Nervous Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg passes Turing Test in Congress A few hours after the introduction of Facebook's newly launched Data Abuse Bounty program – an admission the social ad network has no idea what's become of its illicitly harvested data – CEO Mark Zuckerberg reprised his long-running mea culpa show before America's lawmakers. His appearance in Washington DC on Tuesday follows …
Zuck said No! - That's because in the US, Facebook owns the 2nd biggest social site too. But how many Americans even realize that??? :-
~
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/features/2018-04-10/instagram-looks-like-facebook-s-best-hope
~
"Most Americans don’t know the identity of Instagram’s parent, which is just fine with Facebook. Facebook has boosted Instagram where convenient—in conversations with advertisers, for example—but otherwise hasn’t done a lot of co-branding, keeping it separate in the minds of consumers and lawmakers.
The majority of Americans don’t know about Instagram’s affiliation, according to a poll last year by Reticle Research and the Verge. On LinkedIn, when employees change jobs from Facebook to Instagram, they list Instagram as a separate company. In the U.S., Instagram has mostly avoided guilt by association with Facebook. And the parent company has worked to keep it that way.
Facebook owns a second social network that could one day be bigger than Facebook itself. Instagram has transformed from a small experiment, an “asterisk” in terms of Facebook revenue, to a “peer” in Zuckerberg’s eyes... Mark, the other day, said it used to just be that Facebook was the large, large majority of activity and revenue, and that’s different now - This is a new normal.”
The media were patting themselves on the back with the questions they'd ask Zuk this week. As a NON-USER of Facebook / Instagram, I just have 3:
#1. How do we force Facebook to permanently <<<DELETE>>> old user accounts and Shadow Profiles of NON-USERS? From Schrems, we know Facebook never deletes anything. Users have also verified seeing deleted zombie posts rise-from-the-dead after 5-10 years in their Activity Logs, wtf?
#2. How do we stop Facebook trading / sharing / slurping / merging data about NON-USERS from 3rd-Party Data Brokers... Offline & Online... How do we shut this 'industrial spying apparatus' down permanently etc?
#3. How do NON-USERS of Facebook permanently stop tracking like 'we know which hotel you stayed in last summer'? When its so pervasive that even Airlines such as Lufthansa & Emirates sell users out to Facebook during the online booking process... (Adblockers won't stop this as the insidious data-sharing is also occurring Server-Side in the background).
As a NON-USER of Facebook / Instagram, I just have 3:
If you're in the UK, have you considered investing a tenner and making a subject access request to the company? You might need to provide some context beyond your name that would enable them to identify you/your data/your connection & devices, but potentially they don't need that because they could have bulk cross referenced your shadow profile to (eg) data from bungling clowns like Equifax.
If they come back with anything, you request its deletion and confirmation that they have done so, and acknowledging that you specifically prohibit them from collecting or retaining data about you in future.
Could be interesting - whether we'd believe their responses and/or promises is of course a separate matter.
If they come back with anything, you request its deletion and confirmation that they have done so, and acknowledging that you specifically prohibit them from collecting or retaining data about you in future.
Sure. At which point they ignore you. I have a list of 47 (some of them major) recruitment agencies which have ignored this request waiting in my "todo list" for 25th May. GDPR Cometh. Prior to that, they will just smile and continue regardless while receiving a pat on the back for being good boys from the ICO.
If you're in the UK, have you considered investing a tenner and making a subject access request to the company?
Please be patient and wait for GDPR day before doing this. Right now the ICO will do nothing, literally, other than ping them an email slapping their wrist. On GDPR day we can bury these clowns if only everyone in the EU could get their act together and file the same request on the same day.
a missing item, how Face-bitch treated 'Diamond and Silk', a pair of trump-loving ladies who happen to be black. Ted Cruz MADE A POINT of mentioning them, for they were told by Face-bitch that their million-subscriber page was deemed "unsafe to the community" by Face-bitch (nevermind their NOT making such determinations with regards to violent groups like ANTIFA).
http://www.foxnews.com/tech/2018/04/10/diamond-and-silk-accuse-facebook-discrimination-censorship-over-unsafe-label.html
"the duo recalled what they called a months-long battle with the company after noticing a drop in engagement in September 2017"
(this is how they found out about it - Face-bitch didn't tell them)
eventually, after an apparent and lengthy 'back and forth' e-mail exchange over several MONTHS, "they wrote and said that they deem our content and our brand ‘unsafe to the community,’"
If you've ever seen these ladies on TV [some Fox News hosts like to bring them on as guests] you can hear them make some rather entertaining conservative-leaning points about current issues. And apparently they have over a million subscribers.
So, absent from the El Reg article is Ted Cruz making a SPECIFIC POINT about how Face-bitch OVERTLY DISCRIMINATED against these 2 ladies. And *I* think it was a form of RACISM. Because, according to "the liberal viewpoint", these 2 women should be LIBERALS, not conservatives. And they should HATE Trump. And when you have examples of women who happen to be black SUPPORTING Trump, it goes against "the narrative", and GETS CENSORED as 'unsafe to the community'.
