Unfollow Everyone While You Can (Facebook sucks)
October 8, 2021 12:21 PM Subscribe
Facebook Banned Me for Life Because I Help People Use It Less This summer, Facebook sent me a cease-and-desist letter threatening legal action. It permanently disabled my Facebook and Instagram accounts. And it demanded that I agree to never again create tools that interact with Facebook or its other services.
The only way to win is to not play.
posted by AugustWest at 12:57 PM on October 8, 2021 [28 favorites]
posted by AugustWest at 12:57 PM on October 8, 2021 [28 favorites]
I am not surprised that one person and his management team has this much control over how billions of people use the Internet, but I do admit surprise that we continue to give those handful of toxic individuals that level of control.
posted by They sucked his brains out! at 1:36 PM on October 8, 2021 [9 favorites]
posted by They sucked his brains out! at 1:36 PM on October 8, 2021 [9 favorites]
I'm anticapitalist so I say this soberly rather than sneeringly but like... this is what the system is. Why would anyone expect a corporation to allow its own resources be used to undermine its core business model? A meat company's not gonna let me come in and use their photocopier for vegan pamphlets.
posted by dusty potato at 1:40 PM on October 8, 2021 [34 favorites]
posted by dusty potato at 1:40 PM on October 8, 2021 [34 favorites]
This is less like using meat for vegan advertisements and more like a map that shows you shortcuts through IKEA so that you can just go to the section you want.
posted by clawsoon at 1:52 PM on October 8, 2021 [44 favorites]
posted by clawsoon at 1:52 PM on October 8, 2021 [44 favorites]
I'm anticapitalist so I say this soberly rather than sneeringly but like... this is what the system is. Why would anyone expect a corporation to allow its own resources be used to undermine its core business model?
To clarify, the extension in question exists outside of the Facebook app, and automates a feature of Facebook (unfollowing) that any user can manually employ, but probably won't because it's super tedious.
posted by mecran01 at 2:03 PM on October 8, 2021 [11 favorites]
To clarify, the extension in question exists outside of the Facebook app, and automates a feature of Facebook (unfollowing) that any user can manually employ, but probably won't because it's super tedious.
posted by mecran01 at 2:03 PM on October 8, 2021 [11 favorites]
I did it the tedious way a few years ago and the improvement in my life was almost instantaneous. I started following people again back during the pandemic. It may be time to recommit to not following anybody.
posted by COD at 2:15 PM on October 8, 2021 [11 favorites]
posted by COD at 2:15 PM on October 8, 2021 [11 favorites]
And remember, even if you don’t use Facebook, they collect info on you, but through pages that have “share” icons or just by buying your info from data brokers. I left (following Byzantine instructions someone else documented) more than ten years ago and use Privacy Badger and Ublock Origin for the tracking pixels, and tried to get my info out of brokers’ paws, but I’m sure they have a shadow profile of me anyway, probably full of errors.
FBs ad business model actually isn’t great for selling things. Tim Hwang’s book “Subprime Attention Crisis” shows what a house of cards programmatic advertising is. But it works swell for finding susceptible people and getting them into private groups to rile them up. Which makes FB $$$$.
posted by zenzenobia at 2:24 PM on October 8, 2021 [15 favorites]
FBs ad business model actually isn’t great for selling things. Tim Hwang’s book “Subprime Attention Crisis” shows what a house of cards programmatic advertising is. But it works swell for finding susceptible people and getting them into private groups to rile them up. Which makes FB $$$$.
posted by zenzenobia at 2:24 PM on October 8, 2021 [15 favorites]
Every few years I start to think I should have a Facebook account just to check in on someone/group or other. Then a story like this inevitably pops up...
posted by ChurchHatesTucker at 2:48 PM on October 8, 2021 [7 favorites]
posted by ChurchHatesTucker at 2:48 PM on October 8, 2021 [7 favorites]
I wonder how long it's going to take for Facebook to realize that the combination of eyeballs and money that it's getting give it a social obligation to become a responsible news organization.
(Same for Google.)
posted by clawsoon at 2:54 PM on October 8, 2021 [1 favorite]
(Same for Google.)
posted by clawsoon at 2:54 PM on October 8, 2021 [1 favorite]
how long is an infinitely-long piece of string?
posted by rifflesby at 3:00 PM on October 8, 2021 [8 favorites]
posted by rifflesby at 3:00 PM on October 8, 2021 [8 favorites]
i have recently learned that to suggest for others not to use facebook so much is the same as being a serial-murderer and terrorist unabomber
uh huh
posted by sock poppet at 3:02 PM on October 8, 2021 [7 favorites]
uh huh
posted by sock poppet at 3:02 PM on October 8, 2021 [7 favorites]
Permabans are unfortunately not limited to Bookface, so consider pushing back on services/organizations that require 3rd party logins or don't have a good answer for migrating users to another method.
Also I should say something positive about Bookface for once, lemme see what happened today -- ah here it is -- Facebook will now ban the sale of protected Amazon rainforest land on Marketplace
posted by RobotVoodooPower at 3:03 PM on October 8, 2021 [3 favorites]
Also I should say something positive about Bookface for once, lemme see what happened today -- ah here it is -- Facebook will now ban the sale of protected Amazon rainforest land on Marketplace
posted by RobotVoodooPower at 3:03 PM on October 8, 2021 [3 favorites]
Pulitzer and Hearst eventually got around to realizing it. Eventually. So there's a chance.
posted by clawsoon at 3:03 PM on October 8, 2021
posted by clawsoon at 3:03 PM on October 8, 2021
Most news organizations don't even feel a social obligation to become responsible news organizations.
posted by ryanrs at 3:04 PM on October 8, 2021 [8 favorites]
posted by ryanrs at 3:04 PM on October 8, 2021 [8 favorites]
Most news organizations don't even feel a social obligation to become responsible news organizations.
