
With trust destroyed, Facebook is haunted by old data deals - ihsoj
https://techcrunch.com/2018/12/19/all-out-of-faithbook/
======
mindgam3
Previous discussion of the source NYT article:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18712382](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18712382)

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pdimitar
I very much like to believe the "trust in Facebook is destroyed" message
but...

(1) On every meetup I attend people are genuinely extremely surprised when I
share with them even 1-2 of the screwups Facebook did. They are ENTIRELY
clueless. And we're talking tech-savvy business founders and CEOs -- and often
times CTOs and CFOs.

(2) Most don't care. They write it off as "I am not important enough to be
spied on" or just directly admit "Facebook is integrated too much in my life
and work and I can't replace it" and that's the end of the discussion. Many
even say "they have only a part of my data, they can't have it all, right?"
\-- and have no idea about how well the tracking industry does cross-
referencing of seemingly unrelated data sets.

I don't think Facebook is going away anytime soon in any measurable way or
form. Sure they might struggle monetizing their mountain of data and
analytics, and sure the stock market circus might not be on their side right
now but I can't see them actually losing a significant chunk of users in the
next 5 years.

~~~
gambler
_" I am not important enough to be spied on"_

Such a familiar phrase. I'm so tired of hearing it from people I know. This is
exactly like saying "I'm too broke for anyone to steal my credit card".

What you think of your own importance has zero bearing on how some unknown
third party perceives you. Neither can you predict how they will use your
information or how it will affect you. It's insane that people spend time and
energy on keeping secrets from their relatives and friends (which _everyone_
does) and yet can't see that a third party that actively seeks your
information is more likely to cause you harm than people you know. This is a
trivial deduction, yet so many people can't comprehend it. They think that
because they can't imagine how someone else could screw them up using their
personal info, no one could possibly screw them up using their personal info.

Apparently, I'm not eloquent enough to convey this in a verbal conversation.
I've tried. Funny thought: maybe I should print the paragraph above on a card
and hand it out when someone says the key phrase.

~~~
TeMPOraL
> _It 's insane that people spend time and energy on keeping secrets from
> their relatives and friends (which everyone does) and yet can't see that a
> third party that actively seeks your information is more likely to cause you
> harm than people you know. This is a trivial deduction, yet so many people
> can't comprehend it._

I think this deduction is actually wrong. Ask yourself _why_ you hide some
things from your relatives and friends. Could it be because quite a lot of
people are really bigoted, and the immediate social costs of them learning
more about you would be dire? Whereas data collection currently has only one
visible consequence on the individual level: what kind of ads & spam you get,
and how much. People correctly recognize this as mostly harmless.

People do react to things that affect them directly. In my country it is
widely known that people trying to cheat our IRS or social insurance got
busted over Facebook photos, so they know not to present a lifestyle that's
different than the one they report to the government. (E.g. if you're
consistently reporting low income, don't post photos of your two limos. If
you're on a (paid by social insurance) medical leave that restricts you to
bed, you'd better not get tagged on a photo placing you in a restaurant.)

EDIT: I don't mean to imply that the government has a backdoor access to this
data; it's just there were cases of people dumb enough to share incriminating
evidence of fraud that found its way to government investigators, by e.g.
being posted publicly.

~~~
darkerside
Wow! Can I ask what country you live in?

There are definitely some parallels here to the way people now often friend
their bosses on Facebook, leading to uncomfortable knowledge sharing.

~~~
TeMPOraL
Poland.

------
seibelj
I guarantee you when the first millennial takes a real shot at becoming
president, someone at FB and other data companies will leak all of their
private messages since they were teenagers. So much of our data is out there
and it’s never going away.

~~~
sharkweek
My hope is that by that point we have all grown enough as a society to be able
to look past the little mistakes we all make as humans.

I do worry that FB/google etc could use that type of stuff as blackmail to get
the policies they want enacted though.

