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It's a "boy who cried wolf" attitude with too much "fake" emotional appeal.

It's not so much "get out of fb" it's how you use it.

"but but but it's your privacy!!111" yeah, exactly, that's why I limit the information I share with FB, no location checkins, no "picture every other minute", no "fill your missing data" BS, etc



The article points out that it doesn't matter if you share it, that data is collected regardless on you.


I am aware of those, and frankly Google does a lot of the same

Also, don't install or use the FB mobile app (good thing it sucks)

There are browser extensions that hide G+/FB/Twitter buttons, it's a good idea to use them

" Even if you never posted anything, they can easily work out your age, gender, sexual orientation and political views. "

Why is this being said with a surprised tone? Oh and this happens in real life too, you don't need fb for that.

"Guess your age and gender"? People on the street can do that too, I better walk with a paper bag over my head.


"People on the street can do that too, I better walk with a paper bag over my head."

But there is no one person on the street that can do that for all other people on all the streets on the planet. Concentration of information in one "brain" is the problem, not that not everything is top secret. There is a difference in the possible consequences between some neighbour on the street seeing you and someone having a database of all public movements of all people.


I filled "missing data" with fake, conflicting information


You're filling out a few fields with fake data, but filling thousands of "fields" daily, for real. Those come from your behaviour: what sites you visit, when, with what frequency, what do you click, what do you install, who are your contacts, when do you sleep, when do you move, how often you send messages... I can not even imagine how long the list must be from all the things you can extract from someone's internet + mobile behaviour.

Edit: and that's what I find most troubling: that someone can know much more about me than myself. Things that you can only realize from looking at the data over time, things that are invisible when experienced on real time.


The part you find troubling is likely the most exciting part---once harnessed and turned to an individual's utility. "Something that knows more about me than myself" was the dream of the 'personal digital assistant' craze in the '90s, but the technology wasn't there yet. It's here now, but it leverages network advantages and scalability to work its magic.

I imagine the synthesis of these forces in the future is technologies that aggregate, but that the indivudal can buy into. Do you want help deciding what to wear based on the weather or time of day, beyond what your assistant can do for you? Then there's a collective data channel you can opt-in to joining, and you'll trade some of your personal private information for access to a digital "collective unconscious" of aggregate data. I liken it to the 23andme approach of collecting genetic profiles.


There is a difference between "knowing more about you" and "helping you find out something new about you". The entity that knows more about everyone than they themselves do concentrates power. A tool that you use to find out something new about yourself, only for yourself, does not.


I do not let facebookm nor google access to any of that. I block every 3rd party cookies / javascript / frame.


It can often be cross-checked with information that others provide about you (in good will, or even unknowingly - either explicitly, or by implication, etc.), and you have no control over that




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