The creepiness that is Facebook

[Nordic]

I find it useful. Avoid all aps no matter what. Trouble is, people you know don't and their info is mined so your info that they have about you goes into the hopper, but they harvest that whether you're on FB or not!

I have my FB customized to feed me so much info from so many sources its sorta like a daily newspaper for me now. Only I get to select the sources that are fed to me.

[Peregrine]

That's actually all there is - no final deletion available.

Apparently there is, it's just an absolute pain in the arse to find it. My cousin had hers permanently deleted & I did have an old, old one that I was able to delete. But again I would not be surprised if they store info about you in some manner, long after you actually get rid of your account.

[Simulist]

That's actually all there is - no final deletion available.

Apparently there is, it's just an absolute pain in the arse to find it. My cousin had hers permanently deleted & I did have an old, old one that I was able to delete. But again I would not be surprised if they store info about you in some manner, long after you actually get rid of your account.

Even if they run out of room, it's comforting to know that new facilities are being built to help hold all that data.

Because it's for our freedom.

[Luther Blissett]

My coworker permanently deleted his fb account, but it wasn't easy, and it required him "hiding" some irretrievable information from himself.

[MinM]

So Target started sending coupons for baby items to customers according to their pregnancy scores. Duhigg shares an anecdote — so good that it sounds made up — that conveys how eerily accurate the targeting is. An angry man went into a Target outside of Minneapolis, demanding to talk to a manager:

“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.

(Nice customer service, Target.)

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.”

What Target discovered fairly quickly is that it creeped people out that the company knew about their pregnancies in advance.

“If we send someone a catalog and say, ‘Congratulations on your first child!’ and they’ve never told us they’re pregnant, that’s going to make some people uncomfortable,” Pole told me. “We are very conservative about compliance with all privacy laws. But even if you’re following the law, you can do things where people get queasy.”

...

So the Target philosophy towards expecting parents is similar to the first date philosophy? Even if you’ve fully stalked the person on Facebook and Google beforehand, pretend like you know less than you do so as not to creep the person out...

http://www.forbes.com/sites/kashmirhill ... ather-did/

viewtopic.php?f=8&t=33241

[justdrew]

Low-wage Facebook contractor leaks secret censorship list
By Stephen C. Webster | Wednesday, February 22, 2012
A secret list curated by social network giant Facebook was published online recently after an employee for one of the company’s third-world contractors, upset at his poor working conditions and meager wage, decided to fight back.

The document reveals exactly what Facebook’s censorship brigade looks for on the social network, which boasts over 850 million users spanning the globe.

Referred to internally as the “bible,” the list prioritizes deletion of materials pertaining to Holocaust denial, breast feeding, graphic nudity, depictions of any sexual fetish, racial slurs and bullying — all of which are unsurprising — but a few of the other entries are raising eyebrows.

Namely, female nipples or even the impressions of nipples under clothing are unacceptable to Facebook censors, whereas male nipples are fine. “Crushed heads” and mutilated limbs are also fine, so long as the person posting such images does not express delight and no internal organs are visible. The list specifically says that on this point, no exceptions would be made for news media.

Also verboten: images of bodily fluids, including ear wax and pus; dead animals; advocacy of violence; advocacy of eating disorders; racial jokes where “the humor is not evident”; and “any photoshopped images of people, whether negative, positive or neutral”; “pixelated or black-barred content showing nudity or sexual activity”; “digital/cartoon nudity”; and images of drunk or sleeping people with “things drawn on their faces.”

All that aside, images depicting marijuana use are fine, unless an individual appears to be growing, buying or selling the drug. “Art nudity” is okay, and so are videos of schoolyard fights — unless the video was posted with the intent to humiliate another user.

The list’s disclosure by gossip blog Gawker marks the first time that the public has been given a glimpse at the inner-workings of the planet’s largest social network.

Facebook has long been criticized by free speech activists for barring images of breast feeding and deleting accounts created by Palestinian resistance groups, but since it is a private company, Facebook is allowed to obstruct virtually any content it wishes.

The list also shines a light on Facebook’s darker underbelly: how it uses third-world laborers to police first-world content.

