Facebook - The beginning of the end...

wayneL said:

Like I said, telling.

But also still irrelevant to the point that Facebook is selective and draconian in who it bans. Going off on a tangent about Breibart doesn't change that.

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Doesn't help that the Turnbull govt is now making policy to force farcebook and telcos to provide conversation, texts and posts of clients under guise of terrorist hunters.

For a so called freedom of choice party, this lot are good at reducing the choices available.

Tisme said:

Doesn't help that the Turnbull govt is now making policy to force farcebook and telcos to provide conversation, texts and posts of clients under guise of terrorist hunters.

For a so called freedom of choice party, this lot are good at reducing the choices available.

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This surprises me and is a challenge...

The issue of terrorism, the grooming of people to join terrorist groups and be part of lone wolf attacks for ISIS etc has been recognised and responded to by authorities.
On a similar note authorites are looking at other extreme (right wing) groups that also attempt to radicalise people by publishing false and inflammatory stories and examining the contacts they make.

On the overall front we can be concerned about Big Brother and the capacity of governments to monitor anything and everything that passes through the internet. Remember Edward Snowden telling us how governments were into everything not just the bad guys (who are always someone else )
https://www.smh.com.au/world/north-...nting-snowden-leak-costs-20180604-p4zj9d.html

basilio said:

Remember Edward Snowden telling us how governments were into everything not just the bad guys (who are always someone else )

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Yep, there have been cases of police officers accessing data for personal reasons, and even if the government doesn't abuse the data, hackers will.

Tisme said:

Doesn't help that the Turnbull govt is now making policy to force farcebook and telcos to provide conversation, texts and posts of clients under guise of terrorist hunters.

For a so called freedom of choice party, this lot are good at reducing the choices available.

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One of the worst in living memory. They really want to lock everyone in a box routine. They even made legal tender illegal.

Get yourself a slow internet connection.

Open up some common websites.

Watch carefully to see what's going on while you wait for them to load (that's why you need the slow connection).

You'll find that what you're waiting for is mostly Facebook and Google on sites completely unrelated to either since most things connect to one or both in some way. Those two have become intertwined with the internet in much the same way as Coles / Woolies are with Australian retail or things like banks, fuel and communications carriers are in your day to day life. Even if you think you're avoiding them in reality you're not.

Smurf1976 said:

Get yourself a slow internet connection.

Open up some common websites.

Watch carefully to see what's going on while you wait for them to load (that's why you need the slow connection).

You'll find that what you're waiting for is mostly Facebook and Google on sites completely unrelated to either since most things connect to one or both in some way. Those two have become intertwined with the internet in much the same way as Coles / Woolies are with Australian retail or things like banks, fuel and communications carriers are in your day to day life. Even if you think you're avoiding them in reality you're not.

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Which is why you should have FB Purity running on top of facebook app

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Facebook Inc said Tuesday it has data sharing partnerships with at least four Chinese companies including Huawei, the world’s third largest smartphone maker, which has come under scrutiny from U.S. intelligence agencies on security concerns.

The social media company said Huawei Technologies Co Ltd HWT.UL, computer maker Lenovo Group, and smartphone makers OPPO and TCL Corp were among about 60 companies worldwide that received access to some user data after they signed contracts to re-create Facebook-like experiences for their users.

Members of Congress raised concerns after The New York Times reported on the practice on Sunday, saying that data of users’ friends could have been accessed without their explicit consent. Facebook denied that and said the data access was to allow its users to access account features on mobile devices.

More than half of the partnerships have already been wound down, Facebook said. It said on Tuesday it would end the Huawei agreement later this week. It is ending the other three partnerships with Chinese firms as well.

Chinese telecommunications companies have come under scrutiny from U.S. intelligence officials who argue they provide an opportunity for foreign espionage and threaten critical U.S. infrastructure, something the Chinese have consistently denied.

“You’re talking about this conspiracy theory that gets passed around, that we listen to what’s going on on your microphone and we use that for ads. We don’t do that,” Mark Zuckeberg said after Senator Gary Peters asked whether Facebook listens to its users, according to the Independent.

Yet, seemingly everyone – Senator Gary Peters and his staff included – has a story that echoes the sentiment expressed in what Mark Zuckeberg dismissed as conspiracy theories; a story about discussing a certain trip, idea, TV show, clothing item, and having an ad pop up on Facebook’s feed the next day, or within a few hours.