It's expensive to do, and they don't have the money for it anymore.
posted by clawsoon at 3:05 PM on October 8, 2021 [4 favorites]
It's expensive to do, and they don't have the money for it anymore.
posted by clawsoon at 3:05 PM on October 8, 2021 [4 favorites]
It's like the administration of Franklin Pierce let the penny press consortium to install a telegraph in almost every house to tap out current events. Kansas/ Nebraska, were do you stand. The carriage maker press is cool but to many discussions on whip sockets. Admiral Perry in Japan: discuss!
posted by clavdivs at 4:06 PM on October 8, 2021 [7 favorites]
posted by clavdivs at 4:06 PM on October 8, 2021 [7 favorites]
I guess I don't use Facebook enough to understand because I don't quite get the point.
Isn't the News Feed the entire point of Facebook?
You log on, scroll through some baby pictures, an family photo that someone scanned, maybe a post about a workout.
Why would you login if you didn't want to see that?
posted by madajb at 4:53 PM on October 8, 2021 [1 favorite]
Isn't the News Feed the entire point of Facebook?
You log on, scroll through some baby pictures, an family photo that someone scanned, maybe a post about a workout.
Why would you login if you didn't want to see that?
posted by madajb at 4:53 PM on October 8, 2021 [1 favorite]
Churchhatestuck..
"Every few years I start to think I should have a Facebook account just to check in on someone/group or other. Then a story like this inevitably pops up..." I have certainly never done something so distasteful, but if someone redacts/edits their DL/ID and sends it along, most Facebook employees never press for further information. They just want their data snack.
posted by firstdaffodils at 5:09 PM on October 8, 2021
"Every few years I start to think I should have a Facebook account just to check in on someone/group or other. Then a story like this inevitably pops up..." I have certainly never done something so distasteful, but if someone redacts/edits their DL/ID and sends it along, most Facebook employees never press for further information. They just want their data snack.
posted by firstdaffodils at 5:09 PM on October 8, 2021
If he'd be personally liable for FB's legal costs, could some other entity take over ownership and liability like this, or does the UK legal system always insist on punishing a human (rather than a LLC/organization) if a corporation wins a suit?
It's tempting to just find a volunteer human with no assets, maybe with limited life expectancy, to take the legal risk, if that's even possible.
posted by amtho at 5:40 PM on October 8, 2021 [2 favorites]
It's tempting to just find a volunteer human with no assets, maybe with limited life expectancy, to take the legal risk, if that's even possible.
posted by amtho at 5:40 PM on October 8, 2021 [2 favorites]
Facebook can ban anyone they want, for whatever reason, TOS or no. It's their frat party, IDGAF. But what is their legal standing?
I haven't seen the source code, but from descriptions it sounds like this extensions basically saves you the effort of clicking a bunch of things. It's not doing anything you can't already do on the site.
So the big takeaway for me (besides it's time to nuke that zombie profile once and for all) is that it's infuriating and unfortunate that you can't automate your own browser without fear of being destroyed by lawyers.
And yeah, Facebook as we know it cannot be long for this world, and good riddance. I feel like we are a few Streisand effects away from seeing a mass exodus, if not of actual accounts, then of eyeballs.
But what worries me is the precedent here, that other companies can and will bully people into giving up control of their personal devices. (Oh, wait...)
posted by swift at 7:23 PM on October 8, 2021 [2 favorites]
I haven't seen the source code, but from descriptions it sounds like this extensions basically saves you the effort of clicking a bunch of things. It's not doing anything you can't already do on the site.
So the big takeaway for me (besides it's time to nuke that zombie profile once and for all) is that it's infuriating and unfortunate that you can't automate your own browser without fear of being destroyed by lawyers.
And yeah, Facebook as we know it cannot be long for this world, and good riddance. I feel like we are a few Streisand effects away from seeing a mass exodus, if not of actual accounts, then of eyeballs.
But what worries me is the precedent here, that other companies can and will bully people into giving up control of their personal devices. (Oh, wait...)
posted by swift at 7:23 PM on October 8, 2021 [2 favorites]
Isn't the News Feed the entire point of Facebook?
It's the point insofar as it's how they keep you engaged.
Without it, you have to be more deliberate. You have to actually choose to check in on certain people and see what they're up to.
posted by explosion at 9:27 PM on October 8, 2021 [1 favorite]
It's the point insofar as it's how they keep you engaged.
Without it, you have to be more deliberate. You have to actually choose to check in on certain people and see what they're up to.
posted by explosion at 9:27 PM on October 8, 2021 [1 favorite]
thumbs down. reminds me of the dev that got convicted of hacking for iterating through urls via script - something anyone can manually do by changing text in the browser address bar. bullshit.
posted by j_curiouser at 10:24 PM on October 8, 2021 [4 favorites]
posted by j_curiouser at 10:24 PM on October 8, 2021 [4 favorites]
Isn't the News Feed the entire point of Facebook?
If you bookmark and then look at individual pages you should see ALL the things posted, the news feed is filtered according to what the algorithm wants you to see.
Although saying that I wouldn't be surprised if FB start filtering individual pages and comments as well.
posted by Lanark at 12:41 AM on October 9, 2021 [2 favorites]
If you bookmark and then look at individual pages you should see ALL the things posted, the news feed is filtered according to what the algorithm wants you to see.