Amine Derkaoui, the 21-year-old Moroccan who leaked the document, claimed he was hired by a firm Facebook uses to outsource content policing, only to be paid $1 an hour for his efforts.

“They are just exploiting the third world,” he told Gawker.

Facebook’s media relations department did not respond to a request for comment.

Facebook’s application for an initial public offering (IPO) on the U.S. stock markets was valued earlier this month at somewhere between $75 billion and $100 billion, making it the largest IPO request ever. Shares in the company are expected to go up for sale later this year. Facebook said it made over $3.71 billion in 2011, largely from advertising fees.

http://gawker.com/5885714/

[Laodicean]

Court Orders Man To Apologize To Estranged Wife On Facebook

Magistrate Says Apologizing Can Avoid 60-Day Sentence

POSTED: 1:26 pm EST February 22, 2012
UPDATED: 6:10 pm EST February 23, 2012

CINCINNATI -- A Cincinnati man has been ordered to apologize to his estranged wife on Facebook after a post he wrote last year.

Court records indicate that Mark Byron was found guilty of civil domestic violence against Elizabeth Byron in June 2011, and Elizabeth Byron was granted a temporary protection order.

The records indicate that Mark Byron posted a comment to his Facebook wall in late November that stated, "If you are an evil, vindictive woman who wants to ruin your husband's life and take your son's father away from him completely -- all you need to do is say that you're scared of your husband or domestic partner and they'll take him away!"

Mark Byron said it was frustration over his upcoming divorce and child visitation that led to his posting on the social media site.

"I post on Facebook to vent things. I liken it to having a drink in a bar with a friend and telling them how I feel. On Facebook, you do it on a larger scale, and people interested can say something about it, but if they are not interested, they don't," Mark Byron said Wednesday.

Even though Mark Byron said his wife is blocked from his Facebook page, she somehow saw a picture he posted on his page and read comments from friends.

Elizabeth Byron filed a motion after the post was made, stating that the post violated the protection order, which prohibited Mark Byron "from causing plaintiff or the child of the parties to suffer physical and/or mental abuse, harassment, annoyance or bodily injury."

Mark Byron, a photographer, said his wife painted an unfair picture of him to a domestic relations court.

On Jan. 25, magistrate Paul Meyers ruled that Mark Byron violated the protection order and sentenced him to 60 days in jail and a $500 fine.

But Meyers said Mark Byron could avoid the sentence by paying back child support and posting an apology, written into the order by Meyers, to his Facebook page for 30 days beginning Feb. 13.

Meyers ruled that Byron could not shut down his page during those 30 days and had to grant friend status to his wife or someone of her choosing to monitor the page.

"On one hand, the court wants to stop me from saying something on Facebook, and then it's telling me I have to (post) the prewritten apology," Mark Byron said.

Lawyer Jill Meyer, of Frost Brown Todd Attorneys, said the case may make national headlines because social media are still so new.

"What the court said about the notion of preventing somebody from speaking or compelling somebody to speak raises some constitutional First Amendment issues," Meyer said.

Mark Byron said he just wants freedom of speech and to see his son more often.

"We have right to free speech, but we can't just say anything. There are certain limitations," Meyer said.

http://www.wlwt.com/news/30517471/detai ... z1nK0XiQei

[Hammer of Los]

...

60 days and a $500 fine for posting something mean about one's wife?

Sounds a trifle harsh.

...

[Byrne]

Here's How Facebook Gives You Up To The Police

The Boston Phoenix has a fascinating story up about the unusually tech-centric hunt for Craigslist Killer. In the course of reporting, the paper's reporters came across something they, and the general public, had never seen before: The full results of a Facebook subpoena.

This is what Facebook sends to the police when they (or rather, a judge) asks nicely enough (view the entire file here):

A lot of paper


Three months of Facebook data, in this case, adds up to 71 printed pages

All your wall posts and shares


This is obvious, since these are more or less public anyway. Also, the subpoena was executed before Facebook Timeline and News Feed came out. A file compiled today would probably be a lot longer (and harder to read).

