"The Myanmar issues have, I think, gotten a lot of focus inside the company. I remember, one Saturday morning, I got a phone call and we detected that people were trying to spread sensational messages through — it was Facebook Messenger in this case — to each side of the conflict, basically telling the Muslims, “Hey, there’s about to be an uprising of the Buddhists, so make sure that you are armed and go to this place.” And then the same thing on the other side."
Ok. So Facebook monitors Messenger (not just your public "wall" of Facebook) which has the appearance of being private person to person communication and detects that there are encouragements of violence in Myanmar (written I assume in some language other than English).
That is some impressive operation they have going on.
No wonders that the Chinese did not let get them inside their country.
The only thing I'm really amazed by is how the European countries still allow them to operate, they should be fined until they exit the market and their operation made illegal. Probably they provide sufficiently useful information to the security services that governments don't do anything. In effect they are a privatised Stasi.
Nothing that can't be fixed by a bit of Psi Ops. Pretty much none of the traditional media companies like Facebook and in most of Europe at least one TV station per country is state controlled. So all that needs to happen is ~6-12 months of negative press in the tabloids and constant negative coverage in national television. I think that could easily be arranged.
To paint a picture here are some headlines by BILD (largest German tabloid):
"ZUCKERBERG SCANDAL: So verdient Facebook mit Ihren Daten Geld", (ZUCKERBERG SCANDAL: This is how Facebook earns money with your data), article based on a report by German national television (ZDF)
"„SCHADEN FÜR DIE DEMOKRATIE“
60 Prozent der Deutschen fürchten Facebook" (DAMAGE TO DEMOCRACY, 60 Percent of Germans fear Facebook)
Not that I feel strongly either way, but deliberately advocating for a strong, centralized, negative propaganda campaign against a company you don't like doesn't seem ethical to me.
Seems totally ethical to me IFF you don't make stuff up. In fact, if you can drive a strong, negative campaign solely with actual facts, I find it imperative to do so.
Then again, you did say "propaganda" campaign, so I guess there was your assumption of dishonesty.
I think you're well meaning here, but I have two points in reaction:
1) "...[E]thical to me IFF you don't make stuff up." I think you can have propaganda that uses only facts, but in a disingenuous manner. You just don't mention _all_ the facts, and/or put a lens on the wrong perspective. Is that "dishonest?" I'm not sure - maybe a misinterpretation?.
As an example, you can see this all the time with the arguments against global warming: "some studies show that temperatures are not increasing." If you look hard enough, you'll find data points and/or papers that argue against global warming, but they're a very very minor # of studies, that it's not a fair perspective or lens on the arguement.
2) "I find it imperative to do so." I am not a Facebook fan-person by any means, but I'm not sure I find it morally _imperative_ that folks rally against what they are doing. I have a hard time believing that the 1000's of employees that work there are all evil people, but rather the majority are probably well-intentioned and may just need a correction of direction. Can I prove this? No, but if they were, say, selling nukes to ISIS or something at that level, then I might agree with you a bit more.
As I said: "propaganda" brings a whole set of assumptions to the table. My point was that if you can sustain a campaign (not propaganda campaign, i.e. just a real strong case) then you should, because that means there is a genuine problem.
Again, not trying to go to bat for Facebook by any means, and I think you're well meaning with your point, but I worry think this is a dangerous argument to go down.
1) While they're not perfect, I'm not sure I believe they're doing more harm than good. As an annecdotal example, my family loves Facebook, because I live pretty far from most of them, and they like the ability to know that I'm healthy + happy, and/or if I'm travelling that I got back safely. They're generally older, so not that tech-savvy, and I do give Facebook Design a lot of credit for making some really intuitive choices in a lot of areas that make it accessible to older / non-geeky audiences. Could I just text / call them? Sure, but I'm a busy person like most people here, so it's easy to just throw up a picture or post to FB and make their days a bit better.
2) A lot of the arguments that they're doing "harm" are pretty pseudo-scientific, if you look at the claims/articles closely. Many rely on "correlation over causation" views, anecdotes, and the like. It's only recently that some true studies have tried to prove this [1], but even then arguing for putting FB on the level of tobacco and guns is a strong claim to make off of minimal peer-reviewed evidence. We might as well toss Google + Amazon + Twitter into this same boat.
Sure, but I'm a busy person like most people here, so it's easy to just throw up a picture or post to FB and make their days a bit better.
It's somewhat ironic you use this as an argument for good. I'm much like yourself in this scenario, so I'm not trying to take a moral high ground, but I can't say I truly believe this is enriching the relationships of people on either side.
