Facebook is Dying, New Class Action Lawsuit Takes Aim
Read more! Click the link to sign up for Blinkist and get 20% off today http://www.blinkist.com/timpoolMy Second Channel - https://www.youtube.com/timcastnewsFacebook is in the mist of a major crisis. Its stock is falling, users are leaving, and now Play-boy has joined Elon Musk is deactivating its page on the platform.But why is this happening? Well Musk says Facebook gives him the willies and they certainly collect data from people who never gave them permission.The latest news is that several people are filing a lawsuit against Facebook and seeking class action status for the invasion of privacy.Make sure to subscribe for more travel, news, opinion, and documentary with Tim Pool everyday.Amazon Prime 30 day free trial - http://amzn.to/2sgiDqRMY GEARGoPro Karma - http://amzn.to/2qw10m4 GoPro 6 - http://amzn.to/2CEK0z1 DJI Mavic Drone - http://amzn.to/2lX9qgT Zagg 12 AMP portable battery - http://amzn.to/2lXB6Sx TASCAM Lavalier mic - http://amzn.to/2AwoIhI Canon HD XF 105 Camera - http://amzn.to/2m6v1o3 Canon 5D MK III Camera - http://amzn.to/2CvFnnm 360 Camera (VR) - http://amzn.to/2AxKu4R FOLLOW MEInstagram - http://instagram.com/Timcast Twitter - http://twitter.com/Timcast Minds - http://Minds.com/Timcast Facebook - http://facebook.com/Timcastnews Bitcoin Wallet: 13ha54MW2hYUS3q1jJhFyWdpNfdfMWtmhZSEND STUFF HERETim Pool330 Washington Street - PMB 517Hoboken, NJ 07030Support the show (http://timcast.com/donate)
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Let me ask you a question, and you can answer this in the comments.
Do you really like Facebook?
Because usually when I ask people, they tell me they hate Facebook.
They don't like the newsfeed.
They only really use it for Messenger.
I mean, that's really the only reason I use Facebook.
I don't even have the app on my phone anymore.
Many people have been talking about the demise of Facebook, saying that this is truly the point at which the platform will slowly die off.
And the reason for this is that there is a huge backlash following news that Cambridge Analytica, a data firm, was using data it wasn't supposed to have access to.
The hashtag delete Facebook started to trend worldwide.
Many news organizations started to run articles explaining how to deactivate and even delete your Facebook account.
Facebook's stock then began to fall.
We saw Elon Musk announce on Twitter that he had deleted Tesla and SpaceX from Facebook.
So certainly, there does seem to be a case to state that Facebook may be in the decline.
But new information has just come to light.
This morning it was announced that Playboy was also deleting its Facebook page.
That would affect nearly 25 million fans.
So let me ask you again.
How do you feel about Facebook and do you think it might actually be dying?
Now in spite of everything I said, there are certainly people who think nothing will bring
about the end of Facebook. That it's much too large, it's in way too many countries,
and no matter what scandal breaks, no matter how many users leave, there's still going to be
a billion users on the platform and the company will probably be fine.
But, before I move on, let me give a quick shoutout to today's sponsor.
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From the verge, Playboy deletes its Facebook accounts.
The delete Facebook hashtag movement is now in full swing.
Playboy issued a press release late Tuesday night to announce its withdrawal from Facebook.
It has deactivated the Playboy accounts that Playboy Enterprise manages, directly affecting some 25 million fans, according to the company.
Playboy becomes the latest company to join the call to delete Facebook after the Cambridge Analytica scandal, punctuated on Friday by Elon Musk's order to remove Tesla and SpaceX pages from Zuckerberg's social media juggernaut.
The official statement from Playboy Enterprises Inc.
regarding Facebook.
For years, it has been difficult for Playboy to express our values on Facebook due to its strict content and policy guidelines.
We have been faced with the only alternative being to alter Playboy's voice in order to meet Facebook's views of what is and is not appropriate on its platform.
While that has challenged our business objectives and the ability to reach our audience in an authentic way, the recent news about Facebook's alleged mismanagement of users' data has solidified our decision to suspend our activity on the platform at this time.
There are more than 25 million fans who engage with Playboy via our various Facebook pages, and we do not want to become complicit in exposing them to the reported practices.
That is why we have announced that we will be leaving Facebook's platform, deactivating the Playboy accounts that Playboy Enterprises manages directly.
Playboy has always stood for personal freedom and the celebration of sex.
Today, we take another step in that ongoing fight.
Elon Musk already gained a ton of attention when he announced Tesla and SpaceX would be removed from the platform.
From CNBC, Elon Musk, Facebook gives me the willies.
Friday, Musk deleted his company Facebook pages for both SpaceX and Tesla.
