

Facebook is impersonating users without their consent - crcn
http://bureauofminds.com/post/41028512430/facebook-is-impersonating-people-without-their

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pmorici
This article is disingenuous. Facebook is putting related sponsored content
next to a 'like' in the feed and it is labeled as such. The complaint here
boils down to that an unsophisticated viewer might think that sponsored
content was what was originally liked when it was actually not. They say this
is "impersonating a user". That seems way over the top.

~~~
tobyjsullivan
You're facts are correct and this isn't officially "impersonating a user."
However, there is a very fine line that Facebook is crossing.

Specifically, these sponsored posts are displayed in a way that causes
confusion to the viewing user and, I am confident, this confusion is
intentional on Facebook's part. As an apt web user with quite a bit of
experience with Facebook and the web in general, I still get confused by these
posts. I tend to assume they are posted by the friends that "liked" the brand
and only in clearly questionable cases, such as when the post is about a bank,
do I look close enough to realise it is sponsored content.

Intentionally causing confusion like this is shady, even if legal, and this
"feature" of Facebook warrants as much attention as it is getting.

Ironically, this article is applying the same style of subtle confusion that
it attacks (claiming that Facebook impersonates users when the author knows
that's not technically accurate). But I must commend this article for
providing the information in a simplified, easy-to-comprehend manner that is
accessible by the average Facebook user. In fact, I may go share it right
now...

~~~
orijing
> I am confident, this confusion is intentional on Facebook's part.

How can you be so confident about someone's _intent_?

I disagree with your assessment but didn't downvote your comment because I
want to understand.

~~~
jaredmcateer
He can feel confident because Facebook has a history of misleading users or
oversharing data and this isn't a court room, rather the internet, and there
is little consequence if he's wrong.

I'm not 100% confident that Facebook's intention was to mislead but the simple
fact that these posts aren't being shown to the user(s) that they are being
linked to is pretty damning.

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SeanDav
By now, everyone should know that anything you post or do, at all, on Facebook
is probably going to become public at some point. That is how Facebook makes
its money. If you value your privacy then simply don't use Facebook. I stopped
about 2 years ago and quite frankly I haven't missed it for a moment.

If you do want to use Facebook then accept that your data is not your own, no
matter what they say and quit complaining about it.

~~~
timerickson
You and I may know that, as may the rest of the HN community, but it shouldn't
stop us from trying to protect our friends and family who use Facebook
unawares to these practices.

I know I don't want my mother thinking I liked a post about "2 Girls 1 Cup" –
and my recourse shouldn't be to completely delete my Facebook account.

~~~
grey-area
Given Facebook's behaviour and CEO, your recourse _should_ be to completely
delete your account. Facebook will not change their deceptive and manipulative
behaviour because they need to do these things to make money, in fact they
need to do a lot more of this sort of thing to justify their current stock
price. If you stay on FB your likes, comments, images from your life, and your
name will be used to endorse third party advertising without your explicit
consent, and sometimes that's going to be products you don't agree with,
particularly if you 'like' a magazine or similar which has many advertisers.
The FB terms allow this, and they have shown what they think of user privacy.

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rlu
This is nothing new. Any facebook user has likely seen tons of these on their
feed and so it's only somewhat logical to assume that, for your friends, you
might come up in a similar fashion.

In fact, isn't this completely related?
<http://mashable.com/2013/01/03/facebook-settlement-email/>. I think what the
OP is referring to is exactly what Facebook calls a "Sponsored Story".

I don't think that this is Facebook "impersonating me without my consent".
Perhaps it is Facebook "using me to advertise products without my consent".
Either way, if I like "Spotify" on Facebook and then some of their posts come
up on my friends' feeds because "So and So likes Spotify" then I understand
that it is a form of advertising and I'm not going to throw a fit over it.

It's wrong if Facebook says that I like something which I don't. However, that
isn't what they're doing at all.

~~~
timerickson
Yes, the OP is specifically referring to "Sponsored Stories" – the concern and
alarm is raised because the user has no way of knowing what stories are being
attached to their name, or even that its happening at all.