All your friends (and enemies)


The file contains a list of the friends you still have as well as the ones you've deleted. Facebook, like a lot of web services, has a full memory of all your actions — the friends, the unfriends, the likes, the shares. Facebook is a million little bells that you can't unring, at least as far as police investigations go.

All your photos


Public, private and even deleted.

Your entire Facebook browsing history


When you click on someone's profile, it's logged. Other Facebook users don't know you're looking at their profiles, but Facebook itself most assuredly does. Or rather can, if the police come asking.

This is far from the first subpoena Facebook has cooperated with, just the first we've been able to look at. Here's what the site says about its policies for cooperating with law enforcement:


We work with law enforcement where appropriate and to the extent required by law to ensure the safety of the people who use Facebook. We may disclose information pursuant to subpoenas, court orders, or other requests (including criminal and civil matters) if we have a good faith belief that the response is required by law. This may include respecting requests from jurisdictions outside of the United States where we have a good faith belief that the response is required by law under the local laws in that jurisdiction, apply to users from that jurisdiction, and are consistent with generally accepted international standards.


View the entire file at the Boston Phoenix's website.

Source: blog.thephoenix.com

[Simulist]

Google: Internet Freedom Faces Greatest Threat Ever
- Common Dreams staff

In an recent interview, Google Co-founder Sergey Brin told The Guardian that internet openness and universal access are under immediate attack by "very powerful forces that have lined up against the open internet on all sides and around the world". "I am more worried than I have been in the past," he said. "It's scary."

The threat to the internet as we know it comes "from a combination of governments increasingly trying to control access and communication by their citizens, the entertainment industry's attempts to crack down on piracy, and the rise of 'restrictive' walled gardens such as Facebook and Apple, which tightly control what software can be released on their platforms," The Guardian reports.


Sergey Brin Google co-founder
(Photo: Justin Sullivan/Getty Images)

In the interview Brin alludes to the reach of the US government, telling how Google is forced to hand over data and is restricted from notifying users that their privacy has been breached.

* * *

The Guardian: Web freedom faces greatest threat ever, warns Google's Sergey Brin

Brin said he and co-founder Larry Page would not have been able to create Google if the internet was dominated by Facebook. "You have to play by their rules, which are really restrictive," he said. "The kind of environment that we developed Google in, the reason that we were able to develop a search engine, is the web was so open. Once you get too many rules, that will stifle innovation."

He criticised Facebook for not making it easy for users to switch their data to other services. "Facebook has been sucking down Gmail contacts for many years," he said. [...]

He reserved his harshest words for the entertainment industry, which he said was "shooting itself in the foot, or maybe worse than in the foot" by lobbying for legislation to block sites offering pirate material.

He said the Sopa and Pipa bills championed by the film and music industries would have led to the US using the same technology and approach it criticised China and Iran for using. The entertainment industry failed to appreciate people would continue to download pirated content as long as it was easier to acquire and use than legitimately obtained material, he said. [...]

Brin acknowledged that some people were anxious about the amount of their data that was now in the reach of US authorities because it sits on Google's servers. He said the company was periodically forced to hand over data and sometimes prevented by legal restrictions from even notifying users that it had done so.

LINK

[elfismiles]

FFS!!!

Federal Judge: Facebook 'Like' Button Not Protected by 1st Amendment
Alex Marinin

As it turns out, "liking" someone or something on Facebook is not protected by the First Amendment.

Virginia District Court Judge Raymond Jackson ruled that Facebook’s popular "like" button is not a form of constitutionally protected speech after a case in which a local sheriff fired six of his employees for "liking" the Facebook page of one of his political opponents.

The 2009 case, in which Hampton, Va., Sheriff B.J. Roberts fired six of his employees for “hindering the harmony and efficiency of the office” as they were supporting retired chief deputy Jim Adams (his political opponent) by "liking” him on Facebook and attending a barbeque fundraiser on his behalf, made it to federal court as Bobby Bland, Daniel Carter, David Dixon, Robert McCoy, John Sandhofer and Debra Woodward sued Sheriff Roberts for allegedly violating their First Amendment rights.