Although saying that I wouldn't be surprised if FB start filtering individual pages and comments as well.
posted by Lanark at 12:41 AM on October 9, 2021 [2 favorites]
I unfollowed through the manual method, and it took me forever (months), partly because I was also at the same time deleting all my old posts, comments, and likes. I joined FB the moment it started allowing non-college students to join, so it was a bizarre web.
One of the things that struck me during the process was how many of my "friends" never posted, so I finally deleted my account after I got rid of everything and re-joined with a different email, just so I was able to see posts from a few personal organizations that use FB for their website.
FB keeps suggesting all the "friends" I used to have, and I keep ignoring it. I have social media in a group on my iPhone entitled "Boring," because once you wind yourself free of the algorithms, it really is boring.
posted by Peach at 7:34 AM on October 9, 2021 [2 favorites]
One of the things that struck me during the process was how many of my "friends" never posted, so I finally deleted my account after I got rid of everything and re-joined with a different email, just so I was able to see posts from a few personal organizations that use FB for their website.
FB keeps suggesting all the "friends" I used to have, and I keep ignoring it. I have social media in a group on my iPhone entitled "Boring," because once you wind yourself free of the algorithms, it really is boring.
posted by Peach at 7:34 AM on October 9, 2021 [2 favorites]
I created a second account to see what the experience was without unfollowing the maybe dozen or fifteen things I do follow. The new account gets daily handwringing messages reading “You have not joined any groups yet. Join groups to find other people who share your interests.”
Indeed, please give us information about your demographics so we know how to sell your info to advertisers. I wrote that spontaneously, in jest, but I now realize in my second account (months old now), I get zero ads. In my main account, I mark every ad I see as “irrelevant” and block further ads from the same company. In fairness, once I block an advertiser, I have never seen further ads from them, but Facebook’s algorithms are reaching more and more. Today I see ads in Greek for tourism in Greece (I have never been, I don’t think I have ever mentioned the country in social media, and I do not speak the language), and a golf course an hour and change away, in case I have a sudden urge to play golf for the first time in my life and to do so in a city I have never previously visited.
After a few unsettling early experiences, I have been practicing better online hygiene to keep my searches from becoming advertiser data. Years ago my wife and I wanted to buy some dining room chairs of a particular design so I did some image searches one afternoon and we located a local seller and drove over to buy the chairs that evening. For three months afterwards, my feed was full of ads for the product I had bought already.
I mentioned this once before on the blue and someone told me that approach is because advertisers think perhaps the product you just bought is unsatisfactory and you might be in the market for a replacement/upgrade. Very droll when after we bought our wedding rings, I saw ads for weeks suggesting I might like to buy some more.
The most alarming thing was when I bought my wife a Christmas gift: a pair of boots that she had her eye on, so she directed me to the store and the type of boot. Zero searches on my part. And yet, within 36 hours ads for this style of boot began turning up. How could this be, you ask? I paid with my bank card. I suppose Facebook tied my banking info to my FB account, which is slightly troubling.
posted by ricochet biscuit at 7:59 AM on October 9, 2021 [2 favorites]
Indeed, please give us information about your demographics so we know how to sell your info to advertisers. I wrote that spontaneously, in jest, but I now realize in my second account (months old now), I get zero ads. In my main account, I mark every ad I see as “irrelevant” and block further ads from the same company. In fairness, once I block an advertiser, I have never seen further ads from them, but Facebook’s algorithms are reaching more and more. Today I see ads in Greek for tourism in Greece (I have never been, I don’t think I have ever mentioned the country in social media, and I do not speak the language), and a golf course an hour and change away, in case I have a sudden urge to play golf for the first time in my life and to do so in a city I have never previously visited.
After a few unsettling early experiences, I have been practicing better online hygiene to keep my searches from becoming advertiser data. Years ago my wife and I wanted to buy some dining room chairs of a particular design so I did some image searches one afternoon and we located a local seller and drove over to buy the chairs that evening. For three months afterwards, my feed was full of ads for the product I had bought already.
I mentioned this once before on the blue and someone told me that approach is because advertisers think perhaps the product you just bought is unsatisfactory and you might be in the market for a replacement/upgrade. Very droll when after we bought our wedding rings, I saw ads for weeks suggesting I might like to buy some more.
The most alarming thing was when I bought my wife a Christmas gift: a pair of boots that she had her eye on, so she directed me to the store and the type of boot. Zero searches on my part. And yet, within 36 hours ads for this style of boot began turning up. How could this be, you ask? I paid with my bank card. I suppose Facebook tied my banking info to my FB account, which is slightly troubling.
posted by ricochet biscuit at 7:59 AM on October 9, 2021 [2 favorites]
The more stories I read about the extreme lengths folks go through to try to stop these evil, invasive fucks hoovering up everything they do in order to pepper them with creepily targeted advertising, the more I wonder why everybody isn't running a browser that supports uBlock Origin so as not to have to deal with any of this shit.
Seriously, it's a one-stop shop. If you're not using it you're doing www wrong.
posted by flabdablet at 8:32 AM on October 9, 2021 [6 favorites]
Seriously, it's a one-stop shop. If you're not using it you're doing www wrong.
posted by flabdablet at 8:32 AM on October 9, 2021 [6 favorites]
How could this be, you ask? I paid with my bank card. I suppose Facebook tied my banking info to my FB account, which is slightly troubling.
