Facebook and the forum

[BongoHunter]

Might be a bit contentious - and regardless of result its not going to stop me posting here

*puts on fireproof suit*

Given all the recent news about Facebook I wondered if OcUK would consider removing the FB integrations from the forums, I'm not suggesting the OcUK FB group or links to it be removed form the shop - just the forum integrations pieces like the share on FB button - as I understand it the current setup effectively would let FB link posts to their own data, see what you read, which pages get hit etc (assuming your FB user).

FB SSO might be harder to remove depending on how many members signed up / through SSO

Thoughts? Looking at the way the FB button has been implemented through addthis.com - is tracking not an issue?

 

[BongoHunter]

I'd consider that you're being neurotic and all the data and information you are concerned about is generally of little interest to anyone. Even without a fb account you're being tracked by them anyway so why bother even attempting to remove.

Am not an FB user myself - I just think they've been quite irresponsible and arent worthy of an association with such a great community

 

[BongoHunter]

What do you think will be achieved by removing the FB interaction 'stuff'?

Facebook’s Like button has made it easy for hundreds of millions of Web users to share content with their friends on the social networking site. The button appears on more than one-third of the top thousand websites and has been integrated into everything from Bing search results to countless blogs around the ‘net. What users may not realize is that the soft blue thumbs-up is tracking their surfing habits, even if it doesn’t get clicked.

Any time the Like button is displayed, information is zapped back to Facebook’s servers. As long as you’ve been logged into the site in the past month, Facebook happily continues warehousing your whereabouts. Data which is gathered is retained for three months — substantially longer than the two weeks Google stores similar information it receives from users. So what exactly is Facebook doing with the browsing data it gathers?

Facebook says it’s not using the data to track you, per se, but rather to help power targeted ads which get displayed when you share a link with your friends. It’s also trying to ascertain how effective the Like button and widgets are and help websites figure out how to attract more traffic. Facebook CTO Bret Taylor told the Wall Street Journal, “We don’t use them for tracking and they’re not intended for tracking.”

Yes, somehow the company believes what it’s doing doesn’t qualify as tracking. Despite the fact that data about where you go and what you read online is being used to customize advertising delivered to you and your friends, you’re not being tracked. And while Facebook is busily analyzing usage to help site owners boost pageviews and interactions, you’re still not being tracked.

From: https://www.geek.com/news/facebook-like-button-tracks-you-even-if-you-dont-click-1380793/

 

[BongoHunter]

OcUK Forums haven't got an embedded like button though?

I think its any FB button

Open firefox dev console and reload any thread while on the network tab - plenty of calls get fired off to www.facebook.com

 

[BongoHunter]

Can I have a quick synopsis of what will be achieved by removing FB 'stuff' ......if possible.

Data wont be shared with Facebook from the forum
At the moment if you have a Facebook and visit this forum they would be able to associate every thread you read with your user account in their systems. I don't know if they do this - but they have the required info to do it they want to.

EDIT: You can stop this with most adblocking software or other browser addons - but no all them will block FB calls by default, E.G Adblock Plus won't do it on Firefox out of the box.

 

[BongoHunter]

And what exactly is the likely repercussions if the 'stuff' isn't removed.
What exactly will FB do or can they do with my posting history?

Well I dont know if you've seen the news lately - but one firm got access to some data like this from them and *MAY* have influenced the US election, Brexit vote with it - or data like it etc.

 

[BongoHunter]

If I/you/we make post on a public forum, you've already made the decision to permanently share.

I agree with you with regards to public postings made by us being a matter of public and permanent record - no problem with that, its our choice to post in a public forum. Personally I think open and public debate and discussion is good for society - and not everyone in world has this luxury unfortunately.

My OcUK postings can be used to influence elections?! God damn I knew I was some hot ****.

As in individual - this kind of thing makes very little difference I agree, but in a small way yes, your browsing habits may have made there way into someone’s data set...

When you've got this data for millions of individuals across hundreds of thousands of websites it could be an incredibly powerful tool, that tool could be used for good, or bad - but that's something that "we" can't influence or control - the only influence or control we have is to deny access to the data in the first place IF we disagree with how that data ends up being used.

 

[BongoHunter]

and the only way then to deny access is to not post on a public forum?​

Its not the posting - its what you read

E.G You might not ever post, but do you want it known your hitting the babes thread every 15 mins?

 

[BongoHunter]

Why would I care about it knowing I was hitting the babes thread every 15minutes?

My masturbatory tendencies are not something I'm in any way ashamed of.

OK maybe I picked a poor example - but to many people privacy matters, E.G what if you doing some research on something deeply personal and embarrasing? Do you want the possibility of this being linked to your real world identity?

 

[BongoHunter]

If I was doing something (research for example ) that I felt needed to be kept completely private from my real world identity I would be using a throw-away account.

And there's the gotcha - if you used your regular browser and just one of the pages you hit has one of these buttons - that's it - the link can be made.