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its such a coincidence that these accidents keep happening in ways that enable further data gathering...surely there isn't a larger problem with Facebook's atti

by zach43 7y ago

its such a coincidence that these accidents keep happening in ways that enable further data gathering...surely there isn't a larger problem with Facebook's attitude towards their users' private data or anything

TheCraiggers 7y ago
Well, to be fair we probably don't hear about the accidents that end up causing the opposite situation. Those are just normal bugs.
- simonh 7y ago
  "Facebook bug causes all user's sensitive data to not be uploaded in some case" sounds like an Onion headline.
  - bryanrasmussen 7y ago
    That bug would be a critical failure and be caught, the reverse would be a non-critical bug that the PM decides to to put in the backlog because reasons. If in a year we haven't gotten around the fixing it, then it's time to clean out that backlog!
  - FabHK 7y ago
    The Onion has quite some insight on Facebook (the headlines practically write themselves): "Mark Zuckerberg Promises That Misuse Of Facebook User Data Will Happen Again And Again" https://www.theonion.com/mark-zuckerberg-promises-that-misuse-of-facebook-user-d-1823988784 https://www.theonion.com/mark-zuckerberg-promises-that-misus... "Facebook Employees Explain Daily Struggle Of Trying To Care About Company's Unethical Practices When Gig So Cushy" https://www.theonion.com/facebook-employees-explain-daily-struggle-of-trying-to-1825147978 https://www.theonion.com/facebook-employees-explain-daily-st... "Cash-Strapped Zuckerberg Forced To Sell 11 Million Facebook Users" https://www.theonion.com/cash-strapped-zuckerberg-forced-to-sell-11-million-face-1829112856 https://www.theonion.com/cash-strapped-zuckerberg-forced-to-... "New Facebook Feature Allows User To Cancel Account. ... The company later confirmed that account closures would not stop Facebook from continuing to acquire, permanently store, and sell all information about its current and former users until the day they die." https://www.theonion.com/new-facebook-feature-allows-user-to-cancel-account-1819573073 https://www.theonion.com/new-facebook-feature-allows-user-to...
    - corodra 7y ago
      You probably could just say CNN instead of the Onion and people wouldn’t bat an eye. Which is sad.
noxToken 7y ago
I'm not excusing FB, but it still makes sense. Their whole business model is data collection on their users, graphing connections between these users, and brokering deals with advertisers about users on the platform. When something goes awry, you can bet that it will somehow affect one of those things.
arkades 7y ago
Just to give them the benefit of the doubt: When every public-facing thing you build is centered on hoovering up data, you're going to have two broad classes of errors. Hoovering up too little data, which doesn't hit the news, and hoovering up too much, which does. That said, when your "errors" directly line your pockets, you're not entitled to the benefit of the doubt.
- corodra 7y ago
  1. Give us the login info to your personal email. That’s the initial asshole maneuver. There’s no excuse for Facebook to need that. Period. 2. CollectUserContacts(email, username, password); It’s pretty hard for me to imagine that there’s some other function that just happens to coincide with accessing different email servers and collect past emails to collect the email addresses. It was deliberate because of the work involved. The only investigators that think it’s accidental probably believe the internet is a small black box guarded by the “Internet wizards”.

by zach43 7y ago

TheCraiggers 7y ago

Well, to be fair we probably don't hear about the accidents that end up causing the opposite situation. Those are just normal bugs.

simonh 7y ago
"Facebook bug causes all user's sensitive data to not be uploaded in some case" sounds like an Onion headline.
- bryanrasmussen 7y ago
  That bug would be a critical failure and be caught, the reverse would be a non-critical bug that the PM decides to to put in the backlog because reasons. If in a year we haven't gotten around the fixing it, then it's time to clean out that backlog!
- FabHK 7y ago
  The Onion has quite some insight on Facebook (the headlines practically write themselves): "Mark Zuckerberg Promises That Misuse Of Facebook User Data Will Happen Again And Again" https://www.theonion.com/mark-zuckerberg-promises-that-misuse-of-facebook-user-d-1823988784 https://www.theonion.com/mark-zuckerberg-promises-that-misus... "Facebook Employees Explain Daily Struggle Of Trying To Care About Company's Unethical Practices When Gig So Cushy" https://www.theonion.com/facebook-employees-explain-daily-struggle-of-trying-to-1825147978 https://www.theonion.com/facebook-employees-explain-daily-st... "Cash-Strapped Zuckerberg Forced To Sell 11 Million Facebook Users" https://www.theonion.com/cash-strapped-zuckerberg-forced-to-sell-11-million-face-1829112856 https://www.theonion.com/cash-strapped-zuckerberg-forced-to-... "New Facebook Feature Allows User To Cancel Account. ... The company later confirmed that account closures would not stop Facebook from continuing to acquire, permanently store, and sell all information about its current and former users until the day they die." https://www.theonion.com/new-facebook-feature-allows-user-to-cancel-account-1819573073 https://www.theonion.com/new-facebook-feature-allows-user-to...
  - corodra 7y ago
    You probably could just say CNN instead of the Onion and people wouldn’t bat an eye. Which is sad.

noxToken 7y ago

I'm not excusing FB, but it still makes sense. Their whole business model is data collection on their users, graphing connections between these users, and brokering deals with advertisers about users on the platform. When something goes awry, you can bet that it will somehow affect one of those things.

arkades 7y ago

Just to give them the benefit of the doubt: When every public-facing thing you build is centered on hoovering up data, you're going to have two broad classes of errors. Hoovering up too little data, which doesn't hit the news, and hoovering up too much, which does. That said, when your "errors" directly line your pockets, you're not entitled to the benefit of the doubt.

corodra 7y ago
1. Give us the login info to your personal email. That’s the initial asshole maneuver. There’s no excuse for Facebook to need that. Period. 2. CollectUserContacts(email, username, password); It’s pretty hard for me to imagine that there’s some other function that just happens to coincide with accessing different email servers and collect past emails to collect the email addresses. It was deliberate because of the work involved. The only investigators that think it’s accidental probably believe the internet is a small black box guarded by the “Internet wizards”.