UNSAFE, huh? UNSAFE to go against the liberal mantra with respect to your race and sex? And THAT is why I believe it is a FORM OF RACISM for these two women to be DISCRIMINATED AGAINST by Face-bitch, and why I'm _SO_ glad that Senator Cruz MADE A POINT of this, and put the screws to Zucker-b0rg.
Well, Zuck did 'the side step' the entire time from the clips I've seen, like that one politician in that movie from the 80's starring Burt Reynolds and Dolly Parton...
Sure, because all you have to do is play with the definitions and you can justify anything. Antifa's position goes something like this:
Everyone to the right of Lenin is a Nazi.
Violence against Nazis is Ok.
They have reintroduced political violence to the Western Political landscape, and that is what led the FBI to label them a domestic terrorist organisation.
This post has been deleted by its author
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qAZiDRonYZI&t=2h42m0s
Apparently the MSM 'Liked' Zuk's performance yet he pretended he didn't know about this for example:
"Several critical questions for which you don't have answers: Whether Facebook can track users browsing activity even after the user has logged off of Facebook... Whether Facebook can track your activity across devices even when you aren't logged into Facebook..." - Hello Zuk??? :-
https://www.facebook.com/business/a/performance-marketing-strategies
VLC can download and save it (File / Media menu - Convert / Save - Enter url...). It'll work as long as there isn't DRM download copyright block, in which case you'll get an error. BTW: The link jumps to a specific time frame where Senator Harris sums up Zuk's lacks of 'real' answers so far.
"Is there any way to download and store this (e.g. as an .mp4 file), or from elsewhere for future viewing at leisure and archiving for posterity ?"
Install youtube-dl and type "youtube_dl youtubelink" and you'll get it. Note that the program name has a dash and the command has an underscore. I don't know your OS but for many people it's just a matter of typing "apt-get install youtube-dl" as root and you're done. Here's Windows info.
Question: When a user deletes their account do you delete their data.
Answer: Let me make this clear, "we delete all that users data" eventually, it may be on the backup system for a while (silently under breath, "but we do keep all the metadata, since the user does not own that, and we keep on collecting new metadata from any site they visit, which supports likes.)
Senator Markey's CONSENT Act is just a watered-down substitute for GDPR, targeted at "edge providers" as defined in weirdly specific language. The bill is also loaded with unnecessary technical details that'll be meaningless in 5 years. Weak! Low energy!
We need a real *general* GDPR aimed at all corporate stalkers.
Then we need to whip government agencies into shape as well.
Yes, we need that, no we won't get it. In the US (and a lot of other places) money talks. Google and Facebook are the top two data slurpers, and even after the reaction to recent events, their combined market value is over $1.5 trillion.
In rough terms, that's the equivalent of the GDP of Canada. Or Russia. Or South Korea. Or all the Gulf nations put together. So US markets place the same value on cushion-boy Zuck and his data-pimping business as they would on the entire national output of all 50+ million people of South Korea. Clearly that is sensible, but Wall Street and the 1% clearly have far too much to lose by regulating these companies, and that's why the proposed legislation (that the Trumplicans won't pass anyway) is so timid and irrelevant.
Oh look, the House has their own BROWSER Act: https://www.congress.gov/bill/115th-congress/house-bill/2520/text and it's been reported (and ignored) here: https://www.theregister.co.uk/2017/05/22/house_gop_takes_crack_at_isp_privacy_bill/. The CONSENT Act is just an amended version of this.
These companies are only worth $1.5 trillion as long as they can please their users and advertisers. It's becoming difficult to have it both ways.
Government agencies will be brought to heel when their data hoarding & leaking RUINS a sufficient number of Congressmen's and women's lives. It's only a matter of time.
is his answer of NO
when he was asked if he'd share the name of the hotel he stayed in the previous night.
If Zuck won't share that (which was already trending at the time on Twitter...) then anyone who posts anything about themselves, their family or their friends on ANY social media system really needs to think long and hard about their lives.
I'm sure that Insurance Companies are already using FB etc to check claims and also to invalidate claims because for example, you announced to the world that you and your elves were off to Benidorm for two weeks. Ergo, you just hung out a notice on your front door that says ROB ME.
Never had a FB account nor any other social media site apart from LinkedIn but deleted that after a year.
yours, 'grumpy'.
Never had a FB account nor any other social media site apart from LinkedIn but deleted that after a year.
And yet, somehow, I would expect Farcebook to know so very much more about you than you'd ever be comfortable with. Let he who is without idiot friends or relatives cast the first downvote.
I've never had a FB account, but I'd be they know more information about me than all but my closest friends. Roll on GDPR day, so we can begin the fight back. Once the ICO refuses to use their powers to lever penalties, the push to change the law and allow the courts to impose said penalty can begin.
I am an avid follower of the security blogs of the major security firms which go into great detail about the technical breakdown of malicious applications found on the Google Play store and third party app hosting sites.
I have been following the Facebook Graph debacle when I first learned of it's existance and functionality while doing my own research of dodgy apps that were pushed at me for well over a year.
