Ever change your mind while composing a video to post on Facebook? If you used Facebook's tools, they kept it anyway.
Earlier this week, like many people around the world, my sister Bailey downloaded her Facebook data archives. Along with the contact lists and relationship statuses was something unexpected: several different videos of her attempting to play a scale on a wooden flute in her childhood bedroom. Each video, she discovered, was a different "take" — recorded on Facebook, but then, she assumed, discarded before she posted the final version to a friend's wall.
[...] Facebook's current data policy says that the company can "collect the content and other information you provide when you use our Services, including when you sign up for an account, create or share, and message or communicate with others." "Create" is the operative word in there. By that logic, Facebook technically could save any video a user filmed but did not publish because you created it on the platform.
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Submitted via IRC for SoyCow1984
Facebook has disclosed yet another privacy flub. This time around, it says a bug in the Photo API led to third-party apps being able to access not only timeline photos (which users had permitted them to do), but Stories, Marketplace images and photos people uploaded to Facebook but never actually shared.
"For example, if someone uploads a photo to Facebook but doesn't finish posting it -- maybe because they've lost reception or walked into a meeting -- we store a copy of that photo so the person has it when they come back to the app to complete their post," Engineering Director Tomer Bar explained in a post.
The bug affected as many as 6.8 million people across up to 1,500 apps, Facebook says, and it was active for 12 days before it was detected and fixed on September 25th. Companies are supposed to disclose data breaches within 72 hours under EU General Data Protection Regulation rules, though Facebook told TechCrunch it needed some time to investigate the bug's impact and prepare a notice for affected users in various languages. Still, the delay could land Facebook in hot water with EU regulators.
Source: https://www.engadget.com/2018/12/14/facebook-privacy-bug-photos-timeline-stories-marketplace/
Related: Facebook Keeps Unposted Videos
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Friday March 30 2018, @02:09PM (1 child)
Any data you send across the Internet should be assumed recorded.
Why would you expect anything else?
(Score: 2) by driverless on Saturday March 31 2018, @01:09AM
Facebook speichern
was sie wissen
elektronisch ein
alles kann ja irgendwann
und irgendwie mal wichtig sein.
Tag und Nacht wird es bei dir sein
Tag und Nacht wird es bei dir sein
Facebook.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday March 30 2018, @02:12PM
Could be a lot of fun stuff on there.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Friday March 30 2018, @02:12PM (3 children)
Let me simplify this - Facebook keeps everything. Any data you've ever fed it has been saved, copied, backed up around the globe, and used to put you in neat buckets it can sell.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday March 30 2018, @06:28PM (1 child)
For every n pieces of data that you've given to facebook, they have n(n-1)/2 inferences about you.
(Score: 2) by c0lo on Friday March 30 2018, @10:57PM
Why are you considering inferences in pairs only? You reckon triplets or higher cardinality touples can't be mined?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
(Score: 3, Interesting) by Spamalope on Saturday March 31 2018, @04:33PM
Any data you've ever fed it
Or they've taken from any device you've loaded the app on. Everything in your text history, photo gallery and contact list. They've recorded that name you put that person you don't likes phone number as, and could 'accidentally' reveal that at any time. (just to mention the least of what they might do)
Also they've taken data they've taken through web browsers, including your account details (name, email address if it's the login name, etc) from other websites.
If you don't install the app, those you've communicated with have and FB got it all without your consent that way.
If FB has been keeping even test videos, there is no way they haven't recorded sexting content being made and kept that video without the creator's knowledge. (showing it gone if you don't save and then keeping it anyway is deliberately deceptive) Why aren't they running afoul of the child porn laws?
(Score: 5, Insightful) by Gaaark on Friday March 30 2018, @02:57PM (3 children)
I have this shit in my toilet.
It smells up my whole life but it's my connection to the outside world. If I flush the turd away I may lose all my 'friends', so there it sits.
In my toilet.
Smelling up everything.
'Friends'.
--- Please remind me if I haven't been civil to you: I'm channeling MDC. ---Gaaark 2.0 ---
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday March 30 2018, @03:51PM (1 child)
You might lose contact with family members that live on the other side of the country! The horror! And what about the events!? Can't miss those!
(Score: 1, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Friday March 30 2018, @04:16PM
I moved across the country to get away from the family.
- Don Carlos
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday March 30 2018, @07:17PM
You’re going to reap just what you sow.
Lou warned me of FB years ago.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday March 30 2018, @03:07PM
>> "Create" is the operative word in there.
No, they're all operative. There is no gotcha. "We basically keep everything" is pretty simple and uncomplicated.
>> By that logic, Facebook technically could save any
>> video a user filmed but did not publish because you
>> created it on the platform.
Not "technically" -- they simply can, and do, and tell you so.
This is a "No Shit, Sherlock."
(Score: 4, Insightful) by Runaway1956 on Friday March 30 2018, @03:16PM (6 children)
Everyone who is surprised at this "revelation", please raise your hands.
(Score: 2, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Friday March 30 2018, @04:39PM (2 children)
My bet is that this is more of Facebook being beat up by the D-team controlled media for failing to prevent working class protests (especially ones against the union that's supposed to be representing them but is really working for the elites) from being organized on that platform.
Once again, corporate Pravda is facepalmingly stupid. Though I admit that this may be news to the unwashed masses.
My kingdom for the knowledge of how to help these people organize without needing centralized platforms like Facebook. Can they learn IRC? Can we give them turn-key distributed social nodes? (GNU Social? Plus Diaspora? Can we secure it against spam or design something else that's secured from spam and can be made available in a turn-key format?)
