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Facebook Changes Privacy Tools, Allowing Users To Delete Data

March 28, 2018

Facebook Changes Privacy Tools, Allowing Users To Delete Data

Responding to public and political outrage, on Wednesday morning Facebook announced a reorganization of the privacy settings that users and have long criticized as a seeming afterthought, and which will provide for better privacy data control and make it easier for users to find, download and delete data — changes that come as the company remains embroiled in a global scandal over its handling of user data which has sent its stock into a bear market in the past week. 

The changes include a new “Privacy Shortcuts” menu with written explanations of each relevant option; an “Access Your Information” feature that lets users easily delete individual posts and “likes”; and what’s billed as a streamlined way for users to download all the data Facebook has on them. The new layout will also result in a redesigned menu on mobile devices will have all sections in one single place under settings tab; users will also be able to review what’s been shared and deleted. The company also proposes updates to terms of service and data policy.

“It’s time to make our privacy tools easier to find,” Facebook officials say in a blog post Wednesday detailing the changes, which are unlikely to satisfy critics who want major reforms in the way the social media giant handles the data of its more than 2 billion users.

However, the section that will attract the most interest is the following:

Tools to find, download and delete your Facebook data. It’s one thing to have a policy explaining what data we collect and use, but it’s even more useful when people see and manage their own information. Some people want to delete things they’ve shared in the past, while others are just curious about the information Facebook has. So we’re introducing Access Your Information – a secure way for people to access and manage their information, such as posts, reactions, comments, and things you’ve searched for. You can go here to delete anything from your timeline or profile that you no longer want on Facebook.

The tweaks come a week and a half after the revelation that the Donald Trump-aligned political data firm Cambridge Analytica had obtained information on about 50 million U.S. users before the 2016 election. The resulting outrage in the U.S. and Europe has given new life to long-standing complaints that it’s too difficult for Facebook users to control or know who can view their posts, messages, photos, “likes” and other content.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

Why I Disagree With The Strategy Of Exiting Facebook, Twitter And YouTube

March 21, 2018

Why I Disagree With The Strategy Of Exiting Facebook, Twitter And YouTube

Earlier this month Ben Swann, an important voice for whom I have nothing but respect, expressed a sentiment in one of his excellent Reality Check videos that I’m seeing more and more in anti-establishment circles, and I happen to strongly disagree with it.

In a presentation titled “Internet Purge of Dissenting Voices?” on the recent increase in censorship of anti-establishment voices by large social media corporations, Swann said the following:

The problem for any dissenting voice is that if you are using your voice on someone else’s property, i.e., YouTube or Facebook, you will never have control of it. Which is why the next frontier must be decentralized platforms. Platforms like Dtube and Steemit, built on blockchain, will be future of how content, the good the bad and ugly, will be stored. And the efforts to silence dissenting voices, will actually be the undoing of YouTube and Facebook.”

I disagree not with Swann’s endorsement of decentralized platforms like Dtube and Steemit (which are both excellent and essential weapons in our revolution against the establishment oppression machine), but with Swann’s assertion that the social media giants’ censorship of dissenting voices will be their undoing. It will not.

“2017 was a strong year for Facebook, but it was also a hard one,” saidFacebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg last month. “In 2018, we’re focused on making sure Facebook isn’t just fun to use, but also good for people’s well-being and for society. We’re doing this by encouraging meaningful connections between people rather than passive consumption of content. Already last quarter, we made changes to show fewer viral videos to make sure people’s time is well spent. In total, we made changes that reduced time spent on Facebook by roughly 50 million hours every day.”

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

 

Then Why Is Anyone STILL on Facebook?

March 21, 2018

Then Why Is Anyone STILL on Facebook?

Where’s the panicked rush to “delete” accounts?

Things at Facebook came to a head, following the disclosure that personal data from 50 million of its users had been given to a sordid outfit in the UK, Cambridge Analytica, whose business model is to manipulate elections by hook or crook around the world, and which is now getting vivisected by UK and US authorities.

The infamous “person familiar with the matter” told Bloomberg that the Federal Trade Commission has opened an investigation into whether Facebook violated a consent decree dating back to 2011, when Facebook settled similar allegations – giving user data to third parties without user’s knowledge or consent. Bloomberg:

Under the 2011 settlement, Facebook agreed to get user consent for certain changes to privacy settings as part of a settlement of federal charges that it deceived consumers and forced them to share more personal information than they intended. That complaint arose after the company changed some user settings without notifying its customers, according to an FTC statement at the time.

If Facebook is found to be in violation of the consent decree, the FTC can extract a fine of $40,000 per day, per violation. Given the 50 million victims spread over so many days, this could be some real money, so to speak.

Facebook said in a statement, cited by Bloomberg, that it rejected “any suggestion of violation of the consent decree.” It also said with tone-deaf Facebook hilarity, “Privacy and data protections are fundamental to every decision we make.”

That Facebook is collecting every little bit of personal data it can from its users and their contacts and how they react to certain things, their preferences, their choices, physical appearance – photos, I mean come on  – clues about their personalities, and the like has been known from day one. That’s part of its business model. It’s not a secret.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

 

 

Ye shall know them by their fruits (Matthew 7:16)

February 20, 2018

Ye shall know them by their fruits (Matthew 7:16)

Google eyes

Google eyes

Recently it was my birthday (I’m not going to say what date that was, for reasons which will become clear later) and when I did a Google search, I was surprised to find a “Happy Birthday” greeting from Google, complete with an image of candles.  I didn’t know how Google knew that, but I was busy at the time, I couldn’t be bothered looking into it and I just wrote it off as one of those “weird web” things.

The issue surfaced again more recently in a more sinister form when I tried to delete an online “profile photo” of myself stored in my Google account.  There was nothing particularly sinister about the photo, just a standard head and shoulders shot, but it was out of date and not particularly flattering and I thought “let’s get rid of it then”.  I couldn’t.  I spent an hour trying to delete that photo when it was the Christmas holidays and I had better things to do.  I consider myself a fairly proficient Internet user, but I tried everything I could think of to delete that photo without success.  First I tried following all the obvious links to things like “my account”, “my profile”, “update details”, “images” and so on.  I right clicked and left clicked on the picture and hit the “delete” button many, many times.  I tried to replace it by uploading a neutral landscape photo.  It was very easy to upload a new photo, but impossible to delete the one which was already there: I just found that both photos were then stored in my Google account.  I tried Googling for “how to delete your Google profile photo” and found some instructions, but when I tried to follow them, they didn’t work.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

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