Not disputing this, but when you say 'we' I think you mean the < 5% (maybe even < 1%) of techies and lawyers and journalists in the world who really really care about their data and privacy.
The rest 95% either don't know, or could care less even if they know. I've told my non-techie fam and friends about data harvesting, privacy, and how facebook tracks everything, only to be ignored or outright ridiculed ("Oh you techies are so paranoid").
Many of my friends in India (where I was raised) and elsewhere used to freely post their phone # and home address on my wall asking me to call them / send them stuff from US. I don't think this 95% population really cares or gives a sh*t.
> The rest 95% either don't know, or could care less even if they know. I've told my non-techie fam and friends about data harvesting, privacy, and how facebook tracks everything, only to be ignored or outright ridiculed ("Oh you techies are so paranoid").
pretty much exactly my experience with Canadian and American family. People didn't give one iota of a fuck when the Snowden revelations came out because they just assumed that it was the case already.
I think the average techie underestimates how important platform lockin + user interface design + ubiquity are. Once something like Facebook Messenger has reached a critical market share trying to get people to stop using it, no matter how privacy violating FB may be, is about as effective as trying to get people in the year 1985 to disconnect their house's analog telephone line.
> People didn't give one iota of a fuck when the Snowden revelations came out because they just assumed that it was the case already.
It's more complex than that. The tracking and surveillance are not visible to the average person. Point your camera at someone in a coffee shop or bar and take their picture. They'll be coming over to ask you why you took their photo. The fact that the coffee shop or bar is brimming with overhead cameras is completely lost on them because it is mostly invisible (or least no longer noticed).
Just wait until someone does a massive leak of actual personal data, photos, and videos, as opposed to abstract technical reports and Powerpoint slides that Snowden leaked. The average person will be screaming like a banshee when they can look up all the personal info and private pics of themselves and their neighbors and friends on some public webserver.
>The fact that the coffee shop or bar is brimming with overhead cameras is completely lost on them because it is mostly invisible
With the coffee shop, it makes sense; the cameras in retail are expected to only be used for review, when some event occurs. No one expects it to be used for data mining and behavioral analysis purposes. And even if it were, the expectation is that this would be for academic purposes; that is, with no real commercial intent.
Worst case scenario is that it'd end up being archived in a box of tapes somewhere.
Datamining abuses this expectation. But it makes sense for the expectation to exist; it was the norm until extremely recently.
> the cameras in retail are expected to only be used for review, when some event occurs. No one expects it to be used for data mining and behavioral analysis purposes.
No, the word "reveals" is used because the code is revealed. Well, it's more a "log file" than "code", but that's detail. The point is that the "code" (log file) is usually hidden from average people.
Also, the word "reveals" is used to make the headline more sensational, just like any other headline. It doesn't tell you anything about the average person.
How does this show that data mining isn't an abuse of expectation? The reason this is even an article in the first place is presumably because it conflicts directly with expected use.
There is certainly object detection available on the cameras and behavioral analysis applied to this information and POS data in aggregation software at the store and chain level for both loss prevention and marketing reasons. Maybe not used in all cases but I was surprised to learn these systems can be worthwhile in convenience stores, gas stations, and fast food restaurants, let alone larger stores like Target.
But you’re probably right that most people don’t think this is happening but only expect the stream is only flashing on a screen in front of a guard in real time and stored on a tape temporarily.
My local bar has over a half dozen cameras pointed to customers and workers areas. I installed them plus the DVR at owner request, they're perfectly visible and nobody gives a damn (except a couple customers once asking if the devices were also listening and recording audio). Everyone knows the owner doesn't use the data for anything illegal, and one time thanks to cameras we caught a worker who stole food bags to use or sell them elsewhere. Trust does also play a role here.
You mean everyone assumes he doesn't abuse the data. That's different than knowing. It's just the lazy and thoughtless stance to take. "Why would they be allowed to have the cameras if they were up to no good"? Businesses are assumed to do no wrong and meet some high moral standard because it's easy to.
I also used not to care, because I used to think that "I don't put that much information on it".