Actually I would be more than happy. I am ready to make the move to a service where users are more in control, but its going to take a massive kick up the arse to get my friends to move. They whined about having to use Telegram rather than Whatsapp when I had an Ubuntu phone.
Ok. So Facebook monitors Messenger (not just your public "wall" of Facebook) which has the appearance of being private person to person communication and detects that there are encouragements of violence in Myanmar (written I assume in some language other than English).
Or, to take another reading of it - Facebook actively monitors nothing. They get a call that people are abusing the service, and they open the hatch and proceed to take a look.
Skype does it, too, by the way, in case that's also a surprise. Probably most of the ones that don't use end-to-end encryption by default do. And now that Brian Acton left WhatsApp, you should be very careful with what you saw in WhatsApp's end-to-end encrypted chats, too.
The fact that it is owned by Facebook is enough to make me stay away.
That’s fair, but I think it’s important to be very explicit if that’s the criticism.
It’s true that Facebook can see your contacts list if you share it with WhatsApp but no one ever claimed that they couldn’t. This isn’t a security vulnerability as such.
The second article you linked is from before WhatsApp’s move to the Signal protocol.
Yes, it’s owned by Facebook and yes, it’s closed source, but WhatsApp has brought end-to-end encryption to over a billion people. For the vast majority of use cases it’s a huge security improvement.
I was just wondering why the leave of Brian Acton would change anything significantly.
Besides that I would never touch WhatsApp. The fact that they hand your phone number over to facebook is one of many reasons to stay far away of this messenger.
Comments
"The Myanmar issues have, I think, gotten a lot of focus inside the company. I remember, one Saturday morning, I got a phone call and we detected that people were trying to spread sensational messages through — it was Facebook Messenger in this case — to each side of the conflict, basically telling the Muslims, “Hey, there’s about to be an uprising of the Buddhists, so make sure that you are armed and go to this place.” And then the same thing on the other side."
Ok. So Facebook monitors Messenger (not just your public "wall" of Facebook) which has the appearance of being private person to person communication and detects that there are encouragements of violence in Myanmar (written I assume in some language other than English).
That is some impressive operation they have going on.
No wonders that the Chinese did not let get them inside their country.
The only thing I'm really amazed by is how the European countries still allow them to operate, they should be fined until they exit the market and their operation made illegal. Probably they provide sufficiently useful information to the security services that governments don't do anything. In effect they are a privatised Stasi.
I don't think European people are OK with their politicians taking Facebook from them.
That's what zuck is desperate to preserve. Change is in the air. I wouldn't mind.
Nothing that can't be fixed by a bit of Psi Ops. Pretty much none of the traditional media companies like Facebook and in most of Europe at least one TV station per country is state controlled. So all that needs to happen is ~6-12 months of negative press in the tabloids and constant negative coverage in national television. I think that could easily be arranged.
To paint a picture here are some headlines by BILD (largest German tabloid):
"ZUCKERBERG SCANDAL: So verdient Facebook mit Ihren Daten Geld", (ZUCKERBERG SCANDAL: This is how Facebook earns money with your data), article based on a report by German national television (ZDF)
"„SCHADEN FÜR DIE DEMOKRATIE“ 60 Prozent der Deutschen fürchten Facebook" (DAMAGE TO DEMOCRACY, 60 Percent of Germans fear Facebook)
Not that I feel strongly either way, but deliberately advocating for a strong, centralized, negative propaganda campaign against a company you don't like doesn't seem ethical to me.
Seems totally ethical to me IFF you don't make stuff up. In fact, if you can drive a strong, negative campaign solely with actual facts, I find it imperative to do so.
Then again, you did say "propaganda" campaign, so I guess there was your assumption of dishonesty.
I think you're well meaning here, but I have two points in reaction:
1) "...[E]thical to me IFF you don't make stuff up." I think you can have propaganda that uses only facts, but in a disingenuous manner. You just don't mention _all_ the facts, and/or put a lens on the wrong perspective. Is that "dishonest?" I'm not sure - maybe a misinterpretation?.
As an example, you can see this all the time with the arguments against global warming: "some studies show that temperatures are not increasing." If you look hard enough, you'll find data points and/or papers that argue against global warming, but they're a very very minor # of studies, that it's not a fair perspective or lens on the arguement.
