Facebook Tools Abuse

[koti]

@Ten oz, Im pretty sure Phi meant that as a response to me.

@Phi for All, Im convinced FB needs to be regulated but for Cambridge Analytica reasons not for adds/privacy reasons.

@studiot, Add blocker works for http not for SMTP, the mail spam/no spam thing always was and always will be unresolvable I think.

[Phi for All]

1 minute ago, koti said:

 

@Phi for All, Im convinced FB needs to be regulated but for Cambridge Analytica reasons not for adds/privacy reasons.

So regulate their abuse of data, but don't change the advertiser tools that allow illegal discrimination? 

[studiot]

9 minutes ago, Phi for All said:

Not entirely true, and the point has been made that FB is fairly unique in business history. And in the US, laws can be enacted that can only be fulfilled by a single company. The Halliburton no-bid contracts during the Iraq invasion are an example, as well as the legislation that allowed General Electric to spend $84M lobbying for exemptions only they could meet the criteria for, gaining them $8.4B in tax reductions. 

Haliburton activity was overseas, was it not?

I was thinking of much more draconian powers granted to private companies.

In the past railway named companies had an act of Parliament in the UK and something similar in the US to aquire people's property, forcibly if necessary.

Fracking comes to mind in more recent years.

Edited August 22, 2018 by studiot

[Ten oz]

8 minutes ago, koti said:

@Ten oz, Im pretty sure Phi meant that as a response to me.

I know. I was just pandering for a response to my post. 

[koti]

9 minutes ago, Phi for All said:

So regulate their abuse of data, but don't change the advertiser tools that allow illegal discrimination? 

As I wrote I’m not sure we’re dealing with discrimination in the adds context. We gladely take the perks of data trade but we want to get rid of the downsides - thats not how the internet works. When FB gets too squeezed against the wall,  I suspect Zuckerberg will move the servers and data farms to Asia, Google will do that too if too much censorship will take place. Internet is intrinsically very hard if not impossible to regulate. Arms dealing, fake accounts and bots altering ellections, human trafficking etc all should be and are regulated by various technologies...adds, discrimination based on religion, ethicity, pollitical views - good luck with that, I dont think its ever happening. FB and Google are already very biased liberally which in my personal view is a good thing but in the broader, wholesome view - not so good.

[Phi for All]

Just now, koti said:

As I wrote I’m not sure we’re dealing with discrimination in the adds context. 

Some of the things specifically mentioned by HUD authorities was building owners barring anyone who had expressed an interest in mobility equipment or other handicap devices from viewing their apartment rental advertisements. Presumably, people in wheelchairs are sticklers for maintaining ease of access, and cost building owners extra because of their lack of mobility and snowflakey attitudes about how buildings are maintained.

Something else the tools allow is restriction of ads for people from certain area codes. As a building owner, is it important to keep people from bad neighborhoods from "moving on up" to your building? When one is pulling oneself up by the bootstraps, it's nice not to have a foot on one's throat.

If a company only hires men (for no reasonable reasons), they'd quickly be singled out for discrimination. But when they can legitimately say they've NEVER had a female applicant (thank you, FB ad tools!), they're let off the hook. I think FB is at least an enabler here. Why is it illegal for me to ask for an applicant's age, but it's not illegal for me to use FB to make sure I only see people between 18-20 years old?

[koti]

22 minutes ago, Phi for All said:

Some of the things specifically mentioned by HUD authorities was building owners barring anyone who had expressed an interest in mobility equipment or other handicap devices from viewing their apartment rental advertisements. Presumably, people in wheelchairs are sticklers for maintaining ease of access, and cost building owners extra because of their lack of mobility and snowflakey attitudes about how buildings are maintained.

Something else the tools allow is restriction of ads for people from certain area codes. As a building owner, is it important to keep people from bad neighborhoods from "moving on up" to your building? When one is pulling oneself up by the bootstraps, it's nice not to have a foot on one's throat.

If a company only hires men (for no reasonable reasons), they'd quickly be singled out for discrimination. But when they can legitimately say they've NEVER had a female applicant (thank you, FB ad tools!), they're let off the hook. I think FB is at least an enabler here. Why is it illegal for me to ask for an applicant's age, but it's not illegal for me to use FB to make sure I only see people between 18-20 years old?

I hear ya. I think it would be equally futile to get rid of the discrimination you mention above as it is futile to do it in the real world. Whetger it should be done or not (I think it should) is an ethics issue.

[MigL]

I haven't read the whole thread yet, but I'm I a hurry, so I'm sorry if I mis-represent your position Phi.

The argument that FB is similar to guns, a useful tool that can be used to commit bad things, doesn't quite hit the mark.
Guns are specifically built to do bad things ( that was the argument used in the gun control threads ); a better analogy would be moving vans.
A lot of terrorist acts, lately, involve mass murder by moving van, a vehicle not built for such a purpose, but 'corrupted' in its use by unscrupulous people.
Should moving van builders be held accountable for the acts of the unscrupulous ?

