The headline might be hyperbole, but honestly, only barely.
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Cēterum cēnseō factiōnem Rēpūblicānam dēlendam esse īgnī ferrōque.
“All for ourselves, and nothing for other people, seems, in every age of the world, to have been the vile maxim of the masters of mankind.” -Adam Smith
One of my friends and I were talking about how creepy Facebook is with ads on the tablet. I have adblock on my browser at work but it doesn't exist on the app. And all my apps talk to each other so if I've been on Polyvore, Facebook will show me an ad for a similar game they have. Ann said she had been looking at a skirt on Nordstrom and it immediately showed up in an ad on her Facebook. I really hate that.
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"freedom to differ is not limited to things that do not matter much. That would be a mere shadow of freedom. The test of its substance is the right to differ as to things that touch the heart of the existing order."
- Justice Robert Jackson, West Virginia State Board of Ed. v. Barnette
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Cēterum cēnseō factiōnem Rēpūblicānam dēlendam esse īgnī ferrōque.
“All for ourselves, and nothing for other people, seems, in every age of the world, to have been the vile maxim of the masters of mankind.” -Adam Smith
This doesn't sound robust. It relies on cookies on my computer? Specifically, I have to allow 3rd-party cookies? That weakens my security immediately, plus you have to set this on every computer and device separately.
Why couldn't they manage this through a central profile setting? Because they don't intend to honour it anyway.
There are some better solutions in the comments on that page.
It's still too late for you. After all, an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure. The best way to protect yourself from Facecrook is to not become a use of their site. Also keep in mind that as a user, you are the product, not the consumer. Their consumers are the advertisers who pay to advertise through their site and services.
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Allan Glenn. 1984-2005 RIP
Under no circumstances should Quentin Tarantino be allowed to befoul Star Trek.
Facebook keeps asking if I work at all these weird places or live in cities I've never been to. Like it just asked me if I work at Google, on accounta ES. Who works at Colorado State University? It keeps asking me that one too. It makes me laugh.
Also, Google is mad at me for not setting up a Google+...I was grandfathered in so didn't have to. They won't let me use my Google account to log in to some some third party sites though.
I got forced a while back into using Google-, which sucks since I have no interest in social networks. In any case, I have all personalization options disabled. I have no interest in Google tailoring the content I view.
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Allan Glenn. 1984-2005 RIP
Under no circumstances should Quentin Tarantino be allowed to befoul Star Trek.
Facebook keeps asking if I work at all these weird places or live in cities I've never been to. Like it just asked me if I work at Google, on accounta ES. Who works at Colorado State University? It keeps asking me that one too. It makes me laugh.
Temple Grandin! She works at CSU!
Quote:
Also, Google is mad at me for not setting up a Google+...I was grandfathered in so didn't have to. They won't let me use my Google account to log in to some some third party sites though.
Yeah, I won't sign up for sites that have real name policies for no good reason like Facebook and G+ do. That's just so fundamentally shitty that: No.
Most of whatever privacy people have left is just security through obscurity. I mean, Google knows my name and where I live and all that, but I'm not going to give them explicit permission to tie that information up with my online activity. They could still do it, though, if they mined their data. But I'm not going to help them or give them the OK to make it public. Hell, most regular people could probably figure that stuff out easily enough. The only reason dataminers aren't consistently and accurately doing that sort of thing already is that it's still just a little too much work to do wholesale.
I get that most people don't care, but the fake likes are just so creepy and so obviously horrible, though, I can't even imagine anyone being OK with that.
And Google's done pretty much the same thing, I'd argue maybe even worse. Remember when they sent me a message saying you'd requested I make my RSS feed public?
I mean, I was skeptical enough that I asked you, but I still wonder if they sent requests to other people saying I'd asked people to make their stuff public. Like, making it look like I was creeping people in my contacts, trying to look at their pictures or their newsfeeds or something. I have people in my contacts I don't even know, and lots of people I'm not actually friends with.
It's insulting and horrifically creepy that Google just decided that it was OK to try to exploit perceived trust networks like that, and to attribute their grossly invasive requests to their users.
Oh yeah, I recently was "upgraded" to Office 2013. One day at work they decided I was too productive and shoved a massive upgrade to my PC remotely, made me reboot, and go through some updates.
So what's the point? Right. In outlook, Microsoft has added a little Bing Maps bar. They already had the photos and social updates thing on the bottom that shows photos and activities of the people associated with a specific email. But work blocks that stuff so it only shows your title and a bunch of creepy faceless avatars. But the bing maps bar works. It takes your contact info and shows people where you're located based on the address in your signature.
It's not like you can't just take the signature info and map it anyway, but one more tiny step to the borg we go. If I was set up at home with outlook someone could map where I live, click on my picture, and see where my phone has me located. Or if I've posted dinner on facebook, it would let you know on email.
It used to be you could get a restraining order for that sort of thing.
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Build a man a fire and he'll be warm for the night. Light a man on fire and he'll be warm the rest of his life.
Facebook keeps asking if I work at all these weird places or live in cities I've never been to. Like it just asked me if I work at Google, on accounta ES. Who works at Colorado State University? It keeps asking me that one too. It makes me laugh.