A senior security consultant for cybersecurity firm Asterix and former lecturer and researcher at Edith Cowan University, Dr. Peter Henway, recently talked to Vice. According to him, having a Facebook ad effectively referencing your recent conversation pop up in your feed is more than a synchronicity, and more than just a spooky coincidence.

Facebook’s AI, Henway claims, is triggered by certain words and phrases. Just like “hey Siri” triggers Apple’s virtual assistant, certain words trigger Facebook’s mechanisms. Rather, snippets of audio are sent to Facebook servers, from time to time, triggering its AI to process the information, and then serve suitable advertisement.

Mobile apps like Facebook and Instagram, according to Dr. Henway, could have thousands of triggers. An ordinary conversation about needing to buy a clothing item, for instance, could trigger Facebook’s AI. The law, as well as the user agreement, Henway said, allows this, so it is perfectly reasonable to assume that Facebook and other tech companies listen, but there is no way to know for sure.

As Facebook tries to get ahead of public pressure about what the service does and doesn't track about its users, a patent application has emerged which would enable something that the service's detractors have long theorised and feared: silently triggered microphones that keep tabs on Facebook users.

The patent, filed by Facebook in December 2016 and published on June 14 (PDF), emerged this week thanks to its discovery by UK publication Metro. The patent's language revolves specifically around advertisements—Facebook's biggest cash cow—and how a device with an installed app could be triggered by a vague "activation module" to turn on its microphone and listen to how those ads play out in an average home.


Proximity and “blockers”

How exactly would this work? We dove into the patent language to see that Facebook has, at least in this patent's described method, spelled out a specific mic-triggering scenario. Though the company mentions high-frequency sounds as part of the ambient-audio collection process, these sounds aren't what will activate this hypothetical Facebook app's recording feature. (Meaning, the patent doesn't appear to revolve around an always-on mic in your pocket.)

Instead, Facebook's patent spells out a case where smartphones and other "client devices" are connected to a "household broadcasting device" via Bluetooth or another protocol. Based on the patent's language, this could include signing into a Facebook profile on a given set-top box, or it could simply auto-recognize certain broadcasting devices being connected to the same local network without any additional Facebook credentials being supplied. The patent, however, doesn't describe either exact scenario.

Having established this proximity to a broadcasting device, the app in this patent scenario would then "activate the client device to perform actions, such as recording of ambient audio" and that one thing an activated mic might listen for is "an ambient audio signature associated with a sponsored-content item."

The app would then take this recorded ambient noise and analyse it in search of "an audio feature" which is described in many parts of the patent as "a high-frequency modulated sound." This inaudible frequency blip could be brief or persistent, but its purpose is clear: to determine whether or not a broadcast viewer listens to full or at least significant portions of content like advertisements, and to pass that information back to Facebook. One example in the patent mentions analysis of perfectly timed gaps in a high-frequency audio sample, which would specifically tell Facebook that a TV viewer "skipped the [advertisement] by installing a blocker."

Joe Blow said:

Perhaps this Facebook scandal will get more people back on forums, the original social media. I think people are just beginning to realise how much Facebook knows about them and how much of their personal information is being leaked and compromised.

You don't even need to use your real name to participate on a forum, and while I can't speak for all forums, I can say with absolute certainty that the very small amount of personal information that ASF has access to (i.e. registration info and IP address) has never been shared with anyone and never will. Not on my watch anyway.

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I much prefer forums to Facebook. Facebook groups are a poor substitute. I was on a forum that relates to a medical condition I have and last time I visited it they said the forum had closed because there was now an active FB group that had taken its place and they posted a link. The link didn't work and when I checked out groups for that subject there were several and I couldn't determine which was the Australian one (if any were) and which ones were good and or active ones. Gave up in disgust. Vale my useful forum, now I have nothing.

I am on FB mainly to keep up with non-immediate family members, that's really all I use it for. Twitter I am on under a pseudonym just to follow a few sporting teams to get results/updates etc. I like it even less than FB! You can have a decent in depth discussion with anyone on FB or Twitter like you can on a forum.

Miss Hale said:

I much prefer forums to Facebook. Facebook groups are a poor substitute. I was on a forum that relates to a medical condition I have and last time I visited it they said the forum had closed because there was now an active FB group that had taken its place and they posted a link. The link didn't work and when I checked out groups for that subject there were several and I couldn't determine which was the Australian one (if any were) and which ones were good and or active ones. Gave up in disgust. Vale my useful forum, now I have nothing.

