[NFBNJ] : Blind Vine with a thought provoking message from Jonathan Mosen

[joe ruffalo]

Greetings to all!
Well, it’s Sunday evening and thought I would forward the following for your 
review and what will be your next step?

Thanks Debbie!

Joe Ruffalo

**

From: Debbie Azzarone
Sent: Sunday, April 08, 2018 10:30 PM
To: Debbie Azzarone
Subject: Blind Vine with a thought provoking message from Jonathan Mosen

Hello viners,



I usually enjoy reading articles from Jonathan Mosen, one of my favorite
blind people, but this time he's presenting me with a decision I fear I'm
not ready for, or too weak to make.

He happens to be my Facebook friend, and he posted a status the other day
telling all of his friends he was leaving FB, but the article below, which I
read via RSS, went into greater detail as to why.

At least I will still be able to find his offerings on his RSS Feed.



We've all heard about the security and privacy breaches at Facebook, but I
didn't know all the depth and details that are provided in this article.

They are pretty appalling.



I already spend very little time at all on my Facebook news feed, but I do
however, spend a lot of time on the FB groups I am a member of. My town's
page, my high school's class page, my Church's notification page, current
event pages, and a number of blind groups that discuss many topics including
accessibility issues, updates on new products, and info that has proven to
be immensely helpful.



I don't know if giving them up will be so easy for me, but Jonathan is
making me think long and hard about it.

Just what I need.someone tugging on my conscience! It's true what they say,
"Ignorance is Bliss."



What do you think? At the very least, we've got some personal deciding to
do.



Here's Jonathan's message:


I'm deleting Facebook. It's a matter of conscience


<http://mosen.org/author/jmosen/> Jonathan Mosen 08/04/2018
<http://mosen.org/deletefacebook/#respond> 0


Introduction


If you're leaving a room full of people you've been talking with, I think
it's polite to say goodbye. So it was out of courtesy that I let my Facebook
friends know that I am about to delete my account. Of course, whether they
see that post or not depends on the degree to which Facebook's algorithm has
decided that my post is important to them.

You may have seen that large companies like Tesla and SpaceX, and small
companies like Flexibits who develop my favourite iOS calendar app called
Fantastical, have also deleted their Facebook pages. Maybe some of your
friends have left the service too, and it's left you a bit perplexed.

Quitting Facebook is no small matter for me. Through it, I've connected with
old school friends and made other acquaintances. Mosen Consulting and
Mushroom FM, both of which I manage, have pages there. That's why I resisted
the compelling urge to delete my account immediately after I started reading
about the Cambridge Analytica data breach in mid-March. But the feeling I
have of needing to run a mile from this service and its toxic, cavalier
culture has only strengthened as the torrent of leaks has continued.

Some of the comments I received on the post notifying people of my intention
to delete Facebook have shown me that a lot of people simply don't
understand, or haven't really heard about, the Cambridge Analytica story.
That's why I'm writing this post. If you understand what has happened and
decide that you don't care, or that you're willing to give Facebook a chance
to fix things, then fair enough. But I hope you will at least make that
decision armed with the facts. Remember facts? We used to value them once.

I also want to demonstrate that the Cambridge Analytica abuse is not an
isolated event, but symptomatic of a rotten culture.


What's this Cambridge Analytica thing about?


Cambridge Analytica is a company founded in December 2013. They've become
famous in US media for their role in the Trump campaign in 2016. They're
based in the UK, and they have offices elsewhere, including the US. I've
been reading about their actions with growing concern for some time. If
you're interested in understanding this company, The Guardian
<http://www.theguardian.co.uk/>  has some in-depth articles. Search for
Cambridge Analytica on their site.

My brief summary is that Cambridge Analytica mines data, then they sell that
data to political parties or political operators to influence elections or
referenda, such as the UK's Brexit referendum.

You may ask what the big deal is. The Obama campaign was legendary for its
ground-breaking social media strategy, so surely, everyone's at it. What's
good for the goose is good for the gander, right? Sorry, no. I can summarise
the difference between what the Obama campaign did and what has happened
with Cambridge Analytica in a single word. "Consent".

