New Facebook Info

just FYI:

https://newyork.cbslocal.com/2018/12/19/facebook-nyt-report/amp/

Facebook is a pretty evil company. I'm trying to wean myself off it once again.

Soylent Green is Facebook

Smedley said:
Facebook is a pretty evil company. I'm trying to wean myself off it once again.

 Same

I got off Facebook months ago and I feel great!

I don't use FB for anything personal.  I don't have any 'friends' on FB. I only use it to follow some business/news stories.

Facebook and anyone else for that matter is welcome to my Facebook posts.  Recent posts included:  

The tree is lit. (No reference to what tree or how lit.  Readers the post was addressed to knew.)  

Our recycling will be picked up on Tuesday if the truck cannot get to us on Monday.  

Essex County is holding a writing contest for seniors age 60+.  

So Joan, information you've shared:

You celebrate Christmas.

You likely live or work in Essex county.

You are interested in senior citizen issues

It may seem innocuous, but put together enough bits and Facebook can build a remarkably accurate portrait of you. I don't know how sophisticated their algorithms are at scraping data from posts like these, but it's certainly enough to give me pause. 

I've never had anything really secret or private on Facebook or Facebook messenger. So my issue isn't about my personal info being shared. 

My issue is how Facebook the company seems to be so non-transparent and even underhanded about how they protect (or don't protect) people's data. They'd sell their grandmothers down the river if it meant a few more bucks in data revenue. And I find Zuckerberg to be about as likable as Darth Vader. 

So I would like to not support this corporation. But admittedly I'm having a difficult time weaning myself off the platform. I'll keep trying.    

I think there may be a lot of Facebook users who feel like they haven't shared all that much personal or private information either.  But like I said in my earlier post, they can put together a lot of little clues to build up a lot of information about you.  And to your point, the question is what happens to all that data?  At first  it looked like they were just using it to customize things like banner ads for products that you might find interesting. But it can also be used for a lot of other things, like targeted political messaging.  And who has access to the data to do the messaging?

It's remarkable to me how entrenched they have become in about 14 years in world society. And they have pretty much done it with people voluntarily signing up and turning over large chunks of information about their lives. There are so many websites I go to where if I want to login it offers me the option of using my Facebook username and password. I ignore that because I'm not on Facebook. But I wonder how many people who use Facebook then turn around and log in to say GrubHub using their Facebook information. Ding, there's another bit of information for Facebook. I get frustrated because I'm not able to access certain things because I'm not on Facebook, like new businesses that don't have a regular website. Or events at my kids school that are organized through Facebook.

Another aspect which scares me is the vast amount of facial recognition data that Facebook has collected by people voluntarily tagging themselves and other people in pictures they upload to Facebook.  And a lot of those pictures are of minors at this point, who may have had no say in whether their image has been uploaded to a website and tagged. Again, the question that's hanging out there that nobody knows the answer to Is what are they doing with that information, and how safe is it?  the company can hide behind the fact that this is information which has been given to them willingly, and in accordance with the long and intricate license agreement that people agree to when they sign up.

So, Smedley, I understand where you're coming from. Facebook is everywhere and has become deeply integrated into society. Pulling the plug on your account means having to readjust to more difficult ways of gathering information and connecting with other people. And just a handful of people turning off their Facebook accounts doesn't have an effect. But I guess it's a start.

Facebook is a data company, end of story.

We are the data, not the customers.

yes. We are the product and we are all unpaid but our data makes millions or more for somebody. It’s also a question of the idea of privacy. The “what’s the worry if you’re not doing anything wrong?” argument gets weaker and weaker as we struggle to define what is “wrong.”  I like what Mrincredible has to say about all this. In a short span of time, we got owned. 

yahooyahoo said:
Facebook is a data company, end of story.
We are the data, not the customers.

 I think most people understand this. Whether they use it or not. Where I think people should be better educated is just how much data, and who the product is being sold to.

mrincredible said:
So Joan, information you've shared:


You celebrate Christmas.
You likely live or work in Essex county.
You are interested in senior citizen issues


It may seem innocuous, but put together enough bits and Facebook can build a remarkably accurate portrait of you. I don't know how sophisticated their algorithms are at scraping data from posts like these, but it's certainly enough to give me pause. 