I am on FB mainly to keep up with non-immediate family members, that's really all I use it for. Twitter I am on under a pseudonym just to follow a few sporting teams to get results/updates etc. I like it even less than FB! You can have a decent in depth discussion with anyone on FB or Twitter like you can on a forum.

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I agree. While I use Facebook for the purpose for which it was originally intended - to stay connected with friends and family - I have no use for its Groups feature. I have taken a look at some of the ASX groups and they seem to be mostly ramping and petty infighting. "What does everyone think of (insert stock code here)?", "(insert stock code here) is going to fly soon!"

A forum like ASF feels like a resource with useful content that dates back many years that you can search for easily and access at any time. It's a place of stored knowledge. There is no sense of permanency on Facebook. It's there for a moment and then it's gone. But in the end, 99% of it is not worth keeping anyway. It's disposable for good reason, because not much of it has any real value.

I'll stick with forums. I prefer the functionality too.

Too many people on Facebook and Twitter who just want to make zingers with no real debate.

This forum is an example of how it should be done, very few smart a$$es, good levels of discussion and information.

SirRumpole said:

Too many people on Facebook and Twitter who just want to make zingers with no real debate.

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Smart people talking about this, featuring Jordan Peterson for all the fan boys

SirRumpole said:

Too many people on Facebook and Twitter who just want to make zingers with no real debate.

This forum is an example of how it should be done, very few smart a$$es, good levels of discussion and information.

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My God, Twitter is even worse.

It's weird. Fora are far better for discussion in my profession (IMO), yet they struggle, always have done. Our main faceache group has 8,000 members and it has been a boon for sharing intel and knowledge... but dammit, a forum would be so much better.

How much more time do people really want to spend on Facebook anyway? Can't they see what's happening? I don't want Facebook to be the centre of all communication on the internet.

When Facebook started out, it seemed innocuous enough. Keep people connected. Fair enough. Stay in touch with old friends and new without ever leaving your house. It works especially well for the introverts among us. But that's not what Facebook is about. It's about learning everything they can about you, creating a dossier of information more complete than any secret service could ever have. And this is the crazy part... people hand over this information willingly. So who has access to this information? How is it being used? Facebook know everything you've liked, every Facebook page you've looked at, every group you've joined, every post you've clicked on.

I wouldn't want the government knowing this much information about me, so why should I hand it over to Zuckerberg? I don't trust Facebook. Information is power and as Lord Acton once said, "Power corrupts. Absolute power corrupts absolutely."

"We'd like to know a little bit about you for our files. We'd like to help you learn to help yourself. Look around you, all you see are sympathetic eyes. Stroll around the grounds until you feel at home". ~S&G or FB?

They want to control you - pure and simple. And they are smart.

greggles said:

I'll stick with forums. I prefer the functionality too.

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Was going to mention the functionality. FB (and Twitter) drive me nuts because when I check them (probably only every few days) there is so much crap on my news feed that it takes ages to get to anything I actually want to read. Makes it virtually unusable at times.

Miss Hale said:

Was going to mention the functionality. FB (and Twitter) drive me nuts because when I check them (probably only every few days) there is so much crap on my news feed that it takes ages to get to anything I actually want to read. Makes it virtually unusable at times.

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In FB you can turn off notifications for specific people and still keep them as friends, which means their posts won't appear on your newsfeed. I do that for all my teenage relatives and the few adults who use it as a political or religious platform. Every few months I visit their individual timelines to see if anything significant has occurred in their lives.

That gets rid of a lot of cr*p.

bellenuit said:

In FB you can turn off notifications for specific people and still keep them as friends, which means their posts won't appear on your newsfeed. I do that for all my teenage relatives and the few adults who use it as a political or religious platform. Every few months I visit their individual timelines to see if anything significant has occurred in their lives.

That gets rid of a lot of cr*p.

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Yes, I do that already for the same reasons (teenage relies and political crap from some others). It's more others things/institutions I follow. I follow a few sports clubs and the like that I am interested in but there is just too much flimsy stuff they post. Really just want to know if anything really important happens but you just get a lot of tedious crap as well.

The news feed is also sorted on most popular rather than most recent. I want to see the posts in chronological order. You can change this but you have to change it EVERY time you go in and you are not able to change it on your phone at all.