Facebook in Freefall

[Limey]

Stock is down 5% this morning and about 15% overall since the shitstorm broke about Cambridge Analytica.  Now that people are “woke” to what Facebook is doing - including tracking your calls and texts - people are furious.

This is an existential crisis for the platform; I’m a heavy user and I’m *this* close to deleting my account.  As it stands, I have locked down my account as far as I know how, unfollowed anything not a human being and deleted all the apps that were tracking me.

Still, on Saturday I got an update on my wall that a friend had completed one of those “what type of thing are you?” quizzes that trawl your and your friends’ data.  I alerted him to this fact as a comment to his post but the post and the subsequent comments were deleted - not by either of us - mid-discussion!  This is insane; they are tracking anti-Facebook conversations in real time and purging them from the platform. 

This has always been Facebook’s inherent flaw: they make money by doing things that, if known by their subscribers, would make them horrified.  Well their subcribers are starting to get a stronger and stronger whiff of what’s been going on, and I don’t think this is going to end well for Facebook. 

[jbm]

Tracking calls and texts?

[Reuben]

Tracking calls and texts?

link

[Limey]

Tracking calls and texts?

Exactly.  Everything about what they do is a bait and switch to get you to give them something of yours they can sell.  This is what Cambridge Analytica did, which is why Facebook is now is so much trouble because they were just following Facebook’s business model and practices. 

[Ty in Tampa]

I’m a heavy user and I’m *this* close to deleting my account. 

I shut mine down a month ago and today I deleted it. They have a fucking 2-week waiting period, like I might change my mind. The more I think about how fucked up the whole scheme is, the more pissed I get.

[Limey]

I shut mine down a month ago and today I deleted it. They have a fucking 2-week waiting period, like I might change my mind. The more I think about how fucked up the whole scheme is, the more pissed I get.

Good on ya.   I read this described as the “surveillance economy” which is as unnerving as it is appropriate. 

[juliogotay]

I'm just surprised that any of you are surprised by any of this.

[Limey]

I'm just surprised that any of you are surprised by any of this.

For me,  it’s something that I suspected and was ignoring in favor of the utility of the service.  But once confronted with the breadth and depth of the surveillance, along with the casual indifference to the duty of care owed to the users, I began to question seriously the efficacy of the bargain. 

[Ty in Tampa]

I'm just surprised that any of you are surprised by any of this.

I wouldn't call it surprised as much as fed up.

[juliogotay]

I wouldn't call it surprised as much as fed up.

I get it.

[moriartp]

Go ahead and delete. I quit years ago and haven't missed it once.

[Dark Star]

I deactivated my account for Lent, just to get away from it for awhile, really ... not the best of intentions, but that is between me and my creator figure.

Anyway, reading this, it occurred to me after this week I am "legal" to reactivate.

Not so sure I will, though. If it wasn't for a private music-oriented group I am involved with, I'm pretty sure I'd already be gone.

[chuck]

I deactivated my account for Lent

I'm trying to figure out whether it's more surprising that you have a Facebook account or that you observe Lent.

[Dark Star]

I'm trying to figure out whether it's more surprising that you have a Facebook account or that you observe Lent.

Yeah, it's complicated.

[das]

I'm just surprised that any of you are surprised by any of this.

No kidding. If the thing you bought was free, you are the thing that was bought.  Age-old adage works in the digital economy as well as it has for decades.

[das]

...duty of care owed to the users...

Social media and the like has absolutely no “duty of care” to its users. Any perceived care to privacy is solely based on maintaining or safeguarding stock or corporate value.  Buyer beware. Always.

[jbm]

No kidding. If the thing you bought was free, you are the thing that was bought.  Age-old adage works in the digital economy as well as it has for decades.

Oh, I never thought my activity/data on Facebook was mine/safe, but calls and texts? Never considered that their domain.  I pay for those.

[das]

Oh, I never thought my activity/data on Facebook was mine/safe, but calls and texts? Never considered that their domain.  I pay for those.

They will take whatever people give them.  And, millions gave them their call and text data.  And they then stand there with their hands on their hips complaining that FB has their call and text data.  Again, if something is free, you are the commodity and "they" will take as much of you as they can.  This Facebook thing will pass.  Preening legislators will hop on the sound-bite opportunity and pass some legislation.  The truism from three sentences ago will not change.

[HudsonHawk]

I guess I don’t really care that they may have my texts and call log. My texts consist 99% of my wife reminding me to pick up dog food and my mother in law’s “inspirational” pep talks. Plus, I learned a long time ago that nothing...NOTHING...you do on your computer or phone is private. Nothing. If you don’t want it front page of the New York Times, don’t put it in an email, don’t put it in a document, don’t write it down. Period.

[Bench]

No kidding. If the thing you bought was free, you are the thing that was bought.  Age-old adage works in the digital economy as well as it has for decades.

This.  If you receive a service for free you aren't the customer, you're the product. 

[Limey]

Social media and the like has absolutely no “duty of care” to its users. Any perceived care to privacy is solely based on maintaining or safeguarding stock or corporate value.  Buyer beware. Always.

Au contraire.  Facebook et al are at great pains to talk about the privacy of their users’ data and have a whole forest of fig leaves by way of privacy settings to reinforce the appearance of data security. 

But they use the small print to harvest information far more private than most users even considered; allowed others to do likewise with tricked-up quizzes and generally give no shits when they become aware of the misuse of data. 

Maybe we were foolish, but that doesn’t mean we weren’t also being fooled. 


