. my understanding is that you can be as scrupulous as you wish, but what Cambridge Analytica did, is use the App to not only mine the ones who took the quiz, but also burrow into their friends list, so to be compromised, all you have to do is know someone who did and they took your info too… per fortune.com back in 2015: The article is named Ted Cruz’s secret weapon and we all know that Ted had a “special” relationship with these guys…
so if you wish to believe that it all simply stopped with Ted, well, yeah, we all know how that turned out…
EBT
@danielx: Saran Wrap (or the store brand equivalent) is great for wrapping up someone for sensory deprivation. As few as three layers is enough to fairly well trap someone. After half an hour, cut a slit in the back and pop in an ice cube.
jl
So, Cole is harvesting my data and selling it? So that is why I get all the cheap jack sad sack middle age balding, fat guy weight loss, bad credit repair, loss of ‘vitality’ cure ads? Thanks, Cole!
NotMax
@danielx
Porsche? Pfeh. Russo-Baltique.
:)
different-church-lady
@EBT: You know this how?
EBT
@different-church-lady: I am a sex positive polyamorous trans woman, who at various points in her life has traded sex for food and board; and been owned property, down to having a name carved into my thigh with a surgical scalpel. Currently I write smut on twitter for peanuts.
No One of Consequence
Back me up here industry folks,
.. hell, business folks period for that matter:
If you are not paying for a product or a service, *YOU* are most likely the product or service…
Capitalism and Altruism are mutex.
If you don’t reside within Skepticism as a Natural State by now, you have not been paying attention, or applying sufficient reasoning.
– NOoC
different-church-lady
@EBT: Welp… I asked…
EBT
@different-church-lady: you sure did. On the plus side the 100k plus word long thing I talk about time to time isn’t a sex game.
Raoul
It’s late so I’m going to paste this tweet. It shows the FB page where you can tell f*king Sheryl Sanberg not to let your friends pull your data over to the apps/games they are using.
Interestingly, when I went to check this last night, thanks to some twitter-tip, I had long ago deselected almost all sharing. I guess way back when I was setting up or doing a privacy tune up I got paranoid. Rightly so. Now I’m 100% not sharing. But what a f*ked up thing FB had set up here (John’s rant notwithstanding). You had to know to go here and say “Yeah, DON’T let my friends playing games/quizzes pull my birthdate/hometown/lots of identifying information over into a game/quiz I am not playing.”
That was some bullshit right there, FB.
PS – someone last night said they were interested in BJer’s twitter handles. That’s mine right there. I suppose I’m probably authorizing some datamining on the Twitt-box, too, huh.
MoCA Ace
@EBT:
OK. shit is getting weird now.
Not that there is anything wrong with that!
hellslittlestangel
@EBT: Saran wrap is especially good for wrapping Roy Orbison.
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/2240590.Ulrich_Haarburste_s_Novel_Of_Roy_Orbison_In_Clingfilm
MisterForkbeard
@No One of Consequence: If you’re playing poker and you can’t spot the mark, then YOU are probably the mark.
Same deal with social media. Someone’s always paying for it. If you can’t figure out who it is, that means you are.
MisterForkbeard
@hellslittlestangel: Oh god, I thought I was the only person who knew about that. There’s a WHOLE SERIES OF THOSE.
Mrs. D. Ranged in AZ
Also too, isn’t it a bit of victim blaming to say that the 50 million people who did not take any stupid quizzes and whose data was taken (AGAINST Facebook policy I might add) are the problem? Should we have known our data could be used? Of course. That still doesn’t mean we are to blame for the millions of eedjits that fell for misinformation. Because I shouldn’t be held accountable for the bone deep ignorance and generations of stubborn inbred bigotry of my family much less my acquaintances. Ive supported reining in the power of these corporations since the Internet was Gore’s idea. Furthermore, not all of us have the luxury of living in a small town where we know everyone and are 100 feet away from family. These online apps are a way to participate, albeit in limited fashion, with our loved ones. Ultimately, John telling us we are the problem is an emotional response on his part that is unworthy of my further consideration. So he can keep yelling at clouds but I sure as hell won’t be listening.
EBT
@MoCA Ace: I see no reason to be shy about sex. I help people come out of their shells.
hellslittlestangel
@MisterForkbeard: I actually own a copy of the now out-of-print book. It is hilarious, and I hope to sell it one day to a collector for millions.