Temple Grandin! She works at CSU!
Quote:
Also, Google is mad at me for not setting up a Google+...I was grandfathered in so didn't have to. They won't let me use my Google account to log in to some some third party sites though.
Yeah, I won't sign up for sites that have real name policies for no good reason like Facebook and G+ do. That's just so fundamentally shitty that: No.
Most of whatever privacy people have left is just security through obscurity. I mean, Google knows my name and where I live and all that, but I'm not going to give them explicit permission to tie that information up with my online activity. They could still do it, though, if they mined their data. But I'm not going to help them or give them the OK to make it public. Hell, most regular people could probably figure that stuff out easily enough. The only reason dataminers aren't consistently and accurately doing that sort of thing already is that it's still just a little too much work to do wholesale.
I get that most people don't care, but the fake likes are just so creepy and so obviously horrible, though, I can't even imagine anyone being OK with that.
And Google's done pretty much the same thing, I'd argue maybe even worse. Remember when they sent me a message saying you'd requested I make my RSS feed public?
I mean, I was skeptical enough that I asked you, but I still wonder if they sent requests to other people saying I'd asked people to make their stuff public. Like, making it look like I was creeping people in my contacts, trying to look at their pictures or their newsfeeds or something. I have people in my contacts I don't even know, and lots of people I'm not actually friends with.
It's insulting and horrifically creepy that Google just decided that it was OK to try to exploit perceived trust networks like that, and to attribute their grossly invasive requests to their users.
I don't remember that. I don't even really know what an RSS feed is, because I never bothered to find out because why?
I don't remember that. I don't even really know what an RSS feed is, because I never bothered to find out because why?
It's basically just a list of the blogs and things I subscribe to. It was years ago, but as I recall, it was a popup message or something, and it said that [Lady Shea] wants me to share my RSS feed with her. I don't remember the actual wording, but it was phrased as though you'd explicitly submitted some kind of request to get access to my browsing history or something.
I know I mentioned it to you, but I didn't think you'd actually done that because it was weird and out of character, and if you'd wanted to see that for some reason, you would have just asked me. So that was no big in itself.
But then I looked at my list of contacts, and there are a couple of cordial but distant exes, clients, a few randos I interviewed for articles and things, job contacts, a bunch of people I don't know who they are, and even a few creeps and people I had sort of contentious relationships with; and I imagined THEM getting little popups saying that I was trying to look at their browsing history or their personal photo accounts, and I was like FUUUUUCK. Depending on your relationship with a contact, that sort of thing could come across as anything from overly familiar and unprofessional to downright stalkerish.
And Facebook does a similar kind of thing when they tell your friends you 'liked' things you didn't, like Two Girls One Cup.
I'm coming up on about 40 hours without sleep right now, so not now, but I might later at some point explain my many detailed and extremely boring issues with sloppy artificial social ontologies and why they are almost always grotesquely flawed and stupid.
I know the anticipation is probably killing you guys, but hang tough. I will type so many big gray rectangles for you someday.
Facebook keeps asking if I work at all these weird places or live in cities I've never been to. Like it just asked me if I work at Google, on accounta ES. Who works at Colorado State University? It keeps asking me that one too. It makes me laugh.
Not me! Nuh-uh, I didn't tell nobody nothing. You think I'd blab about you guys? I want to keep my job!
Facebook keeps asking if I work at all these weird places or live in cities I've never been to. Like it just asked me if I work at Google, on accounta ES. Who works at Colorado State University? It keeps asking me that one too. It makes me laugh.
Not me! Nuh-uh, I didn't tell nobody nothing. You think I'd blab about you guys? I want to keep my job!
It's just pulling up my friends workplaces, cities, and schools to try to get me to complete my profile. That's why it's funny.
Just incase you were starting to think that facebook saw you as users and not as data-points and property.
ETA: This also explains why user customization of their experience is so rare with facebook, they see themselves as crafting your experience how they see fit, not the other way around.
That isn't quite right. They don't see their users as data points and property as such. What they see them as is merchandise. After all, their customers are actually the advertisers they're selling your information to.
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Allan Glenn. 1984-2005 RIP
Under no circumstances should Quentin Tarantino be allowed to befoul Star Trek.
__________________
Cēterum cēnseō factiōnem Rēpūblicānam dēlendam esse īgnī ferrōque.
“All for ourselves, and nothing for other people, seems, in every age of the world, to have been the vile maxim of the masters of mankind.” -Adam Smith
I would put this in the terrible company thread, but we all know Facebook is a terrible company.
Facebook denies ads by a blog about consent because it "promotes the sale of adult services."
I like the passive agressive wording, "I'm here to help" "This decision is final. Please consider this the end of correspondences about your ad" "Thanks for understanding."
Do you use facebook under an Alias?
Know people that use facebook under an Alias?
Facebook has given you 2 weeks to find somewhere else before they delete all your stuff. After 2 weeks they will begin forcing any profile that appears to have a fake name or has been reported as fake to provide government issued ID or be deleted.
There looks to be a mass exodus of performers, trans and queer folk to G+ which has removed it's real names policy.