avoidit
Since you can't seem to count to 2, how about:
1. You let us share your data with others in return for free service
2. You don't let us share your date in return for paid service
>> If you do choose to use a free service, whether it's Facebook or a public library
Well, a public library is tax funded and people outside the library employees have a big say in its inner workings. So you can't get your comparisons correct either.
>> Actively using something and also actively undermining its means of support ... well, I'll just leave that thought there.
Perhaps you should complete the thought, because I don't actively use the something
>> You seem to have some pretty unrealistic expectations of what individual employees can do at a 30K-person company, or about anyone taking the right action without deliberating first.
Really, as opposed to your very realistic expectations that everyone should just trust FB employees would have "done the right thing" had they not been caught red-handed? Oh right, because FB knows better what is best for everyone else.
>>Wouldn't it be nice if people who actually understand various parts of this can talk and work together?
This is truly bizarre. So if FB rolls over and dies tomorrow, does it mean innovation will come to a complete halt? Let us say you think, "oh, but it might take much longer". Does that automatically adversely affect people more than the damages that can be caused to society via rampant data collection? How can you be so sure? Oh wait, because you must be smarter than everyone else, as you got through the interview.
And finally, it is interesting all the things that you selectively left unsaid (exactly like other FB employees have been doing all the while).
- you don't have the courage (what an ironic handle) to discuss shadow profiles
- you never actually addressed the fact that no one from outside coerced the leak, which made your first comment more rhetorical than substantial
- you cleverly twisted the "collaboration" to be amongst FB employees when clearly the line following tells that you actually meant collaboration between FB employees and its users (dopamine hit for whom, that is? so you are now assuming others cannot read either?)
This argument is illogical, because Facebook forces everyone to sign its ToS to use its services, while nobody forces a Facebook employee to leak internal stuff. Said another way, whether or not I wish to have control over my FB data, FB coerces me to agree that it can do whatever it wants with my data. Its not exactly opt-in, is it? Its far worse, of course, if you consider shadow profiles, because it is even coercing people who didn't even explicitly sign up to the ToS. Unless the leak happened via some kind of coercion (which doesn't seem to be the case), your comment is incorrect.
>> In a less spiteful world, some of the employees' reactions might have been taken as evidence that they do understand and care about issues of privacy or containment.
What? You mean you care about something, but you just won't do something about it, nor openly tell anyone why you wouldn't do something about it, or even talk about it before the issue blows up? Yep, totally convincing.
>> Maybe that would lead to more collaboration on solutions,
Why do people need to "collaborate" on solutions? What do they get from it? Is Facebook going to pay people a share of the profits? If Facebook is a corporate entity which serves its self-interest against people's self-interest (which they have clearly been doing for a long time), what kind of idiot would suggest the people whose self-interest has been affected should now "come to the table" so "we can all work something out"?
>> which is necessary because there are actually some tricky tradeoffs here.
The only tricky tradeoff here is: should Mark Zuckerberg be the only one who should go to jail, or should the entire company be rounded up? It is quite tricky, I do agree.
>> But that doesn't give the same dopamine hit as cutting down the tall poppies, right?
I don't know about tall poppies, but "culling" the "weeds" is the only way to have a healthy garden.
2. Wrote another: “How fucking terrible that some irresponsible jerk decided he or she had some god complex that jeopardizes our inner culture and something that makes Facebook great?”
3. Back to Bosworth: "The post was of no particular consequence in and of itself, it was the comments that were impressive." (italics mine)
4. And lastly: " If we have to live in fear that even our bad ideas will be exposed then we won’t explore them or understand them as such, we won’t clearly label them as such, we run a much greater risk of stumbling on them later. Conversations go underground or don’t happen at all. And not only are we worse off for it, so are the people who use our products." (italics mine)
In other words: 1. we know better than you 2. the ends do justify the means (contrary to MZ's opinion) 3. don't mind the contents, just notice how smart the employees are 4. let us tell you what is best for you
Quote from the article: "In order to leverage the deep pool of data Facebook collects on users, the company mixes information that it obtains from users themselves (Pages a user liked, for instance) with information from advertisers (membership status in a loyalty program, for example) and with data obtained from third party providers."
It is super interesting that they have no terminology at all for data collected via shadow profiles. I propose "zeroth party" data - they are shadow profiles after all. :-)
1. Those who actively use Facebook and willingly tell it everything about their lives
2. Those who actively use Facebook and unwillingly tell it everything about their lives (who don't know what data it collects)
3. Those who once actively used Facebook
4. Those who have never created a Facebook (or WhatsApp or Instagram) account
The real issue is, FB likely has as much private data about group number 4 as group number 1 because of their shadow profiles (which they euphemistically refer to as "future Facebook users"). And their current or past employees seem to be a little too conveniently blind to this matter. See here for e.g.: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16676720
1. What was Mark Zuckerberg's response when people asked him if Facebook might be overstepping bounds in terms of data collection (shadow profiles)?
2. What did the company employees think of the backlash over their beacon project?
3. When Facebook told the EU that they cannot match FB user profiles and WhatsApp user profiles to create a single profile (remembering that they would be fined), what was the general consensus among employees? Did they know that FB had lied? Were they still OK with that? If they were, was there not a single person expressing dissent?
But I remember thinking that it was a very funny, cult-member like response. And you can test this too. Ask your friends who work at FB and I bet you will get some pre-programmed response very similar to that.
In other words, a person who is taking all the necessary steps and doing everything right in terms of the privacy of their digital footprint, is either off the grid, or is likely considered a tin foil conspiracy theorist by peers. Human survival instinct usually overrides such thoughtfulness.
Its definitely the latter. Not because there is something inherently bad about staying in touch. It is because you do so despite the knowledge that you are not doing it at zero cost to others who care about their privacy. Analogy: I wish I could just throw all my garbage over into my neighbors premises rather than walk all the way down to the recycle bin. But I don't. I am actually violating their personal space. By using Facebook, you are also violating the privacy of folks who disagree with your view, and this is now open knowledge.
And things don't even out if my neighbors are also doing the same to their neighbors over on the other side (but, but, everyone is on Facebook!). Ultimately, all of us will end up living amidst a pile of stinking garbage, which is an excellent analogy to what is happening with social networks today.
If FB actually faces complete implosion, their employees are more likely to rat out on the practices of the other companies based on nothing more than having worked at the other company too (after all, when one tech giant hires someone, they are more likely to be hired by a competing tech giant).
Also, do you genuinely not find it disconcerting that Facebook leadership go to great lengths to avoid discussing the privacy implications of their service? And the only person in that group who puts herself "out there", so to speak, is instead writing "success literature"?