Czanne
I nuked Facebook a few years ago, after Smother started weaponizing it. (Long story, she’s evil.)
I do have a pseudonym account that I use specifically for 4 private groups that have nothing to do with my location, profession, shopping habits or anyone I know in life or elsewhere online. And that one I’d be willing to nuke again if needed.
@different-church-lady Has it right. It’s the c a r f e n t y n l of relationships: more addictive, too powerful for long-term utility but without a way to make it safe enough to handle. No substance. Replaces relationships with quick fixes. I don’t think it’s a shocker that as a planet, we’re both medicating and mediating at the same time, in an approximately equivalent curve.
oatler.
I propose the term “gaiavirus”. We’re all workin’ for it.
justawriter
Yeah, I always unchecked all the “allow access to every sexual partner and circumcision status” checkbox on facebarf which is why all the sponsored ads just say “fuck off asshole”.
Major Major Major Major
@hellslittlestangel: @MisterForkbeard: Oh wow I had totally forgotten about that guy.
Where did I find that, Achewood or something?
different-church-lady
@Czanne: Well, for a while now I’ve been calling it “cigarettes for the mind”, but you’ve taken it much further than that.
different-church-lady
@Major Major Major Major: I don’t know, but Achewood did have this to say about our current predicament.
Yarrow
@Czanne: @different-church-lady: Well, they designed it to be addictive on purpose. Give you that hit of dopamiine and keep you coming back for more.
hellslittlestangel
@Major Major Major Major: I can’t remember how I came across it, but once I’d read a few excerpts, I had to read the whole thing. (Well, actually, I don’t think I quite finished it — it’s more of an objet d’art than an actual novel.)
different-church-lady
@Yarrow: Yup, that’s the article when the lightbulb went on and I coined my phrase.
MoCA Ace
Know what else helps guard against targeted advertising, fake news, and FB brainwashing?
CRITICAL THINKING SKILLS
People should try it sometime
Edit: Yeah I know… I have met people. We get what we deserve.
different-church-lady
@MoCA Ace: “Yes, but we’re going to need a majority.”
eemom
@different-church-lady:
Ya know, you’re absolutely right. What we really need is for YOU to tell us which interactions with “friends” are shallow or not, and to decide exactly which such “non-interactions” are enriching our lives or impoverishing them. Pray, where do I sign up to get your supreme judgment on those points?
different-church-lady
@eemom:
I’ve checked your privacy settings and you’re all hooked up already!
MobiusKlein
@Chet Murthy: Ironically, if you use any internet banking, the various cookie & related data can help protect you from fraud. Your patterns become part of your risk profile, so deviations from it are more notable.
If your IP address is always from a SF ISP, then jumps to Farnsworth Texas, it’s a sign it might not be you after all.
MisterForkbeard
@Major Major Major Major: I can’t remember, but I had a college friend who found it and thought it was hilarious. No idea where he heard about it.
Ruckus
What I don’t understand is people who think their life is private. Let’s see, your school records to start with, your bank accounts, your credit cards, your credit score, where you live, when you were born, where you were born….. And then there is social media of any stripe that you went on once or more, ads from many or all sites you visit, the list goes on and on. The modern world exists to make money off of you in any way possible, legal or shady. Full stop.
You want a private life? You have to live on someone else’s land and they can’t know, anything and everything you buy must be paid in cash, you can’t have electricity, gas or running water other than by a stream/river/lake, a bank account or any job except cash only. You can’t have a drivers license or vote and you can’t have any exposure to law enforcement. So no transportation, well possibly a bicycle. IOW it’s not impossible to have a private life, just not in any way easy, fun or reasonable. And the more people that know you will increase your chances of not staying private. I’d bet I haven’t covered it totally but you get the basic picture.
Jay
Every app, every social media site, every search engine, every “help you” website, gathers in your Data.
As much as people want to “blame” Facebook and Anal, the reality is, “fake news “, “divide and conquor” and “inciting dissent”, only works if you are a moron.
We live in an age where the entire knowlege of mankind is available on line, where you can watch a major news story evolve over time, where you can google players, backstories, tech as you read, filling in the blanks,
and yet the world is full of anti-vaxxers, flat earthers, MGTOW’s and Nazi’s.
Morons.