But Judge Jackson disagreed with them, opining that “liking" a Facebook page does not qualify as protected speech since the popular blue button is an "insufficient" form of expression that doesn't merit constitutional protection (unlike Facebook posts which are actual statements that exist "in the record").

However, not everybody agrees with the controversial decision which could soon be appealed potentially reaching the heights of the United States Supreme Court.

"A communicative act is a form of free speech and while clicking "like" on Facebook is a minimal act, it is a form of communication thus protected under the First Amendment," said constitutional attorney and law professor Bruce Rogow who believes that even "a simple mouse click" (or smartphone 'tap') is a legitimate way of conveying a message to others.

The incident raises a host of new legal issues in the still young but increasingly popular world of social media, where most users feel that "liking" something on Facebook or retweeting someone on Twitter equates to an endorsement. That's why more and more Twitter users warn in their bios that "tweets are not endorsements."

But the dynamics of Facebook are different, and liking someone on the wildly popular social network could be interpreted as being a die-hard fan of a particular brand, celebrity or politician; and though Mark Zuckerberg's company considered at some point introducing variables such as this user "watched this video" or that user "listened to that song" the marketing potential of the now controversial "like" blue button is too tempting to change it at this point (especially when the company readies for a $100 billion IPO which could make Zuckerberg the world's richest millenial).

http://www.policymic.com/articles/8013/ ... -amendment

[crikkett]

...

60 days and a $500 fine for posting something mean about one's wife?

Sounds a trifle harsh.

...

Guys like that don't do subtle.

[Laodicean]

Facebook’s iconic IPO, the fifth largest ever got listed and then sank like a stone. It now appears that small US investors have unwittingly been made fools of by the media, the company and intermediaries. For Indian IPO investors, all this too familiar

The Facebook IPO is now looking like a scam and fit for SEC (Securities and Exchange Commission) investigation according to market expert-turned writer Henry Blodget, who himself was in the thick of the last internet scam. Apparently, in what is called “selective dissemination” of Facebook’s future earnings, its lead underwriters, namely Morgan Stanley, JP Morgan (who had recently lost $2 billion) and Goldman Sachs, had warned its institutional clients ahead of its IPO that Facebook earnings would be dampened down a bit. In other words, the small investors did not know what the big investors knew, and were put at a severe disadvantage, without them even knowing about it. According to Henry Blodget, “selective dissemination” of this sort could be a direct violation of securities laws. Irrespective of its legality, it is also grossly unfair. It is interesting to note that Blodget was part of a similar deal, back in 2000, during the heydays of the internet bubble. He has since been debarred from the securities market, but has been vocal against this scam that is unravelling and shaking up America.

Ironic, that it has all the ills of a process that has ultimately alienated small investors in India, something that Moneylife has been pointing out. In this case, the media was hyping the IPO up for months what with talk of hackathons—where Facebook techies wearing hoods conducts coding sessions to develop applications. Like Google, its hackathons have attracted hundreds of programmers, eager to earn their riches (and be the next Mark Zuckerberg), by developing applications and software for its platform that will garner more users. The media showcased this so called “cool culture” that is part of the Silicon Valley, and advertisers saw the potential of Facebook as a platform.

With so much frenzy that surrounded Facebook, pundits were talking about future earnings estimates reaching billions of dollars, increased user base and such. Obviously, this hype was designed to lure retail investors. The lead underwriters and Facebook gathered enough momentum during the IPO roadshows and hackathons. 

On 9 May 2012, it released what is called S-1 filing with the SEC, to reflect lower future estimates. Theoretically, this should reflect on its IPO pricing. However, Morgan Stanley and Facebook did not revise their IPO price in the light of this event, having garnered enough retail investors for institutions to dump institutional investors’ shares on the opening day.

So what happened on the opening day? The stock opened, zoomed up, and the biggies dumped their shares on hapless retail investors who knew little about the revised future estimates.

In the light of these discoveries, the stock crashed. Many retail investors are holding the stock which is now way below its IPO price. It now appears that the big guys sold out making millionaires of even those who have joined Facebook after 2009 and make Bono richer by $1.5 billion. Facebook’s founder, Mark Zuckerberg coldly sold 30.2 million shares and director Peter Thiel sold 16.8 million shares according to securities filings, making them insanely rich.