The Obama campaign, and for that matter many other legitimate political
campaigns on both the left and right of the spectrum, either gave you the
opportunity to opt in, or targeted ads using standard methodology sanctioned
by Facebook, which you agree to when you use the service. What Cambridge
Analytica has been doing is devious at best.

Back in 2014, if you live in the United States, you may have seen a quiz app
on Facebook called "This is your Digital Life". You needed to be a US voter
to complete the quiz, which promised to provide you with insight about your
personality type. That app collected your personal Facebook data, and of
course the answers to the questions it asked which helped further flesh out
a profile of you.

You may well say that people need to be more careful about the apps they use
on Facebook. You could argue that this is no different from installing some
rogue software on your PC that you downloaded from a dodgy source. And
that's a fair point. If we have the knowledge, we must be savvy about these
things, except that respondents were told the data would be used for
scientific research.

The Cambridge Analytica scandal doesn't end with the 270,000 people who were
enticed into revealing more about themselves than was wise. This quiz also
mined the personal data of all the friends of people who completed the quiz.
This is the critical point here. Data of 87 million people was mined, and
those people knew nothing about it. It essentially means that Facebook's
privacy settings have been meaningless.

Several countries with robust privacy legislation have already begun
inquiries into this matter, or in some cases already stated that Facebook
has broken privacy laws.

Having obtained this massive amount of data in what might be described as
one of the largest data breaches in history, what did Cambridge Analytica do
with it? They used the data to design highly targeted political ads, based
on what they were able to determine about your preferences and in some cases
psychological profile. They knew, based on all the data they collected, how
you were likely to vote. If your vote was unlikely to be for the candidate
they were contracted by, they would craft highly targeted ads designed to
change your mind.


A matter of consent


Let's not kid ourselves. These days, we get shiny things in exchange for
being the product. Google knows about the things we're searching for and
will show us ads based on that. Amazon isn't providing the Echo at a
rock-bottom price out of the goodness of its heart. Its primary purpose is
to collect additional data about you and to make it easier for you to order
stuff.

All of this is a reality of the era we're living in. The difference is that
we know what's going on with these companies, and we can make an informed
choice about whether the data-sharing price we're being asked to pay is
worth the reward we get in return. If the price is too high in terms of
compromised privacy, then we can search and shop elsewhere.

What's troubling about the Facebook issue is that this is just one example
of an egregious breach of trust on their part. We didn't have the chance to
opt out of the Cambridge Analytica data mining, because we didn't have the
opportunity to consent to our friends passing on our data to them.

Facebook's initial response when they were contacted by journalists about
the stories that were going to run on the Cambridge Analytica matter was to
threaten to sue the journalists if they published the story. The
journalists, sure of their facts, weren't intimidated and published anyway.
Suddenly, Facebook was in grovelling apology mode, with full-page ads in
several prominent newspapers. It seems to me it's not an unkind conclusion
to reach that they were sorrier for being caught than for what they did,
especially since journalists have uncovered that Facebook knew about this
matter for at least two years. Facebook secured a promise that the data had
been deleted, a promise that wasn't kept. But most important, once Facebook
became aware of the abuse, they didn't inform the victims of the privacy
breach that their data had been accessed without consent. That is going to
happen shortly.


The floodgates have opened


Many readers will know that every week day on Mushroom FM, I host a
technology magazine show, The Daily Fibre, which summarises the major
technology news stories of the day. Since the Cambridge Analytica story
broke, we've had major stories on Facebook almost every day. Just as I think
things can't shock me any more than they already have, something else
happens. Here's just a summary of some of the stories we've covered over the
last few weeks.


Meta data from Android users


iOS users may get frustrated at times by the way that Apple's sandboxing can
make something that should be simple much more complex, but the sandbox
approach has privacy benefits. It turns out that if you use Facebook for
Android and installed the app a while back, Facebook may have been
collecting data on all the calls you've made and the texts you've sent. To
be clear, this doesn't include the actual content of the texts, but it's
meta data that's critical here, in other words, who you've been calling and
texting, when you did so, and in the case of the call, its duration.

It's standard practice for a social network to want to access your contacts
so you can find others who also use the service, and that's fine if you
choose to opt in. But in older versions of Android, if you granted Facebook
permission to access your contacts, you also allowed Facebook to gain this
additional data. In my view, for Facebook to be collecting this data is
creepy and inappropriate. If you go into Facebook Settings on your computer,
you can download your data as a zip file, and it contains a series of HTML
documents. If you're affected by this issue, that data will show you that
Facebook has kept all this information on file.