Yeah I think my car is snitching on the music I listen to......I listened to A Rickie Lee Jones album, and, next day, hey, there in Youtube recommendations, who's that? The music was from the car playing files off a USB stick.
posted by thelonius at 10:33 AM on October 9, 2021
Yeah I think my car is snitching on the music I listen to......I listened to A Rickie Lee Jones album, and, next day, hey, there in Youtube recommendations, who's that? The music was from the car playing files off a USB stick.
posted by thelonius at 10:33 AM on October 9, 2021
I was intrigued by this, so I clicked unfollow on every post in my facebook feed manually.
First of all, in the ~22 hours since I completed the unfollowing, I've spent less than 2 minutes total on facebook, and even that's only because I keep clicking on the site out of habit. When I click I'm confronted by a wall of 100% ads in my facebook feed. It's hilarious. I scroll for a few seconds just because it's so hilarious. There isn't even an infinite scroll anymore, because I hit the end of all the ads fb wants to show me after maybe 20 ads or so. The bottom of the page says, "You're all caught up!" It's surreal to see that, remember there was that joke website a couple of decades ago called "The End of the Internet" which said congratulations, you have finished the internet? It's like that, but not a joke! I scroll to the literal end of facebook in a few seconds, and I laugh in my wild existential triumph ('existential triumph' is not an oxymoron! who knew!), and I leave. The end.
This is so awesome! I am by no means addicted to fb, but good lord, yesterday was a slow day at my computer-based wfh job and I had no kids at home to distract me and under normal circumstances this would have meant wasting at least an hour or two clicking around on fb, commenting on friends' posts and browsing fb marketplace. This is the most painless way I have ever earned back two hours of my life, two hours of brain space to *think* without interruptions. I might never go back to normal, idk. I do rely on fb for many important social connections, so I may need to make myself a list of friends whose pages I will manually visit every week or so? I'll have to figure that bit out, but WOW this is great.
Secondly, there is something weird happening which is ... unsettling. I have something like 500 friends on fb and I'm following ~50 groups and "pages", right, BUT I only had to manually unfollow ~20 friends and ~10 groups/pages to clear my whole feed of non-promotional content. I'm not joking. I'm still following 95% of my friends, but there is nothing in my feed from them. I'm still following 60% of my groups and liked pages, but their content is not showing up in my feed.
I suspect it's temporary. Probably it takes more than a day for the algorithm to recalculate which of my other friends and pages are most likely to keep my eyeballs on fb. But it's weird as fuck to realize that if the algorithm can't show me the people it has selected for me, it will show me NOTHING and NOBODY rather than serve up an unfiltered feed. It's a really dramatic demonstration of fb structurally and algorithmically compelling people to stick within their own separate media bubbles.
It's like the fucking sorting hat, you know? It nominally takes your preferences into account in the beginning. But you don't get to say, "No thank you I'd rather not be in any House at all, I want to be part of the whole school equally," and once you're Sorted into Ravenclaw, you can never ever ever stop being a Raveclaw. Say you've grown up and want to make a clean start, so you stop talking to the whole toxic bunch of old House-mates and try to see who else is out there. But the only bulletin board you're allowed to see at the community center is the one with flyers like, "Rationalist Dudebro Debate Club" and "Sapiosexuals-only Singles Mixer", the exact shit you're trying to escape. If you want new friends, your options are "some other Ravenclaws" or "nobody".
posted by MiraK at 11:00 AM on October 9, 2021 [11 favorites]
First of all, in the ~22 hours since I completed the unfollowing, I've spent less than 2 minutes total on facebook, and even that's only because I keep clicking on the site out of habit. When I click I'm confronted by a wall of 100% ads in my facebook feed. It's hilarious. I scroll for a few seconds just because it's so hilarious. There isn't even an infinite scroll anymore, because I hit the end of all the ads fb wants to show me after maybe 20 ads or so. The bottom of the page says, "You're all caught up!" It's surreal to see that, remember there was that joke website a couple of decades ago called "The End of the Internet" which said congratulations, you have finished the internet? It's like that, but not a joke! I scroll to the literal end of facebook in a few seconds, and I laugh in my wild existential triumph ('existential triumph' is not an oxymoron! who knew!), and I leave. The end.
This is so awesome! I am by no means addicted to fb, but good lord, yesterday was a slow day at my computer-based wfh job and I had no kids at home to distract me and under normal circumstances this would have meant wasting at least an hour or two clicking around on fb, commenting on friends' posts and browsing fb marketplace. This is the most painless way I have ever earned back two hours of my life, two hours of brain space to *think* without interruptions. I might never go back to normal, idk. I do rely on fb for many important social connections, so I may need to make myself a list of friends whose pages I will manually visit every week or so? I'll have to figure that bit out, but WOW this is great.
Secondly, there is something weird happening which is ... unsettling. I have something like 500 friends on fb and I'm following ~50 groups and "pages", right, BUT I only had to manually unfollow ~20 friends and ~10 groups/pages to clear my whole feed of non-promotional content. I'm not joking. I'm still following 95% of my friends, but there is nothing in my feed from them. I'm still following 60% of my groups and liked pages, but their content is not showing up in my feed.
I suspect it's temporary. Probably it takes more than a day for the algorithm to recalculate which of my other friends and pages are most likely to keep my eyeballs on fb. But it's weird as fuck to realize that if the algorithm can't show me the people it has selected for me, it will show me NOTHING and NOBODY rather than serve up an unfiltered feed. It's a really dramatic demonstration of fb structurally and algorithmically compelling people to stick within their own separate media bubbles.
