
Facebook Team Lands at Delhi Man's House for ID Verification over Political Post - webmobdev
https://www.news18.com/news/india/facebook-does-physical-verification-of-an-indian-user-for-a-political-post-report-2092397.html
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clay_the_ripper
The amount of whinging about this is disappointing.

Facebook has a very stringent identity verification process for political ads
(I’ve gone through it multiple times). It’s not a joke. They actually really
truly want to be sure you are who you say you are. To address the very problem
that everyone has been complaining about. Cambridge analytica, influencing
elections, etc. etc.

We don’t have all the facts in the story, but:

1\. Facebooks clearly states that if you want to run any kind of sponsored
posts relating to political content you have to get verified.

2\. That verification can take place in many different ways

3\. This person was under no obligation to complete the verification process
and can simply say no (and also not be allowed to run ads on Facebook)

4\. If anything this shows how seriously Facebook is taking political
advertising transparency

5\. Can someone please explain to me how this is in any way shape or form a
privacy violation?

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JumpCrisscross
> _Can someone please explain to me how this is in any way shape or form a
> privacy violation?_

It’s an etiquette violation. Facebook being Facebook, of course this is
something they messed up.

They should have sent an e-mail or verified Fb message saying “as an extra
layer of security, we’d like to verify your identity in person—when is a good
day in the next week when we may stop by?” (You lose the element of surprise,
which gives a bad actor time to _e.g._ get an Airbnb and print a fake ID, but
state-actor level threat models shouldn’t be assumed so early.) Maybe take
over a cheap plush animal, or some other swag, as a gift for the user’s
trouble.

On one hand, we want Facebook to fight fake news being spread by bots and
illegal political ads. On the other hand, we get outraged when they do
something as simple as verify someone’s ID. I’m no fan of Facebook, and their
sociopathic culture certainly helped bring this to a head, but fundamentally,
they aren’t doing anything wrong.

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interurban
> but state-actor level threat models shouldn’t be assumed so early

Isn't this a response to _exactly_ that threat? Nation-state election
interference activities have been detected around the world.

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gpm
It sounds like this was done as a result of attempting to buy political ads?

If so I don't think I have a problem with it. If Facebook wants to verify the
identity of someone they are doing business with in person - why shouldn't
they be able to? It does sound prohibitively expensive for facebook except for
huge ad buys though.

~~~
webmobdev
> It sounds like this was done as a result of attempting to buy political ads?

No. They wanted to verify if the FB user had indeed posted the political post,
and demanded his / her ID to verify the posters "credentials".

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gpm
You're sure? The article contains the following highly suggestive quote, and
"sponsored posts" (aka ads) are a thing.

> When it comes to those who wants to run political ads on Facebook, the
> company verifies residency of advertisers either by physical verification
> (by sending someone to the address provided) or by sending a code in the
> post.

~~~
callmeal
>> When it comes to those who wants to run political ads on Facebook, the
company verifies residency of advertisers either by physical verification (by
sending someone to the address provided) or by sending a code in the post.

That sentence in the article is a non-sequitur, and only goes to show that FB
verify advertisers. The rest of the article makes it clear that the FB
representatives were there over a post. Not an advertisement.

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chrisseaton
Why's it 'land'? Did they helicopter in or something? They make it sound like
a special forces raid.

> Only the state can act like this under proper laws

Didn't they just go and knock on his door? Anyone can knock on a door. There's
no law against this.

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jogjayr
It's a common way to say "show up unannounced" in Indian English.

~~~
dogma1138
I wonder if it has anything to do with people showing unannounced and
uninvited on the sub continent historically actually had to land there, i.e.
the Portuguese and the British.

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scarejunba
Makes no sense. The subcontinent has had its fair share of land invasions that
required no travel by sea.

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foobarchu
Most of them, in fact. I can think of no incursions by sea except for British,
Portuguese, and French, none of which were actual 'invasions' at the time so
much as merchants wanting to trade (which, of course, did lead directly to the
british raj, but that was never the original intention of the EIC).

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sigmar
Either this anonymous person was promoting posts or a group (ie paying
facebook) or he was tricked by someone that was falsely claiming to be from
Facebook.

Willing to bet money that Facebook is not paying employees to visit people's
houses because the government doesn't like a facebook post.

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cortesoft
It was someone trying to place a political ad, which by law can only be placed
by an Indian citizen. They were verifying that it was actually placed by an
Indian citizen.

Isn't this what we wanted after the Russian election stuff? We want them to
not foreign operatives to be able to place political ads, so they are trying
to enforce that rule.

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webmobdev
> "It was like cops come to your door for passport verification. The Facebook
> representative asked me to prove my credentials by asking for my Aadhaar
> card and other documents to understand if I am the one who had posted the
> political content," the person, who did not wish to be named, told IANS.

How many of you would have told the guy to f __* off, even if it meant losing
your FB account?

~~~
jacquesm
> How many of you would have told the guy to f* off, even if it meant losing
> your FB account?

I wouldn't just tell them to fuck off but call LE on them, it's really not up
to FB to send goons to your house to demand paperwork.

~~~
chrisseaton
> but call LE on them

For what? Anyone can ask anyone for paperwork. People can just say no. It
doesn't really sound like a police matter, does it? (Unless there's different
laws in India, but it's common-law isn't it?)

~~~
TheSpiceIsLife
In Australia we are frequently reminded that scammers operate by posing.

