
Facebook confirms it is scanning your private messages to increase Likes - neya
http://thenextweb.com/facebook/2012/10/04/facebook-confirms-it-is-scanning-your-private-messages-for-links-so-it-can-increase-like-counters/
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TomGullen
To me, this is just standard privacy hyperbole that rears it's head every now
and then.

Anyone remember the headlines several years ago when "Google 'scans' your
emails to serve targetted ads'? When was the last time you heard someone
complain about that anymore? No one does, because it doesn't matter.

Why should me sharing a link via a PM and my action be aggregated into an
anonymous number worry me? How is the argument different from Google 'scanning
your emails'?

Social networks nowadays seem to be competing on ways of justifying bigger
numbers on the counters. It makes sense, the bigger the number the bigger the
social proof which will attract webmasters. Scanning PM's for shares isn't
something I might of thought they would do, but they do and it makes sense.
The whole privacy debate surrounding this particular case is a complete non-
issue for me though and will probably fade into insignificance just like
Google scanning your emails.

An action from a big company that shifts the boundaries of acceptability in
privacy would be a justified concern, but in this instance no land here in the
privacy war has been lost. Nothings really happened.

~~~
greggman
It's not the same thing.

Let's say I'm a republicrat and I'm furiously sending private messages with
links to democan sites showing my friends how evil I think they are. Except
now I'm told every one of my links as just made those republicrat sites more
liked an I'm helping make it look like they are more popular than they really
are.

Scanning emails to serve you ads does not leak information to the public
indirectly. Increasing like counts does.

~~~
tedunangst
Lesson learned: stop linking to evil content.

~~~
nancyhua
Wonder if this will exacerbate the effect of everyone only seeing views that
agree with theirs and decreasing exposure to different (/evil) perspectives.

~~~
tedunangst
Personally I'd be happy with fewer "look at this idiot" links, whether they be
on Facebook or HN. If its more of a "something to think about" link, even if I
disagree, I think I'm ok if their like count goes up when I share it.

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ericdykstra
There's a reason I disable Facebook buttons on my browser and don't stick them
on my own sites (including my blog). I don't trust Facebook with my browsing
data, and I don't want to subject users of any website I work on to their
abuse, either.

"Move fast and break expectation of privacy"

~~~
ImprovedSilence
how do you go about disabling facebook buttons?

~~~
msg
Run NoScript, never whitelist facebook. Crude but effective.

~~~
yk
This only prevents FB scripts from executing, but you still get the images (
and FB the cookies). So this is not the solution for the paranoid.

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phwd
This is known by most Facebook App Developers.

What makes up the number shown on my Like button?
<http://developers.facebook.com/docs/reference/plugins/like/>

The number shown is the sum of:

The number of likes of this URL. The number of shares of this URL (this
includes copy/pasting a link back to Facebook). The number of likes and
comments on stories on Facebook about this URL. The number of inbox messages
containing this URL as an attachment.

~~~
ig1
From the API you can actually get a breakdown of that number into those
component numbers.

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k-mcgrady
Doesn't sound like a big deal at all. There certainly aren't any privacy
implications. When you send a link to a website via PM the 'like' counter on
that page on that website will increase by one. Makes sense (not perfect
though e.g. if you're directing a friend to something you don't like). It's
not like the 'like' is then shared publicly to your friends not part of the
private conversation.

~~~
prodigal_erik
They know who you are and what link you forwarded. The only thing keeping it
out of the public eye is Facebook's discretion, and they have a track record
of unpredictably disclosing more data about you without an opt-in.

~~~
eurleif
Facebook would have that data even if they didn't use it for the like button
count.

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dumb-dumb
The difference between Gmail and Facebook is that Gmail did not aim to track
who you correspond with. Facebook is focussed on personally identifiable
information. They have made it their business from Day 1 to know who your
correspondents (friends) are _and_ to exploit that for profit.

To my mind, this is not something Google set out to do. Although to compete
with Facebook, I imagine they may have changed direction. We have Facebook to
thank for that.

Let's imagine for a second that the future brings us the proverbial "video
telephone" that even the most non-technical person expects to one day be
standard issue. Crystal clear, real-time communication with both audio and
video as available to every person as owning a cell phone is today. Now, hold
that thought.

Should companies be invited into every conversation we have on this device?
Should they be permitted to show ads to us as we converse?

We never had companies keeping a record of everyone who we telephone and
listening in to our telephone conversation to try to figure out what junk
postal mail to send us. Would this be different? How?