But it always said data, but not which data, now I know it buys data from other to cross it, don't know which data they buy and don't know what kind of information they are able to get when they do this.
This is what we are only now understanding that they are doing and what is possible to do with this.
And of course, Facebook say the least minimum necessary to keep profiting with no problems. Hence I don't see how we can expect people to really know what Facebook does.
The true data apocalypse will come when ISP logs are compromised and leaked (urls visited, dns lookups, tied to ip or even subscriber ids, etc), and there is enough leaked PII floating it out there to join it to people records.
With the exception of big evil things like Comcast, you might be surprised how few ISPs keep detailed logs like this. The effort to correlate them with customers is generally not worth it unless you get a subpoena, and only then is it done manually.
(UK) The new surveillance law requires web and phone companies to store everyone’s web browsing histories for 12 months and give the police, security services and official agencies unprecedented access to the data.
Once something like Facebook Messenger has reached a critical market share trying to get people to stop using it
writing this comment from South-East Europe where many people use facebook not just for cat pics but to find work and network with colleagues. It's a huge problem in developing countries where facebook IS the Internet. FB recently announced it would roll out job-posts for low-income workers[¹]. This will mean an even stronger lock-in for the user. While the discussion on ethics evolve mostly user-privacy and CA/FB role in Brexit/election hacking, the problem for less developed regions is facebook taking from them without giving back (fb is known not to pay it's taxes in Europe)
Echoing your statement, "Facebook is the Internet". In Africa most telecoms have special data bundles for Facebook and WhatsApp. Normal data bundles to browse the Internet are just too expensive. A dollar will give you unlimited access to Facebook and WhatsApp for about 2 weeks.
I have a few cows back in my village. I have toyed with the idea of creating a cattle monitoring application that would have to make use of Facebook or WhatsApp. The herder sends me a picture every evening of the cows. I want to piggy back on the affordable connectivity given to Facebook and WhatsApp. Yes I know, this would contribute to the problem but for me losing cattle is a bigger problem. From parent, finding a job is a bigger problem so we all get sucked into Facebook.
It’s a socioeconomic awareness. If you’re worried about food you don’t care. Facebooks 99% are the poorest and least educated.
I’ve always wondered why face book, a platform which could unify teachers from mit with the poorest students across the globe has never done shit to do so.
They claim to “connect the globe” but the haven’t connected anything.
Where is the teacher hosting a class where any single person from fbs vast user base can connect?
Fucking unreal.
Facebook could have become the global educational foundation with their platform at this point.
Hey, don't underestimate it. Protestant Europe got a big literacy boost from the Gutenberg Bible.
And if you dig around the writings around the time that radio and (later) TV got started, you'll see plenty of hopeful plans for universal education.
But after the transient is over, the steady state is kind of underwhelming. People are very resistant to instruction that doesn't suit them, and I really can't blame that.
> Hey, don't underestimate it. Protestant Europe got a big literacy boost from the Gutenberg Bible.
I was responding to your comment saying "that was the original hope with print, radio and TV. So we mostly get scandal sheets, soap operas and reality TV"!
I'm fully aware there's major benefits that have come from those mediums.
> And if you dig around the writings around the time that radio and (later) TV got started, you'll see plenty of hopeful plans for universal education.
Again, you were the one who said it didn't pan out, and you implied the only reason they didn't was because <quote>"What we learn from history is that we don't learn from history", as some wag put it.</quote>.
My comment was pointing out that the reason has to be more than just that -- thus the challenge to come up with a proposal that could actually work.
I have nothing to hide” - most of the people
a pregnant teenager being outed by the store Target, after it mined her purchase data – larger handbags, headache pills, tissues – and sent her a “congratulations” message as marketing, which her unknowing father got instead. Oops!
Don't confuse privacy with secrecy. I know what you do in the bathroom, but you still close the door. That’s because you want privacy, not secrecy.
