The scourge of Facebook

[Gabe H Coud]

Of course it is. Which is why I meant to point out that I had tried to google it on both laptop and mobile and the instructions that come up simply don't work

For example you try following the instructions form the link you sent me, let me know how you get on maybe I'm missing something but I cant see what!

thanks

[buksida]

WhatsApp stresses privacy as users flock to rivals
WhatsApp on Tuesday reassured users about privacy at the Facebook-owned messaging service as people flocked to rivals Telegram and Signal following a tweak to its terms.

There was "a lot of misinformation" about an update to terms of service regarding an option to use WhatsApp to message businesses, Facebook executive Adam Mosseri, who heads Instagram, said in a tweet.

WhatsApp's new terms sparked criticism, as users outside Europe who do not accept the new conditions before February 8 will be cut off from the messaging app.

"The policy update does not affect the privacy of your messages with friends or family in any way," Mosseri said.

The update regards how merchants using WhatsApp to chat with customers can share data with Facebook, which could use the information for targeting ads, according to the social network.

"We can't see your private messages or hear your calls, and neither can Facebook," WhatsApp said in a blog post.

"We don't keep logs of who everyone is messaging or calling. We can't see your shared location and neither can Facebook."

Location data along with message contents is encrypted end-to-end, according to WhatsApp.

"We're giving businesses the option to use secure hosting services from Facebook to manage WhatsApp chats with their customers, answer questions, and send helpful information like purchase receipts," WhatsApp said in the post.

"Whether you communicate with a business by phone, email, or WhatsApp, it can see what you're saying and may use that information for its own marketing purposes, which may include advertising on Facebook."

https://www.bangkokpost.com/business/20 ... -to-rivals

Another reason to dump anything associated with Farcebook - been using Telegram for a couple of years and it is a far superior product that doesn't spy on you.

[Big Boy]

I'm not sure if this is genuine, but I've certainly fallen for it if it isn't. I've updated the phones in the Big Boy household as a result.

[Lost]

^^^
Other apps do just the same in order to ad target you more effectively. A faster approach to deal with it on Facebook is go to settings > personal information > deactivate account.

Though deactivated, I've still gotta go through mine at some point to see what I wanna keep before I have it erased completely. Wiped as if I never existed on Facebook. Instagram and twitter are gone too.

I share photos with family/friends through avenues that don't involve having a saved presence online. I prefer it that way.

[caller]

I thought that woman was hysterical. I didn't see it as a big deal. I checked a few other things when I was looking, like my location, seems I'd already switched that off as it couldn't tell me where I was. I keep hearing all these terrible things about fb, but the settings and controls are there for a reason. People should just use them.

[Big Boy]

HaHa, she was a bit excitable. It is something I've heard so many complain about previously so I thought it would be useful to share. I guess Google is doing exactly the same thing, but worse. I'm sure that Google also has an off button somewhere, but I'm not going to spend hours searching for it. However, if somebody handed it to me on a plate, I'd probably use it.

I have no objection to being handed random advertisements. In fact I often click them out of curiosity. What I object to is e.g. booking a hotel, and then being offered deals to book the same hotel for the next week, especially if it's a better deal than I previously made.

[buksida]

A faster approach to deal with it on Facebook is go to settings > personal information > deactivate account.

What he said.

Facebook is set to harvest all of your data by default - it's the user's responsibility to sift through the mostly hidden settings to turn it all off. Most don't bother, which is why it has made billions out of it and continues to do so with these invasive practices.

[Big Boy]

Of course, most people wont be bothered because it's well hidden amongst a load of crap. However, if somebody pinpoints it for you, why not do it?

For me personally, it is a very useful tool that predominantly keeps me in touch with friends and family all over the world. In the last couple of years it has reunited me with friends I lost touch with over 30 years ago. I also Admin 2 Business Pages for my son - how much would that cost him if not Facebook, and Facebook reaches a very wide audience. If Facebook can make money out of it, who wouldn't? We all charge for our services in one way or another. OK they make a hideous amount of cash, but they've invested heavily and have a HUGE platform.

Yes, we all love to hate Facebook, but it's success has not been an accident. Everybody has the Lost option, but very few take it.

[buksida]

For some, it is clearly worth the trade-off: using the platform in exchange for giving up personal privacy, movements, and online browsing and shopping habits to a tech monopoly that constantly bombards them with fake news, intrusive advertising, spam, scams, and general digital pollution.

For me it isn't, but I'm not that much of a people person anyway!

Edit: I've just shown mrs buksi how to disable the offline tracking thing, which even included a banking app (not that she has anything in there!)

