It's basically turning your friends' messages into clickbait. I got one recently that was "Someone just flagged me down at a..." and it just feels like a really insidious way to get you to go to Facebook and read the rest. It doesn't even show that much in the actual email, only in the Gmail preview - it's just a link to Facebook (the text is set to "color:#FFFFFF;display:none !important;font-size:1px;").

> the text is set to "color:#FFFFFF;display:none !important;font-size:1px;"

Something that nearly any other company would have been banished to the spambox for.

> The most frustrating change for me was FB (or Messenger later) used to send me an email when I received a message, with the message content inside the email. A few years ago they removed the content from the email and forced me to log into FB or Messenger to see the message. It's extremely user hostile.

You also used to be able to reply to the message by replying to the notification email, so you could be a full conversation participant solely through email without ever opening the app.

They won’t even let you view messages on the mobile website either. Instead they restrict that and force you to install the Messenger app. Yelp does the same thing and feels just as scummy of a tactic. Basically both companies try to force you to install an app you don’t actually need so they can mine your contacts and personal data. No thanks to your tricks and traps business model.

Last I tried, mbasic.facebook.com would let you look at messages on the mobile web.

Wow. Can confirm worked for me. Seems like the version low connectivity countries would get

You can also tell your browser to view Facebook in desktop mode, and you can then see the messages. Not a pleasant user experience, but fine for the rare times when I need it.

It looks fine if you go to m.facebook.com and request the desktop version of the page.

This will always be the case as long as advertising is the core business model.

Social media is best suited to that kind of business model - and most people won’t pay for a subscription.

So social media is broke?

FB frequently sends notifications that is not directly related to me. e.g. "A friend has commented on a post in a group that you're a member of." Why would Facebook think this is of interest to me, is beyond my understanding.

You can change that in settings. Then facebook will not think that anymore.

There's a setting for it, but it does not turn off many different types of these notifications.

I have it turned off, and the last 15 notifications are friend activity that has nothing to do with me.

Agreed. At first I thought it was a bug, and was rather taken aback when I realised it was intentional. Of course, as I have an aversion to click-baity emails, I have barely visited FB since...

Not to defend FB on this but I can see them doing this defensively. I've seen doctors offices using FB to keep patients updated with their activities (free 'Healthy Eating' seminar), which has unintentionally been used to sent messages like 'Hey Doc needs to reschedule your colonoscopy appointment'. I'm sure FB doesn't want to get involved with indirect HIPAA violations, even if the fault lies elsewhere.

wouldn't using facebook be a hipaa violation in and of itself? doesn't information like that need to be contained to pre-approved, secure methods?

oh lord yes...like a monstrous, you need to be fired one. You can't put phi on any electronic system which you do not have a signed business associate agreement with. I suppose there's a chance that FB signed a baa, in which case this would be their problem, but it seems pretty unlikely to me.

IANAL, but there is a legal concept of ‘Joint And Several Liability’ — it might be the case that Facebook and the doctor were in violation.

Or it might have been just the doctor until someone complained and from that point on just the fact that Facebook knew about it might make them suddenly and automatically liable for further bad behaviour.

Are there any examples of service providers being liable for such communications?

I wouldn’t know where to look for an answer.

The EU, probably.

I think perhaps what's being described is akin to a bulletin board with fliers outside the doctors office, with general advice to the public, not specific directed advice to a patient about their specific health issues. I'm not sure that falls afoul of HIPAA, I would imagine it doesn't since it's not specific at all.

At the same time, that also makes it irrelevant to the point at hand, since it's not Facebook messenger at all, just general health posts and items offered by that medical group.

An easy solution would be to offer a "no preview" flag. But this also doesn't make sense because presumably the person's email account (where the preview would appear) is as private as their messenger. People who don't want to send info in email tend to send links to a secure portal, which they could do just as well in Messenger, preview or not.

Wouldn't that be on the doctor, and not Facebook (assuming their ToS says not to use it for that stuff).

Last time I checked, ToS had nothing about HIPAA. I even contacted them, wouldn't answer if they where HIPAA compliant or not. Wanted to know, just in case a doctor ever talks about communicating through them.

Any one that does communicate through them with their doctor, most likely doesn't know what HIPAA is or care.

To FB, it is the old "don't ask or tell" scenario.