Then on Saturday, in response to a story from enthusiast site Tesla Motor Club reporting the news, Musk said deleting the pages was not an effort to make a public comment about Facebook, nor was it any response to a dare.
Instead, he says he deleted the pages for Tesla because he does not like the social media behemoth.
In one tweet stating, It's not a political statement and I didn't do this because
someone dared me to do it.
Just don't like Facebook. Gives me the willies. Sorry.
And in response to VentureBeat, he said, We never advertise with Facebook. None of my companies buy
advertising or pay famous people to fake endorse. Product lives or dies on its own merits.
Naturally, when you have these high profile Facebook deactivations or deletions,
a lot of people think that the trend is really, really powerful, and this might be
spelling the demise of Facebook.
This follows the DeleteFacebook hashtag trend amid the Cambridge Analytica scandal.
From CBS News, a movement called DeleteFacebook has been spreading ever since a whistleblower came forward saying he and a data firm he worked for Now Elon Musk says it wasn't political.
loophole in Facebook to harvest data from 50 million users.
Even the founder of WhatsApp, which Facebook bought in 2014 for $19 billion, tweeted,
It's time to delete Facebook.
Now Elon Musk says it wasn't political.
He just said Facebook gives him the willies.
Now I have a question for you.
Have you ever had a conversation with a friend or gone to the store and looked at something and then all of a sudden you see an advertisement for that on Facebook?
Many of us have had this experience where Facebook will recommend someone and we have no idea How they knew that we were some way connected to that person.
Or, an advertisement appeared, and we just had no idea how they knew we were thinking about this product.
Sure, when you Google search something, we get that.
That these websites have cookies, and they track your data to a certain extent.
But, just a few months ago, I was at Walmart, and there was a big TV on display.
And my brother and I were talking about it.
We come back home, and ten minutes later, my brother got an advertisement for that TV.
How does something like that happen?
Certainly, that's enough to give people the willies.
The other day on Reddit, someone posted this to Asshole Design.
They said, FB Messenger reading my text to shove ads in my face.
And in their message, they said, here's the recipe.
Let me know if you can open this.
And sure enough, there's an advertisement from Food Network, find recipes.
In a post from three years ago, someone was asking if Facebook was reading their private messages.
Because, they said, one of my friends got banned for 24 hours and received a message from Facebook telling him that he was banned because he sent a private message to one of his friends.
And that the photos violates Facebook policies.
Down below, someone said, And these are just anecdotes.
has just happened to me a moment ago.
Facebook banned me for posting images seven days because one of the images I sent privately
violated Facebook policy.
And these are just anecdotes, but these are examples of people feeling like
Facebook is doing something nefarious, that Facebook is spying on them.
What I have talked about in the past few days is that Facebook is absolutely collecting data
from third parties who never agreed to give that data to Facebook.
Now, Facebook might ask you when you sign up or use their mobile app, can they have access to your data?
And certainly you can allow them to have this access.
But let's say Facebook is tracking your call logs and your text message history.
The people who are calling you and texting you never agreed to give their metadata to Facebook.
They never agreed to give their phone number to Facebook.
What happens?
Let's say you have 10 people who all know this one person and they all receive phone calls from them.
Facebook now knows who this person called at every point of the day because everyone else is in Facebook's network.
Suffice it to say, Facebook gives me the willies too.
According to PJ Media, Cambridge Analytica whistleblower Facebook able to listen to you at home and work.
Cambridge Analytica whistleblower Christopher Wiley, appearing before a committee of British MPs on Tuesday, said that Facebook has the ability to spy on users in their homes and offices.
The British Parliament is investigating Cambridge Analytica's involvement in the Brexit election.
MP Damian Collins, who chaired the committee, asked Wiley whether Facebook has the ability to listen to what people are talking about in order to better target them with ads.
There's been various speculation about the fact that Facebook can, through the Facebook app on your smartphone, listen in to what people are talking about and discussing and using that to prioritize the advertising as well, Collins said.
Other people would say no.
They don't think it's possible.
It's just that the Facebook system is just so good at predicting what you're interested in that it can guess.
He asked for Wiley's thoughts on the possibility.
On a comment about using audio and processing audio, you can use it for, my understanding generally of how companies use it, not just Facebook, but generally other apps that pull audio is for environmental context, Wiley said.
So if, for example, you have a television playing versus if you're in a busy place with a lot of people talking versus a work environment.
He clarified, it's not to say they're listening to what you're saying.
It's not natural language processing.
That would be hard to scale.
But to understand the environmental context of where you are to improve the contextual value of the ad itself is possible.
Facebook has long denied allegations that its app listens in on users in order to customize ads.
One thing you need to consider when you hear a PR statement from anybody is that people generally don't volunteer information that they don't have to.
Take, for instance, the latest data scandal.
