Hacker News Reader

Comment by vivekd | Hacker News Reader

I have a hard time believing Facebook is tracking it's customers through CCTV.

In any case even if they are I still don't care because they're not tracking me. Know why - it's easy, I just don't use Facebook. People who complain about Facebook collecting their information all the while continuing to use Facebook are not victims - they're just complainers.

If stopping it is as simple as logging off forever and people can't even do that, I can only assume that they consent.

People who want the government to step in to prevent something they could prevent by hitting a log off button...I don't even know what to say about that.

Besides even the criticisms don't make sense - eg complaining that they won't say what info they have while at the same time complaining about video tracking. How do you know they have that if you don't know what they have?

View on HN

That's not exactly true. Using tracking pixels and third-party scripts and cookies, it's simple to track you as a unique entity. No logon necessary.

A step further- associating this entity with your identity is trivial with access to additional information. For example, a tagged photo or contact info uploaded by the friend or family member who uses the same networks or devices you do.

Maybe you have yourself sufficiently shielded and have excellent OPSEC. Can you reasonably expect the same from everyone else? Does not having the expertise to be as savvy as you justify being exploited?

Well first if tracking and selling data on non-registered users really is that trivial then the issue isn't Facebook it's every website that could be doing this.

Second more importantly privacy seems to be a watchword for tech people. Maybe people claim to care about the sort of privacy you are talking about when asked but their actions speak different. People use Facebook, google maps, leave location data on on their phones. Obviously people don't value privacy as much as they do having access to certain tech. Sad but that's the world, privacy seems to be a thing of the past.

We can all opt out by not using these services. To the extent that we don't there must be some extent to which we accept and consent to this tracking.

I care because I'm afraid of my government and want to keep myself secure from them. I also realize that's not the average person. My preference for privacy means not using Facebook it doesn't mean I get to control how Facebook does business or how people choose to use it.

My view is that ultimately people have to be responsible for the tech that they use and how they use it. We can't just pass along that responsibility to government or business.

Yeah I really don't care about other people's preferences and actions. I care about the fact that Facebook is stalking me through avenues I don't consent to. I care about privacy. My actions match my preferences. They're creepy stalkers for trying to follow everyone as hard as they try to. I'm not saying government should be involved. I'm saying we should fucking stop inviting adtech workers to Thanksgiving and birthday parties. We should make them outcasts for being creepy fucking stalkers.

People do lots of things in lack of better options. Some things are too big or complex for an individual to change themselves, and people choose the less bad option, and live with the unwanted consequences.

But through democracy, they can elect politicians that can create laws to give authorities tools to assert leverage. This is what we see in action here.

Mine phone number is mine. A friend who has my number in the contact list is not in the position to give consent to the number. They would need consent from the friend to read their contact list, and then consent from each person on the list, before they can legally use their number.

Do you visit websites that have a "share on facebook" button? They're tracking you.

Talk to people who have downloaded Facebook or Instagram to their phones? They're tracking you.

Have someone take a picture of you, even incidentally in the background in public, and post it to Facebook? They're tracking you.

They're literally shameless stalkers who suck up as much data as possible through every possible avenue to do entity resolution to track individuals to the degree they possibly can.

This is mass, corporatized surveillance, and we shouldn't suffer it.

>Have someone take a picture of you, even incidentally in the background in public, and post it to Facebook? They're tracking you

I would agree this is a big deal if it's true but I haven't seen evidence of it being true.

The rest of your arguments ignore the human choice aspect. Facebook didn't come pre-installed on my phone, I don't think it came pre-installed on anyone's.

At the end of the day using Facebook is a choice. Nobody has to have Facebook. I get by fine without it, without instagram, WhatsApp any of it. These are things people willigly choose to use and give their info to.

I think your arguments have weight only if their users are unaware of Facebook selling data to advertisers. You'd have to be living under a rock not to know that in 2023. I mean it's not just a choice it's an informed choice.

I think you’re ignoring things like tracking through share buttons and tracking pixels on third-party sites, which make it impossible for people to block FB’s spying except through extraordinary technical means, and also that Meta has had automatic face and identity detection for photos for a long time.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com