~~~
lkrubner
Kompromat has been a normal part of the Russian political culture going back
to negative rumors against Kerensky in 1917, and yet Russian society has not
adapted a lenient attitude about it. Rather, the opposite happens, the public
develops the attitude that everyone is corrupt and the right way to fight this
is to make a severe example of anyone who gets caught.

~~~
mattmaroon
We elected the "grab 'em by the pussy" guy. We're clearly not Russia.

~~~
ams6110
I think that validates sharkweek's theory, above.

We have all said things, made crude and even cruel jokes, that we'd be
embarrassed about if they became public. But I think we are starting to
understand that it's pretty common and with cameras everywhere and social
media it's much more likely that you'll be "outed" for something you said or
did or would rather keep private.

I don't know if a society that doesn't shame people for that sort of stuff
will be better. Shame is a powerful way that societies regulate undesired
behavior. But I do think it's happening.

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northerdome
I feel like the New York Times really enjoys blowing these Facebook stories
out of proportion. Letting a company like Spotify integrate with Messenger is
not wholesale selling of messaging data to advertisers. The data was shared
with reputable companies using it to expand capabilities of what is offered to
Facebook's users. This is not a shocking revelation and certainly not out of
scope of the kind of sharing I would expect Facebook to do. Why all the sudden
outrage? I have no problems with Facebook doing this with my data. There is
nothing revealing about the NYT story. They are just adding hot takes to what
is already public knowledge.

~~~
asdff
Does spotify need read/write on all my messages and posts ever made? I'm sure
spotify isn't the only company granted this privilege of omnipotence. The
cards are still falling, don't blame nyt for offering analysis when the news
continues to break.

~~~
UncleMeat
Maybe not, but do you think it is reasonable to build an API that explicitly
asks the user for every single individual message? I'm not aware of a single
web api that functions this way.

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etxm
Most people still give not a single fuck unfortunately.

I went on a usage embargo for quite a while before deleting my account. Most
of my friends’ event planning is done through FB so it’s hard to get invited
to stuff if you arent a user.

After the Instagram plaintext password thing I decided it was time to go.

I made a post on FB stating why I was deleting my account and that I was
keeping it up for another week for time for friends to read the post.

I outlined a lot of the things FB has done or let happen. The responses were
the typical trite FB shit.

1\. What even is privacy, man‽

2\. Tin foil hat problems

3\. My account is fine

4\. I am 12 and what is this

~~~
DerfNet
"I'm not important enough to spy on" is the one I hear over and over again.

~~~
etxm
“No one is spying on you, they’re selling you like a commodity”

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annadane
I am seriously starting to suspect an astroturfing campaign against Facebook.
I'm not saying they do nothing wrong. But the recent laser focus has been
incredible.

~~~
_jal
Facebook basically punked the entire news industry with the video nonsense.
Trusting them killed a lot of jobs. A lot of jobs of people who write
articles.

So I doubt[1] that there's an organized campaign against them of the sort they
launched against Soros. But much like, if you punch a cop, you have to expect
it won't end well, destroying a bunch of news rooms isn't going to endear you
to the journalists picking up the pieces.

[1] Could be wrong.

~~~
bepotts
Which basically confirms that the media is out to get Facebook.

I mean I suspect the same thing, but I wish everyone would be upfront with
their motives instead of acting like they're just concerned citizens.
Facebook's biggest critics are the same people that hated Facebook before they
did any of this.

~~~
chillacy
Nothing is quite so repulsive as someone with power motivations hiding behind
a veil of morality.

------
hendzen
Through this scandal and others, society will learn just how harmful the dual-
share class structures that allow founders to reap the economic benefits of
public markets while shirking the oversight aspects and keeping all control
are.

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misiti3780
I wonder if Zuckerberg's job is in jeopardy at this point? I didn't think Uber
was going to be able to shed their CEO, but after months negative articles
about Uber, Travis lost his job, and I believe he controlled the voting shares
also. Seems like FB is going through the same thing now (except there have
been no sexual harassment complaints)

Can any lawyers or investors comment on what it would take for Mark to lose
his job as CEO? How much value has to be shaved off facebook shares before
investors loss all confidence ?