Just because FB or Anal sent you a Hillary Emails “News Story”, you don’t have to read it, and if you do, just by opening a few more browser windows, you, yourself, can easily fact check it in real time.
The problem ehen it comes down to it, is there were just enough morons to be swayed to vote, or not to vote, and enough gerrymandering and elector’s betrayal, to make up for the shortfall in Deplorables.
Chet Murthy
@MobiusKlein: Um, I get you, that in principle, it’s possible to build robust and secure internet apps. Here’s the thing (and I hate to go into detail, but) when a bank’s *security architects* think that the “secure” cookie property isn’t necessary on HTTP-side pages, and they have the same domain-name for both HTTP and HTTPS-side pages, uh, well, I can’t really believe they have a godforsaken clue about security. Not a clue.
By contrast, I actually think Google -does- know what they’re doing when it comes to security. So it isn’t that I’m a plain old Luddite.
Just …. I have very little trust in enterprise I/T and enterprise software devs & architects. I’ve seen their bugs, their resume-enhancement-as-career-strategy, and the way enterprise vendors sell complete garbage on the -assumption- that most customers just won’t complain, and those that do will be a source of “drag” (more sales). [as in: “every $1 of X-product sales is $10 of services drag”]
Again, there -are- well-run shops that know how to execute. I just don’t have much belief that any of them are sited in banks.
Aleta
Breaking: Humans are compulsive not smart.
Politician guys believe they just happened to meet an exotic woman who can’t resist them.
People like to belong.
Odie Hugh Manatee
Not one person in my household contributed any data to anyone. Not one bit or byte. It’s kind of hard to when you don’t use any social media,and don’t have a smart phone. People have asked me if I am paranoid or what but nope, I just saw where this was heading a long, long time ago. I value my privacy and now our adult kids see why I refused to let them on social media as kids. Even as adults, our kids don’t use social media and want nothing to do with it, nor do they have smart phones. The best part is that both of our kids are total computer nerds, like moi, are in to securing their data and systems.
I’ll say it… YOU dumb fuckers did this! Now get off of John’s lawn! ;)
Zinsky
Human beings are, at root, gullible and easily persuaded. As someone upthread noted, they like to belong and feel part of a larger purpose, which makes an electronic tool like Facebook so insidious and dangerous.
JR
@Chet Murthy: Madoff proves that anyone can get scammed. Anyone.
BruceFromOhio
@Butthurt Jordan Trombone (fka XTPD): heh this. I would get the “oh he doesn’t do fb” side-eye thereby forcing people to email shit to me as if that was some flagrant social misdemeanor. You can find me online but you gotta break out the pipe and magnifying glass. Big middle finger to CA, and mini-violin for everyone else.
Magda in Black
Maybe if I deal only in cash, keep my money in shoeboxes, use an old school general ledger, and have no internet service at all, my data, or lack of, will be safe.
Maybe if women didn’t dress so provocatively….
Darrin Ziliak (formerly glocksman)
@Steeplejack (phone): @Jay:
Indeed.
I get a lot of RWNJ shares in my feed because my Dad is a 76 year old wingnut.
I used to make long rebuttals that proved them false, but was either ignored (Dad) or slandered (his FB friends).
I no longer do that and instead mock them mercilessly. ?
As for myself, I only share things that have some outside corroboration or editorial cartoons, not the left wing equivalents of Pizza gate.
It’s the same thing when I read Daily Kos. I tend to be more skeptical when the stories are outrageous but are written from a viewpoint I agree with.
Woodrow/Asim
First off — here’s one of many articles on how to control what Facebook sees, since many have asked and no one has responded to help.
And I say that because some of you — John included — are some arseholes. I’ve done Tech Support (arguably still do). I’ve passed a CISSP, and worked in the Computer Security field. I have tons of experience in this realm…and I’ve screwed this up, myself.
I don’t expect people, coming off the streets, to have the training and knowledge I do, no moreso than they’d expect me to know how to fix their car engine. FB and other entities have worked hard to minimize the ability of their users to control the data they suck in, while leveraging our desire to share and communicate (the very thing that happens here!) in order to collect said data.
That’s not at all to let them off the hook. But in a country where even basic civic actions can’t seem to be educated right, how the hell do you expect people who are dealing with kids and crappy jobs to get the knowledge they need to protect themselves against these new threats? People in my age range literally didn’t grow up with it, and that’s the age range for teaching their kids — so the kids are having to learn it for themselves, which it likely part of why they’ve been leaving FB in droves.