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Friday March 30 2018, @05:52PM (1 child)
Wha?
(Score: 3, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Friday March 30 2018, @08:25PM
Sorry. Perhaps that was a bit cryptic. I'll try to break it down:
Most major news sources, particularly the Washington Post and New York Times, are mouthpieces for the Democrat Party. Right-wingers were the first to pick up on this, and more of us left-wingers are starting to pick up on it, too. It's safe to assume that pretty much any source that's included on Google News is a Democrat Party propaganda outlet.
The unions are not negotiating on the behalf of the workers they're supposed to represent. We saw that with the teacher's strike in West Virginia, and also look into the UAW scandal that's recently come to light. The unions are in the pockets of the capital owners.
Facebook has somehow upset the powers that be. We're supposed to believe that this is because of Russian "meddling." At any rate, the media has been coming down hard on Facebook, clearly running a coordinated campaign to turn people off from Facebook. (Not that we should stop them....)
By Pravda I meant the mainstream news sources in the USA, and not just the Democrat mouthpieces, but those such as Fox News as well.
Many of the worker protests are organized on Facebook due to ease of use.
I'm suggesting that the real reason the media is coming down hard on Facebook is because the elites who control the Democrat Party are angry that Facebook is allowing for this kind of grassroots organization.
Finally, I hoped to elicit ideas for how we can help protests mobilize and organize without relying on centralized services such as Facebook.
My apologies for not being clear. Does that help?
(Score: 3, Touché) by tfried on Friday March 30 2018, @08:14PM (2 children)
I for one am surprised, but that's because I had failed to imagine that anybody would use an online service to record video. Well. Naive me.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday March 31 2018, @07:26PM (1 child)
By the way we have these things called planes too, they're like metal birds that people get into to fly to various places. Yes people actually use those too.
(Score: 2) by tfried on Thursday April 12 2018, @08:56AM
While, obviously, this is the first time I heard of those "planes", indeed, I do understand why people would want to use those, seeing that they cannot fly by themselves. Contrary to using an online service to record video.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by requerdanos on Friday March 30 2018, @05:06PM (1 child)
Bailey changed her mind, sure. She recorded some videos, decided not to use them, and then found a take she liked and posted it. Everything worked.
Later, Bailey was surprised that the videos she recorded on Facebook were still stored on Facebook. (Ignoring how obvious that might seem to some, let's focus on the fact that Bailey was apparently in fact surprised that the videos were retained.)
However, a similar situation could have gone, Random_Person records some videos, decides not to use them, then later says, "my goodness, this recording videos thing is harder than I thought. I think the second or third try I made was probably the best one and I should use that after all. I hope they still have it!" or words to that effect.
That person, on looking to see what all Facebook keeps (everything) vs. throws away (they don't even have garbage service at their headquarters, I heard*), will be happy to find that there is that sucky-but-maybe-not-so-bad-after-all second take, sitting right there. No unpleasant surprises.
Now, the expectations of a Random_Person and of Bailey are opposites here in my example; and both seem reasonable from their particular points of view.
The question is, which should Facebook choose to do, according to the principle of least astonishment [thefullwiki.org]? Keep everything? Or keep everything except for recorded but yet unposted videos?
I submit that the answer is the former.
-------------------------
* sarcasm. I have actually not heard any reports on whether they have it or not.
(Score: 3, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Friday March 30 2018, @06:25PM
The videos shouldn't require downloading all of your data to know that they're still retained. If it isn't actually in a place where the user can find it without going through extra steps, it shouldn't be retained.
It should be perfectly reasonable for people to assume that if they can't see it from their account that FB hasn't had it. Especially in the case of unpublished drafts. It should be reasonable to assume that FB isn't retaining those as most operators don't, it's just too expensive to retain extra copies of videos that the end user doesn't like enough to publish.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday March 30 2018, @05:53PM (1 child)
It will only get worse for Mr Zuck.
They will tear him down, till his "suicide" becomes believable.
Next time don't try to run Zucky! It's Still HER TURN!
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday March 30 2018, @06:32PM
And I'll be shedding precisely zero tears for that pathetic waste of skin.
(Score: 3, Informative) by SomeGuy on Friday March 30 2018, @06:49PM
The only real surprise here is that facefuck handed over the unposted data at all. Probably someone at farcebook just didn't test everything all the way.
Of course they keep all of that and bazillion times more.
While I doubt they will lose a significant amount of product (no, the customers are the ones paying for the aggregated data), it is interesting to see the first real sign that Facebook won't last forever.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday March 30 2018, @11:51PM (1 child)
There have been countless articles about Facebook and privacy over the years so it's not like people didn't know it was evil, they just chose to downplay or ignore it for convenience. I have no sympathy for them. Many are the same people who were shocked -- SHOCKED! -- when the Snowden story broke but then quietly stuck their heads back into the digital sand upon realizing that any meaningful change required action. This isn't that different. It's a world decided by idiots and we're all on the train ride with them.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday March 31 2018, @09:16AM
I just wish we had the manpower to enact it.
I'd lose about 98 percent of my family, but sacrifices need to be made for the future of the human race!
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday March 31 2018, @12:29PM
A preeminent privacy advocate, Richard M. Stallman, points out that people don't use Facebook, but rather, Facebook uses them.
As such, Facebook does not have "users". It has "useds".
- https://archive.org/details/LundukeHourApril14RMS [archive.org]