~~~
elorant
Zuck might be a prick but all of FB's business relies on user's data. Even if
he was to be replaced I can't see how FB could follow a different business
plan. Their money comes from advertising and advertisers flock to it because
they can target groups of individuals by choosing demographics in a way that
no one else offers. If you remove that part from the equation FB's revenue
would collapse.

Zuck isn't the problem, the whole fucking service is the problem.

~~~
hannasanarion
It's not even Zuckerberg's business plan. Sheryl Sandberg was brought in to
make Facebook profitable, she instituted the data selling systems.

------
MobileVet
What trust?

It is still shocking to me that people EVER trusted Facebook. Since the very
beginning, Mark has always been openly dismissive of user privacy.

~~~
tjpnz
We're all dumb fucks to him.

------
dkrich
I had begun to give up hope on the common sense of the masses to whom these
stories are being pitched, but the comments in this thread have renewed my
hope.

These hit-pieces are getting very tired and don't really do anything but put
scary spins on things that have been public info for years. It's a shame a
once-respected news org like the NYT has to resort to scrounging around
looking for anything, _anything_ that will make for a FUD story about Facebook
to get some page views. Problem is that they suffer no penalty as people seem
happy to take the headline and run with it and the subtleties of the situation
which Facebook itself has discussed in many instances including this one are
discounted. Stories about "well it's not that bad" don't sell as well as "OMG
HOLY SH*T FACEBOOK HAS BEEN GIVING YOUR MESSAGES TO EVERYONE!!!" and getting
clicks is all these orgs care about now because it's all they can do to stay
afloat.

~~~
chillacy
The NYT has a nice long history of doing this, even as recently as helping
build support for Iraq. Journalism for all the good it’s done is
simultaneously a very dirty business for all of its power over public opinion.

------
m23khan
For me, the trust was destroyed when Mark Zuckerberg bought houses which were
around his house for privacy.

How can you trust a man and his company with your private data when he himself
is so private about his life?

Don't get me wrong, I still admire Facebook's R&D but that's pretty much it.

~~~
pc86
I'm inclined to agree but surely there's a difference between physical privacy
and privacy online.

~~~
m23khan
call me old fashioned on this one but I believe that a man's character shines
through any product he creates and any business he owns. Sooner or later, your
business and work decisions become manifestation of your own true self
regardless of the work mask you choose to apply.

------
bwb
I don't mean to be rude, but who the hell cares. I don't understand why people
think if they are using something for free they have a right to privacy, or if
the company isn't trying to make money from them to fund the service. The only
way you would know you are protected is if national laws are passed, they are
enforced, and they clearly set a framework of privacy that creates an even
playing field...

People here might care, it might make good headlines, but I don't think any
normal people out there care. When I talk to my friends who are not in Tech
they just assume FB knows everything about them.. and they don't give a shit
as they just want to use it for free.

------
hackeraccount
Facebook is a blog platform that sells ads.

I some T.V. show last night with Media people decrying Facebook and then
Facebook explaining how they were trying their best and helping the world
communicate.

Both sides seemed so overwhelming full of themselves. They both clearly
thought all of their customers were idiots. And neither had the dignity to
come out and say that they though all of their customers were idiots.

This is all going to end with another set of idiots in government passing a
bunch of laws that in 10 years half the country will say were a giant mistake
and the other half will say "but imagine how much worse things would be if we
didn't have these idiotic laws."

Ugh.

------
rbreve
Funny thing is that some of my friends are protesting against facebook on
facebook

~~~
ardy42
> Funny thing is that some of my friends are protesting against facebook on
> facebook

Ironically, that's _exactly_ where they should be doing it.