It's like the fucking sorting hat, you know? It nominally takes your preferences into account in the beginning. But you don't get to say, "No thank you I'd rather not be in any House at all, I want to be part of the whole school equally," and once you're Sorted into Ravenclaw, you can never ever ever stop being a Raveclaw. Say you've grown up and want to make a clean start, so you stop talking to the whole toxic bunch of old House-mates and try to see who else is out there. But the only bulletin board you're allowed to see at the community center is the one with flyers like, "Rationalist Dudebro Debate Club" and "Sapiosexuals-only Singles Mixer", the exact shit you're trying to escape. If you want new friends, your options are "some other Ravenclaws" or "nobody".
posted by MiraK at 11:00 AM on October 9, 2021 [11 favorites]
>>I suppose Facebook tied my banking info to my FB account, which is slightly troubling.
>Yeah I think my car is snitching on the music I listen to......
Serious question: how can people stand this? Doesn't it scare you? Just reading it is unsettling to me.
(no FB, no Android, no Windows, no Google-anything here, so I honestly don't know)
posted by Too-Ticky at 11:18 AM on October 9, 2021 [1 favorite]
>Yeah I think my car is snitching on the music I listen to......
Serious question: how can people stand this? Doesn't it scare you? Just reading it is unsettling to me.
(no FB, no Android, no Windows, no Google-anything here, so I honestly don't know)
posted by Too-Ticky at 11:18 AM on October 9, 2021 [1 favorite]
If you must use facebook -- don't be ashamed, people wouldn't get so worked up about it if wasn't useful -- check out the fluff busting purity browser addon. It's like a Brita for your facebook. My feed is 100% cool people all the time now, and is forced to chrono order so I don't see the same posts atop the thing for days on end.
seriously I haven't seen one of those garbage "soandso commented" or "soandso liked" or god forbid "Sponsored Content" in like years now. they have a long and glorious list of fb crap that one can opt out of.
I wonder if they're runing a bitcoin miner in there...
posted by Sauce Trough at 12:32 PM on October 9, 2021 [3 favorites]
seriously I haven't seen one of those garbage "soandso commented" or "soandso liked" or god forbid "Sponsored Content" in like years now. they have a long and glorious list of fb crap that one can opt out of.
I wonder if they're runing a bitcoin miner in there...
posted by Sauce Trough at 12:32 PM on October 9, 2021 [3 favorites]
Years ago my wife and I wanted to buy some dining room chairs of a particular design so I did some image searches one afternoon and we located a local seller and drove over to buy the chairs that evening. For three months afterwards, my feed was full of ads for the product I had bought already. I mentioned this once before on the blue and someone told me that approach is because advertisers think perhaps the product you just bought is unsatisfactory and you might be in the market for a replacement/upgrade.
the simpler explanation is that the ad networks knew about your interest in the chairs and don't know (or more likely) don't care whether you purchased or not. Even if you personally have sworn off chairs forever after a bad chair experience, it still makes biz sense to keep pushing you and people like you chair ads.
Behavior of a system that makes decisions based on aggregates will often appear nonsensical at the individual level, which is why my rural relations hate the government.
Zero searches on my part. And yet, within 36 hours ads for this style of boot began turning up. How could this be, you ask?
the store could be sharing your purchase data and tying it to some other personally identifiable information they or a partner know about you, or the store may be mapped in such a way that when Google eats the location data off your phone, they know the shelves you were browsing.
(source: worked in the ad business until 2017ish)
posted by Sauce Trough at 12:57 PM on October 9, 2021 [6 favorites]
the simpler explanation is that the ad networks knew about your interest in the chairs and don't know (or more likely) don't care whether you purchased or not. Even if you personally have sworn off chairs forever after a bad chair experience, it still makes biz sense to keep pushing you and people like you chair ads.
Behavior of a system that makes decisions based on aggregates will often appear nonsensical at the individual level, which is why my rural relations hate the government.
Zero searches on my part. And yet, within 36 hours ads for this style of boot began turning up. How could this be, you ask?
the store could be sharing your purchase data and tying it to some other personally identifiable information they or a partner know about you, or the store may be mapped in such a way that when Google eats the location data off your phone, they know the shelves you were browsing.
(source: worked in the ad business until 2017ish)
posted by Sauce Trough at 12:57 PM on October 9, 2021 [6 favorites]
Does anyone remember the 'like everything' chrome extension? That was kinda fun a dozen years ago.
posted by Catblack at 1:14 PM on October 9, 2021
posted by Catblack at 1:14 PM on October 9, 2021
Update: There is still no real content in my fb feed. This is wild. How long does this algorithm take to recalculate??
posted by MiraK at 6:16 AM on October 10, 2021 [1 favorite]
posted by MiraK at 6:16 AM on October 10, 2021 [1 favorite]
> Serious question: how can people stand this? Doesn't it scare you?
It's kind of like being part of the climate apocalypse: everyone else is in the exact same mortal danger as you are, and everyone else has the exact same near-zero personal capacity to change anything in a substantial way, so even though it's scary as fuck, it's weirdly... not so bad? It becomes possible to stop screaming in terror, relax in the day-to-day, and calmly start doing the hard, lengthy work of banding together for effective lobbying when the whole world is in the same boat as you.
posted by MiraK at 6:26 AM on October 10, 2021 [2 favorites]
It's kind of like being part of the climate apocalypse: everyone else is in the exact same mortal danger as you are, and everyone else has the exact same near-zero personal capacity to change anything in a substantial way, so even though it's scary as fuck, it's weirdly... not so bad? It becomes possible to stop screaming in terror, relax in the day-to-day, and calmly start doing the hard, lengthy work of banding together for effective lobbying when the whole world is in the same boat as you.
posted by MiraK at 6:26 AM on October 10, 2021 [2 favorites]
Yeah I think my car is snitching on the music I listen to...