As you would know if you have been paying attention to my posts on MOL, at least one of those conclusions is incorrect.  

If this is an example of the percentage of accuracy in deductions made by an algorithm, I wonder just what the margin of error is in the conclusions FB is sharing with their partners.

joan_crystal said:

mrincredible said:
So Joan, information you've shared:


You celebrate Christmas.
You likely live or work in Essex county.
You are interested in senior citizen issues


It may seem innocuous, but put together enough bits and Facebook can build a remarkably accurate portrait of you. I don't know how sophisticated their algorithms are at scraping data from posts like these, but it's certainly enough to give me pause. 

As you would know if you have been paying attention to my posts on MOL, at least one of those conclusions is incorrect.  
If this is an example of the percentage of accuracy in deductions made by an algorithm, I wonder just what the margin of error is in the conclusions FB is sharing with their partners.

 Small enough that political targeting is likely what got Trump elected.

Playing to a large segment of the population that considered itself disenfranchised is what got Trump elected.  FB was a tool used by the campaign to spread that message.  Gaining support from large, often national organized groups, skillful use of media coverage, and gaining backing from persons and companies with deep pockets who stood to gain financially from his election could well have gotten Trump elected even without FB's help.

Joan that's a fair point. But I don't read all your posts (sorry it's nothing personal).

But do you know who does? Facebook. Think about someone reading and cross-referencing everything you've ever posted. Yes I know they don't read everything but they can write code which can go through all your posts looking for keywords. (I was somewhat accurate from three posts. Imagine if I had time to read everything and remember it perfectly.)

Then they factor in everyone you have friended, every business and organization you follow. Every post you've ever liked. Any place you've ever checked in. 

It's an automated process that's been developed and refined for years because the more reliable and specific data they can sell the more money they make. I'll admit ignorance to exactly how sophisticated their data mining automation is. But I am sure that it's better than most people think.

Maybe you don't friend a lot of people or click on the like button much or check in at physical locations. But they are going to take what they can get, and you might be surprised by how much that is.

Who knows what would have happened without Facebook data mining, but I found this concerning:

https://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/naacp-facebook-misinformation-campaigns-targeting-black-people_us_5c191c26e4b02d2cae8da98d

...the Times and The Washington Post revealed, through two reports commissioned by the Senate Intelligence Committee, that Russia was a huge purveyor of such propaganda and misinformation on Facebook and it had African-Americans in its sights.

There is more information about the reports including links to the New York Times and Washington Post articles about them in this post.

https://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/russia-social-media-senate-reports-2016-election-interference-trump_us_5c17d42ee4b030ed3ecffe27

Here is one quote from the New York Times article that they reference:

"While the right-wing pages promoted Mr. Trump’s candidacy, the left-wing pages scorned Mrs. Clinton while promoting Senator Bernie Sanders of Vermont and Jill Stein, the Green Party candidate. The voter suppression effort was focused particularly on Sanders supporters and African-Americans, urging them to shun Mrs. Clinton in the general election and either vote for Ms. Stein or stay home."

It was about 200,000 voters in three states which swung the Electoral College to Trump. The article talks about something like 130 million tweets and Facebook and Instagram posts generated by Russians in an effort to influence the 2016 presidential election. I know there were a lot of other factors which led to Trump's victory, but I don't think you can dismiss the effect of social media and how they were used to propagate false information and propaganda.. And Facebook was a big part of that.

I think one of the unanswered questions is just how much access these Russians had to Facebook data in order to carefully tailor and Target their messages.

mrincredible said:
So Joan, information you've shared:


It may seem innocuous, but put together enough bits and Facebook can build a remarkably accurate portrait of you. I don't know how sophisticated their algorithms are at scraping data from posts like these, but it's certainly enough to give me pause. 

 You don't even need that many bits. Apparently, date of birth, gender, and zip code is sufficient to identify 87% of the US population.

it’s not about identifying you as much as knowing all the things about you and selling that data to other corporations who then know everything about you. Metadata can tell a lot about a person too. How cavalier we are not caring about who owns our info. I feel similarly about people who send their DNA swabs away so they can “find out about themselves.”  Do they even understand they give rights with that DNA?  This is new territory and I am wondering what it will take for the masses to take this stuff seriously. I guess we will find out.