I found this article very interesting about FB - http://www.salimvirani.com//facebook/
reply
>I have nothing to hide” - most of the people a pregnant teenager being outed by the store Target, after it mined her purchase data – larger handbags, headache pills, tissues – and sent her a “congratulations” message as marketing, which her unknowing father got instead. Oops!
Has this ever been proved or is it just an urban legend? I keep hearing this anecdote but I always thought it was fishy and could easily be explained by a simple coincidence. Like these people who claim that the Facebook app is listening to them continuously to match keywords for ads.
My girlfriend and I are in our early 30's, she's been regularly targeted for pregnancy-related products for the past 5 years at least. It seems that for most advertisers you don't need a super fancy algorithm harvesting thousands of data points, simply "woman age 25-35" is probably good enough to assume that pregnancy is likely. Undoubtedly Target has that information, they thought that it was plausible that she could be pregnant (or would be in the close future) so they sent pregnancy-related material. When it turned out that this person was actually pregnant they thought Target was surprisingly prescient. Of course that's not counting the hundreds of people who potentially received the same offer but were not actually pregnant and discarded it immediately as junk mail.
I'm sure the profiling takes place but this anecdote probably overplays how accurate these predictions are. Facebook and Google are in an other league though, they have access to so much more personal info, I'm sure these companies "know" many of their users better than any of their friends or relative ever will.
About a year after Pole created his pregnancy-prediction model, a man walked into a Target outside Minneapolis and demanded to see the manager. He was clutching coupons that had been sent to his daughter, and he was angry, according to an employee who participated in the conversation.
“My daughter got this in the mail!” he said. “She’s still in high school, and you’re sending her coupons for baby clothes and cribs? Are you trying to encourage her to get pregnant?”
The manager didn’t have any idea what the man was talking about. He looked at the mailer. Sure enough, it was addressed to the man’s daughter and contained advertisements for maternity clothing, nursery furniture and pictures of smiling infants. The manager apologized and then called a few days later to apologize again.
On the phone, though, the father was somewhat abashed. “I had a talk with my daughter,” he said. “It turns out there’s been some activities in my house I haven’t been completely aware of. She’s due in August. I owe you an apology.”
Also, a bit later in the article, they realise that being explicit about what they're doing is bad, people do care, when it obviously happens to them:
Using data to predict a woman’s pregnancy, Target realized soon after Pole perfected his model, could be a public-relations disaster. So the question became: how could they get their advertisements into expectant mothers’ hands without making it appear they were spying on them? How do you take advantage of someone’s habits without letting them know you’re studying their lives?
Acxiom (and I assume many others too) infers women's menstrual cycles from retail purchases so they know when it is best to send them certain ads. One week its kittens and flowers, the next it'll be an attractive man, etc. This kind of deep data mining has been going on for decades. You voluntarily give this information up when you make purchases with loyalty cards.
It's called a loyalty card, not a "we'll spy on you to get you to spend more, the discounts aren't for your loyalty but to get you to use the card" card.
This is what so many people on the thread don't seem to get. Most normal people take this stuff at face value. They assume it does what it says on the tin. They apply human decency and an expectation of a normal human, fallible, porous memory to a frightening, insatiable industry that has no decency and an infinitely perfect memory.
Facebook, they assume, lets you connect to your friends. Facebook never say "in return for a free photo sharing and messaging system we will spy on everything you and your friends do, track everything you do on the internet, figure out what makes you tick, your loves, hates, wants, 'secret' desires, tie it all up in a bow and sell it to anyone who'll pay us, with your name, email and phone number attached".
I think you prove the point you're denying. You say you don't need fancy algos, but companies are wasting advertising on your gf by using basic indicators (age, sex) when in the Target case the advertising was, well, targeted.
If advertisers know what will get you to push the buy button then they can use that against you. Advertising pregnancy pants to those who aren't pregnant will almost always fail, and from the advertisers perspective it wastes an opportunity to push a product that you might buy.
It looks like the pregnant teenager thing may have originated as a theoretical example. However the story about Facebook publicising people’s recent purchases, including telling one guy’s wife about some Jewelry he bought, is absolutely true.
