Do people not realize the social media panic is exactly the same kind of socially conservative attitudes we used to mock as children? Instead of video games, MTV and rap, we're panicking about social media.

There are two separate issues with social media. Everything falls under one of these two.

1. The effect social media has on people

2. What social media gathers about you

The comparison you made with video games doesn't delve deep into issue #1. With video games you play perhaps a violent game and the argument is that it might make you violent.

With social media the effect is different. Algorithms are affecting what you see, the echo chamber they create around you and can literary change your perception. This isn't even touching psychological experiments being done by companies like Facebook to see the effects to your mood based on what you see in your feed.

Video games haven't gotten there, they don't alter their behavior based on what you look at and do. They don't present other gamers that match your video game playstyle and likes and dislikes. They don't allow advertisements that specifically target your behavior.

How’s that saying go? Just cause you’re paranoid doesn’t mean they aren’t out to get you?

Social media is next level. It enables front row access to: social graphs, voice print, biometric data, subversive content promotion. Mental health with bullying, it’s extremely pervasive with the connectedness afforded by 24/7 networked pocket computers that have cameras. Sexting and revenge porn is a thing. Not to mention FB use in Myanmar https://www.cnn.com/2021/12/07/tech/facebook-myanmar-rohingy...

MTV doesn't know who you're fucking.

But it certainly liked to suggest who you should be fantasizing about fucking.

It is like saying the automobile is just a faster horse and buggy. I mean you aren't wrong.

Of course, pretending there are no sociological effects of the average person traveling 5X faster whenever they want is completely absurd but you are correct in what you said.

I remember when MTV and Video Games were used to elect fascists.

Stopping to use Facebook is way harder than you may think.

For example, Facebook is provided as authentification service on a huge amount of websites, meaning those websites send parts of your data to Facebook even if you don't use this authentication.

I don't know any website that uses facebook as its only way to authenticate. I never use the usual suspect for authentication, always choose the regular account option tied to an email address. That is what password managers are for anyway.

Do you mean passive third-party requests I could block on my end, or something built into their backend that exposes their entire registration list? I thought it was only the former.

Both. Facebook scans form fields for content that can be uploaded [0], and a developer can upload hashed data (I believe potentially from their backends[1][2]).

[0] https://www.facebook.com/business/help/611774685654668?id=12...

> Automatic advanced matching will tell your pixel to look for recognisable form fields and other sources on your website that contain information such as first name, last name and email address. The Facebook pixel receives that information along with the event, or action, that took place. This information gets hashed in the visitor's browser. We can then use the hashed information to more accurately determine which people took action in response to your ad. After matching, we promptly discard the hashed information.

[1] https://developers.facebook.com/docs/facebook-pixel/advanced... - technical specs for uploading hashed user content. Typically done on the frontend.

[2] https://www.facebook.com/business/m/signalshealth/accelerate...

> The manual method feature enables advertisers to leverage their own customer data, such as email address, phone number and so on. This method allows advertisers to report on more conversions, optimise their ads against more conversion data and reach more people on Facebook with their website Custom Audiences or dynamic ads.

This is not how it works.

In Android apps, that's how it works.

The SDK (recommended for login) is set up by default to collect information and installs handlers for app lifecycle events as soon as the app is installed. The default is to do this without requesting user consent.

A rough summary of the data: (Ad ID, device, locale, phone network, maybe install referrer).

To attribute advert -> install, Facebook ads pass on an encrypted blob containing campaign information to the Play Store, this blob is readable by the app, and is transmitted back to Facebook where it's decrypted.

The setting: https://github.com/facebook/facebook-android-sdk/blob/fcd4ef...

Defaulted to true: https://github.com/facebook/facebook-android-sdk/blob/5fe6e2...

https://developers.facebook.com/docs/app-events/getting-star...

Wow, that's a very dark pattern.

In any case, this is not how it's supposed to work in oauth, and it's definitely not required for it to work.

I suppose developers could pretty much use any generic oauth lib for the login purposes.

Maybe this is of interest for you: https://media.ccc.de/v/35c3-9941-how_facebook_tracks_you_on_...

Seems to me, this is pretty much exactly how this works.