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[Limey]

This.  If you receive a service for free you aren't the customer, you're the product.

Of course.  I think the issue is - certainly for me - the hidden broadening of surveillance through tricks and traps and the lack of care for the data once harvested. 

Facebook has talked a good game on this for years but is still a perforated greenhouse when it comes to data protection. 


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[Col. Sphinx Drummond]

I like facebook because it has allowed me to reconnect with many people I thought I had lost contact with. I also like the way it facilitates quick contact with groups of people or individuals. I absolutely hate the fake news and the trick ads that permeate it. I also hate the quizzes and all the other bullshit that exist for the sole purpose to easily glean your contact lists and whatnot.  I could do without the likes and approvals. I would never give them my phone number or address. The whole give us your cell phone number and other personal information to protect your privacy always smelt of deceit and compromise.

[Dark Star]

I guess I don’t really care that they may have my texts and call log. My texts consist 99% of my wife reminding me to pick up dog food and my mother in law’s “inspirational” pep talks. Plus, I learned a long time ago that nothing...NOTHING...you do on your computer or phone is private. Nothing. If you don’t want it front page of the New York Times, don’t put it in an email, don’t put it in a document, don’t write it down. Period.

I don't know what to say, really.

I originally "joined" Facebook in 2012, I think; because I had just been divorced and I was pretty fucking down and someone I knew at the time told me to check it out, I might run into some old friends on there. So, I did. And I did.

It is funny to me because I think the original target demographic was young people who had become disenchanted with MySpace, or whatever. But when their parents dipped their toe in and found the ease of use, etc., they jumped in wholeheartedly, and the kids hauled ass for SnapChat or Twitter or Instagram or whatever. I know my kids did.

But my own kids are older now (25 and 21), and now they've got more active on FB again. Hah!

From the first, I swore to myself I would never be one of those parents who "friended" their kids on FB, and then tried to keep up with them through all of their myriad connections and 'friends' and such. And I did not, and do not.

I swore I would never send my kids a friend request, and I never did. Nope. No ... But, you know what? They ended up friend requesting *me*. And of course I accepted. But now I worry my kids are keeping up with all my nefarious doings through Facebook, dammit. WTF?

Anyway, I cannot really complain about Facebook, because I re-met my (now) wife again on there, 35 years after high school, and all the crazy shit I did back then that made her not want to even know who I was.

So, there is that.

[HudsonHawk]

I joined for the same reasons. I’ve been able to catch up with some old friends from back in the day  and joined a couple of groups for various interests, including the genealogy work I’ve been doing for a few years. Connected with some of my family in Spain, whom I’ve never met.  I’m friends with my wife and my father, who thinks the internet is the greatest thing ever because he can get great deals on large quantities of light bulbs and batteries, two of his obsessions. I’m friends with many folks from OWA. I try to avoid the political crap, and do a fairly good job of it, for me anyway. I enjoy seeing pictures and thoughts from various people. I wouldn’t be friends with them if I didn’t like them or weren’t interested in what they’re up to.  I got no complaints really.

[jbm]

Light bulbs and batteries. That's funny to me as that's exactly how my father was too.

[NeilT]

I was advised to get on facebook to follow political stuff, and 10 minutes later was friends with 40 people I grew up with.  I’ve made friends of acquaintences who I wouldn’t have known nearly as well. I’ve seen lots of pictures of trout flies tied by guys I don’t know who tie lots of trout flies. Many of them are incredibly beautiful, and make me happy. No complaints.

[VirtualBob]

No kidding. If the thing you bought was free, you are the thing that was bought.  Age-old adage works in the digital economy as well as it has for decades.

Exactly.

[Ron Brand]

Facebook changed my life.

I hear people bitch about it every day, almost all of them people who treated it as some sort of free tool that promised to take care of their hopes and dreams forever in some magical wonderland. I'm sorry for those who thought that was its purpose.

Facebook allowed me to see the dark, shallow and angry hearts of a lot of people I knew and was related to, and that has been a remarkable tool as well. I have had relationships damaged, probably beyond repair, because of some of the unconscionable actions and support that people close to me have gleefully and repeatedly revealed about themselves. I hate that. It's awful, but the only role Facebook played in that was to give these people the ability to connect with each other and to reinforce their views enough so that they felt empowered to be vocal about what used to be shameful or hidden. I fight against the echo chamber that results when my feed is stocked with people who share the same beliefs that I do, and I try to be responsible and make informed choices. I know that I'm more political than many people believe is necessary, but I also resist the need that a lot of people have to turn their feeds into expansive personal journals filled with long rants or further episodes of Why I Am So Great that I hate to read and would hate to foist off on everyone else. The monetized FB model is a strong reinforcement to those echo chambers and actually rewards them with prominence in local feeds, the snake eating its own tail.

Facebook changed my life though, way beyond the expected reconnection with others from high school or whatever. I've met hundreds of people because of it, have gained something that is threatening to become a second career because of it, and I've had an extraordinary amount of happiness, good will, personal growth and fun as a direct result of using it. I haven't made a lot of money because of it, but the unbelievable rewards I've been enjoying have been significant and without what's happened to me in the last ten years or so I'm afraid that I would've just continued a downward spiral into something pretty bad.

[subnuclear]

I worked at Furrow's on Highway 6 when I was in high school. On weekdays, we would get at least 2 calls a night asking the price of light bulbs. On the weekends, there were be more. Most of our light bulbs were the same price, but there was one brand that had a $0.40 rebate on each light bulb and I had to explain it every time.