A little bit of research tells me that the story was entirely fictional. More of a case study / click bait of what might have happened. Media ran this shit out of it though. At least online. Eyeballs > integrity right?
As per my comment, the NYT ran a big article about it quoting Andrew Pole, a statistician who worked at Target. It specifically says that this really happened.
The part about the teenager in Minneapolis wasn’t from Pole. Re-read the article and you’ll notice that story isn’t attributed to anyone. It’s just stated. We have no idea where this story originated, whether it’s fact or fiction, and if it’s even related to Pole’s work or just a marketing snafu.
Yep. I’ve been explaining this stuff to friends for years. Even the most intelligent and rational dismiss it as paranoia or say, “I don’t care, I have nothing to hide anyway.”
I know many people who care but they think they can "outsmart" Facebook by having workarounds for its annoying and evil nature. They do it by not giving it their permission to access the address book, location, nude pictures, etc. They told me to "just deny Facebook's request to..." It bugged the fuck out of me and I wrote about it last year [1].
They think they can befriend an evil person who they know too well would stab them in the back. They think that they are stronger and more intelligent than the evil friend.
The proper answer is that if you think a friend of yours is a shitty person, then don't befriend them anymore. If you don't like what the fuck Facebook does, then just don't have a Facebook account. It's an inconvenience in the short term because you can't talk to some of your friends, sure. But if you have it and invent those workarounds and ask me to install that piece of shit so I can talk to you, then you complicit with it and make my life shitty too. When I realized that, I realized that's exactly what Stallman meant when he talked about proprietary software -- which is what he doesn't agree with.
I've not read t but guessing its similar to why you shouldn't speak to police without a lawyer even if "I done nothing wrong". Because you will probably say something they can use against you regardless.
Which is a dangerous family of opinions to apply without fully understanding them, as asking for a lawyer when they’re at your door inquiring about a missing neighborhood kid is probably counterproductive and escalates attention on you unnecessarily. It’s a fine opinion when common sense is involved. I don’t have a problem with the sentiment, just watching people who digest YouTube and shout “where’s your probable cause” at the poor guy looking for gypsy moths at the California border.
I'm pretty sure that idiots like that will be idiots no matter what advice they stumble over.
But I have to say,
> Which is a dangerous family of opinions to apply without fully understanding them
I get what you're saying, but the point of the advice is that, in a situation to which the advice is applicable, you don't fully understand the implications of anything you may say, so your best play is to clam up and get a lawyer.
>your best play is to clam up and get a lawyer. //
Your best play if you want to waste police time because you for some reason hate society and think helping to make it run smoothly infringes on your rights - because fuck those guys, right, they're not paying you to search for the kid you just saw walking off with Ann Ominous, why should you help.
Hyperbole; but I think it illustrates the counterpoint sufficiently.
> they're not paying you to search for the kid you just saw walking
I said, "in a situation to which the advice is applicable". Nobody is saying leave Timmy in the well, they're talking about situations involving being detained or arrested.
I probably have things to hide, but: I ignore ads. I don't click on political news. I pretty much ignore everything except my friends' vacation photos. Please tell me in concrete terms a specific downside to staying on Facebook. What's the non-tinfoil hat scenario that I am naively ignoring? Wake up and my bank account is drained, or what?
You don't have to click it. For example I have zero interest in celebrities or reality TV, I've never clicked a link or read an article about them. Yet even I know who Kanye Kardashian is, and that he's married to (or is? * ) a woman with an enormous backside. it's pervasive, it becomes part of the background and what you consider "normal". I absolutely guarantee that despite never having clicked a link about Trump, just having that link there and seeing the headline, will have influenced you, same as it would anyone.
Did you see that through facebook ... ? Friend feeds ? Liked pages ?
I've hidden pretty much everyone, only keeping a few music or art pages, only go on facebook maybe once a week anyways.
I use messenger a lot though. I hate typing on phones so not many texts, and whatsapp web interface is not that great (and it's not as widely used by my friends, and it's owned by facebook anyways so what's the difference ?).
