FTC on Facebooks disabling accounts at NYU’s Ad Observatory:
"While it is not our role to resolve individual disputes between Facebook and third parties, we hope that the company is not invoking privacy–much less the FTC consent order–as a pretext to advance other aims"
They are and it's already proven they did that before, shutting down APIs ostensibly to protect consumer privacy but actually doing it for monopolistic reasons (as internal emails disclosed)
I'm probably reading too much into this letter[0]. They said they couldn't act because they were a third party. If you file a complaint, any complaint, they wouldn't be. They didn't need to write a letter for something that's already corrected. I think they did because they want something they can act upon.
It seems like it's spaghetti argument time, ie. throw everything against a wall and see what sticks.
You could argue that the privacy of people could be violated because the "privacy" of an entity that's public shouldn't that public according to facebook. I know, the weak point is that we can't show what privacy aspect is actually violated, but then we could argue this is reason we should investigate this.
If this was the BCP in my country, I could add other arguments about unfair competition and/or monopoly. But I'm not sure this is the purview of the US version of the BCP.
The FTC/BCP needs to follow certain rules, but this doesn't prohibit them from saying: "Hey, we can kinda work with this sort of argument, especially if you reformulate it like this"
The robots in fb exec staff are programmed to ask for forgiveness over permission when they are in empire defense mode. Letters wont change that programming.
Surely there are countless other cases of Facebook booting users for scraping data, and often for much less. The choice of cases the FTC honchos choose to weigh in on is very odd.
Likely so, though I like the idea that the FTC chose to act in the name of 'public interest' - presumably most scraping is of use only to the scraper and/or their customers?
Amazing how since Facebook became so large they now get attacked on 2 sides of every issue.
1. First the consensus was that Facebook should allow easy data exports
2. Then CA happened and data sharing should be prohibited, now this from the FTC with more flip flopping.
3. Facebook should be E2EE vs the government saying they shouldn't
4. Facebook should moderate content vs not moderate content
These are all complex issues and most of them apply to the internet as a whole.
> Then CA happened and data sharing should be prohibited, now this from the FTC with more flip flopping
Here is a direct quote from the FTC's letter:
"The FTC is committed to protecting the privacy of people, and efforts to shield targeted advertising practices from scrutiny run counter to that mission."
How is this "flip-flopping" by the FTC? The FTC wants to protect the privacy of individuals but has no interest in protecting the privacy of large corporations. That is and has been the stance of the FTC.
The Cambridge Analytica event involved an advertising company exfiltrating data from individuals and their friends (under the guise of a "game") in order to use the data to target new ads.
NYU was explicitly asking individuals to share some information about advertisers (corporations) and was entirely up front about everything.
These two events should not be confused (which is what the FTC is explaining in this letter).
Can you show me the FTC in the past defending the privacy of advertisers?
Facebook's Open Graph platform simply isn’t a personal data export feature. Exporting your profile should reasonably include lists of friends, but shouldn’t include all of your friends info especially to share to a third party without informing you.
End-to-end encryption is not a complex issue. That's what governments would have us believe. The truth is they just don't like how encryption in general subverts their power. That's why it should be standard in every single messaging platform. Consequences be damned.
So some people should be allowed to harvest your data and not others? If you allow it they will sooner or later give access to the wrong firm. People have to perform these checks, API access credentials can fall into the wrong hands.
Im not defending facebook, but obviously bound to go wrong eventually if they allow some apps to scrape the data.
AdObserver does not "harvest your data", unless "you" are an advertiser on Facebook.
Some people are allowed to send you a bill for water and power. Some people are allowed to deliver your mail. Some people are allowed to write you traffic tickets. Others are not.
Every settlement should come with share distributions to individuals and to a trust, and possible even a board seat, until the direction of these corporations is steered by their victims
Will they become part of the machine when economically aligned? Or will they be a formidable voting bloc adding representation before decisions are finalized?
Whoever thinks Facebook or any other social network will change after this is just as naive as to thinking that they own their accounts on the platform. You do not.
They will point you to their 'guidelines' and will suspend you if you trip over their automated account suspension system.
You're free to criticise them, write letters to them, but in the end they will never change.
I thought we collectively agreed that since Facebook is a private entity they can do whatever they want on their platform, and they have no obligation to support these researchers. Why the sudden change of heart?
A very disingenuous comment with a courageous logical leap of faith!
What they can’t do is ban people from their platform and say “the FTC made me do it”, unless the FTC actually made them do it. Since the FTC didn’t actually make them do it, they got a public nastygram from the FTC saying “we didn’t make them do it”.
They have no obligation to support those researchers, but it sure is a bad look blocking them.
To explain my downvote, you are ascribing a perspective to the collective which doesn't match what many of us think. The letter is of interest because it presents the FTC's perspective on this issue, which is surprisingly nuanced. They are affirming that oversight of business practices is important, even when it comes from non-governmental agencies.
A lot of people fail to distinguish between "can" (legally permitted to) and "should" (ethically correct to do).
Legally they don't have any responsibility to these researchers. They can ban anyone. The argument is that they shouldn't ban these people. That's why they're getting a polite letter rather than any kind of legal action.
Ideally (another should) moral considerations would always apply. External shaming comes into play when you've managed to outrage the moral sense of enough people, or powerful enough people. Yes, this does ultimately come down to social approval, but mediated by whether you can make a moral argument that people respect or not.
With regard to every previous argument we've had on here about Facebook banning people, it comes down to approval or not of the content, conduct, or actors being banned. Only the most extreme people argue that you should be able to post goatse to Facebook (not actually illegal!) without them removing it.
A 'private entity' that tries as hard as it can be to be a monopoly of everything and has hundreds of millions (I won't say billions because I don't trust Facebook's own figures) of users that rely on their services
Seriously don't understand why the private company line of argument seems to hold so much sway for some people
Users do not rely on their services. That's similar to saying users rely on Spotify's services. If anyone truly believes that Facebook's services are necessary for society, they'll need to prove it.
Here on HN, we are allowed to disagree with one another in these discussions. I provided some explanation for my position, and you're trying to tell me that I can't disagree with you. If you want me to take your position seriously, you are free to provide some supporting evidence. Telling others "Don't be dismissive" simply because they disagree with you is unproductive.
if one where to look at it this way they would probably be violating tos for automating scrolling ala clickfarms, also the ads being served and impressions counted when its bots is probably also a problem.
Who, AdObserver? I thought they wanted real data from non-robots, Thats why they went through so much trouble to have the browser extension.
I guess I could see an auto-scroller being used to grab ad impressions, and that could count as click fraud… except without clicks what are you left with, “impression fraud”?
"While it is not our role to resolve individual disputes between Facebook and third parties, we hope that the company is not invoking privacy–much less the FTC consent order–as a pretext to advance other aims"