Doing what it says on the tin
December 19, 2017 11:42 AM Subscribe
Facebook would like your faces, please. You might well be asking, "should I be afraid of face recognition technology?"
Well, arguably the time for that has already passed. This rollout is separate from Facebook's recently announced (and roundly mocked) "anti-revenge-porn" tool. Facebook's keeping participation in its face recognition system optional (at least for now), though they have been using selfie captchas for a while.
Awaiting their request to own your firstborn for security reasons...
posted by Alexandra Kitty at 11:46 AM on December 19, 2017
posted by Alexandra Kitty at 11:46 AM on December 19, 2017
i mean, we know zuckerberg likes his hoodies, we should have connected the dots, GOD it's so OBVIOUS
posted by halation at 11:49 AM on December 19, 2017 [1 favorite]
posted by halation at 11:49 AM on December 19, 2017 [1 favorite]
Coming soon: Facebook will refrain from sending embarrassing or incriminating information and media it has amassed about you to your employers, customers, colleagues family, friends, or lovers for a monthly fee.
posted by Sangermaine at 11:50 AM on December 19, 2017 [11 favorites]
posted by Sangermaine at 11:50 AM on December 19, 2017 [11 favorites]
> What this has suddenly and inexplicably made me think of.
And here's my interpretation.
posted by I-Write-Essays at 11:52 AM on December 19, 2017 [1 favorite]
And here's my interpretation.
posted by I-Write-Essays at 11:52 AM on December 19, 2017 [1 favorite]
I hope that's not too... on the nose.
posted by I-Write-Essays at 11:53 AM on December 19, 2017
posted by I-Write-Essays at 11:53 AM on December 19, 2017
The Google Photos face recognition just spit out an amazingly well composed "now and then" picture pair featuring my daughter and her granddad a few months ago and now. Admittedly having a toddler means I'm constantly feeding it lots of data to draw from, but if you'd asked me to put it together I'd have hard pressed to do that good a job.
So when we're all living in the police state, try to reflect on how fucking trifling the benefits were.
posted by Bulgaroktonos at 12:07 PM on December 19, 2017 [5 favorites]
So when we're all living in the police state, try to reflect on how fucking trifling the benefits were.
posted by Bulgaroktonos at 12:07 PM on December 19, 2017 [5 favorites]
Just don't use Facebook. It will definitely store all kinds of data on you if you don't and proactively blocking it and telling your friends to block it is wise. But any possible benefits that you have or think you have from it are far outweighed by the negatives. The brigade of commenters who will inevitably appear here and say, "When I was a young kid and had no community, I found one on Facebook in punk music/cross-stitch/skateboarding/etc." have a compelling anecdote but they probably would have found something else and that something else probably wouldn't have been an evil empire. Just stop using Facebook and Twitter (and Apple, Google, Amazon, and Microsoft).
posted by koavf at 12:18 PM on December 19, 2017 [4 favorites]
posted by koavf at 12:18 PM on December 19, 2017 [4 favorites]
Just stop using Facebook and Twitter (and Apple, Google, Amazon, and Microsoft).Ah yes, I'll just get my mother, who has "how to use the printer (step one: make sure it's plugged in)" and "how to attach pictures to an email" instructions handwritten in her personal spiral notebook and restarts her entire browser every time she wants to go to a new website despite my having explained to her a million times that this is quite unnecessary and can't even figure out how to change the time on her stove clock so that every time I visit her after a DST-related change I have to change it for her, to install Linux.
posted by inconstant at 12:25 PM on December 19, 2017 [12 favorites]
Welp, time for my usual routine every time Facebook does something awful: double check that my settings are clamped down, unfriend a few more people, leave a few more groups, and delete a few more photo albums. I'd estimate I've got about a year to go before I can just delete my account with a minimum of fuss.
posted by jedicus at 12:29 PM on December 19, 2017 [3 favorites]
posted by jedicus at 12:29 PM on December 19, 2017 [3 favorites]
delete a few more photo albums
I deleted all my facebook photos of my face, but it wouldn't surprise me to learn that they're not really gone, and that facebook is storing them, neatly tagged, in its gigantic corporate hellcloud.
posted by JanetLand at 12:33 PM on December 19, 2017 [12 favorites]
I deleted all my facebook photos of my face, but it wouldn't surprise me to learn that they're not really gone, and that facebook is storing them, neatly tagged, in its gigantic corporate hellcloud.
posted by JanetLand at 12:33 PM on December 19, 2017 [12 favorites]
Just don't use Facebook.
I am starting to think that's what I will end up doing. That, and Twitter. I can be the technophile who rejects all social media except Ello.
Can we just skip the Internet can create a fifth medium?
posted by Alexandra Kitty at 12:57 PM on December 19, 2017
I am starting to think that's what I will end up doing. That, and Twitter. I can be the technophile who rejects all social media except Ello.
Can we just skip the Internet can create a fifth medium?
posted by Alexandra Kitty at 12:57 PM on December 19, 2017
Just don't use Facebook.
I also do not have a TV.