Actually a fun detail is that I entered facebook under the wrong gender : I'm labelled as a male though I'm female. When I looked at my targeted center of interests I had the most average things ever ie sports and such (which I don't follow -at all-). Like, really, you have nothing better on me ?
So I don't care about my data (I don't think I put a lot out there anyways) or whatever and I've yet to be convinced how it matters at all in the grand scheme of the universe.
> most average things ever ie sports and such (which I don't follow -at all-). Like, really, you have nothing better on me ?
To me, that is part of the problem.
For years Facebook, and Google, have been telling the world they understand us better than we know ourselves, and all the fine-grained ways they can categorise and predict us. They actually seem to believe it. Then when they allow us to look at what they have inferred it is usually comically wrong for pretty much everyone.
Then they go on to sell to us, categorise and bubble us as though it were fact, and sell access to this marvellous factual data or sell their marvellous data mining capability to riffle through vast amounts of NHS data, or predict crime, or...
We're building a global infrastructure with a foundation of that 98% bullshit. That was mostly harmless when it was just about product ads. When it moves on to health, justice and politics and it's shown they're able to move the needle I think it does matter. Perhaps not much to anyone personally, but to society as a whole.
Then what's the problem if it's not actually that good for people who leave few, contradictory elements (maybe I would've been easier profiled if I was labelled female for an example). They try to sell me stuff which I won't be interested in, seems fine to me.
As for the last part, could you be more precise ? What exactly could happen that would be bad to you ?
I maybe wrong, but unless he changed his name he is Kanye West and his wife is Kim Kardashian. And I know this not form facebook but probably from reddit memes. And again, unless I missed the fact he changed his name, it does prove the point that you really don't know who he is since you mixed up his name ;)
But Facebook harvests whatever cookies and trackers it can out of your browser, even for activity outside of and unrelated to Facebook itself. You will be productized in every possible way. (For one example, haven't you seen Amazon ads in your feed for items you may gave looked at/for strictly external to your Facebook tab?)
There's a collective impact on society for which everyone participating has some amount shared responsibility. It's up to the individual to decide if that impact is a positive or a negative one.
I don't put that much data out, but I don't mind being profiled. I like being suggested music that I'm susceptible to like based on other people. I think it's fine if one can infer out of my lifestyle that I would be interested in x or warn for risks of y.
What is wrong with it ? I'm probably no statistical anomaly, I don't mind being part of some artificial cluster somewhere, helping having a more accurate portrayal of a type of people. I am not interesting enough that anyone will come for me specifically anyways.
And from time to time, I see worried and lamenting people like here, and I still don't get it.
I was talking to my daughter about that yesterday. Suppose Facebook knows your interests, taste in music, where you live, what good you like, etc. A political campaign could use that information to tell you that their local candidate shares your interests, lived in the same town, loves the same music, supports the same charity or whatever overlaps with your profile, while knowingly avoiding telling you about things you like or are in favour of for which they hold opposing views. So you get a personally tailored, custom ad for the candidate pushing all the right buttons and concealing anything that doesn’t match or it knows you would dislike. Meanwhile it could also show you targeted attack ads on a rival customised to highlight things they know you dislike.
All the information might be true (or might not), but IMHO I don’t like the idea of people intrusively trying to manipulate me like that. We all have biases and preconceptions. We’re all open to manipulation and the last thing I want is my online world to become an echo chamber, turning me into a parody of myself. In the wider context, it’s also a threat to civil society, driving a wedge between us as citizens by magnifying our differences and promoting divisiveness. That’s what the Russian interference campaign was all about.
The thing is, if a candidate seems interesting, you should teach her to look up their website and read their full agenda. If they've held positions before, also to google them to find out what they've actually said and done in the past, and to think carefully about what kinds of implications those deeds may have had. You most certainly shouldn't base your election choices on paid ads - or, really, any kind of information only from a single outlet.
That's also the general recipe for avoiding echo chambers: don't be lazy, and go a little out of your way to find things out.
Of course, but are we really ok living in a world where the vast majority of the electorate are completely unprepared to protect themselves from this sort of manipulation?