Now you see Zuck's messages, now you don't


Facebook's CEO Mark Zuckerberg has sent some pretty stupid messages over the
years, and now it turns out Facebook has been protecting him in a manner not
available to the rest of us. People who've corresponded with him on Facebook
Messenger report seeing messages from Mr Zuckerberg disappearing from the
conversation thread, even though the other end of the conversation remains
intact. This was not a feature available to the public.

Facebook is responding to this controversy by adding an unsend option for
everyone, but again, that didn't happen until the behaviour was exposed by
the media.


So what if Facebook leads to terrorism and death?


Andrew Bosworth is a Vice-President at Facebook. Recently, someone leaked an
internal memo he wrote, in which he advanced the view that connecting people
could lead to deaths, but so be it.

Here's the full text of the 2016 memo, as leaked to Buzzfeed.
<https://www.buzzfeed.com/ryanmac/growth-at-any-cost-top-facebook-executive-
defended-data?utm_term=.fv3r4bAVw#.kuoRygPa3>

"The Ugly



We talk about the good and the bad of our work often. I want to talk about
the ugly.



We connect people.



That can be good if they make it positive. Maybe someone finds love. Maybe
it even saves the life of someone on the brink of suicide.



So we connect more people



That can be bad if they make it negative. Maybe it costs a life by exposing
someone to bullies. Maybe someone dies in a terrorist attack coordinated on
our tools.



And still we connect people.



The ugly truth is that we believe in connecting people so deeply that
anything that allows us to connect more people more often is *de facto*
good. It is perhaps the only area where the metrics do tell the true story
as far as we are concerned.



That isn't something we are doing for ourselves. Or for our stock price
(ha!). It is literally just what we do. We connect people. Period.



That's why all the work we do in growth is justified. All the questionable
contact importing practices. All the subtle language that helps people stay

searchable by friends. All of the work we do to bring more communication in.
The work we will likely have to do in China some day. All of it.



The natural state of the world is not connected. It is not unified. It is
fragmented by borders, languages, and increasingly by different products.
The best products don't win. The ones everyone use win.



I know a lot of people don't want to hear this. Most of us have the luxury
of working in the warm glow of building products consumers love. But make no
mistake, growth tactics are how we got here. If you joined the company
because it is doing great work, that's why we get to do that great work. We
do have great products but we still wouldn't be half our size without
pushing the envelope on growth. Nothing makes Facebook as valuable as having
your friends on it, and no product decisions have gotten as many friends on
as the ones made in growth. Not photo tagging. Not news feed. Not messenger.
Nothing.



In almost all of our work, we have to answer hard questions about what we
believe. We have to justify the metrics and make sure they aren't losing out
on a bigger picture. But connecting people. That's our imperative. Because
that's what we do. We connect people."

So ends the remarkably obnoxious memo. In a formula now as predictable as it
is unbelievable, Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg said he disagreed with the
memo. So to, believe it or not, did the person who wrote it.


I feel utterly sick having to write this


You may have seen that from time-to-time, Facebook surveys some of its
users. Around a month ago, some Facebook users received a survey in which it
asked whether it was OK for a man to ask a child for sexual pictures.

Specifically, there were two questions relating to this topic. The first
read:

"There are a wide range of topics and behaviors that appear on Facebook. In
thinking about an ideal world where you could set Facebook's policies, how
would you handle the following: a private message in which an adult man asks
a 14-year-old girl for sexual pictures."



Users could then choose from the following options:

*    This content should be allowed on Facebook, and I would not mind
seeing it
*    This content should be allowed on Facebook, but I don't want to see
it
*    This content should not be allowed on Facebook, and no one should be
able to see it
*    I have no preference on this topic



The second question related to this issue was this.



"When thinking about the rules to deciding whether a private message in
which an adult man asks a 14 year old girl for sexual pictures should or
should not be allowed on Facebook, ideally who do you think should be
deciding the rules?

Respondents to the survey could make the following choices.

*    Facebook decides the rules on its own
*    Facebook decides the rules with advice from external experts
*    External experts decide the rules and tell Facebook
*    Facebook users decide the rules by voting and telling Facebook
*    I have no preference.