2) "I find it imperative to do so." I am not a Facebook fan-person by any means, but I'm not sure I find it morally _imperative_ that folks rally against what they are doing. I have a hard time believing that the 1000's of employees that work there are all evil people, but rather the majority are probably well-intentioned and may just need a correction of direction. Can I prove this? No, but if they were, say, selling nukes to ISIS or something at that level, then I might agree with you a bit more.
As I said: "propaganda" brings a whole set of assumptions to the table. My point was that if you can sustain a campaign (not propaganda campaign, i.e. just a real strong case) then you should, because that means there is a genuine problem.
If the company is doing more harm than good, what's wrong with counteracting it with information?
If Facebook is the vector of incitement to violence around the world, they may be as hazardous as tobacco and firearms.
Nothing wrong with regulation and information campaigns about the dangers of tobacco and firearms, so why not Facebook?
Again, not trying to go to bat for Facebook by any means, and I think you're well meaning with your point, but I worry think this is a dangerous argument to go down.
1) While they're not perfect, I'm not sure I believe they're doing more harm than good. As an annecdotal example, my family loves Facebook, because I live pretty far from most of them, and they like the ability to know that I'm healthy + happy, and/or if I'm travelling that I got back safely. They're generally older, so not that tech-savvy, and I do give Facebook Design a lot of credit for making some really intuitive choices in a lot of areas that make it accessible to older / non-geeky audiences. Could I just text / call them? Sure, but I'm a busy person like most people here, so it's easy to just throw up a picture or post to FB and make their days a bit better.
2) A lot of the arguments that they're doing "harm" are pretty pseudo-scientific, if you look at the claims/articles closely. Many rely on "correlation over causation" views, anecdotes, and the like. It's only recently that some true studies have tried to prove this [1], but even then arguing for putting FB on the level of tobacco and guns is a strong claim to make off of minimal peer-reviewed evidence. We might as well toss Google + Amazon + Twitter into this same boat.
[1] https://hbr.org/2017/04/a-new-more-rigorous-study-confirms-t...
It's somewhat ironic you use this as an argument for good. I'm much like yourself in this scenario, so I'm not trying to take a moral high ground, but I can't say I truly believe this is enriching the relationships of people on either side.
Actually I would be more than happy. I am ready to make the move to a service where users are more in control, but its going to take a massive kick up the arse to get my friends to move. They whined about having to use Telegram rather than Whatsapp when I had an Ubuntu phone.
We much rather pay lots of taxes, and not have our gov'ts charge the BigCorps (tax and/or fines). /s
Jokes aside. No-one says "shut it off", but make them follow some rules and possibly adding some rules is not a strange thing at this point.
I'd be totally okay with it.
Or, to take another reading of it - Facebook actively monitors nothing. They get a call that people are abusing the service, and they open the hatch and proceed to take a look.
I am pretty sure that property is required for Chinese messaging services, not discouraged.
Yeah. They probably went: Let's have the local police look thru that stuff. Not some big American corporation.
Facebook has been actively monitoring Messenger messages for years.
https://mashable.com/2012/07/12/facebook-scanning-chats/
Skype does it, too, by the way, in case that's also a surprise. Probably most of the ones that don't use end-to-end encryption by default do. And now that Brian Acton left WhatsApp, you should be very careful with what you saw in WhatsApp's end-to-end encrypted chats, too.
Why?
There have been numerous reports about the insecurities of WhatsApp over the years.
For instance: http://www.information-age.com/whatsapp-can-read-users-encry...
The Guardian, that initially published this “insecurity”, has been heavily criticized by security experts for their article: https://mashable.com/2017/01/20/experts-demand-guardian-retr...
If there are other insecurities, please post them here - I haven’t heard of others than this one.
There's also this: http://indianexpress.com/article/technology/tech-news-techno...
And this: http://www.businessinsider.com/whatsapp-security-2014-2?r=US...
The fact that it is owned by Facebook is enough to make me stay away.
That’s fair, but I think it’s important to be very explicit if that’s the criticism.
It’s true that Facebook can see your contacts list if you share it with WhatsApp but no one ever claimed that they couldn’t. This isn’t a security vulnerability as such.
The second article you linked is from before WhatsApp’s move to the Signal protocol.
Yes, it’s owned by Facebook and yes, it’s closed source, but WhatsApp has brought end-to-end encryption to over a billion people. For the vast majority of use cases it’s a huge security improvement.
I was just wondering why the leave of Brian Acton would change anything significantly.
Besides that I would never touch WhatsApp. The fact that they hand your phone number over to facebook is one of many reasons to stay far away of this messenger.
The largest, most rich intelligence service in the history of man and people happily hand their shit over
What's your take on Gmail then?