It’s not that I’m against advertising, or capitalism, or that I’m some sort of over-regulating socialist. I just think that we need basic, fair rights over and protections for our personal information, and that this isn’t just good for us it’s good for our democracies.
Thing is, it’s not dangerous on an individual level - no different to a friend telling you about a particular candidate and why you should like them.
And personalised ads sound great at the individual level - relevant, interesting products and services that I’m likely to interact with instead of irrelevant crap clogging up my screen. We’ve always had targeting and echo chambers.
But, like the algorithmic kids videos a few months ago or the deluge of fake news, we and our society are totally unprepared for the speed and scale that technology now allows. It’s the sheer quantity and pervasiveness - and the fact that it’s not obvious what’s going on - that makes it dangerous.
To (poorly) quote Charlie Stross, we’ve ripped out the mechanisms for how things work and replaced them with something alien, without anyone noticing.
I don't vote, I don't care. Couldn't care less about politics to be quite honest. They have a very marginal influence on my life, aspirations and happiness.
If that's true, that's a pretty handy description of what many US leftists call "privilege." There are many marginalized people, including in developed western nations, for whom the politics you're able to ignore can have decisive impact on their day to day lives. Many of these people, like many people in general, will not have the knowledge of internet technology and policy they need to protect themselves.
> I am not interesting enough that anyone will come for me specifically anyways.
No single raindrop believes it's responsible for the storm.
They don't care about you specifically, if you can profile people accurately they have a much easier time of adjusting perspectives for your own aims. You've likely already seen the results of this with the latest American election.
It's gone far beyond getting you to buy more music and they're just warming up.
This may be okay for you individually. But Facebook will treat someone with bipolar or serious impulse control issues just the same way... Assuming some level of accuracy, an algorithm could predict when someone is having a manic episode, susceptible. Its predatory and dangerous. The vast majority of people are not aware of how to protect themselves from out-of-hand tech giants and their customers. Getting ahead is becoming about how well you can unplug so that you are not being puppeteered. We all need some counter-intelligence know-how.
I suggest, use rational means to work out for yourself what products are best for you and your budget, or on the other hand what political affiliations actualy represent your interests. Figuring out what's real in the world is a big task and only the most vigilant will be okay, or blow the whistle so the average person might be.
>But Facebook will treat someone with bipolar or serious impulse control issues just the same way... Assuming some level of accuracy, an algorithm could predict when someone is having a manic episode, susceptible. Its predatory and dangerous.
And what would they do out of that ? People with poor mental health don't need facebook to be triggered, it seems even less harmful because it's through an interface and not a direct human interaction.
>use rational means to work out for yourself what products are best for you and your budget, or on the other hand what political affiliations actualy represent your interests.
I don't buy stuff mostly, it's an easy solution. And no political affiliations represent the rare interest I have that I think would undoubtedly be good.
Anecdotal but definitely illustrative: a close friend of my mother had serious trouble managing her bipolar states, she would start manic and it got out of control within hours or sometimes minutes. Bye bye meds, and on more than one occasion, she would spend thousands of dollars in days, vacation scams, grocery shopping for things unneeded that sat and spoiled, you name it. She made comprehensive arrangements with friends and the companies she dealt with repeatedly so she couldn't get more than a few dollars pocket money when off cycle. In this regard, my mom was an angel, saved this friend multiple bankruptcies.
Anyone not so fortunate could be so easily scammed its scary. And heart wrenching.
Is state guardianship not possible then ? Or arrangement with the bank ? No credit card, get cash at the bank counter when needed... I really have a hard time seeing this as an unsolvable problem, let alone scary or heart breaking.
I'm sure it might have been, but her kids took the "bail and never have to deal with it again" option, and she honestly had trouble just staying focused enough to have something of a day job, let alone remember to make appointments and keep them.
Not so much heart breaking, but hard to watch from the outside, she meant to live well and tried but her brain chemistry gave her random minuses to intelligence wisdom and charisma.
