
Zuckerberg’s So-Called Shift Toward Privacy - pulisse
https://www.nytimes.com/2019/03/07/opinion/zuckerberg-privacy-facebook.html
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dang
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19321609](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19321609)

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apo
Some companies just have business models that only work if the quality of life
for the world as a whole declines. They focus on extracting value for a few at
the expense of the many (many of which don't realize what's happening).

Facebook is one of them. Its entire business revolves collecting and selling
information about its users. One day, the information released in this way
will be recognized as the obviously harmful stuff that it was all along. We're
not there yet, though.

~~~
peteradio
Seems like society is taking the position that if you can't prove it does harm
then it must be fine. I'm starting to understand where conservatism comes
from.

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spenrose
Excerpt: "Here are four pressing questions about privacy that Mr. Zuckerberg
conspicuously did not address: Will Facebook stop collecting data about
people’s browsing behavior, which it does extensively? Will it stop purchasing
information from data brokers who collect or “scrape” vast amounts of data
about billions of people, often including information related to our health
and finances? Will it stop creating “shadow profiles” — collections of data
about people who aren’t even on Facebook? And most important: Will it change
its fundamental business model, which is based on charging advertisers to take
advantage of this widespread surveillance to “micro-target” consumers?

Until Mr. Zuckerberg gives us satisfying answers to those questions, any
effort to make Facebook truly “privacy-focused” is sure to disappoint."

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kjar
FB cannot be privacy focused, the business model prevents it, there history
belies it. How many times do you bang your head on a wall before you say no
more?

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nabla9
FB's average revenue per user is $7.37.

Unless they move into fully subscription based service (good luck), I don't
see any way for them to make that kind of money without using carefully
targeted ads.

~~~
eeeeeeeeeeeee
I don’t believe Facebook will ever offer true end-to-end encryption. They will
hold the master keys and allow themselves to inject whatever they want into
“your private living room” while giving users the perception of privacy and
secrecy.

Or they will try to monetize the metadata but keep the message body encrypted.

This feels like Zuckerberg embracing the backlash he’s ignored and dismissed
for so long and now trying to use it as a selling point because his
traditional growth model is beginning to show signs of slowing.

~~~
t0astbread
They could also do "real" e2e encryption but perform keyword analysis on the
message's content on the client

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kerng
Everyone I talked to, as well as any article I read about Zuckerberg's privacy
statement, is not believing it. There are major trust issues Facebook and its
CEO have created for themselves.

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nlh
Reading Zuck’s post actually made me quite sad. I’m in perhaps the minority of
folks that don’t really care too deeply about FB tracking and advertising to
me, but I feel strongly about the social implications of FB and the fake news
problem.

FB has had an undeniably negative affect on society as a whole because of its
ability to let people dive deeper into their own bubbles of reality (whether
truthful or not).

Putting curtains on the blinds only means the problem will get WORSE, not
better. People won’t have that silly emotion called shame (not that they have
much of it anyway) getting in the way of a good racist rant or news story
about the end of the world or how people with darker skin are so scary.

At least now there’s a chance someone with rationality will chime in if a
story gets spread far enough. In the new private FB our divide is going to
turn into a canyon :(

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lambda_lover
I'm curious to hear more from you on this, because I've always felt like
Facebook-imposed censorship would be far worse than open dialogue on the site.
People already wall themselves off inside of echo chambers that only reinforce
already-held opinions, so is your thought that the worst of these echo
chambers can be eliminated via FB filters?

Honestly, the most toxic content I've seen on FB hasn't been gore or racism or
sexism or anything else distasteful, it's been blatantly false
clickbait/opinion pieces that flare up existing divides.

I've always thought that the best way to make FB a decent place again would be
to simply ban sharing of links, so that the feed could become what it was
originally meant to be: a place where I can see what my friends are up to. But
that would also mean FB would have to dial back its targeted advertisingm,
which is all links (seriously, would contextual advertising really be that
bad? Bad enough that we can justify the insanity that is FB data collection)
and stop scooping up all the data they can get... which doesn't really seem
their MO.

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basch
Youre saying censorship is bad right?

Here's the thing. Facebook already editorializes in two ways. First its
community standards, and second its algorithm. THEY CHOOSE what to put at the
top (first thousand) results of your feed.

They dont need to censor what people post to make BETTER decisions about what
floats to the top. They just need to do a better job of prioritizing and
placing better content. It is out there and it exists, surface it. They want
to APPEAR impartial, as if your newsfeed is just what your friends post, BUT
they are still deciding which posts are more important than the others. They
are using the wrong signals to float the cream.

The question is less is censorship bad, and more "can/should fb better own
that it is NOT impartial, and IS injecting its voice into people's
conversations." If facebook wants to be impartial, then step back and act like
an infrastructure, and if it wants to have a say in community standards,
fucking own it and do a better job of judging what is worthy of the top of a
feed.

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matchagaucho
_" Things can get better if we want them to — through regulatory oversight and
political pressure"_

aka Regulatory capture. Raise the bar high so no other social network startup
can succeed.

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exergy
I've always taken exception to this way of thinking. Assuming for a second
that the regulations are _good_, for instance that companies must DELETE
(really delete) all data after 90 days, why should I care if a Johnny-come-
lately can't compete? The regulation is good for the consumer right?

You may then say that the assumption is big, and the regulations will be of a
different (worse) nature. Well, then it's the regulation that is the problem,
not the fact that only moneyed entities can afford to implement them.

~~~
rectang
What I find aggravating about debates over regulatory capture is that there's
no space for saying that _both_ government and private industry are bad,
because concentration of power is always bad no matter where it occurs.

Regulatory overreach is real, market failure is real, and regulatory capture
represents a failure of all parties.

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CPLX
He wants to build a western WeChat right? Isn't that the core idea of this
supposed shift currently in progress?

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shkkmo
If Facebook really wanted to shift to privacy, they would add a paid, ad free,
no tracking option.

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vinceguidry
Would that really fix anything? Nobody would trust that Facebook isn't
tracking them anyway.

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obmelvin
They already have shadow profiles of users not on the platform, so I'm sure
they'd still track users even if they paid. There would just be some cleverly
worded language about not using the data to show you ads, but that leaves the
door open for other uses of the data.

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NPMaxwell
More quotations from the article: "The plan, in effect, is to entrench
Facebook’s interests while sidestepping all the important issues...Will it
change its fundamental business model, which is based on charging advertisers
to take advantage of this widespread surveillance to “micro-target” consumers?
... We don’t want to end up with all the same problems we now have with viral
content online — only with less visibility and nobody to hold responsible for
it...I think the problem is the invasive way it makes its money and its lack
of meaningful oversight."

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razorbladeknife
Is any big company willing to pull from FB ad platform on grounds of
privacy/ethics? I doubt even Apple, so called Epitome of Privacy can afford
that.

Is there any organization where you can pledge to stay out of FB? I'll
consider buying my products from Members of such organization.

~~~
ductionist
Basecamp started a “Facebook Free” movement for businesses who pledge to not
use Facebook in any way. Their original announcement:
[https://m.signalvnoise.com/become-a-facebook-free-
business/](https://m.signalvnoise.com/become-a-facebook-free-business/)

Some press coverage of it: [https://www.cnbc.com/2019/03/06/some-advertisers-
are-quittin...](https://www.cnbc.com/2019/03/06/some-advertisers-are-quitting-
facebook-after-privacy-scandals.html)

