Live blog: Facebook's 'screw you' to Google revealed at last Facebook has called the world's press down to its headquarters in Menlo Park, and El Reg has braved the Death Race 2000 zone that is California's freeway system at commute time to be here. Speculation has been running wild about what the Behoodied One will announce. Theories have included a Facebook smartphone or tablet, an …
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Not the news, just the inevitable "it's just spyware" comments. FB in particular has the most amazing collection of data available which could be used for absolutely astonishing projects, but you supposed techy experts can't see past them sticking your face next to an advert, and classifying this as some ultra-heinous near-criminal offence.
Not the news, just the inevitable "it's just spyware" comments. FB in particular has the most amazing collection of data available which could be used for absolutely astonishing projects...
...yeah, like surveilling dissidents, or just pestering the shit out of people with advertising.
Shill much?
JDX wasn't shilling, he was being imaginative. If there wasn't the fear of data abuse, then much is possible. However, to foster the trust in the system that is needed for more edifying projects (see Arab Spring, car sharing, study of epidemiology etc) would require a different funding system and users owning the company. Its too late for that now.
Zuckerberg has talked of a post-privacy society, which rightly puts people off. Unfortunately, it doesn't put enough people off for a peer-to-peer based, user-respecting alternative to arise.
It is sad that a system that is becoming a de facto means of political engagement is funded on ambitions of flogging personal data to entities who try to nudge our decisions.
(Facebook as it stands bugs me, and I rarely log on - party invites etc are forwarded to my inbox).
"Graph search is different from web search in that it doesn't link to the answer to a search, it just gives it, he claims."
So, to improve on the dodgy information you can find with any Web search, they'll offer dodgy information with no way to figure out the source. Uh, great!
(What really bothers me, actually, is realizing that most people won't mind not knowing the provenance of their answer.)
"Results are ranked based on how important the person is to you."
I dunno about that. I mean, Sir Isaac Newton is important to me, for instance, but I bet they won't find him in my social graph.
>Isn't there a law against ...... facilitating stalkers?
Taking that argument, phone directories would be outlawed, as would shrubbery in residential areas, and for that matter, roads.
Jake, I find Facebook's history of not respecting privacy as distasteful as I'm sure you do, but your rhetoric needs a little refinement!
"Taking that argument, phone directories would be outlawed, as would shrubbery in residential areas, and for that matter, roads."
So you, Dave 126, personally, can completely maintain the entire content of a telephone directory in your mind, and cross-reference that data with local shrubbery & footpaths/roads?
Think a little, would you ...
That's probably why Zuck's suddenly got a stiffy for privacy with the repeated emphasis on only searching stuff that is publicly viewable. Although how long that'll last before someone pulls some supposedly private stuff through hacking/social engineering/incompetent security is anyone's guess.
You're right, it takes me ages to ensure that every bit of data they have about me is wrong.
This is why tagging pisses me off - I wish I could make myself unavailable for tagging. To compensate, I spent time attaching my profile name (also not real) to about 50 different faces..
Welll-llll...
I have a FB account, but under a fake name, with a fake birthday, fake birthplace, fake city of residence, no workplace or education listed, and no list of favorite TV shows/movies/books/music. I post only copies of the cartoons I publish, and no fotos. I visit FB maybe once a week -- if that often -- and for about twenty minutes, tops -- if that long. My privacy settings are locked down tighter than a prima donna's corset, and I quickly got into the habit of checking them every time I visit FB.
So, basically, I spend zero time keeping my profile "accurate" and "updated", and maybe fifteen minutes checking to see if my privacy settings haven't been jerked around.
So the first thing to do with this is to get a list of all the photos in which you've been tagged and remove said tag ( ok, not first thing, more like thing to do once a week ).
No, the first thing to do is to ensure all your (correct) personal info is either private to yourself or visible to 'real' friends only, i.e. not to friends of friends or to 'likers' or 'likees'.
No, the first thing to do is to check if the search restrictions are real, e.g. contractual, or are just by convention, i.e. may vary depending on a user's financial or legal status. Could give a whole new meaning to "guilt by association".
Incidentally, is there any word on whether the search queries themselves will be stored for future use ?
>If you're not going to use FB properly then I agree, why have an account? Just so you can complain about it?
There is some useful functionality in Facebook, but mission creep in search of profit seems inevitable. I would agree that some more positive criticism here would be better than just bashing FB, but the place organise a critical mass of people would be on Facebook itself, such as:
http://www.europe-v-facebook.org/EN/Objectives/objectives.html
It Facebook can be made to behave, it does clear the way for people to use it to help organise themselves- be it politically, socially, logistically or whatever.
And not really sure how to expand.
Google (search and email) and facebook (social network), both great at what they do - but not much else.
This must be one of the biggest non-event in tech, you will in the future be able search facebook and find someone who posted a picture tagged with india ... how is that news ?
select user_id from users where picture_tag = "india"
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