by adventureful on 7/12/12, 10:37 PM with 157 comments
by rationalbeats on 7/12/12, 11:29 PM
Which is why I stopped using Facebook.
I also stopped using Twitter to tweet. I still use it to follow news sources, I just don't actively tweet. I did that after the NYPD won a court case to see all the private messages you send on Twitter.
I also don't comment much at all on blogs, and social sites like this one or Reddit anymore. (I use to be a top 10 contributor over at Reddit. At least that is what some metric said a few years ago when someone listed the top ten most popular usernames. That account is deleted now)
I am slowly pulling out. I have a deep distrust of the current surveillance state in the United States. I remember reading a story about a guy who posted a quote from fight club on his Facebook status and a few hours later in the middle of the night the NYPD was busting in his door and he spent 3 years in legal limbo over it. (Might have been NJ police anyways, red flags)
You start piecing together these things, and you start to realize that your thoughts and ruminations about life, the universe, and the mundane, can be used against you at any moment and can completely strip you of your liberty and freedom, and any happiness you may have had.
I am gonna be completely honest, I am scared to express myself any longer on the Internet in any fashion. I don't trust it any longer. I don't trust the police, I don't trust the FBI, I don't trust the federal government, and I also don't trust, nor have faith, in the justice system in the United States.
by DanielBMarkham on 7/13/12, 1:42 AM
What we need is an abstraction layer on top of social networks. No matter what their TOS, they do not own my friends or my conversations with my friends. I have no qualms at all about having some other service handle my friendships and conversations in a way I deem appropriate.
We need to pry Facebook's greasy hands from our throats before it's too late. At one point they were cute. Then they were pleasantly time-wasting. Now they're crossing over the line firmly into evil territory.
by sriramk on 7/12/12, 11:08 PM
I thought the whole thing was adhoc and confusing. Anyone who saw the comment could easily see that it was a joke. Also, if it wasn't a joke, why is FB calling her and not someone from law enforcement?
Would love it if someone from FB here on HN could comment.
by stfu on 7/12/12, 11:11 PM
Facebook's mass wiretapping and analysis of its users private communication seems almost like the post office scanning each and ever letter and postcard in the vague hope of finding some keywords related to bomb, terror and of cause "children". I wonder how long it is going to take until Google is going to send automated notifications to my local police station when I'm going to start googeling some water bomb tutorials for the summer.
by malandrew on 7/13/12, 1:16 AM
Generating deliberate false-positive inducing noise in communications deemed to be private between two or more individuals who know one another should be protected as free speech. To argue otherwise would be the equivalent of prosecuting an individual for yelling "Fire" in their own home among friends and stating that such an act is a clear and present danger to the US.
IMHO automated cooperative manufactured reasonable doubt will probably be one of the last bastions of civil liberties in a surveillance society.
by chrsstrm on 7/12/12, 11:16 PM
by zethraeus on 7/12/12, 11:19 PM
Mashable quotes Facebook as stating “where appropriate and to the extent required by law to ensure the safety of the people who use Facebook"
Can anyone speak to whether or not proactive scanning could possible be required by law? It seems entirely unlikely, but IANAL.
by chrisballinger on 7/12/12, 11:32 PM
by olliesaunders on 7/13/12, 1:56 AM
by icambron on 7/13/12, 2:05 AM
As I understand it, FB is currently only required to respond to appropriately specific subpoenas and warrants. If the cops want more, they should petition for laws to require that and we can all argue about it like responsible citizens. And we could equally demand more protection.
But this thing where sometimes FB voluntarily sends law enforcement bits of information and sometimes they don't based on poorly defined criteria is just creepy. And why does FB even want this responsibility? Isn't the simplest, most obvious model to say no by default?
by freemonoid on 7/13/12, 5:09 AM
by lignuist on 7/12/12, 11:41 PM
by crazygringo on 7/13/12, 3:21 PM
Facebook is essentially using the same techniques to monitor private communications as the NSA supposedly does. This means Facebook has the power to report, for example, selected messages but not others. (I'm not saying they do, of course, just that they could be selective or discriminatory that way.)
The fact is that Facebook has taken upon itself a role similar to that of the police, but without any democratic oversight.
This is different from a bar owner overhearing a conversation about a crime and calling the police, because he wasn't specifically monitoring every single word said by every bar patron. But Facebook is casting a wide net by analyzing every conversation that happens.
Questions: should Facebook be permitted to do this? Should we ask for laws preventing companies from "eavesdropping" on their users' communications with the intent of detecting and reporting criminal behavior? Should this be the role of the democratically-elected government instead? Should sites be required to turn user communication over to the government for such analysis?
It's a fascinating area of law/politics with so much room for future development, and gets down to the heart of what values a society has.
by fl3tch on 7/12/12, 11:19 PM
by danso on 7/13/12, 3:14 AM
And while this has always been the case ever since letter writing, electronic communication is so much easier to parse and distribute and copy on bulk.
by Zenst on 7/13/12, 12:03 AM
You know it would not supprise me one bit if FaceBook had staff monitoring this modding down every post that holds them in true^H^H^H^HBAD light.
by Zenst on 7/12/12, 11:58 PM
This is not supprising in any way.
If you don't like this then don't do FaceBook - realy that easy I have found.
by ck2 on 7/13/12, 1:51 AM
Apparently people have sent their friends money, rent, etc. and did that as a joke, boom, it's a nightmare.
by five_star on 7/13/12, 2:25 AM
by melvinmt on 7/13/12, 2:01 AM
by naner on 7/13/12, 2:42 AM
by Zenst on 7/12/12, 11:25 PM
Question is, do they warn you that your private conversation is not private and do they comply with the data protection acts the various countries have and more importantly who monitors FB? So many things can be taken out of context and acted upon in good faith at the detrement of innocent parties, this is concerning. But I don't do FB, nor do I have any immediate plans either. That has nothing to do with this, but more todo with concerns in general about there privacy and policeys they act out.
by sageikosa on 7/13/12, 1:42 PM
Now the fun part is another friend of ours (call him Jeb) was in the habit of making movie quotes when he started phone calls, so he calls up Mickey and leads in with a Lethal Weapon 2 line about "shipments", completely unknowning that the DEA was potentially tapping the call.
Because of the way the warrant was written, Mickey was able to wave off the tap on Jeb's call since it only covered calls from Ken. But it could just as easily led to all sorts of other problems since between friends, the level of discourse can go far afield of what a non-initiated 3rd party might consider normal.
by katbyte on 7/13/12, 12:10 AM
by benthumb on 7/13/12, 3:29 PM
by casemorton on 7/13/12, 5:01 PM
by MRonney on 7/13/12, 5:02 PM
by Kiro on 7/13/12, 10:16 AM
by neo1001 on 7/12/12, 11:41 PM