Could also be your phone. Android has a Now Playing feature that keeps a record of all the songs it hears. Dunno if it shares that list though
posted by rhamphorhynchus at 6:46 AM on October 10, 2021 [1 favorite]
Could also be your phone. Android has a Now Playing feature that keeps a record of all the songs it hears. Dunno if it shares that list though
posted by rhamphorhynchus at 6:46 AM on October 10, 2021 [1 favorite]
Serious question: how can people stand this? Doesn't it scare you? Just reading it is unsettling to me. (no FB, no Android, no Windows, no Google-anything here, so I honestly don't know)
You're being tracked almost as much. They know where you live, where you work, where you shop, how much you spend. They know what you bought. They sell their databases about you to each other, so everyone knows everything. The only thing that might be keeping them from following your face around is that it's computationally intensive.
You just don't get the personalized ads that reveal it to you.
posted by GCU Sweet and Full of Grace at 7:20 AM on October 10, 2021 [6 favorites]
You're being tracked almost as much. They know where you live, where you work, where you shop, how much you spend. They know what you bought. They sell their databases about you to each other, so everyone knows everything. The only thing that might be keeping them from following your face around is that it's computationally intensive.
You just don't get the personalized ads that reveal it to you.
posted by GCU Sweet and Full of Grace at 7:20 AM on October 10, 2021 [6 favorites]
Which, given that delivery of those ads is the entire point and purpose of all that tracking effort, means that my use of an ad blocker is costing them that effort for zero benefit to them. Near as I can tell, that's as close to a pure win for me as is available in 2021.
Making the tracking job as difficult as possible by never having had a Facebook account, not being logged into a Google account or using Google services, not using my phone to pay for things, not leaving its location services enabled, not subscribing to any streaming services, not using proprietary operating systems or software, and always browsing with web bugs and social media buttons and advertising servers blocked, is a game I've been playing consistently enough and for long enough that I have good reason to believe that what advertisers know about me is actually pretty bloody threadbare.
posted by flabdablet at 11:37 AM on October 10, 2021 [2 favorites]
Making the tracking job as difficult as possible by never having had a Facebook account, not being logged into a Google account or using Google services, not using my phone to pay for things, not leaving its location services enabled, not subscribing to any streaming services, not using proprietary operating systems or software, and always browsing with web bugs and social media buttons and advertising servers blocked, is a game I've been playing consistently enough and for long enough that I have good reason to believe that what advertisers know about me is actually pretty bloody threadbare.
posted by flabdablet at 11:37 AM on October 10, 2021 [2 favorites]
I have good reason to believe that what advertisers know about me is actually pretty bloody threadbare.
Have any utility or bank accounts? Ever applied for a loan? Been involved in litigation or criminal proceedings? Owned property? Purchased something with a payment card? Made a voice telephone call to a business? Subscribed to a magazine? Been the subject of a background check? Driven over an automated toll bridge? Hell, have you ever emailed anyone who used a gmail account?
There's a thinking error among nerds that the only world is digital. Footprints, oddly enough, exist in the real world too. Just because you think you've managed to obscure the final mile of the ad serving problem with your strict digital hygiene doesn't make 'flabdablet' some kind of impenetrable identity fortress. You're going to need to be a great deal more rigorous to get off the grid.
(source: have personally worked in the identity aggregation business and been in the room when data sharing agreements have been negotiated between companies in that space)
posted by Sauce Trough at 1:37 PM on October 10, 2021 [9 favorites]
Have any utility or bank accounts? Ever applied for a loan? Been involved in litigation or criminal proceedings? Owned property? Purchased something with a payment card? Made a voice telephone call to a business? Subscribed to a magazine? Been the subject of a background check? Driven over an automated toll bridge? Hell, have you ever emailed anyone who used a gmail account?
There's a thinking error among nerds that the only world is digital. Footprints, oddly enough, exist in the real world too. Just because you think you've managed to obscure the final mile of the ad serving problem with your strict digital hygiene doesn't make 'flabdablet' some kind of impenetrable identity fortress. You're going to need to be a great deal more rigorous to get off the grid.
(source: have personally worked in the identity aggregation business and been in the room when data sharing agreements have been negotiated between companies in that space)
posted by Sauce Trough at 1:37 PM on October 10, 2021 [9 favorites]
reading “You have not joined any groups yet. Join groups to find other people who share your interests.”
Every time I've joined an active group, my feed gets absolutely buried by it, and I don't see anything from my friends anymore.
I assume that Facebook realized that your friends (or at least the ones that it decided you should see) don't generate enough content to keep you coming back regularly, so it has turned to groups, which it uses to spam the hell out of your feed with, so you're never without new stuff, and have to search like hell to see what your friends are up to.
posted by wotsac at 5:29 PM on October 10, 2021 [4 favorites]
Every time I've joined an active group, my feed gets absolutely buried by it, and I don't see anything from my friends anymore.
I assume that Facebook realized that your friends (or at least the ones that it decided you should see) don't generate enough content to keep you coming back regularly, so it has turned to groups, which it uses to spam the hell out of your feed with, so you're never without new stuff, and have to search like hell to see what your friends are up to.
posted by wotsac at 5:29 PM on October 10, 2021 [4 favorites]
They know where you live, where you work, where you shop, how much you spend. They know what you bought.