You're saying you don't mind being profiled and don't see the harm in it, but in several places downthread you describe in detail how little you use the platform, how poorly it understands you, and how little exposure you get to it. If these things are true, you're not a good example of how harmless their profiling is for other people.
Everybody's got something to hide, just not from everybody else. As much as we share with friends what we would not share with strangers, we have things that we would enthusiastically share with strangers that we would never share with our friends. Something similar applies here: everybody would absolutely do mind if someone in their personal sphere could browse their search term history, but the same data as one of billions of profiles on some corporate datacenter does not appear in that threat model. Ultimately, "nothing to hide" is short for "nothing to hide from them", and the main difference is wether the possibility of leaks is taken into account or not.
The flip side to "nothing to hide" is akin to John Hancock signing his name big and bold because you want others to know what "you" think and are doing.
That is not at all the same as not caring. It's using the platform with intent.
I see a lot of that on FB. I don't agree with the intent all the time but I do pay attention to it and often use it with purpose myself.
When people say "I have nothing to hide anyway." ask them about their weirdest sexual fantasy and their credit card number. Usually then they realize they might have somethings they want to keep private.
People care, but assume it's inevitable. The government knows everything about me since I have to pay taxes. Likewise the banks because I have to keep my money somewhere. Likewise my cell provider because I need a phone to participate in society. Social media is not as high on the necessity list, but once you've already accepted this inevitability, how much is going to change if you give up Facebook? There is a downside which is measurable if you value the social contact. The upside is completely abstract and un-measurable. What outcome could you ever point to and say, this thing X happened specifically because I gave up Facebook?
People got so comfortable with ease of being able to reach anyone anywhere and in one place of all places that they have been conditioned to give up all privacy. Today's environment is a heaven for law enforcement agencies, marketing agencies and cybercriminals. It's too easy to manipulate, build profiles and do just about anything with anyone you'd like to Target. One could argue that while technology improves various aspects of our lives it also dumbs us down to the point of being totally numb to sanity.
Maybe ask them how they would feel if a little robot owned by some giant corporation was following them around every day, all day long. And imagine the corporation had similar robots following everyone else around, even children. And tell them the corporation made its money by selling the information it collected to anyone who could pay. And tell them some of the purchasers use the information for various nasty things, like identity theft, And then ask them how they would feel if the robots were invisible, so they didn't realize they were being monitored. And then tell them that is what is actually happening today.
It's very simple. No one will care unless it has a tangible effect on their lives. For that reason, if it does have a tangible effect on peoples' lives, Facebook is doing it wrong.
And this would be the time to revisit John Oliver’s Snowden interview [1]. Specifically at 25:53. Since the topic is surveillance it may be inappropriate to link YouTube. If you haven’t seen it and don’t want to, the gist is people only care when their dickpics gets leaked...
Facebook exploits "bugs" in the human psyche, such as our need to avoid feeling lonely (by sharing intimate details of our life) is far more compelling than any abstract fear of "big brother". That is until big brother is Donald Trump, then suddenly the fear is no longer abstract.
Small quip: the need for social interaction/emotional support is a human trait not a "bug". A bug would imply that this need is somehow undesirable/irrational, but that's just not correct.
Ah what I meant was that prioritizing loneliness over privacy is a kind of a bug; satisfying a more unconscious need over taking conscious decisions to be smart with your own privacy.
Data being public and data being hoarded by an platform with lock in is different. I share plenty of things that I'm perfectly OK being public but that I'd never ever want to give away to a single entity that I don't trust like Facebook.
Not disputing this, but when you say 'we' I think you mean the < 5% (maybe even < 1%) of techies and lawyers and journalists in the world who really really care about their data and privacy.
The rest 95% either don't know, or could care less even if they know. I've told my non-techie fam and friends about data harvesting, privacy, and how facebook tracks everything, only to be ignored or outright ridiculed ("Oh you techies are so paranoid").
Many of my friends in India (where I was raised) and elsewhere used to freely post their phone # and home address on my wall asking me to call them / send them stuff from US. I don't think this 95% population really cares or gives a sh*t.