I have direct evidence of applications abusing Facebooks API by advertising SDK's based in China and elsewhere that hijack the users shared Facebook links that redirect to fraudulent and/or malicious app sites or to trick users with fake virus warnings to download even more dodgy apps.
I have seen countless numbers of apps on third party app hosting sites that have been modified with malware and then repackaged and resigned that contain Zucks infamous Graph API.
I have seen so-called "antivirus" apps that had access to the users private data BEFORE it had been encrypted by Whatsapp and other privacy related communications apps by traversing protected folders or reading logs containing sensitive data such as usernames and passwords or gaining higher priviledges by becoming Device Administrators or abusing Accessibilty permissions or attempting to gain Superuser privileges.
And yet all the security firms that taught me how to test applications to protect myself are now strangely silent.
Could it be because they too are guilty of the same things I just spoke of?
It appears that the companies that are supposed to protect the average user has once again let us down and now Facebook has shifted the task of proving abuse of user data onto the average user themselves.
https://www.theregister.co.uk/2018/04/10/facebook_look_at_our_latest_shiny_thing_that_proves_were_taking_this_seriously/
"The programme - which offers a minimum of $500 (and no maximum) for cases that prove to be true - will reward people who can prove an app has slurped up users’ data for nefarious means."
It looks like I am going to be a very busy person for the next few months reporting what I've been seeing over the last year or two and should pocket quite a tidy sum while I'm at it.
What I find odd is that each Facebook abusing app I've tested all have a unique API signature which makes it easy for Zucherburg to be tracking this abuse himself.
Could it be he is not being upfront to members of congress?
No, Facebook can run ads without all the evil data gathering and tracking. That is the big issue. Make that 100% illegal and independently audited.
Not policing of who gets the data or how secure it is.
Policing what is actually posted and if accounts are "real" (not real name, but not bots) are separate less important issues.
"We're seen the apology tours before," Blumenthal said, before asking Zuckerberg whether he'd support opt-in for data usage rather than opt-out.
"That's certainly makes sense to discuss," said Zuckerberg.
Classic dodge there. Discuss it for a few seconds and then dismiss.
If we told people exactly how much information we collect and share, it would be so long, people wouldn't read it.
More like people would be truly shocked.
over intrusive monitoring that invade privacy ... the same bunch that approve of even deeper data sweeps by the likes of NSA/FBI/GCHQ and this data is then available (often without oversight) to the police, local councils, government departments, ... In the UK DRIPA (RIPA predecessor) has been ruled by the High Court & ECJ - RIPA is worse but T May is doing little to roll this back.
It is a shame that Zuck did not have the balls to point this out -I would have given him a big thumbs up for that.
Indeed.
Senator Feinstein banging on about FB was a "Are you f**king kidding me?" moment.
And let's be clear, she favours slurping up everyone's data in the US (and frankly anyone they connect to world wide).
No choice. No exceptions.
Would that make her a "Demoncrat In Name Only" or "DINO"?
... this seems an odd comment:
"... and three being Facebook Messenger."
How can Messenger be classified as a separate social network than Facebook? Fair enough, these days you have to install a separate mobile app to use Messenger. But classifying it as a totally separate social network seems a bit odd to me; it's integrated into the network.
Where did this assertion come from? Unless it's a typo and it's actually Whatsapp that's being referred to as network no. 3 here (and I'm not being facetious, I'd genuinely like to know the answer).
I tried this with BT after I withdrew from a job offer. Even after I rescinded the offer, and specifically told BT not to contact my referees they did so anyway, 1 even four months later.
Cue massively irate me. Tried to get details of their data commissioner, no go. Several detailed emails pointing out their obligation under the DPA and no response. Massively iritating but I expect this will be industry standard practice just to ignore cogent emails regarding their data collection and storage policies. Never got anywhere. ICO wasn't interested either. Quel surprise!
Note under DPA (not sure about GDPR) a company can still deny your request under certain conditions. Cost and time to collate data being two. I remember years ago I saw a doc. about a guy who DSAR'd google. Initially they refused but the guy challenged them through a lawyer and ending up paying for the employee time to collect his data. Y'know those boxes that hold reams of photocopier paper? Think he got sent about a dozen of those.
Wonder how people would feel if they could have the same visual representation of data slurped? Might change the minds of some of the FB holdouts.
Allow me a brief summation of the repeated, ongoing conversation between zucks and the US-PtB....
Senate: Zucks! You make good donation! You make money! Is good American Dream.
Zucks: Hi. Yes. Sorry. I'll try to do better.
Senate: Zucks, how internet work?
Zucks: because people let me. Sorry. I'll try to do better.
Senate: How you make money?
Zucks: I sell adverts. Sorry. I'll try to do better.
Senate: You make lot money?
Zucks. Yes. Its the American Dream. Sorry.
Senate: *open mouthed breathing & Confused looks*
Senate: what is internet?
Zucks: *smirks* Sorry. I'll get someone on that.
Repeat ad nauseum.
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