Wouldn't that only apply to things bought online, or paid with a smartphone? Or should I believe that my local supermarket sells my buying patterns to someone else?
I'm certain that Facebook has a profile of me. I'm equally certain that they know a lot less about me than they would prefer.
posted by Too-Ticky at 3:40 AM on October 11, 2021 [1 favorite]
Wouldn't that only apply to things bought online, or paid with a smartphone? Or should I believe that my local supermarket sells my buying patterns to someone else?
I'm certain that Facebook has a profile of me. I'm equally certain that they know a lot less about me than they would prefer.
posted by Too-Ticky at 3:40 AM on October 11, 2021 [1 favorite]
If you use your supermarket's loyalty card (or any other store's loyalty card) to get discounts, they are absolutely collecting data on you to sell.
posted by hydropsyche at 4:09 AM on October 11, 2021 [1 favorite]
posted by hydropsyche at 4:09 AM on October 11, 2021 [1 favorite]
I have one, it's unregistered and I swap it out for a fresh one now and then.
posted by Too-Ticky at 4:15 AM on October 11, 2021 [1 favorite]
posted by Too-Ticky at 4:15 AM on October 11, 2021 [1 favorite]
> I have one, it's unregistered and I swap it out for a fresh one now and then.
That's great, and more power to you if opting out is possible for you and is helping you bring your anxiety about our impending doom down to manageable levels. But people who have not opted out of these systems aren't out here thinking, "Well, we're going out of our minds with panic, how perfectly excellent, we love it this way, more facebook please!" They're not, like, stupid. They have their reasons for staying plugged in. Not everyone has the same options to opt-out as you do, not everyone has the same experience of anxiety as you do for the same reasons that you do, and not everyone shares your opinion about opting out being the best way to deal with this horrible machine.
posted by MiraK at 6:58 AM on October 11, 2021 [4 favorites]
That's great, and more power to you if opting out is possible for you and is helping you bring your anxiety about our impending doom down to manageable levels. But people who have not opted out of these systems aren't out here thinking, "Well, we're going out of our minds with panic, how perfectly excellent, we love it this way, more facebook please!" They're not, like, stupid. They have their reasons for staying plugged in. Not everyone has the same options to opt-out as you do, not everyone has the same experience of anxiety as you do for the same reasons that you do, and not everyone shares your opinion about opting out being the best way to deal with this horrible machine.
posted by MiraK at 6:58 AM on October 11, 2021 [4 favorites]
Of course they don't. That's why I'm asking. If everyone had the same experience and opinions, there wouldn't be anything to ask about.
posted by Too-Ticky at 7:12 AM on October 11, 2021 [1 favorite]
posted by Too-Ticky at 7:12 AM on October 11, 2021 [1 favorite]
Wouldn't that only apply to things bought online, or paid with a smartphone?
No, each company knows what you bought from them with any given card number, and they know what name and address are associated with that card number. They'll eagerly sell that data. The larger more generic "they" can buy all that data from lots of different places, all linked through the same name and/or address, and get a good picture of everything you ever buy that isn't bought with cash.
Or should I believe that my local supermarket sells my buying patterns to someone else?
Of course you should believe that.
I have one, it's unregistered and I swap it out for a fresh one now and then.
Unless you pay cash for everything, that just means the main key for you is your credit/debit card number instead of your shopping card number.
posted by GCU Sweet and Full of Grace at 9:58 AM on October 11, 2021 [5 favorites]
No, each company knows what you bought from them with any given card number, and they know what name and address are associated with that card number. They'll eagerly sell that data. The larger more generic "they" can buy all that data from lots of different places, all linked through the same name and/or address, and get a good picture of everything you ever buy that isn't bought with cash.
Or should I believe that my local supermarket sells my buying patterns to someone else?
Of course you should believe that.
I have one, it's unregistered and I swap it out for a fresh one now and then.
Unless you pay cash for everything, that just means the main key for you is your credit/debit card number instead of your shopping card number.
posted by GCU Sweet and Full of Grace at 9:58 AM on October 11, 2021 [5 favorites]
Or should I believe that my local supermarket sells my buying patterns to someone else?
Maybe if your local supermarket is a cool co-op with some transparency or an unsophisticated mom-and-pop shop...
Otherwise, imagine it's 2012ish and every old-school retail and service business is learning about the money that facebook and google make with their massive troves of user data. Then imagine those businesses saying "nah, we're good, we don't need to get in on that, the shareholders will understand."
Every business is in on this now. I have personal experience working with a large automotive service company that had data of substantial value it wanted to monetize. Turns out the kind of car you drive and its condition are massively indicative of a ton of things about you! Like, do you drive a five-year old well-maintained Subaru, a 2005 Focus with a quarter-million miles on the odometer and a spotty carfax, or a 2021 Dodge Ram pickup with max trim? I bet you can close your eyes and picture who drives these cars. So can advertising analysts.
And Large Automotive Service Company has also got your phone number, because that biz is primarily phone-based...very few people would think twice about giving their mechanic their phone number...and the phone number makes it easy to mate up their tastydata with other sources.
posted by Sauce Trough at 10:41 AM on October 11, 2021 [4 favorites]
Maybe if your local supermarket is a cool co-op with some transparency or an unsophisticated mom-and-pop shop...
Otherwise, imagine it's 2012ish and every old-school retail and service business is learning about the money that facebook and google make with their massive troves of user data. Then imagine those businesses saying "nah, we're good, we don't need to get in on that, the shareholders will understand."