[dtaai-maai]

This is sort of on topic...

Facebook has been removing posts that refer to Plymouth Hoe on the basis that 'hoe' is an offensive term...

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-devon-55827981

Facebook has apologised for removing posts that named part of a city it deemed to contain an offensive word.

Plymouth Hoe is a historic part of the Devon city's seafront but the social media platform wrongly identified it as an offensive term.

Facebook users have recently had posts taken down for breaching bullying rules after innocently using the place name.

The company said it "will take steps to rectify the error".

Dawn Lapthorn, who created the 'Don't Dump it, Plymouth and Surrounding areas' page said she was surprised to receive notifications from Facebook telling her "community standards on harassment and bullying" had been breached.

[Big Boy]

I belong to several groups where Plymouth is the subject, and the Hoe features quite regularly. To date, we've never knowingly suffered from this.

Having said that, the community standards on harassment and bullying card is played quite regularly by Facebook in respect of new pages. Many posts are rejected in the early days with that given as the reason. My daughter-in-law's venture into the catering business 2 years ago was beset with that exact problem. She used to have problems posting photos, especially of Mushy Peas for that exact same reason. I used get quite wound up until I realised it was just a built in feature of Facebook. The problem just goes away as the page matures.

I've had similar problems with several business pages. You ust have to take it for what it is - a feature.

[handdrummer]

I was removed from youtube because of a breach of community standards and invited to contest the decision. I asked them how I couldn't contest the decision if they didn't tell me what I said.
They replied that they would look into it. 2 days later I was restored. Oh, they said that they had taken down my youtube page. I told them, I didn't have a youtube page.
Is anyone in charge?
It's the same dealing with any corporation, no one knows how or why anything happens, you can't talk to anyone and all replies are anonymous and unsigned. When corrections are made, there's no apology and no follow up and, somehow, AI is supposed to be an improvement. Yah, right.

[buksida]

Australia slams 'heavy-handed' Facebook news blackout
Australia's government said on Thursday that Facebook was "heavy-handed" and "wrong" for introducing an unprecedented local ban on sharing news in response to pending legislation that would force the social media giant to pay for content.

Treasurer Josh Frydenberg said the US firm gave no notice it would revoke users' ability to post links to news articles or view the Facebook pages of news outlets from anywhere in the world.

"Facebook was wrong. Facebook's actions were unnecessary, they were heavy-handed, and they will damage its reputation here in Australia," he said.

The surprise move early Thursday came as retaliation for laws proposed in Canberra that would force social media giants to pay for Australian news content shared on their sites.

https://www.bangkokpost.com/world/20703 ... s-blackout

[buksida]

533 million Facebook users' phone numbers and personal data have been leaked online
A user in a low-level hacking forum on Saturday published the phone numbers and personal data of hundreds of millions of Facebook users for free.

The exposed data includes the personal information of over 533 million Facebook users from 106 countries, including over 32 million records on users in the US, 11 million on users in the UK, and 6 million on users in India. It includes their phone numbers, Facebook IDs, full names, locations, birthdates, bios, and, in some cases, email addresses.

Insider reviewed a sample of the leaked data and verified several records by matching known Facebook users' phone numbers with the IDs listed in the data set. We also verified records by testing email addresses from the data set in Facebook's password-reset feature, which can be used to partially reveal a user's phone number.

A Facebook spokesperson told Insider that the data had been scrapped because of a vulnerability that the company patched in 2019.

While it's a couple of years old, the leaked data could prove valuable to cybercriminals who use people's personal information to impersonate them or scam them into handing over login credentials, according to Alon Gal, the chief technology officer of the cybercrime intelligence firm Hudson Rock, who discovered the trough of leaked data on Saturday.

"A database of that size containing the private information such as phone numbers of a lot of Facebook's users would certainly lead to bad actors taking advantage of the data to perform social-engineering attacks [or] hacking attempts," Gal told Insider.

https://www.businessinsider.com/stolen- ... ine-2021-4

Shocking, though hardly surprising - that equates to 1 in every 5 FB users having been compromised.

[LolaBeltran]

I have a Facebook question. Not sure this is the forum as I do find Facebook useful and can deal OK with most of the crap. However . . . I admin three "business" pages. These no longer have "view as visitor" buttons. They open with a huge list of money making facebook ads for expanding the page. No way to control these obviously. The pages are useful and continue to do what I want them to do so I hate to just delete them. Just asking if anyone knows enough about Facebook to get the view as visitor button installed and perhaps get rid of the ad offers. Thanks