It is also pertinent to note that Nasdaq, the exchange, also had a role to play. Apparently, its systems were inundated with so called high-frequency traders, that its system could not accommodate the small investors’ orders and such. It was virtually overrun by robots. Its software designs effectively accommodated high frequency traders who trade on ultra-expensive automated software with “premium feeds” to Nasdaq’s latest quotes. The small broker, who represents the small investor, saw delay in its orders parsing through. At time of writing this article, Morgan Stanley has been subpoenaed over the IPO and the SEC will ‘review’ the Facebook IPO.

While the details differ, all this eerily similar to the Indian IPO scene in one respect: Short-changing the retail investors. From hyped-up Reliance Power to dozens of public sector companies that are underwatrer, IPOs repeatedly made suckers of India small investors.

We have been writing never to invest in an IPO unless the rules change. The current rules are loaded against individual investors. IPOs are done at a price and time chosen by the promoter/investment banker. The Securities and Exchange Board of India (SEBI) and the exchanges have an hand-off policy about the IPO quality since we have adopted a disclosure-based regime under which if you disclose the worst of negatives, it fine. This does not help investors at all. In this case, it was Morgan Stanley and Facebook who called the shots and kept the retail investors in the dark. Earlier, we had a series on IPO crackdown by SEBI. But simply fining and debarring the culprits is not enough. SEBI needs to change the rules and make it investor friendly, especially for the small investor. 

Frankly, all this will keep repeating in both India and the US, unless policymakers step in but they don’t even seem to understand the process. It is this lack of understanding of the market process that has led to the Indian government formulating foolish schemes like Rajiv Gandhi Equity Savings Scheme, which we had earlier pointed out that it will leave small investors cold and alienated Budget measures will leave small investors cold. Nobody in the opposition has understood its implication either.

Policymakers are living in the world of their own. A good example is the recent announcement by the current expenditure secretary who was the former disinvestment secretary. He grandly announced that government companies have now been told to raise money from the public. The idea, like Facebook, is the same: if you can’t raise capital elsewhere, make an ass of the retail investors. After decades of such abuse, retail investor population is shrinking in India. Even in the US, investors’ involvement in equity market is the lowest in decades. Sadly, regulators in both the countries don’t get it.

http://www.moneylife.in/article/faceboo ... 25880.html

[Marie Laveau]

That's actually all there is - no final deletion available.

Apparently there is, it's just an absolute pain in the arse to find it. My cousin had hers permanently deleted & I did have an old, old one that I was able to delete. But again I would not be surprised if they store info about you in some manner, long after you actually get rid of your account.

Even if they run out of room, it's comforting to know that new facilities are being built to help hold all that data.

Because it's for our freedom.

I have permanently deleted two separate accounts. It is a pain to find. Just google the instructions.

I now have an account (my kids insisted I get back on because of the PHOTOGRAPHS....) and I cannot get into it! I only use one password for the thing, so why I can't get in, I don't know.

It doesn't matter, however. Supposedly, even if you permenantly delete your account they still keep the info in a database.

[Belligerent Savant]

.



http://gawker.com/5912419/the-facebook- ... acebookipo

The Facebook IPO Was an Inside Joke


Facebook's stock continues to suck harder than a Northwestern University freshman on a 5-foot bong in his profile pic. And the fallout from the most hyped IPO in history bursts not just the illusion that Facebook is actually worth $100 billion, but the idea that Facebook is different than any other corporation hell-bent on making as much money as possible for a handful of very wealthy people.

The lead-up to last Friday's Facebook IPO was an orgy of web 2.0 populism. Started by a Harvard undergrad in his dorm room, Facebook was poised to become the largest tech IPO ever. And its value stemmed from our stuff—our status updates, pictures and pokes! This was the major driver of the outlandish hype surrounding Facebook's IPO; the sense that the public would finally get a chance to share in the spectacular success of the company we helped build.

