[austincheney]

So many excuses. The story "Of course I agreed, but its all their fault because I didn't know what I agreed to" gets old.

Everybody has known for years that Facebook uses this data against you to make money. If it didn't upset you before why would it suddenly upset you now?

[pjc50]

There's an awful lot of people posting "we knew it was bad already, why do you care now?" Remarkably consistently across all articles relating to Facebook. Clearly you want nothing done about this and are happy with this low level of privacy. But on the other hand a lot of people have been unhappy with it for a long time; suddenly the dam has broken and the public discussion in the media is taking an interest.

This happens with many scandals. I'm reminded of LIBOR "rigging", which all the participants thought was entirely normal.

Speaking of financial services, the UK had a long run of "pensions mis-selling" scandals. https://pensionsorter.co.uk/pensions-scandals/ ; I put the personal information leaking into the same category. People were presented with options they did not fully understand the implications of and then induced into picking ones which turned out badly for them. This kind of thing is why so many people hate the financial services industry, and the data mining industry is going to end up the same way if they're not careful.

[harryf]

The "why now?" question has a simple answer: "because Trump".

The public basically believes that Facebook enabled to Putin to get Trump elected. So suddenly the issue of all that data we've been sharing has gone from "I've got nothing to hide" to "This got that guy I hate elected"

Whether or not that's accurate or informed is beside the point.

[pjc50]

True - both that that's why we're talking about it now, and that it seems extremely likely this is a contributory factor to Trump getting elected. Perhaps not directly or traceably, but through the huge spread of conspiracy garbage, inflammatory clickbait, and fake news.

In the UK, the trigger issue is Brexit instead. The fake news long predates the internet - Boris Johnson built a career printing false articles about the EU in the Spectator, and the EU has long had a debunking site to deal with the UK press in general: https://blogs.ec.europa.eu/ECintheUK/euromyths-a-z-index/

[harryf]

> The fake news long predates the internet - Boris Johnson built a career printing false articles about the EU in the Spectator

Indeed although that's always been seen as OK because those are "our guys" manipulating public opinion vs. Putin being "the enemy" and getting Trump elected i.e. the tool (Facebook) is not under "our" / establishment control so Something Must be Done(TM)

[pjc50]

Been seen as OK by whom?

[harryf]

"Seen as OK" by UK press / establishment politicians in the sense that no real outrage was generated or hearings held or laws changed. Unlike what seems to be about to happen with Facebook...

[Ruphin]

When consenting to 'upload my contacts from my phone', I think very few people will interpret that as 'upload my complete call and text history'. Is it the user's fault for assuming Facebook is doing what it says it is? Should the user assume that they are being lied to by default and embark on a research project every time they want to use a product?

If Facebook presents the user with an alternate simple-to-understand representation of their EULA, it their responsibility to be fair and honest in this alternate representation. I think it is completely fair to blame them for failing to do so.

[natestemen]

To be completely honest, I don't think many people outside the tech bubble have realized the extent to which facebook used and collected users data.

I just don't feel like it's fair to say everybody has known for years. Maybe in your circle, but certainly not in every ones.

[austincheney]

> Maybe in your circle

What if the audience in question is limited to people reading Hacker News? Do they have an excuse for the sudden change of heart?

[trgn]

Absolutely, people change their opinions all the time, they don't need an excuse, rather, a welcoming pat on the back. It's a good thing!

[pjc50]

I thought HN had been fairly privacy-skeptical of Facebook for a while.

Often with these things it's not the same people switching from a view to its opposite, it's more that one group shuts up and the other speaks up. The collective appears to change its mind without any individual having crossed the floor.

[sidlls]

Facebook collects and uses data about people who don't have accounts with them: by definition there is no consent. They also collect and use the same kinds of data for their registered users, even if these users never explicitly consented to it.

[dfxm12]

If it didn't upset you before why would it suddenly upset you now?

People have been upset about this since Messenger came out. You can look up articles dating back to 2014 warning people about all the permissions Messenger uses. False assertions that people weren't upset before are getting old.

[Slansitartop]

And back then many of the people saying stuff like...

> If it didn't upset you before why would it suddenly upset you now?

...were probably putting down the people who were upset by saying they were being paranoid.

I think the fuel that's driving the intensity of this scandal is the evidence that the "paranoid" fears were broadly correct and the trust people placed in Facebook was misplaced.

[ckastner]

> Of course I agreed, but its all their fault because I didn't know what I agreed to

This might sound counter-intuitive at first glance, but nevertheless can make sense, legally speaking.

Let's begin with an extreme example: Say someone holds a gun to your head, and forces you to sign an unspecified agreement. In that case, undisputibly, it is all their fault, and you don't know what you agreed to. Clearly, this would not be legally binding.

Well, there are less extreme examples which also lead to results that are not legally binding. Sometimes, these are part of consumer protection laws. In some jurisdictions, these might even be part of common contract law.

Or, to use the best example: "agreements" of this sort will almost certainly be null and void under the GDPR.

[knz]

Isn't the surprise of many that this was used for political purposes in a way that significantly differs from the expected pattern (micro targeting vs generic political advertising)?

I suspect most people on HN are aware of how naive much of the public are about the implications of technology.

[xienze]

> Isn't the surprise of many that this was used for political purposes in a way that significantly differs from the expected pattern (micro targeting vs generic political advertising)?

Also not a surprise, it was well-known that the 2012 Obama campaign used targeted advertising and the media at the time raved about this brilliant use of an emerging technology. No one at the time saw fit to question them or Facebook. Let's all just be intellectually honest here: people only care because Trump made effective use of social media.

[knz]

> Let's all just be intellectually honest here: people only care because Trump made effective use of social media.

I'm not sure that's accurate either in the context of how the Trump campaign used this data and the investigation into the Trump campaign. The issue isn't that Trump used social media, it's how they used it and who they worked with (Roger Stone and the WikiLeaks/DNC hack angle for example).

[mulletbum]

Can someone explain why this is getting downvoted? This is Hacker News not Reddit, please express your angle with text, not just a downvote.

[cryptoz]

Hacker News downvotes on emotion every second of every day. It is far worse than reddit. Do not complain about downvotes here, that is against the rules. It is not against the rules here to downvote a comment because you disagree with it, unlike reddit. That's normal here and how HN is meant to work.

[mistermann]

> This is Hacker News not Reddit

The distinction is diminishing over time.