Ok, now we can return to present day reality. The question is: Where do we
draw the line? Should companies be a party to every conversation? What will
happen if we leave this question to the unscrupulous kids working and
compromised adults working at Facebook? I doubt they would see anything wrong
with what I described in the previous paragraph.

~~~
tedunangst
Somehow gmail manages to auto suggest and complete email addresses for me.
Sounds a lot like they tracking who I correspond with.

~~~
dumb-dumb
Yes. 2s/aim/initially aim/

I rarely use Javascript (certainly not for email) so I wouldn't know about all
the latest Gmail "features". :)

What I was hinting at was a sort of evolutionary pressure on Google... to
start using personally identifiable information. That pressure being Facebook
as a perceived competitor.

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codva
So if I send a PM to a friend on FB with a link and note that says, this is
the lamest site ever the "Like" counter on the site goes up by one? That makes
perfect sense.

~~~
Empro
Actually it goes up by two, but Facebook claims that's the bug, not the fact
that it goes up at all.

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dumb-dumb
"Private messages" and "Facebook" are mutually exclusive.

Facebook is the antithesis of privacy.

Dreamers think FB has value.

Does the average person, of any age, think privacy has value?

What's more valuable?

Can all value be measured in monetary terms?

Web traffic has value (e.g. we can sell display ads). FB has web traffic. But
so did milliondollarwebsite.com.

Privacy OTOH seems a long-lived concept, dating from at least the dawn of
civilisation. I'd argue we have a lot more privacy than our ancestors. A trend
that has continued unabated for hundreds of years. FB is but a
{milli,micro,nano,pico}second in the evolutionary timeline of privacy.

I'm not throwing away my fig leaf just yet.

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SeanDav
Why are people still using Facebook anyway? I can only presume people that do
simply don't care much about privacy because Facebook has proved time and time
again that your privacy does not matter at all to them.

~~~
MartinCron
All of their privacy breaches don't really matter if you consider all of the
things that you do with Facebook to be explicitly public. My only privacy
filters are discretion and sobriety, and they've worked well enough so far.

~~~
gm
Agreed. In this day and age it's just asinine to expect privacy from the
Internet, no matter what you are promised.

There is not privacy and I do not expect any. That's the way to be happy and
care free on the Internet. It's simple: Don't post anything privately or
publicly that you do not want the whole world to see.

~~~
xiaoma
Are you fine with the whole world seeing all you email and chat history, then?

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golgo13
I know FB scans private messages. You cannot send links with certain domains
without getting an error message. Sure, they don't have some dude in a cubical
looking at each and every message, but if they are scanning for domains, how
hard is it to scan for keywords within those private messages? Mention your
new iPhone in a message, and you see ads for iPhone cases. Make a Tony Romo
joke and you see ads for an RGIII jersey, etc etc.

~~~
sjf
They scan for even more than that, they'll report you to the FBI if they
suspect you of illegal activity.
[http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/07/12/us-usa-internet-
pr...](http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/07/12/us-usa-internet-predators-
idUSBRE86B05G20120712)

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bcooperbyte
"Privacy is a relic of a time gone by" -Sean Parker

~~~
facefxck
"Fuck you" -Me, responding to Sean Parker on privacy.

~~~
neya
Ditto. Impressive attitude.

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sadga
the hubbub over "scanning" here is silly. Obviously Facebook's systems scan
your everything. The issue is that FB considers a "private mention" as a
"Like", but it's old news that a "Facebook Like" is not an "English like"

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stephengillie
What about the "ad-likes", where FB shows "Your friend Jill likes ponies.
Here's an ad for My Little Ponies" -- are these similarly prevented?

Breaking things tends to make unhappy the people using.

~~~
kmfrk
Don't worry, Zuckerberg will write a heartfelt boilerplate apology soon
enough. :P

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LouDog
I'd rather be shocked if they don't do it (think viruses, trojans, hoaxes etc)

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chuppo
Facebooks private messages are censored. Here in the western world we can not
message one another freely when using this Facebook, of which many think are
some kind of nice private messaging system like email. Its not and never was.
For example try to send a thepiratebay.org link to your friends as a private
message. Who knows what more they censor, perhaps the really interesting bits
to censor seem to you like they have been delivered, but facebook never
actually shows it to your firend. You would never know.

Also, you cant send life-changing notifications through messages to all your
friends, for example there is a cap I think on to message 30 people at once.

