
Facebook’s disingenuous explanations call for more questions and even less trust - evo_9
https://mondaynote.com/mark-zuckerberg-thinks-were-idiots-638c64dfab12
======
duxup
I'd like to know if Mark's and other executive's Facebook data were available
as readily as everyone else.

~~~
wdr1
It was.

You needed to be his FB friend, which at the time was limited to 500 (if I
remember right).

But if you were, the Graph API gave the same access as it did to others.

Honestly, it would be almost better if that _wasn 't_ true. That would mean
they knew something was wrong. The problem is they think "I'm fine with this,
so everyone else must be too."

~~~
duxup
Did he ever install an app that got access to his text messages?

~~~
gletard
Isn't that limited to android phones? If you are using iphone , can app have
access to texts easily?

~~~
crowbahr
No, ios prevented message and call data scraping.

~~~
duxup
Android keeps pushing me away and IOS just keeps calling to me it seems....

~~~
crowbahr
Probably should report that as spam somewhere. Block that number.

------
woodandsteel
The question is how to solve this problem. I don't think governmental
regulations will do it, through they may help. That's because data collection
and sharing is Facebook's whole business model, and ditto thousands of other
companies, large and small. So they will all just figure out ways of skirting
around the law and continuing what they have been doing.

The only solution that could work is a new financial model that combines
decentralization with some way of paying content producers and other expenses.
Fortunately there is a lot of tech for that in development, though I don't
know if anything is fully ready yet.

~~~
craftyguy
How about something like HIPPA (in the US)? There are strict penalties for
violations, but it hasn't prevented small companies from thriving, provided
they comply with the act..

~~~
woodandsteel
Companies comply because they are in the health care business, that is how
they make money, and HIPPA doesn't stop them from doing that. But Facebook is
in the data collection business. If it complied with a strong data privacy
law, it would go out of business, so it wouldn't.

------
itronitron
"that’s rightfully a big issue and deserves to be a big uproar" << I can't
wait to use this in my own life

------
untangle
> Persphinctery statements...

I don't know what these are but they sound evil.

~~~
waterhouse
My first guess was that it was meant to be "ass-covering". A "sphincter" is a
generic type of "circular muscle that normally maintains constriction of a
natural body passage or orifice", of which there are "over 60 types in the
human body" (Wiki), but there's only one sphincter people usually talk about
(outside scientific literature). Looking more closely at the definition of the
"per-" prefix, I get "through"[1], in which case a "persphinctery" statement
is most directly defined as one that "came out of someone's ass".

[1] [http://membean.com/wrotds/per-through](http://membean.com/wrotds/per-
through)

------
caro_douglos
They had a good run.

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yPY6Pp4kmxQ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yPY6Pp4kmxQ)

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HXuBnz6vtuI](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HXuBnz6vtuI)

------
eisvogel
Right next door to a company where I was recently working was a successful
startup whose entire business model consisted of using Facebook's commercial
API for the analysis of the psychological profiles of its base product (the
users), to detect potential terrorists. This outfit's only real customer is
Australian law enforcement, and everyone who uses Facebook is attributed some
non-zero terrorist score. I have told this to people who have continued to use
Facebook. It's just crap and it can't die fast enough.

~~~
etherealG
But not using Facebook gives a +80% score too right? I mean, only a terrorist
cares about his privacy. I have nothing to hide. :|

------
nkkollaw
Title seems to be "Mark Zuckerberg Thinks We’re Idiots"..?

~~~
dredmorbius
HN routinely de-fang headlines, particularly on hot-button topics, in the
interest of more informed discussion.

~~~
nkkollaw
I thought the rule was to not editorialize titles..?

~~~
grzm
With a few exceptions. In particular:

> _" [P]lease use the original title, unless it is misleading or linkbait.
> Don't editorialize."_

[https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html](https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html)

~~~
nkkollaw
But was it misleading or clickbait?

I'm just curious.

~~~
grzm
Arguably, yes. It's written to elicit a strong emotional response that can
affect the direction and quality of discussion. After all, one of the primary
goals of HN is quality discussion.

The mods have written about this when commenting on title changes:

[https://hn.algolia.com/?query=author:dang%20changed%20title&...](https://hn.algolia.com/?query=author:dang%20changed%20title&sort=byDate&prefix&page=0&dateRange=all&type=comment)

In particular, this one seems appropriate:

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16336433](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16336433)

------
scotty79
I feel this author could write an article about purest, most selfless people,
actions or concept on the planet and make them sound dirty and evil.