As for your later point, your assumption that all users know these posts are
advertisement and that users understand their friend didn't really like a post
about 2 Girls 1 Cup – is patently false based on OP's own personal experience.
His mother saw a Sponsored Story by VICE about "Penis Waffles" that had his
name attached to it. When she saw the post, it looked to her as if he had
liked the story/post and urged him to take it down.

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bparsons
No, it just says that you "like" something. The tense works both in the past
and present. Facebook never says that you liked something that you did not.

~~~
Wilya
This article is rather low on substance, but it links to [0], which has been
here before (can't find any discussion, though), and claimed exactly the
opposite, namely that Facebook said you liked something you never liked.

[0] [http://readwrite.com/2012/12/11/why-are-dead-people-
liking-s...](http://readwrite.com/2012/12/11/why-are-dead-people-liking-stuff-
on-facebook)

~~~
ceejayoz
Maybe the guy despised corporate bullshit, but entered a Discover-sponsored
sweepstakes or something similar that had a like requirement.

Or, he had to like Discover's page to be able to post comments there bashing
their corporate bullshit.

There are a number of explanations, and deeming Facebook to be faking likes
based on "I don't think my dead friend would've liked this page" is a little
tenuous.

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zipop
I'm not a Facebook hater but I don't have the time to keep up with all of
their questionable tactics so I recently unliked everything and removed my
profile and cover photos which I know understand are public. I also removed
everything from my profile descriptions. Gaining my trust they are not.

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dusing
I hate when people say things like "without users consent" as if those users
didn't accept the TOS which I'm sure gives Facebook the ability to repost your
likes.

~~~
logn
Agreed. And they clearly say in there that ToS are subject to change so only
an idiot wouldn't re-review them weekly. I make it a habit as part of my
routine.

~~~
fredoliveira
Well it's a shitty routine to have. Not being able to assume good faith is
what's destroying trust in the services we use.

------
danboarder
What facebook is doing here is similar to back when the bigger search engines
got in hot water for mixing ads into search results in various shady ways
(recall Paid Inclusion programs about 10 years ago, see
<http://www.wired.com/techbiz/media/news/2004/07/64092> ). It did not benefit
the user and generally created confusion and a poor user experience, driving
many users to try Google for the first time (Google never had Paid Inclusion
that I can recall).

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buren
It's true that Facebook doesn't post anything that you haven't previously
liked, however, I believe, in many cases people do think that somebody have
explicitly liked that particular sponsored post rather than the page behind
it.

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tlrobinson
Wait, did this guy really just expose dozens of his friends' private newsfeed
posts to the public while criticizing Facebook?!

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lanewinfield
This has been happening for quite sometime. I believe those pages are
sponsoring these advertisements, and essentially are showing that your friends
had previously liked them.

Nothing new.

~~~
timerickson
You've unfortunately missed the point. The "Johnny Wonny" user never 'liked'
the article/post about 2 Girls 1 Cup. He merely like the VICE page. Facebook
is now deciding to show the post to all his friends with his name attached,
without any mention to Johnny in any form.

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paul_f
How can anyone defend this behavior by Facebook? They purposely don't show the
advertisement it to the person they are impersonating. And yes, they are
impersonating me if they post something on my behalf merely because I liked
something.

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cdalonzo
When you're logged into Jonny Wonny and you're scrolling down your News Feed,
how come a post from VICE is there (3:19 & 3:16)? You had to like VICE in
order for it to appear in News Feed. So your whole argument is false.

A friend could have liked a brand years ago and it could just be showing in
your News Feed now, it doesn't have to show based on when they liked it.

~~~
timerickson
The point the OP is trying to make is not the liking of VICE – the "Johnny
Wonny" account legitimately liked VICE, but did not like the POST that VICE
chose to "sponsor" and show to other users as if he had liked it. It becomes
disingenuous when Facebook doesn't inform the user that they are posting a
specific article/post on the users behalf, to all his friends.

~~~
cdalonzo
It's pretty obvious, at least to me, that the person liked just the brand, and
that the brand is just advertising a post below the like. I would think it
would say "Johnny Wonny liked VICE's post" if the user liked the post.