It seemed like the entire planet was going public, as journalists rushed to interview random Facebook users for their thoughts, as if they mattered. People who never made it past the paywall of the Wall Street Journal followed the Facebook stock debut on Friday like the score in an NBA game. And this is because when Facebook was listed, our own lives were literally put on sale; in fixating on Facebook's ever-climbing valuation we were obsessing over ourselves. There was almost a bit of Occupy Wall Street about the whole thing—the public offering of the 99%.

Now, as Facebook's stock falls for a third straight day it's clear we weren't worth as much as a lot of people thought. But the details behind the deal also also make it clear that ordinary people will never meaningfully share in Facebook's vast success, no matter where the needle on the Wall Street Journal's awful Mark Zuckerberg Wealth-Tracking Widget finally lands.

It turns out that the insiders who did the Facebook deal withheld some important information that showed it wasn't such a good deal after all. Analysts at three of the major underwriters, including Morgan Stanley and Goldman Sachs, significantly reduced their forecasts for Facebook's revenues just before the IPO, according to Reuters. They did not widely publicize this information via, say, a Facebook status update. They quietly shared it with their buddies at hedge funds and other big investment firms, many of whom cut back on their investments accordingly. Meanwhile, the general public continued to froth at ever-climbing valuations.

"Facebook was whispering in the ears of the lead managers of its investment banks, on the understanding that the results of those whispers would remain available only to select clients until after the IPO was over," writes Reuters' Felix Salmon. This doesn't seem to be illegal, just shady as hell. (The SEC says it may look into the allegations, which are detailed in full on Business Insider.)

Even without secret tips from their banker buddies, the whole game was rigged in favor of insiders from the start—even more than usual for Wall Street. In the New Yorker, John Cassady explains how major investors had already made huge profits trading Facebook for months on secondary markets before the company went public, rendering the IPO a farce. These investors had already slurped up Facebook's value and moved on before the shit-show began. "Ordinary investors were largely cut out of the wealth-creation process, and well-connected investment firms took their place," writes Cassady.

(Incidentally, now that Facebook's tanking, Morgan Stanley and the other banks that underwrote the deal have a good shot at making a profit by short selling millions of Facebook shares that had been created just for them under an arcane financial move known as the "Greenshoe option." Nice deal, if you can get it.)

These maneuvers show once again that Facebook's lofty ideals are at odds with how it functions in reality. For a company built on sharing and transparency, Facebook's IPO was uniquely private and opaque. For a company which Mark Zuckerberg boasted in a letter to investors "was not originally created to be a company. It was built to accomplish a social mission," Facebook sure as hell acted like a company in helping to enrich insiders at the expense of public investors.

So, Mark Zuckerberg screwed Facebook investors in the IPO like he's screwed Facebook users on privacy. (Hours before the IPO, Facebook was hit with a $15 billion lawsuit over privacy violations.) This would be just a hilarious coincidence, except for the vast amounts of money he's made doing both.

AND

http://gawker.com/facebook-ipo/

Facebook's stock continues to perform more embarrassingly than your grandmother on Facebook. Now Facebook's disastrous IPO has descended, predictably, into a morass of lawsuits as investors scramble to recover their losses. This is so much more fun than marveling at how rich Mark Zuckerberg is!

Facebook shareholders filed a class action lawsuit against Facebook and banks that underwrote the deal, including Morgan Stanley and Goldman Sachs. They're pissed over reports that Facebook hid worrying financial numbers from the public before the IPO, while working with banks to tip off preferred investors. From Reuters:


Shareholders said research analysts at several underwriters had lowered their business forecasts for Facebook during the IPO process, but that these changes were "selectively disclosed by defendants to certain preferred investors" rather than to the public generally.

"The value of Facebook common stock has declined substantially and plaintiffs and the class have sustained damages as a result," the complaint said.

Mark Zuckerberg is named in the lawsuit, which brings the total number of times Zuckerberg has been sued to ~five million.

Meanwhile, an investor in Maryland hit Nasdaq with his own class action lawsuit because a computer glitch screwed up some orders for Facebook stock on Friday. Hey, investor, if a computer cancelled your order you should consider yourself lucky. Go buy a jet ski with the money you didn't lose and forget about it.