~~~
itronitron
maybe we can suggest they write about Mother Teresa >>
[https://www.huffingtonpost.com/krithika-varagur/mother-
teres...](https://www.huffingtonpost.com/krithika-varagur/mother-teresa-was-
no-saint_b_9470988.html)

------
prolikewhoa
"Facebook thinks we're idiots"

To be honest, about this issue of privacy and security, most of the world
really doesn't care. The people who do care are not a majority and not even a
significant statistic. Providing an apology is enough for most people, since
they don't understand the depth and scope of the problem at hand.

Shareholders know this. Mark will receive a slap on the wrist, and business
will continue as usual as this fades out over the next 1-2 months.

~~~
bmarquez
Yes. This is all over HN and Reddit, but when I try to introduce my friends to
Signal (or encryption in general), they shrug and say they have nothing to
hide.

Hate to say it, but the general public needs Kim Kardashian or some tastemaker
to make privacy and security "cool".

~~~
matte_black
But privacy and security are not "cool", and never will be.

People like transparency, people are drawn to dangerous things. Hiding shit
behind closed doors or being super paranoid is not cool, and will not get you
fans.

The only security most people need is herd security. As long as your data can
blend into a mass of other people's data to the point where you're just an
anonymous face in the crowd, there's no harm. Sure, if you're some important
individual who can be compromised by someone motivated enough you might have
something to be afraid of, but most people never rise to that level of
importance.

~~~
proofbygazing
> The only security most people need is herd security. As long as your data
> can blend into a mass of other people's data to the point where you're just
> an anonymous face in the crowd, there's no harm. Sure, if you're some
> important individual who can be compromised by someone motivated enough you
> might have something to be afraid of, but most people never rise to that
> level of importance.

Well, yeah, maybe, but the Kardashians certainly fall into that group, and
there is a cult of narcissism that would find the idea fashionable if given
direction from actually famous individuals.

That said, I think you're right that very few will ever give a shit about
privacy and I'm not terribly convinced they are wrong, since very few have
anything interesting or meaningfully criminal/subversive going on.

~~~
matte_black
So then is there a problem? Probably not. Just a way to grab headlines.

~~~
proofbygazing
Well there is a problem when it's now incredibly easy for say, a government to
profile and find dissidents, etc.

Most people don't fall into this bucket and thus don't care, but the overall
effect is to highlight deviations from the norm.

------
meri_dian
Can someone explain to me what the problem is with data availability?

As other comments have noted, most people don't care. How would you make
someone who doesn't care, care?

~~~
BookmarkSaver
Well a decent part of the most recent furor is that it affects people the _do_
care. The Cambridge Analytica data was scraped from customers that had enabled
it, but extended into their own friend networks, including those that had not
chosen to make their data accessible.

I am sorta of the opinion that nothing on FB should be considered private, but
even with that noted, and the fact that I don't particularly care what
personal FB info on me is scraped, I'm a bit annoyed that any random friend
could expose data that I have marked as private by allowing some random BS app
to access to their own account. According to FB, this was solved years ago
(but the data already scraped from the previous state was never successfully
recalled), but I hardly trust them to give a shit about this or other issues
popping up in the future, barring another mass outrage.

------
olivermarks
Not sure about 'surprise'

the Corbett Report is pointing out it covered all this in detail a year ago

[https://youtu.be/w7n9FI6C5vw](https://youtu.be/w7n9FI6C5vw)

along with lots of other similar commentary online over the last couple of
years...

~~~
JumpCrisscross
> _Not sure about 'surprise'_

That this was possible and happening was well known in Silicon Valley. What
has changed is (a) Cambridge Analytica and the 2016 election made the issue
relatable and (b) Zuckerberg _et al_ are dissembling and attempting what
appears to be an incompetently-executed public cover-up.

~~~
aylmao
> Zuckerberg et al are dissembling and attempting what appears to be an
> incompetently-executed public cover-up

I agree that execs probably took too long to make a statement, but out of
curiosity, do you have any thoughts on what execs should've done instead, or
are you of the opinion that there's really nothing they could've done
differently?

~~~
Yetanfou
Really? It is not so much what they _should_ have done but what they _should
not_ have done: they _should not_ have made the decisions which led to their
companies ending up in this quagmire. They should have behaved ethically,
something which is sure to have been mentioned - even if only in passing - at
the Ivy League schools they attended.

~~~
manjushri
>They should have behaved ethically, something which is sure to have been
mentioned - even if only in passing - at the Ivy League schools they attended

FB was founded on ethics violations.

