Facebook, This Is Not What "Complete User Control" Looks Like

["Dave Farber" <farber () gmail com>]

Begin forwarded message:

> From: Dewayne Hendricks <dewayne () warpspeed com>
> Date: April 12, 2018 at 5:14:47 PM EDT
> To: Multiple recipients of Dewayne-Net <dewayne-net () warpspeed com>
> Subject: [Dewayne-Net] Facebook, This Is Not What "Complete User Control" Looks Like
> Reply-To: dewayne-net () warpspeed com
>
> Facebook, This Is Not What “Complete User Control” Looks Like
> By GENNIE GEBHART
> Apr 11 2018
> <https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2018/04/facebook-not-what-complete-user-control-looks>
>
> If you watched even a bit of Mark Zuckerberg’s ten hours of congressional testimony over the past two days, then you 
> probably heard him proudly explain how users have “complete control” via “inline” privacy controls over everything 
> they share on the platform. Zuckerberg’s language here misses the critical distinction between the information a 
> person actively shares, and the information that Facebook takes from users without their knowledge or consent.
>
> Zuckerberg’s insistence that users have “complete control” neatly overlooks all the ways that users unwittingly 
> “share” information with Facebook. 
>
> Of course, there are the things you actively choose to share, like photos or status updates, and those indeed come 
> with settings to limit their audience. That is the kind of sharing that Zuckerberg seemed to be addressing in many of 
> his answers to Congressmembers’ questions.
>
> But that’s just the tip of the iceberg. Below the surface are Facebook’s often-invisible methods for collecting and 
> generating information on users without their knowledge or consent, including (but not limited to):
>
>    • Third-party tracking in the form of Facebook’s “like” buttons across the web.
>    • Maintaining shadow profiles on people who don’t even use Facebook.
>    • Logging users’ calls and texts.
>    • Computational inferences that can conclude characteristics and preferences a user never told Facebook about.
>
> Users don’t share this information with Facebook. It’s been actively—and silently—taken from them. 
>
> This stands in stark contrast to Zuckerberg’s claim, while on the record with reporters last week, that “the vast 
> majority of data that Facebook knows about you is because you chose to share it.” And he doubled down on this talking 
> point in his testimony to both the Senate and the House, using it to dodge questions about the full breadth of 
> Facebook’s data collection.
>
> Zuckerberg’s insistence that users have complete control is a smokescreen. Many members of Congress wanted to know 
> not just how users can control what their friends and friends-of-friends see. They wanted to know how to control what 
> third-party apps, advertisers, and Facebook itself are able to collect, store, and analyze. This goes far beyond what 
> users can see on their pages and newsfeeds.
>
> [snip]
>
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