~~~
timerickson
Correct, but this isn't obvious to everyone. This UI design seems purposefully
chosen by Facebook to look as if the user has liked the post as well as the
brand page.

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hn-miw-i
If anyone is reading this, and they use facebook, get the hell off there.
Delete your account today. They will always take take take. The most egregious
of these kind of rights violations 4 years ago is today's standard practice.
They will only get worse and drag the rest of the web down to their new lows.
"Do be evil" is the motto of Zuckbergs ilk.

------
akosner
See my reaction to Condon's story here:
[http://www.forbes.com/sites/anthonykosner/2013/01/21/faceboo...](http://www.forbes.com/sites/anthonykosner/2013/01/21/facebook-
is-recycling-your-likes-to-promote-stories-youve-never-seen-to-all-your-
friends) As he suggests, “The only way to prevent re-posted content is to
unlike everything.” And as Facebook continues to abuse the Like function, or
to allow (or at least be unable to prevent) third-parties from abusing it,
many users may find themselves doing just that, or ditching Facebook
altogether.

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hfsktr
I had some issue just reading the text on the page after clicking the video.
Once the video had opened for me the scrollbar on the site disappeared. It
reappeared on reloading the page but incredibly annoying and confusing
behavior.

Nothing to really say about the video etc.

Relevant C&H comic: <http://www.explosm.net/comics/2398/>

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jrockway
I like how Google+ makes +1-ing and sharing that you +1'd something two
separate operations. Sometimes you want people that have already found the
content to discover that you liked it too, and sometimes you want to share
something you like with your friends. It's nice that _I_ get to decide.

------
pidg
I would say 'liking' a page is consent to have 'Friend likes this page' appear
in your friends' news feeds. It doesn't state that they liked that particular
post.

Annoying or not, I always thought it was reasonably clear that the post was
coming from the page, not from the friend.

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mekwall
How is this even a problem, when you can turn it off? It's under the following
link:
[https://www.facebook.com/settings?tab=ads&section=social...](https://www.facebook.com/settings?tab=ads&section=social&view)

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rjsamson
I posted this as a reply to jxi below, but you can easily opt out of this in
your facebook settings (though its a bit shady imo that this behavior is
enabled by default)

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vaadu
Is this a form of spoofing? If so isn't this a crime according to Carmen
Ortiz.

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geoka9
What's wrong with the page? It wouldn't scroll.

~~~
jff
It's a clone of the ever-so-intuitive Mac OS interface. That's why it took me
a while to figure out how to scroll, too, and why it looks kinda bad.

------
jxi
The question is: can I opt out of this, or am I obliged to deal with this as
long as I'm a Facebook user. I personally find this is pretty bad. I don't
want my friends seeing my past likes from several years ago and seeing me
endorse something stupid that I liked before (on the front page). Do I need to
go through my likes and curate it all the time? It's different if it's just on
my profile because having it in the news feed suggests that I liked this thing
recently.

I think I'm seriously 1 step closer to just closing my Facebook account. Also,
look at all those nasty ads on the right side. I use ad blocker so I don't see
any of those, but looking at his video, that is definitely noisy.

~~~
rjsamson
Yes - you can opt out of this - to do so, go to your settings, then click on
'ads' in the sidebar on the left and select 'edit' on the ads & friends
section - there you can set "Pair my social actions with ads for" to "no one".

~~~
blahedo
Are you sure that's what that's for? When I go to that setting (which I'd
already set to "no one" in an earlier privacy audit), the example it shows of
what it controls is very different from the "related post" issue that's being
complained about here.

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NickKampe
GUYS! We thought up a new way of how to describe why Facebook is bad, we'll
make it seem like this hasn't been happening since "Likes" came into existence
and watch people revolt!

If you're butthurt about your privacy and think big brother is spying on you,
don't fucking use Facebook.

~~~
NickKampe
Also, why does this have 96 upvotes? Shame on you HN.

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btipling
I'm not sure if this article is about this, it doesn't sound like it, but a
lot of web apps provide their development team with the ability to impersonate
users as it's a great way to debug issues a user may be seeing.

~~~
acchow
It is not about this.

