7 ms·

This article is poorly written and flat out wrong. His second example simply shows a public post of his on a public group. His statement "Facebook makes public

by tyler 16y ago

This article is poorly written and flat out wrong. His second example simply shows a public post of his on a public group. His statement "Facebook makes public EVERYTHING about its users via its search API" is just incorrect. But of course, it's filled with lots of capital letters, so he must be right.

megaduck 16y ago
It doesn't matter that he's wrong. What matters is that the media has gotten a hold of this, and isn't going to let go any time soon. Facebook is rapidly losing control of the narrative. They need to do some PR damage control quickly, or they're going to see this kind of fearmongering metastasize into something truly harmful to their business. Just wait until a 'facebook allows sexual predators to stalk your children' story pops up and goes viral. I give it a week, two at the outside.
- adharmad 16y ago
  Agree with your sentiment. But what we really need is a substitute for facebook. Until that comes, folks who want to socialize will continue to use facebook.
  - mrvir 16y ago
    There are already several alternatives to facebook. For example Google's orkut.com Seems to be popular in India. All the developers I work with there use it rather than fb.
    - rick_2047 16y ago
      The college students are steadily shifting towards facebook. Orkut was popular, but now the latest social networking media is Facebook.
    - gaius 16y ago
      Does anyone else see the irony in proposing any Google service as a remedy to privacy issues? Remember Buzz.
      - mrvir 16y ago
        Hmm, at least they fixed it and apologized. Orkut privacy settings fit in one tab. There are seven settings of which five have just two options. All in simple English. I don't need to read a blog article to understand them. What is your excuse, facebook?
- ErrantX 16y ago
  > It doesn't matter that he's wrong. No, no! It really does. Because we can't support the idea that it is going to be reported wrong - how is that going to help? > facebook allows sexual predators to stalk your children' story pops up and goes viral. That doesn't need this privacy thing to make a story. Facebook is already one of the prime ways that predators contact and stalk children (after all it is only one friend acceptance that is required to skip past plenty of privacy controls). Also, it's a silly story because childrens profiles are pretty solidly restricted (under all sorts of rules and guidelines). More importantly; there has been a story here in the media for the last few months regarding a "predator alert" button. Organisations in the UK are trying to get chat providers to place it prominently on Childrens profiles. Facebook have declined and the story has been all about that refusal and how bad FB is. But the public don't seem to care all that much.... I'm not convinced this privacy story will interest them much more...
  - mhansen 16y ago
    Facebook is already one of the prime ways that predators contact and stalk children citation needed?
    - ErrantX 16y ago
      I work in computer forensics (so from experience). :)
      - ntoshev 16y ago
        What (if anything) would you ask Facebook to do to help with this problem? It seems to me that a paedophile using Facebook to contact kids will be very visible with certain statistical analysis of user behavior.
        ErrantX 16y ago
        Not much more than they are already. There isn't an awful lot you can do to prevent this happening because there are too many variables. > It seems to me that a paedophile using Facebook to contact kids will be very visible with certain statistical analysis of user behavior I'm cautious of such methods - they aren't infallible, and what do you do with the results? Read their messages to be sure? Contact the police? Put a warning on their profile that others can see? All of that feels worrisome. Really your kid being talked to by a pedophile is reasonably low probability. The chance of them being coerced into sending a photo or meeting them is also fairly low (for the most part those who use chat in this way aren't particularly predatory - they are more ill, or lonely and mislead. Not that this excuses them ofc). Ultimately education of parent and kids seems the best solution.

by tyler 16y ago

megaduck 16y ago

It doesn't matter that he's wrong. What matters is that the media has gotten a hold of this, and isn't going to let go any time soon. Facebook is rapidly losing control of the narrative. They need to do some PR damage control quickly, or they're going to see this kind of fearmongering metastasize into something truly harmful to their business. Just wait until a 'facebook allows sexual predators to stalk your children' story pops up and goes viral. I give it a week, two at the outside.

adharmad 16y ago
Agree with your sentiment. But what we really need is a substitute for facebook. Until that comes, folks who want to socialize will continue to use facebook.
- mrvir 16y ago
  There are already several alternatives to facebook. For example Google's orkut.com Seems to be popular in India. All the developers I work with there use it rather than fb.
  - rick_2047 16y ago
    The college students are steadily shifting towards facebook. Orkut was popular, but now the latest social networking media is Facebook.
  - gaius 16y ago
    Does anyone else see the irony in proposing any Google service as a remedy to privacy issues? Remember Buzz.
    - mrvir 16y ago
      Hmm, at least they fixed it and apologized. Orkut privacy settings fit in one tab. There are seven settings of which five have just two options. All in simple English. I don't need to read a blog article to understand them. What is your excuse, facebook?
ErrantX 16y ago
> It doesn't matter that he's wrong. No, no! It really does. Because we can't support the idea that it is going to be reported wrong - how is that going to help? > facebook allows sexual predators to stalk your children' story pops up and goes viral. That doesn't need this privacy thing to make a story. Facebook is already one of the prime ways that predators contact and stalk children (after all it is only one friend acceptance that is required to skip past plenty of privacy controls). Also, it's a silly story because childrens profiles are pretty solidly restricted (under all sorts of rules and guidelines). More importantly; there has been a story here in the media for the last few months regarding a "predator alert" button. Organisations in the UK are trying to get chat providers to place it prominently on Childrens profiles. Facebook have declined and the story has been all about that refusal and how bad FB is. But the public don't seem to care all that much.... I'm not convinced this privacy story will interest them much more...
- mhansen 16y ago
  Facebook is already one of the prime ways that predators contact and stalk children citation needed?
  - ErrantX 16y ago
    I work in computer forensics (so from experience). :)
    - ntoshev 16y ago
      What (if anything) would you ask Facebook to do to help with this problem? It seems to me that a paedophile using Facebook to contact kids will be very visible with certain statistical analysis of user behavior.
      - ErrantX 16y ago
        Not much more than they are already. There isn't an awful lot you can do to prevent this happening because there are too many variables. > It seems to me that a paedophile using Facebook to contact kids will be very visible with certain statistical analysis of user behavior I'm cautious of such methods - they aren't infallible, and what do you do with the results? Read their messages to be sure? Contact the police? Put a warning on their profile that others can see? All of that feels worrisome. Really your kid being talked to by a pedophile is reasonably low probability. The chance of them being coerced into sending a photo or meeting them is also fairly low (for the most part those who use chat in this way aren't particularly predatory - they are more ill, or lonely and mislead. Not that this excuses them ofc). Ultimately education of parent and kids seems the best solution.