I hope I don't have to spell out how utterly repugnant it is that Facebook
felt the need to ask its users for its opinion on such a thing. And police
involvement wasn't one of the options.

Facebook's response? Yet another apology. See the pattern here? They behave
abominably, get caught, and do the grovelling apology thing.


Facebook's Orwellian VPN


One reason for using a VPN (virtual private network) is to secure your data
against inappropriate snooping.

In 2013, Facebook bought Onavo, a company producing a VPN client called
Protect. Recently, Facebook for iOS users in the US have been seeing a
"Protect" option coming up in Settings.

If it's not coming up for you, or you haven't investigated it, here's
Facebook's description of what the Protect option does.

"Onavo Protect helps keep you and your data safe when you browse and share
information on the web. This powerful app helps keep you safe by
understanding when you visit potentially malicious or harmful websites and
giving you a warning. It also helps keep your details secure when you login
to websites or enter personal information such as bank accounts and credit
card numbers."

That's an accurate description of what any reputable VPN client does. But as
all the good infomercials say, "wait, there's more". And as any good lawyer
says, "read the fine print", because there's one little sentence buried in
the description that makes all the difference.

"Because we're part of Facebook, we also use this info to improve Facebook
products and services, gain insights into the products and services people
value, and build better experiences."

Oh boy! So how do they do that? It's easy. Once you're connected to the VPN,
and it's hard not to be once you get this app installed, Facebook is
collecting data about every site you visit and what you're doing on it.
Unlike privacy-focussed VPN services that pride themselves on not keeping
data logs, Onavo says it will keep logs as long as you have an account. As
far back as August 2017, The Wall Street Journal reported that Facebook used
data from Onavo to track the popularity of competitive start-ups and other
user preferences, and to inform acquisition decisions. That's right, if
you're using this thing, you're facilitating Facebook spying on the way
competitors are being used.


Enough is enough


For me personally, a line has been crossed by Facebook. As I stated in the
introduction, we all know that there's a price to pay for free services. We
sell our souls to some extent in exchange for some of the services we get
for free. But this is too much.

Facebook has a stench about it that has become so acrid that I can no longer
use the platform in good conscience.

They do something completely outrageous, do all they can to stop it from
coming out, and then, no doubt advised by some of the best PR people in the
business, are expert at contrition when they've been busted. How many last
chances do they get?

I'm only one person out of billions who use Facebook. Leaving the service
may well change nothing. But I believe we have an obligation to be informed,
conscious consumers. I care about eating free-range eggs, about eating meat
that is farmed humanely, and in this case, about companies that treat my
data with transparency and respect.

The only thing these companies care about in the end is how many people use
the service, and for how long. The memo I quoted above makes that abundantly
clear. So, I'm being the change I wish to see in the world, and I know I'm
not the only one. A recent survey showed that over 30% of tech workers are
considering deleting Facebook.

Will I ever use Facebook again? I'd never say never. We all deserve a chance
at redemption. However, I think it's highly unlikely that I will use the
service while Mark Zuckerberg is CEO. The buck stops with him. Just as Uber
is trying to change its culture and atone for its serious mistakes with new
leadership, so Facebook needs to show Mr Zuckerberg the door.

So, shortly, I'll be deleting my Facebook account and the Mosen Consulting
page. Perhaps Mosen Consulting will suffer through the lack of a Facebook
presence, but I'd rather live with that than the dirty feeling I have being
on the platform. There are plenty of other ways to stay in touch.

Some of the wonderful team at Mushroom FM still want a Facebook presence,
and I aim to facilitate that by handing the administration of that page over
to someone else.


A note of thanks


I'd like to end on a positive note and express my appreciation for everyone
who has worked on the accessibility side of Facebook. Some of the work done
there has been innovative, and the factors causing me to leave have been the
responsibility of people way up the food chain. I imagine many Facebook
employees must be deeply troubled by what has been revealed of late. Thanks
so much to the Facebook accessibility team, you've made a difference in
terms of making such a dominant platform more inclusive.

-Jonathan



Your Blind Vine Team



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"The opinions expressed herein are not necessarily those of my employer, not
necessarily mine, and probably not necessary."


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