How Facebook Can Out Your Most Personal Secrets 467
McGruber writes "The Wall Street Journal is reporting that Facebook revealed the sexual preferences of users despite those users have chosen 'privacy lock-down' settings on Facebook. The article describes two students who were casualties of a privacy loophole on Facebook—the fact that anyone can be added to a group by a friend without their approval. As a result, the two lost control over their secrets, even though both students were sophisticated users who had attempted to use Facebook's privacy settings to shield some of their activities from their parents. Facebook spokesman Andrew Noyes responded with a statement blaming the users: 'Our hearts go out to these young people. Their unfortunate experience reminds us that we must continue our work to empower and educate users about our robust privacy controls.'"
Better title (Score:5, Interesting)
I preferred the title given to the Facebook spokesman in the summary originally written by the submitter [slashdot.org]:
Facebook spokesprick Andrew Noyes responded with a statement blaming the users ...
Plausible deniability (Score:5, Interesting)
Maybe I'm missing something, but if the loophole here is that you can be added to a group without your involvement or active consent, then surely that gives you an out when your ignorant homophobe of a father sees that you're associated with a queer choir group - say it was a case of mistaken identity or a prank or a troll or anything else you like.
That said, I don't think it's a non-issue when group membership can leak actual or apparent private information; ought to be a simple fix to make it ask before you're added to any group and then the whole problem goes away without anyone getting interrogated about groups they're attached to. The existence of potential deniability doesn't remove the issue, just provides at least some way of coping with problems casued until it's actually fixed.
Re:IF YOU HAND THEM OVER IT WILL TAKE THEM !! (Score:5, Interesting)
At first I thought it was "Interest in" becoming public information. If that was the case the easy solution is to leave it empty, but it wasn't.
The "loophole" allowed someone to add them to "Queer Chorus" discussion group.
I laugh at the talking head that talked about "robust privacy controls". I locked up my account so that no one except friends can see anything. Or so I thought. Sometime recently (changeover to timeline?) all new posts started becoming public, and I had to re-lock it down. As I notice searching people on Facebook, it seems there's lots of people who previously intended to keep their profile private now have public timelines. These sure are robust controls!
My heart goes out to these students and their intolerant environment.
Rubbish! (Score:4, Interesting)
To this statement I say: Rubbish!
It's just standard boilerplate rhetoric. It's sad, sad indeed. But can one please remind me of what I am losing by intentionally refusing to join Facebook?
I should add that even without Facebook, I am doing pretty good so far. What am I missing?
Re:Truly horrible. (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:IF YOU HAND THEM OVER IT WILL TAKE THEM !! (Score:4, Interesting)
They are robust for facebook's purpose. They are robust against your attempts to use them to secure your privacy!
Re:This issue is slowly becoming a non-issue (Score:5, Interesting)
I have to wonder about parents who haven't figured out their child is gay. I guess maybe some don't want to believe it so choose to be blind. My daughter dated, well...went out with a guy that I pretty much figured was harmless, at least to her, off the mark. I told her he was sweet and she just looked at me and I knew she knew and they were just friends. His parents however went bonkers when upon going off to college he came out of the closet in a big, big way. I still don't get how they missed it.
Re:Stopped using facebook 8 months ago (Score:5, Interesting)
> I've been added to several,er, 'fairly extreme view' groups without my confirmation/consent.
Mark Zuckerberg was added to NAMBLA without his consent. http://www.forbes.com/sites/andygreenberg/2010/10/07/mark-zuckerberg-joins-the-north-american-man-boy-love-association-and-other-adventures-in-facebook-groups/ [forbes.com]
> Though some have questioned Calacanis's story, Facebook's own FAQ
> confirms that anyone can be added to a group without his or her consent:
> "Can I prevent people from adding me to a new group?" is answered by
> "The functionality of approving a group membership is not available."
It's one thing to join a private gay web forum, but with "Facebook" and "private" do not belong in the same sentence. I'm retired, so my right-of-centre views (Canadian "right wing" === USA "mushy middle") won't be able to hurt any potential career. But for anybody who needs a job to pay bills and put food on the table, Facebook is a timebomb waiting to go off.
Re:Truly horrible. (Score:4, Interesting)
I assume the same, though his rogue capitalization and blatant lies made me wonder if he actually meant some other group.
Disclaimer: I am a former state director for American Atheists. They're weird folks, but they're not institutionally bigots in any way, even toward the religious.
Re:IF YOU HAND THEM OVER IT WILL TAKE THEM !! (Score:2, Interesting)
There is a privacy setting so you can't be added to groups without your permission which undercuts the claim that they were 'sophisticated users'. To be fair I think Facebook set this to false by default when they added the feature.
This is half a social problem, there are no 'robust privacy controls' for that. The girl was exposed by her friend essentially tagging her as gay. A similar thing could happen if one of her friend's mispoke while at her house in hearing of her father. Perhaps then we could blame the lock on the loungeroom door?
Re:IF YOU HAND THEM OVER IT WILL TAKE THEM !! (Score:4, Interesting)
If your employer types your name in a search engine, is he only going to find the account for colleagues? I'm not on Facebook so I have no idea, but I'm wondering, aren't you required to use your real identity?
Also, is it not annoying to log in four times every day?
Re:Mind your own business! (Score:4, Interesting)
When someone adds you to a group, Facebook automatically notifies all your friends, with no way to turn that off. He received the automatic notification--he didn't need to check anyone's profile to find it.
Re:IF YOU HAND THEM OVER IT WILL TAKE THEM !! (Score:4, Interesting)
I do not have a Facebook account, therefore your assertion that everyone has a Facebook account is false.
Do you browse the net and see those facebook like buttons now and then? Whenever you see such a button, facebook registers your IP-address and knows what website you were viewing. Only if you use addons like Ghostery you can avoid this, but many people don't know that.
You may not have a facebook account, but facebook is certainly trying to monitor what you do online. If you ever do register, they will soon enough be able to link you to that older data.
Re:IF YOU HAND THEM OVER IT WILL TAKE THEM !! (Score:4, Interesting)