[Phi for All]

12 minutes ago, MigL said:

The argument that FB is similar to guns, a useful tool that can be used to commit bad things, doesn't quite hit the mark.

Guns are specifically built to do bad things 

Bad things only? When a gun stops a murderer or an enemy, aren't they hitting their target market? 

[Ten oz]

40 minutes ago, MigL said:

I haven't read the whole thread yet, but I'm I a hurry, so I'm sorry if I mis-represent your position Phi.

The argument that FB is similar to guns, a useful tool that can be used to commit bad things, doesn't quite hit the mark.
Guns are specifically built to do bad things ( that was the argument used in the gun control threads ); a better analogy would be moving vans.
A lot of terrorist acts, lately, involve mass murder by moving van, a vehicle not built for such a purpose, but 'corrupted' in its use by unscrupulous people.
Should moving van builders be held accountable for the acts of the unscrupulous ?

Guns are regulated. Not to the level I wished but they are regulated. 

[Sensei]

13 hours ago, Ten oz said:

Any country can change there laws at anytime. Laws are fluid.

Laws should not be changed whenever opposition party is gaining majority enough to change the law. Therefor good laws should be created as consensus, negotiation, of the all parties, regardless how many seats they have right now, to make sure they are not changed every 4-5 years. If law is changed every cadence, it's example of bad law.

[Ten oz]

4 hours ago, Sensei said:

Laws should not be changed whenever opposition party is gaining majority enough to change the law. Therefor good laws should be created as consensus, negotiation, of the all parties, regardless how many seats they have right now, to make sure they are not changed every 4-5 years. If law is changed every cadence, it's example of bad law.

I agree. However in the case of FB's filtering which laws currently even exist? Not just FB but Youtube, Twitter, Instagram, Tumblr, and etc are nearly all totally self policed. This is an industries worth hundreds of billions of dollars. I can't think of any other industry at this level which is unregulated. It isn't a matter of different political administrations arbitrarily changing the law every 4yrs. There aren't any laws in place at all.  

[koti]

3 minutes ago, Ten oz said:

I agree. However in the case of FB's filtering which laws currently even exist? Not just FB but Youtube, Twitter, Instagram, Tumblr, and etc are nearly all totally self policed. This is an industries worth hundreds of billions of dollars. I can't think of any other industry at this level which is unregulated. It isn't a matter of different political administrations arbitrarily changing the law every 4yrs. There aren't any laws in place at all.  

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-advertising-gdpr-insight/europes-new-data-law-upends-global-online-advertising-idUSKCN1L80HW

 

[Ten oz]

19 minutes ago, koti said:

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-advertising-gdpr-insight/europes-new-data-law-upends-global-online-advertising-idUSKCN1L80HW

 

Some tech companies are pulling out of Europe over this according to the article. On the surface that might seem like a bad things, business leaving or closing down, but data privacy is more important in my opinion. It is something that has gone unregulated too long and I am glad to see govts finally taking action. 

[koti]

21 minutes ago, Ten oz said:

Some tech companies are pulling out of Europe over this according to the article. On the surface that might seem like a bad things, business leaving or closing down, but data privacy is more important in my opinion. It is something that has gone unregulated too long and I am glad to see govts finally taking action. 

As I wrote in one of my previous posts, I think if the big players get pushed to the wall too much they will move their boxes to Asia which will cause the problem to be even more unsolvable and more serious. It looks like its beginning to happen. Would you preffer your data being kept on servers in Oregon or in a bunker in Makau ?

Edited August 23, 2018 by koti

[Ten oz]

35 minutes ago, koti said:

Would you preffer your data being kept on servers in Oregon or in a bunker in Makau ?

What would be the difference? Look at how many Russian troll farms have been discovered in the U.S.. What people intend to do with data matters more than the physical location of a server. Ultimately having laws in place will enable the govt and citizens of those govt's to take companies like FB to court when laws are violated regardless of server locations. 

[koti]

1 minute ago, Ten oz said:

What would be the difference? Look at how many Russian troll farms have been discovered in the U.S.. What people intend to do with data matters more than the physical location of a server. Ultimately having laws in place will enable the govt and citizens of those govt's to take companies like FB to court when laws are violated regardless of server locations. 

Are you sincerely convinced that if Zukerberg moves his servers to Makau there will be more leverage for the US to take FB to court than now? You must be joking...

[Sensei]

34 minutes ago, Ten oz said:

On the surface that might seem like a bad things, business leaving or closing down, but data privacy is more important in my opinion. It is something that has gone unregulated too long and I am glad to see govts finally taking action. 

Majority of people are voluntarily giving their own personal data to Internet companies (or simply anybody who is visiting web sites). Scan FB, Twitter, Google+ etc. etc. and you will have 3rd party people data on the plate. How 3rd party companies get your e-mail address in the first place? Because you wrote it in one of forum messages, in some public document, on some public WWW, and e-mail bot search engines found it, and placed in database.. You gave them it (because you wanted people to be able contact you in e.g. business propositions).. and then complain that spam is arriving to your e-mail.. ? Make e-mail account and don't give anybody, then nobody will write any post.. The same with photos, telephone number,  home address etc. etc. If somebody bothers about privacy has to not release these data by them self.