In that context the correct thing to do is report the incident to police, that
way the police can, if they get enough reports, raise an alert through their
usual channels to advise the populace to be on the lookout for scammers
operating in a particular manner.

Call me paranoid, but I _always_ assume anyone claiming to be from <company>
or <government> to be a scammer until proven otherwise, and I tell them that:
“if I can’t authenticate you then we can’t communicate, and it’s up to your
organisation to work out how to do that”.

~~~
chrisseaton
> I always assume anyone claiming to be from <company> or <government> to be a
> scammer until proven otherwise

Yeah, tell them 'no thanks', or just don't answer the door to people you
aren't expecting. None of this is a police matter though.

~~~
TheSpiceIsLife
Perhaps you misunderstood the part about how we are encouraged to report these
sorts of incidents so law enforcement can be aware of what is occurring in the
community.

The police aren’t about to send a car out to investigate every report, or
probably any of them. But they can and do raise alerts via their website and
social media to advise residents of suspicious activity.

Again, this is in Australia, where I live. Known to be the prototypical nanny-
state, but it does have some benefits.

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moogly
I've long pondered whether there should be some kind of internet police. Lots
of shady stuff happening all the time, but since it happens on the internet,
in some kind of legal grey zone, companies and individuals get away with it.

However, I did not ever envision that police to be operated by Facebook, of
all companies. I was naïvely picturing a rosy future where Facebook would
squarely be placed on the other side of legality.

~~~
ilamont
William Gibson portrayed this in _Neuromancer_ in 1984, although it seemed
like it was some sort of international force operated by the future equivalent
of the UN, or maybe some kind of Interpol with dedicated investigators.

~~~
int_19h
If you mean the Turing Police, they only concerned themselves with illegal
AIs.

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Jolter
I'm going to wait for some verification for this story. Sounds too weird to be
true.

~~~
DoreenMichele
Good idea, but it sounds plausible to me given their recent activities, like
calling the cops on folks they think are suicidal.

Though maybe that just supports the comment about social engineering and
identify theft:

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19598105](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19598105)

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_bxg1
Seems reasonable enough to me. The crazy thing is that we live in a world
where this is necessary, not that this is what they did. Especially given that
it was only done in the time and place surrounding an isolated, and very
important, event.

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jimrandomh
This makes sense. Remember, Facebook has had a problem with bots mass-
producing fake identities and using them to spread political content. To
develop a bot detector, they need to occasionally check the ground truth of
which accounts are real and which are fake.

~~~
TheSpiceIsLife
> This makes sense.

I'm going to go with: No, no it doesn't make any sense at all.

How can anyone authenticate the person coming to their door? That person
_could be anyone_ phishing for personal identifying information, or casing the
joint.

Probably the best thing do to is say nothing, close the door, and report the
incident to the police.

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uasm
Social engineering + identity theft. "Yeah, I'm from Facebook. Mind showing me
your ID? Just need to clear a few things here."

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gruez
I don't see how that's any different than being carded at a bar or when buying
smoke.

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thewhitetulip
Wow this is creepy at too many levels. On other side, will they also start
sending teams across India at all "Chowkidar's" posts

P.s. Chowkidar is the prefix ruling party's followers apply on social media

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auslander
Respect to news18 web devs, site froze my iOS Safari, first one in years.

~~~
ashelmire
Impressive commitment to failure. How does a site like this stay in operation?

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kumarharsh
This sounds very weird. It's OK if the user has consented to it, but this
feels more like the company taking law in it's own hands. Hope it's a one off
rather than becoming a norm.

~~~
vidarh
Part of the problem is that unless the consent is very explicitly communicated
so that there is no doubt, it has the potential to pose substantial risks to
people.

When I was at school, I remember a student that went abroad that had to get
assistance to find new housing after she'd been thrown out by her host family
just for receiving a letter from the political youth organization she was a
member of at home in Norway, for example (she was a member of Socialist Youth
- the youth organization of a mainstream left wing party that has since been
part of ruling coalitions, nothing remotely extremist, but too much for her
particular host family).

That was a benign situation compared to what might happen if Facebook starts
outing peoples political views to people they may have no expectation of
sharing their views with, but who has physical access.

I don't this process will survive contact with the real world very long before
they get sued.

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sacheendra
If the person didn't want the political views to be public, they shouldn't
have tried to buy ads about them.

~~~
vidarh
There is a difference between wanting their views to be public and wanting
your neighbours, parents, co-workers etc. to know about them.

Through a lot of human history, people have fought for certain views exactly
because they faced oppression and immediate risk to their person for those
views.

E.g. gay people wanting equal rights in societies where they at times may
place their life at risk to come forward.

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AndrewKemendo
I'm convinced we're going to see one of these tech giants eventually challenge
a nation state for sovereignty.

~~~
Razengan
Until the people with the actual physical weapons (militaries) get fed up with
everyone's bullshit and take shit into their own hands.

~~~
AndrewKemendo
Private militaries are an older concept than even nation states.

At one point in the recent past, Chevron had the one of the largest Navies
(with weapons) in the world.

~~~
Razengan
The point remains: Why would/should the people with weapons remain subservient
to those without?

~~~
chillacy
Who has the weapon: the soldier who holds the gun, the general who gives the
orders, the government which staffs the military, or the electorate which
elects the government?

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kbad1000
If true, Facebook is screwed.

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trhway
Facebook creepiness index reaches 11.