If you got it, great — NOW SHARE IT.
Stop hoarding and holding it over people to be a smug asshole, and help get people off those platforms, or in better control of them at a minimum. If we’re going to count ourselves as Progressive fighters for Truth and Justice, it starts with actually getting into the Fight, and not just pissing on those on the ground.
Keith G
Facebook is a strange beast, but one can use it as a communications platform without engaging in many of the dark allies one is directed towards.
I started an account a year and a half ago when a cancer diagnosis upset the apple cart. I have a carefully selected group of friends broken down in the various lists (each with its own privacy settings). During this time, I have had three surgeries and Facebook has been quite an aid in coordinating the flow of info. In the middle of this year and a half, my oldest sister also received a cancer diagnosis much graver than mine and has died. Again, Facebook was an amazing aid to keep our far-flung family updated with important info.
Yes, there are privacy trade-offs and if I were a younger soul farther away from mortality I might be more concerned. What to do about this? First, utter transparency. As a start, FB needs to be compelled to display to each account holder all the information it has harvested, how it collected it, and who is/has accessed it. FB needs to create pop-up boxes that inform if/how one’s next click transfers personal data. That would help with the stupid “quizzes” that get passed around – but there are other traps as well.
Another Scott
@Mary G: I’m a little fatalistic about this stuff. E.g. The Chinese probably know everything there is to know about me… “Herd immunity” is probably some protection – there’s such a mountain of data out there about nearly everyone that the chance of any particular one of us being singled out is pretty low.
However, the only way these companies are going to change is if they start feeling a significant economic (or legal) cost. If you don’t like them stalking you wherever you go, then either lock everything down with things like script blockers, ad blockers, and the EFF’s Privacy Badger, or stop using them. There really is no other choice.
I use adblockers on all my desktops, and do only the barest minimum web browsing on my phone. I don’t use FB or Twitter (or Instagram or …). But what works for me probably won’t work for lots of others.
tl;dr – If you enjoy it, do it. But understand the risks and consequences.
Cheers,
Scott.
TerryC
I’m with Keith. The Internet in general, but specifically Facebook, has tremendous value to me on a daily basis. Just some of the ways.
– I can spend a moment each day telling eight or nine friends Happy Birthday, and then see later when they “Like” my post or reply to it.
– I am on several boards of directors or volunteer project teams using secret FB Groups and Messenger as primary commmunications tools.
– I belong to literally dozens of pages which collect together like minded individuals, who constitute a great body of expertise, around such things as identifying mushrooms, growing walnuts, collecting Fiestaware, the secrets of designing disc golf courses, old photos of ancestors, and more.
– At my 70th birthday last summer (big all day party), I met for the first time five FB friends I had not met in person before. During the day of my birthday, there were many interactions among friends of mine who knew each other through my Facebook posts, but who were meeting face to face for the first time. It was wonderful.
– When I go to family reunions, I actually know who my grandnieces and grandnephews are. And something about them. My niece Juli, for example, who is a “meter maid” in a small Ohio Town, has recently started attending a black church in order to broaden her experiences, and is sharing her religious and other thoughts as she does so. I wouldn’t have a clue about that side of her personality were it not for Facebook. I would probably say hi to her and hug her once a year at Christmas.
– Yes, I know none of this is private. All of it enriches my life in ways that are not otherwise possible.
The list is endless.
cmorenc
@Steeplejack (phone):
Except the theme of Cole’s advice column would be: “Dear Asshole”.
different-church-lady
It’s almost as though many people belive social networking and interaction was not possible before Facebook.
Ms. D. Ranged in AZ
@different-church-lady: It’s almost as if you’re purposely missing the point that apps like Facebook have made it so much easier to socialize that we can do things we couldn’t before.
Magda in Black
Its almost as if we think everyone lives right next door, and that families and friends arent spread all over the globe. We maintain our connections as best we can, and for some, the book of faces is the answer, or 1 answer. Don’t judge.
Michael Rigler
@Amir Khalid: I think Facebook actually *owns* WhatsApp.
TenguPhule
@different-church-lady:
I think people who use facebook have too much time and not enough to do.
The appeal of it has never really made any sense to me.
Keith G
@TenguPhule: This generalization really sweeps.