Look, FB sucks in many ways, but really - I mostly use it as an inexpensive offsite backup of photos I don't want to lose and as a blog that is semi-private that my mother and my racist uncles can access using accounts I do not have to manage. Facebook doesn't know my deepest, darkest secrets. They know as much as you might glean from dinner party conversation.
I hope for them that their facial recognition has gotten better. A few months ago, it suggested my face in a picture of a rock formation. I know their ad network algorithm sucks and somehow the newsfeed keeps showing me shit I don't care about while refusing to surface things I've commented on.
posted by Pogo_Fuzzybutt at 1:08 PM on December 19, 2017
I also do not have a TV.
Look, FB sucks in many ways, but really - I mostly use it as an inexpensive offsite backup of photos I don't want to lose and as a blog that is semi-private that my mother and my racist uncles can access using accounts I do not have to manage. Facebook doesn't know my deepest, darkest secrets. They know as much as you might glean from dinner party conversation.
I hope for them that their facial recognition has gotten better. A few months ago, it suggested my face in a picture of a rock formation. I know their ad network algorithm sucks and somehow the newsfeed keeps showing me shit I don't care about while refusing to surface things I've commented on.
posted by Pogo_Fuzzybutt at 1:08 PM on December 19, 2017
Gizmodo with an update:
Given that potential creepiness, and our longstanding interest in how People You May Know actually works, a Facebook spokesperson pre-emptively sent us a note about the facial recognition tool.posted by halation at 1:09 PM on December 19, 2017
“Wanted to give you a heads up about an announcement we made this morning. I can also confirm that we do not use this technology in People You May Know.”
If that should change, I am sure Facebook will let us know.
I know their ad network algorithm sucks and somehow the newsfeed keeps showing me shit I don't care about while refusing to surface things I've commented on.Just saw this account today.
posted by inconstant at 1:19 PM on December 19, 2017 [8 favorites]
On the "don't use Facebook" thing: This seems like a clear case for the "least-worst" or "leftmost-available" option. If you don't have to use facebook, don't use it; if you have to use it, minimize your use as much as possible, whatever that looks like for you. For some people, "minimal use" will still, of necessity, be a lot; for some people "minimal use" will be "I check it once a month". Telling people not to use facebook at all obviously doesn't work - many people depend on it for parts of their livelihood, many people have family where the choice is facebook-or-no-contact. But everyone can minimize their use.
Don't click through on things, be aware of how much you comment and on what, try to minimize the number of pictures you are in, untag yourself and ask others to be thoughtful about posting pictures, certainly don't use any of the "convenient" features that facebook is always introducing.
Here is what I bet will happen with Facebook: eventually, everyone will have one facebook account in their real name which will require facial recognition to access and which will be very, very public. This is pretty much what Zuckerberg has always said he wants. It will be justified as a way to crack down on "fake news" and it will be used very intensely against people by employers and the state. I strongly, strongly suggest that people bear this likely outcome in mind when interacting with facebook.
Bear in mind too that Zuckerberg wants to be president, and ask yourself just how dedicated to democracy he has shown himself in the past.
posted by Frowner at 1:24 PM on December 19, 2017 [10 favorites]
Don't click through on things, be aware of how much you comment and on what, try to minimize the number of pictures you are in, untag yourself and ask others to be thoughtful about posting pictures, certainly don't use any of the "convenient" features that facebook is always introducing.
Here is what I bet will happen with Facebook: eventually, everyone will have one facebook account in their real name which will require facial recognition to access and which will be very, very public. This is pretty much what Zuckerberg has always said he wants. It will be justified as a way to crack down on "fake news" and it will be used very intensely against people by employers and the state. I strongly, strongly suggest that people bear this likely outcome in mind when interacting with facebook.
Bear in mind too that Zuckerberg wants to be president, and ask yourself just how dedicated to democracy he has shown himself in the past.
posted by Frowner at 1:24 PM on December 19, 2017 [10 favorites]
The argument that everyone uses it because everyone uses it proves my point. I also have older relatives and they know how mail works—you can write a letter and that actually makes it a lot easier for your not-tech-savvy elderly contacts, so if you really want to do them a favor, disconnect them from this surveillance network entirely and put a card in the mail. It's like some of the Facebook apologists here literally can't understand how things existed prior to 2009. I get the same thing about smartphones: the world got by just fine without them for a long time and any individual would, too. Any benefits of social media are far, far outweighed by the negatives.
posted by koavf at 1:31 PM on December 19, 2017 [3 favorites]
posted by koavf at 1:31 PM on December 19, 2017 [3 favorites]
I'm sorry, I wasn't aware that you could replace Microsoft with snail mail.
posted by inconstant at 1:33 PM on December 19, 2017 [1 favorite]
posted by inconstant at 1:33 PM on December 19, 2017 [1 favorite]
The argument that everyone uses it because everyone uses it proves my point. I also have older relatives and they know how mail works—you can write a letter and that actually makes it a lot easier for your not-tech-savvy elderly contacts, so if you really want to do them a favor, disconnect them from this surveillance network entirely and put a card in the mail. It's like some of the Facebook apologists here literally can't understand how things existed prior to 2009.
