| > This article is so poorly written it is embarassing. I found no glaring grammar mistakes in the article, reading it 12 minutes after your comment. > "races the question" ... "euphemism" These typo / words are not in the article. > it buries what I hope is its main point--that Facebook should be more transparent--at the bottom of the article. That is called the conclusion, whereas in the body the author is supposed to present substantiating information, which is what s/he did. > But Facebook is quite transparent about government censorship, even in the United States 1. Did you check the links on India and Turkey? Facebook released "some information" (which is terrifying if you consider what Facebook collects) about 3470+ accounts. Now, if you consider that some of these accounts are organizations and not individuals, they may have actually released the information regarding tens of thousands of people. Do you know what happens to these people once they are identified? Informal governmental blacklisting, for example, is very common in Turkey if you are critical of government discourses. Who are these users? Why was their information released? How much of it was released? What was the government's reason? Was it investigated by Facebook? And above all, why was it released AT ALL, since Facebook is not bound by these countries' laws when it comes to such practices. 2. When it comes to the US, they just provide a few more breadcrumbs and nothing more. Search Warrant: About what??? Against whom??? Subpoena: About what??? Against whom??? Emergency Disclosures: About what??? Against whom??? What was the emergency??? Court Order: Where are the case numbers??? Court Order (Other): Where are the case numbers??? Pen Register/Trap and Trace: Who ordered this? Why? Who authorized their order? Was it legitimate? Who investigated that legitimacy within Facebook? Why was it complied with? Why was it ordered? Title III: About what??? Where are the case numbers??? Is this what you call sufficient transparency for a (effectively) multinational corporation that handles a incredible amount of Personally Identifying Information? > From what I can see it is much more transparent (and much more active) than Twitter, which for some reason the article praises. The criteria of "It's better than competitor X" is not a criteria; it's a comparison. > It seems only to be castigating Facebook for "censoring" inmates. That is a specific example where EFF has data and uses that data to refute Facebook's position on data that is obscured by Facebook. Their data comes from "information we have received through public records requests filed in several states." > It is reasonable for Facebook to have terms of service which disallow third party access to user profiles, How do you define "3rd party"? > to suspend profiles of users which violate the ToS, This requires proof. What is Facebook's process in proving "guilt"? > and to have a reporting page specific to a class of user which is likely to violate an individual term. How do you define "likely"? What is the mechanism by which Facebook's definition is not clouded by the same prejudice (and against a umber of groups) that clouds yours against incarcerated people? > It is also reasonable for Facebook not to report this data as it is essentially private information about the inmates and their use of Facebook. This is an offtopic non-argument. The linked article does not request that people be individually identified in these reports. Even FOIA has a clause against the release of PII. > Facebook has more responsibility to protecting its inmate users than it does to reporting that information to the rest of us. Your argument here is "Facebook is protecting its inmate users by booting them." To quote the article, "Facebook has been suspending the accounts of inmates for at least four years at the behest of prison officials [through] an easy and confidential [i.e. the identity of the official is not released to the public] “Inmate Takedown”..." If this is a form of protection afforded incarcerated users, than I truly wish it were afforded to all Facebook users... The resulting euphoria would be worth watching. |
The "conclusion" is not a conclusion, but apparently the main point. It's not addressed until the very end. The article reads roughly Support->Vaguely Related Idea->Announcement of Unrelated Item->Argument. It's all over the place.
1. The article is about censorship and you're castigating Facebook for something else entirely. 2. Twitter, specifically, seems to provide much less information. The information you personally are expecting is, in some cases, information that should be protected, or that may be legally protected through court order or statute.
If Facebook must publish this information, the EFF should be both specific in its criteria and consistent in its application of judgment of whether the criteria has been met. This particular article is neither specific nor consistent. It does a poor job of comparing Facebook to other social media. It does a poor job of even mentioning where Facebook gets it right. It uses poor examples of where Facebook gets it wrong.
> The criteria of "It's better than competitor X" is not a criteria, it's a comparison.
But claiming competitor X is good and competitor Y is bad, while providing evidence of the opposite is at best inconsistent.
> how do you define "3rd party"?
This cannot be a serious question. But if you want to play semantic games, how it is defined in the Facebook ToS is what is relevant.
> This requires proof. What is Facebook's process in proving "guilt"?
Does it require proof? It may be entirely at Facebook's discretion, which is also reasonable. In any case, it should not be difficult to prove that a Facebook user account showing changes was not legally changed by an inmate with no official/legal internet access.
Your statement implies there was no proof, which you do not substantiate and the article neither argues nor implies.
> How do you define "likely"?
If you are running a website and frequently get emails about the same violation of your ToS, setting up a reporting form makes a lot of sense. Are you suggesting Facebook did this "just because" or for nefarious reasons?
> This is an offtopic non-argument.
Hardly. The linked article demands nebulously defined and sometimes inconsistent amounts of transparency.
> Your argument here...
Has been mischaracterized by you.