"It’s true and it’s not true, and it also doesn’t even matter"

[rynling]

The perennial debate about whether your phone is secretly listening to you, explained
https://www.vox.com/the-goods/2018/12/28/18158968/facebook-microphone-tapping-recording-instagram-ads

While we don’t know everything, we do know that Facebook has patented a method to use your previous location data, in conjunction with the previous location data of people you know, to predict your future location. We also know that it keeps “shadow profiles” made up of information that users (or non-users) have not actively supplied but can be easily tied to them (your work email address, your loyalty discount cards, your likely acquaintances that you haven’t yet “friend requested”). It can also figure out if two people know each other by looking at the metadata of photos uploaded in a small time frame in a small geographic area and then comparing the scratches and dust on the lens of the camera that took them.
 

I find this article interesting mainly as a window into what it must be like to have friends. The above paragraph continues:

The most valuable information Facebook has about you isn’t what you like or where you go or what you click on, but who you know. It always has been.
 

WELL THEN THE JOKE IS ON FACEBOOK, BECAUSE ALL MY FRIENDS ARE FICTIONAL CHARACTERS.

Seriously though, I'm not too terribly concerned about one network or another having my data, because we all still live in a vast meaningless universe where no one cares. It does bother me that I'm probably paying slightly higher interest rates because I am not male have a significant percentage of friends on Facebook who are immigrants (and thus have limited credit history in the United States) or former students (and are thus carrying a ton of debt), if only because I can imagine how these sorts of metrics might apply to different demographics. I mean, actually, I have a pretty good idea of how they apply. One of my best friends from college is a young but considerably wealthy civil rights lawyer, and she was recently presented with a set of ridiculous interest rates for a home loan, presumably because she's not white connected to a lot of people who were formerly incarcerated.

I have a lot of thoughts about the implications of this particular dystopian cyberpunk future we're living in, but I'm also not convinced that "leaving Facebook" is a practical or meaningful political act. I guess at this point I'm just along for the ride.

Comments

[renegadefolkhero]

Facebook is so pervasive and deeply insinuated in our culture, and people's daily personal/business lives, the ability to disconnect is a privilege and should be acknowledged as such. Users really just need to be more mindful of what they're putting out there, especially in regards to young children, and that applies to any platform.

That being said, Facebook's algorithmic extrapolation/data collection is almost indistinguishable from magic and they are deeply incentivized to engage in anti-humanitarian practices. Is the problem Facebook, or is the problem... oh, I d o n ' t kn o w, capitalism? ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ I think apathy is a reasonable and understandable response at this point in our trajectory, tbh.

[runicmagitek]

Oh Facebook... I uninstalled it from my phone back in November due to lack of space and needing to update apps I actually like using. And I really don't miss it. Yeah, I miss seeing my friends post about life updates, especially when they're far away and/or I don't get to talk to them even weekly, but the culture that's associated with Facebook... I can really do without. I don't know, I'm such a hardcore introvert and crave meaningful conversation with like-minded individuals instead of the spam of "So and so liked this random ass meme" type of posts every ten minutes. Social media in general is stressful, never mind adding ~the Facebooks know where you've been~ to the equation, which... yeah, whatever. I don't care. I just don't have the time or energy to dump into Facebook anymore, though the only reason I still hold onto my account is so I can check on friends on a Saturday that I don't see otherwise :\