------
rchaud
Only way FB changes is if big-spending advertisers start dropping out. Losing
users will probably not happen because FB can easily spoof user growth
numbers.

On their next earnings call, if they say DAU grew by 5%, how would you audit
the veracity of that statement? Users aren't cash, which can at least be
verified by auditors that review bank statements.

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novaRom
> "I am not important enough to be spied on"

Think about whole new generation of politicians and government. What if many
of them said or did something wrong when they were young? Will our society
adapt itself to new moral norms or will they be managed by some masters of the
puppets?

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tines
I guess for 1.5 billion daily active users “trust destroyed” doesn’t mean what
it used to.

~~~
dplgk
The threat is not as immediate or obvious as what's covered on the evening
news so people aren't scared of it....yet.

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justinph
> But other moves aren’t as bad as they sound.

TechCrunch is sure carrying a lot of water for FB here.

------
Bhilai
Now, I am also curious to know how many such deals LinkedIn has and to what
level they share data with other tech giants (except off-course Microsoft who
already probably have access to everything)

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rchaud
"haunted" all the way to billions in profit. If the FB revelations are to have
a real impact on the culture of surveillance, the biggest advertisers have to
start withdrawing from the platform (FB, IG, Whatsapp). Unless that happens,
we will continue to see these hand-wringing articles and eventually become
numb to them.

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hsienmaneja
It helps to explain the whole “if you talk about what happened on the north
shore, you’ll never get another job in this town again”. Translated to
“silicon valley runs a data mafia for sale to mercenaries” with a personal
anecdote of being harassed/gaslighted in public in part with info from a
private Facebook message

This stuff ruins lives. “Dumb fucks”

Burn them to the ground. Or, more likely, have the cia silently partner up

~~~
hsienmaneja
I’m literally preparing for my suicide now by giving away all of my money,
after years of being harassed by strangers. The incident in August 2015 that
was related to my Facebook private messages was one of many, but was
particularly insidious and caused significant damage to my life.

It’s highly likely that data has been for sale behind the scenes, readily
available for malicious actors, making players like Facebook complicit in ugly
shenanigans.

Please understand the downsides of information technology. It can be abused to
hurt others in ways you may not have foreseen. I’m unable to withstand being
harassed any further, and the harassment is 100% enabled by infotech. The
Facebook shenanigans will hopefully serve as a prime example of the dangers of
free information sharing by malicious actors.

~~~
ams6110
> It’s highly likely that data has been for sale behind the scenes

I would say it's a near certainty. Not saying that Facebook the company was
selling data under the table, but one corrupt or extorted sysadmin in the
right place is all it would take.

------
chollida1
I consider this a good lesson never compromising yoru morals. Once you do it,
it can always come back and bite you in the ass.

I mean most of these deals happened 5+ years ago. And FB's stock is paying the
price for it now.

So message to employees:

There are employee's who have received their entire 4 year grant fully vested
now who weren't around when any of this happened. What your employer does,
even if its not related to you, even if you weren't around for it, can still
bite you in the ass.

They are paying the price in terms of the lowered share price and may have had
nothing to do with any of this.

As another example banks are still paying fines related to 2008 that affect
the current year's bonus pool.

The thing that bothers me the most about this is that rank and file Facebook
employees wrote code to allow all of these companies access to users chat
messages, personal data, etc. and they never said no.

~~~
jseliger
This reads like another part of the media crisis narrative:
[https://jakeseliger.com/2018/11/14/is-there-an-actual-
facebo...](https://jakeseliger.com/2018/11/14/is-there-an-actual-facebook-
crisis-or-media-narrative-about-facebook-crisis/) that users don't care about
(in a measurable way).

~~~
danso
The crisis is a manufactured "narrative" when the COO is reported to have
yelled "You threw us under the bus!" in reaction to the CSO making an
embarrassing disclosure to the board? And when FB is under ongoing
investigation by the US/UK/EU governments?