There is example silly law for Internet created by incompetent politicians - if somebody wants to be removed from e-mail database has to press link in spam e-mail.. Complete ridiculous! If people will click it, and it's virus, they will have instantly infected computer! Never ever click such link! In the best case scenario it's information for spammers that e-mail address is still active, and can be spammed more.

Law for cookies is yet another ridiculous law for Internet in EU. I explained why in this thread about cookies.

https://www.scienceforums.net/topic/115178-avoid-cookies-warning/

 

[koti]

4 minutes ago, koti said:

Are you sincerely convinced that if Zukerberg moves his servers to Makau there will be more leverage for the US to take FB to court than now? You must be joking...

@Ten oz Hint: He already speaks Mandarin comfortably.

[Sensei]

Just now, koti said:

Are you sincerely convinced that if Zukerberg moves his servers to Makau there will be more leverage for the US to take FB to court than now? You must be joking...

FB, Microsoft, Google won't move servers to Asia (because they are already there, but for local customers), because it would introduce too long delays. There are used local servers to limit distance (thus having fast data transfer, with as small as possible delays).

 

[koti]

6 minutes ago, Sensei said:

Majority of people are voluntarily giving their own personal data to Internet companies (or simply anybody who is visiting web sites). Scan FB, Twitter, Google+ etc. etc. and you will have 3rd party people data on the plate. How 3rd party companies get your e-mail address in the first place? Because you wrote it in one of forum messages, in some public document, on some public WWW, and e-mail bot search engines found it, and placed in database.. You gave them it (because you wanted people to be able contact you in e.g. business propositions).. and then complain that spam is arriving to your e-mail.. ? Make e-mail account and don't give anybody, then nobody will write any post.. The same with photos, telephone number,  home address etc. etc. If somebody bothers about privacy has to not release these data by them self.

There is example silly law for Internet created by incompetent politicians - if somebody wants to be removed from e-mail database has to press link in spam e-mail.. Complete ridiculous! If people will click it, and it's virus, they will have instantly infected computer! Never ever click such link! In the best case scenario it's information for spammers that e-mail address is still active, and can be spammed more.

Law for cookies is yet another ridiculous law for Internet in EU. I explained why in this thread about cookies.

https://www.scienceforums.net/topic/115178-avoid-cookies-warning/

 

I agree. The internet is constantly evolving, the legislators have no idea about how to approach creating effective laws and they never will - no one will. Change has a very short life span in the internet of things and laws won't be able to keep up. The only viable solution which will be effective is known since the begining of the web - pull the plug. But thats not going to happen because money. People seem to not notice that they're getting a bunch of perks with the data trade empires rulling the internet, all they see is the downsides (which are there ofcourse) Internet is instrinsically not possible to regulate effectively, if you constrain or cut one tentacle off, many more will grow in its place immune to the regulations.

 

3 minutes ago, Sensei said:

FB, Microsoft, Google won't move servers to Asia (because they are already there, but for local customers), because it would introduce too long delays. There are used local servers to limit distance (thus having fast data transfer, with as small as possible delays).

 

Apple, FB, Google, MS have their branches/farms in Asia or Ireland for tax reasons and local customers only but they're still based in the US and the majority of the boxes is not in Asia. Zuckerberg had to stand in front of the US Congress and sweat while he was interrogated. If they start pushing FB harder this will change and that would be a very bad thing. But they won't do it, it was easy to deduce from the interrogation that the Congress is sweating too. 

[dimreepr]

1 hour ago, koti said:

Are you sincerely convinced that if Zukerberg moves his servers to Makau there will be more leverage for the US to take FB to court than now? You must be joking...

1

1 hour ago, koti said:

@Ten oz Hint: He already speaks Mandarin comfortably.

Why would he? Fb depends on numbers and that depends on access, which means the big Z will have to toe the line, at least to the point that the politicoes can save face; he's no more free of a boss than, literally everyone.  

 

[koti]

21 minutes ago, dimreepr said:

Why would he? Fb depends on numbers and that depends on access, which means the big Z will have to toe the line, at least to the point that the politicoes can save face; he's no more free of a boss than, literally everyone.  

 

Could you do me a favour and please translate this into something my non primary English comprehension can comprehend?

 

[dimreepr]

1 minute ago, koti said:

Could you do me a favour and please translate this into something my non primary English comprehension can comprehend?

3

China has a firewall and so does America (if it came to that); none of us, including the big Z, are truly free to do what we want; even Hitler had at least two boss' 1. the free world. 2. his subordinates (whom he had to keep happy).

So, as ten suggests, it's got nothing to do with location...

[koti]

51 minutes ago, dimreepr said:

China has a firewall and so does America (if it came to that); none of us, including the big Z, are truly free to do what we want; even Hitler had at least two boss' 1. the free world. 2. his subordinates (whom he had to keep happy).

So, as ten suggests, it's got nothing to do with location...

Mmm, okay.