I'm old, so I totally see your point, but I think the argument about "what other people use" still holds. For example, if I want to see recent photographs of my far-away little nephews and niece, I *must* use social media. Their parents will not send me photographs in the mail, because social media is how they all talk to one another and they don't see anything wrong with it whatsoever.
posted by JanetLand at 1:38 PM on December 19, 2017
I'm old, so I totally see your point, but I think the argument about "what other people use" still holds. For example, if I want to see recent photographs of my far-away little nephews and niece, I *must* use social media. Their parents will not send me photographs in the mail, because social media is how they all talk to one another and they don't see anything wrong with it whatsoever.
posted by JanetLand at 1:38 PM on December 19, 2017
Just stop carrying a cell phone. It's potentially far more invasive than facebook.
posted by Coventry at 1:50 PM on December 19, 2017
posted by Coventry at 1:50 PM on December 19, 2017
HUFFY PUFFY INDUSTRIES
12/19/2017 404PM
TO: CORTEX META FILTER
FROM: HUFFY PUFFY 901-[ILLEGIBLE]
DEAR CORTEX
IS THERE A WAY TO POST METAFILTER COMMENTS VIA FAX
PAGE 1 OF 1
posted by Huffy Puffy at 2:06 PM on December 19, 2017 [15 favorites]
12/19/2017 404PM
TO: CORTEX META FILTER
FROM: HUFFY PUFFY 901-[ILLEGIBLE]
DEAR CORTEX
IS THERE A WAY TO POST METAFILTER COMMENTS VIA FAX
PAGE 1 OF 1
posted by Huffy Puffy at 2:06 PM on December 19, 2017 [15 favorites]
Beep beep beep, oh no heavy, the coins keep coming out, beep beep beep, even the telephone hates me, beep beep beep, I wish there were no machines, and everyone led a pastoral existence, trees and flowers don't deliberately cool you out and go beep in your ear.
posted by petebest at 2:18 PM on December 19, 2017 [2 favorites]
posted by petebest at 2:18 PM on December 19, 2017 [2 favorites]
Artist Max Karpsten gives us Superman in the age of facial recognition: Want to tag Clark Kent?
posted by DirtyOldTown at 2:26 PM on December 19, 2017 [7 favorites]
posted by DirtyOldTown at 2:26 PM on December 19, 2017 [7 favorites]
Facebook reliably tags me as my mother, so there's that.
posted by Stewriffic at 2:41 PM on December 19, 2017 [1 favorite]
posted by Stewriffic at 2:41 PM on December 19, 2017 [1 favorite]
DEAR CORTEX
IS THERE A WAY TO POST METAFILTER COMMENTS VIA FAX
i initially read this as 'metafilter comments via wax' and if we are bringing cerae back i just want to say i am here for it
posted by halation at 2:54 PM on December 19, 2017 [2 favorites]
IS THERE A WAY TO POST METAFILTER COMMENTS VIA FAX
i initially read this as 'metafilter comments via wax' and if we are bringing cerae back i just want to say i am here for it
posted by halation at 2:54 PM on December 19, 2017 [2 favorites]
What this has suddenly and inexplicably made me think of.
More prior art from cinema.
posted by peeedro at 3:03 PM on December 19, 2017
More prior art from cinema.
posted by peeedro at 3:03 PM on December 19, 2017
The most important link: how do I turn this off.
I can't turn it off because the item they mention doesn't appear in my settings. Woo. I sure did turn off a lot of other stuff while I was poking around there, though.
posted by egypturnash at 3:17 PM on December 19, 2017 [3 favorites]
I can't turn it off because the item they mention doesn't appear in my settings. Woo. I sure did turn off a lot of other stuff while I was poking around there, though.
posted by egypturnash at 3:17 PM on December 19, 2017 [3 favorites]
I'll be excited about Social Media and Image Recognition when they stop worrying about how to identify a face from any angle, and start working on much simpler problems; like how to identify a swastika or a pepe.
posted by Xyanthilous P. Harrierstick at 6:59 PM on December 19, 2017 [6 favorites]
posted by Xyanthilous P. Harrierstick at 6:59 PM on December 19, 2017 [6 favorites]
Powered by the same technology we’ve used to suggest friends you may want to tag in photos or videos...
So it has an 18% accuracy rate then?
posted by Foosnark at 7:11 AM on December 20, 2017
So it has an 18% accuracy rate then?
posted by Foosnark at 7:11 AM on December 20, 2017
Facebook reliably tags me as my mother, so there's that.
Cheer up, that's likely due to a psychological experiment that they're performing on you.
posted by jonnay at 5:43 AM on December 21, 2017 [1 favorite]
Cheer up, that's likely due to a psychological experiment that they're performing on you.
posted by jonnay at 5:43 AM on December 21, 2017 [1 favorite]
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posted by EmpressCallipygos at 11:46 AM on December 19, 2017 [1 favorite]