Every business is in on this now. I have personal experience working with a large automotive service company that had data of substantial value it wanted to monetize. Turns out the kind of car you drive and its condition are massively indicative of a ton of things about you! Like, do you drive a five-year old well-maintained Subaru, a 2005 Focus with a quarter-million miles on the odometer and a spotty carfax, or a 2021 Dodge Ram pickup with max trim? I bet you can close your eyes and picture who drives these cars. So can advertising analysts.
And Large Automotive Service Company has also got your phone number, because that biz is primarily phone-based...very few people would think twice about giving their mechanic their phone number...and the phone number makes it easy to mate up their tastydata with other sources.
posted by Sauce Trough at 10:41 AM on October 11, 2021 [4 favorites]
This is far from a solution but I've found that https://mbasic.facebook.com/ (their site for budget phones) helps me take back some tiny amount of control. For instance you can see a list of groups and how many new posts each one has, so you can unfollow the group in your news feed and just check on the group when you feel like it.
It also has kind of a fun retro feel because every action requires a new page load, even tapping Like. Remember the Web before AJAX?
posted by Tehhund at 10:56 AM on October 11, 2021 [3 favorites]
It also has kind of a fun retro feel because every action requires a new page load, even tapping Like. Remember the Web before AJAX?
posted by Tehhund at 10:56 AM on October 11, 2021 [3 favorites]
The larger more generic "they" can buy all that data from lots of different places, all linked through the same name and/or address,
Phone number is the best key to use; they're a lot more distinct than names, they are generally not shared between multiple people, and nowadays, with mobile, they are stabler than addresses.
Makes you wonder about all those businesses pushing for two-factor authentication...
posted by Sauce Trough at 10:58 AM on October 11, 2021 [3 favorites]
Phone number is the best key to use; they're a lot more distinct than names, they are generally not shared between multiple people, and nowadays, with mobile, they are stabler than addresses.
Makes you wonder about all those businesses pushing for two-factor authentication...
posted by Sauce Trough at 10:58 AM on October 11, 2021 [3 favorites]
Facebook has changed a number of its internal groups (on the Facebook-clone it uses internally to the company), particularly those dedicated to "Integrity", from public/all-staff to members only, in order to prevent further leaks, Business Insider reports.
Details about the changes were almost immediately leaked.
Originally reported by the NYT (paywalled).
Details about the changes were almost immediately leaked.
Originally reported by the NYT (paywalled).
“As everyone is likely aware, we’ve seen an increase in the number of Integrity-related leaks in recent months,” an engineering director wrote in the announcement, which was reviewed by The New York Times. “These leaks aren’t representative of the nuances and complexities involved in our work and are often taken out of context, leading to our work being mischaracterized externally.”
Tuesday’s announcement stated that Facebook plans to comb through some of the online discussion groups to remove individuals whose work isn’t related to safety and security. The changes will occur in “the coming months” and “with the expectation that sensitive Integrity discussions will happen in closed, curated forums in the future.”posted by Kadin2048 at 1:56 PM on October 14, 2021
from public/all-staff to members only, in order to prevent further leaks
Good to see they're on the ball, taking care of the important things.
I have one, it's unregistered and I swap it out for a fresh one now and then.
I believe this isn't true, and neither the store, the reward card provider, Nielsen, nor anybody other than you and your bank know your card # in these transactions, and it's likely not even going over the wire when you pay. This is why stores are ALL about the phone number and ask you for it before you even step up to the card terminal or take a breath or even realize that it's your turn. It's your identification number for their market research.
I have a card that doesn't have a phone number associated with it and I do just fine with groceries and getting my discount at the gas station. I don't know if they assigned me a made-up number or use a default-user code for all the blanks, but they certainly don't disable the card without it. The raw data, even if it's anonymous, is more valuable than the attribution. They keep cash buyers in the data, too, who also don't have phone numbers in the systems.
posted by rhizome at 3:13 PM on October 14, 2021 [1 favorite]
Good to see they're on the ball, taking care of the important things.
I have one, it's unregistered and I swap it out for a fresh one now and then.
Unless you pay cash for everything, that just means the main key for you is your credit/debit card number instead of your shopping card number.
I believe this isn't true, and neither the store, the reward card provider, Nielsen, nor anybody other than you and your bank know your card # in these transactions, and it's likely not even going over the wire when you pay. This is why stores are ALL about the phone number and ask you for it before you even step up to the card terminal or take a breath or even realize that it's your turn. It's your identification number for their market research.
I have a card that doesn't have a phone number associated with it and I do just fine with groceries and getting my discount at the gas station. I don't know if they assigned me a made-up number or use a default-user code for all the blanks, but they certainly don't disable the card without it. The raw data, even if it's anonymous, is more valuable than the attribution. They keep cash buyers in the data, too, who also don't have phone numbers in the systems.
posted by rhizome at 3:13 PM on October 14, 2021 [1 favorite]
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This thread has been archived and is closed to new comments
Over on HN, an Iranian developer offered to take over the project, in order to force FB to pursue the matter through Iran's court system instead. While I am normally no fan of the Iranian "justice" system, this... would be entertaining, I have to admit.
Meanwhile on Reddit, the actual Chrome extension files have been published along with installation instructions. N.B. that according to some users, the extension collects a fair bit of telemetry, since it was intended to be used as part of a research project. I believe this is all opt-in, but I haven't installed the extension (yet).
posted by Kadin2048 at 12:56 PM on October 8, 2021 [28 favorites]