Facebook tweeted on October 2017 that includes Facebook owned Instagram he
added one thing you need to consider when you hear a PR statement from
anybody is that people generally don't volunteer information that they don't
have to take for instance the latest data scandal Facebook says that you can
download your data and see exactly what they have on you and in many of the
instances you can actually request that they delete it what they don't tell you
is that they have collected information about you from other people and you have
no access to that and you can't delete it so when you ask Facebook what data do
you have on me and they say oh you can click this link to download the data we
have on you They're not saying they're going to give you everything, and they're not telling you what they have on you that is hidden, right?
You have to pay attention to as much as what they aren't saying, and the questions have to get very specific.
This is usually why we ask people to testify in front of Congress or in courts, and things can get pretty specific.
In this instance, I would say, sure, Facebook's going to claim they don't listen in on your text messages or your phone calls, but that doesn't mean they aren't using that information.
It just means they aren't listening.
But now that I feel I have sufficiently contextualized why people think Facebook is a bit creepy or gives them the willies, let's get back to the main point.
Is Facebook dying?
Well, we know that their stock has fallen quite a bit.
A quick Google search will show you that since this news broke, they have dropped from $185 down to $152.
Now, it's very possible that Facebook will recover from this dip because news tends to pass.
In reality, people tend to forget about these things, and one of the most powerful PR strategies is the do-nothing strategy.
Do nothing, say nothing, and eventually this will all blow over.
People have started trending, delete Facebook.
Does that mean enough people will leave Facebook for it to actually matter?
I don't think enough people will leave.
Even if Playboy, Tesla, SpaceX, and many others decide to leave Facebook, it doesn't mean it's going to shut down Facebook.
Keep in mind, Facebook also owns many other companies.
WhatsApp, Instagram, Oculus.
And just because Facebook might fall into the background doesn't mean they're not going to have their tentacles sprawling all over all of these other apps.
But there's more news from last night.
Three Facebook users sue over collection of call and text history.
This story from Reuters.
Three users of the Facebook Messenger app sued Facebook on Tuesday, saying the social network violated their privacy by collecting logs of their phone calls and text messages in the latest legal challenge facing the company.
The U.S.
lawsuit filed in federal court in the Northern District of California seeks status as a class action on behalf of all affected users.
and asks for unspecified damages.
A Facebook representative could not immediately be reached for comment.
Facebook, which is reeling from a scandal over its handling of personal data, on Sunday acknowledged it had been logging some user's call and text history, but said it had been done so only when users of the Android operating system had opted in.
Facebook said on Sunday that it does not collect the content of calls or text messages, and that information is securely stored.
The data is not sold to third parties, it said.
But to add some more context to that statement, as I pointed out in the past couple of days, just because they don't know what you are saying in your messages or they're not listening in, doesn't mean they aren't collecting the data in other ways, and With the metadata from your text messages and phone calls correlating with your social media posts and browsing history and so much other metadata, they can pretty much determine the gist of what you're talking about with your friends and your family.
When people get freaked out because they see these ads, when Facebook recommends people and they think, how did Facebook know?
It is entirely possible.
They really aren't listening to your phone calls.
They really aren't recording your conversations.
If we go by their word, their word is that their AI prediction is so good, based on all of the various factors, all of the various bits of data they've collected on you, they can accurately predict what you're talking about and what you might want to buy.
So when you're talking about recipes, they know to send you a recipe advertisement.
Not because they read your message, because the system knows everything about you to the point where they are predicting your behaviors.
That is, in my opinion, a lot scarier than them spying on you.
But Facebook has responded from CNET.
Facebook now lets you scrub your data for real this time.
Still reeling from the Cambridge Analytica scandal, Facebook is responding to privacy concerns by letting you delete anything from your profile and timeline.
Facebook on Wednesday announced it will introduce new features to allow users to take tighter control of their privacy.
The changes include making privacy settings easier to find and use, and bringing together all of Facebook's privacy features including controls users have over personal information and what others see into one place.
But the big feature.
You can now delete anything from your Facebook profile or timeline.
In an emailed statement, Facebook's Chief Privacy Officer Aaron Egan and Deputy General Counsel Ashley Berenger spelled out the steps the company is taking, saying they would put people in more control over their privacy.
That's great.
Facebook is enacting new features to allow you to control the information on your profile.
But again, let's go back to what I was saying before.
What aren't they saying and what aren't they addressing?
Facebook is ignoring the shadow profile problem.
Shadow profiles were first brought up several years ago.
And what these shadow profiles are, it's information collected about you from other people.
So if you post something to Facebook and you say, I don't want this here anymore, by all means, you can delete it.
But what about the information about other people you're giving to Facebook?
What about information other people are giving to Facebook about you?
You still can't see, request, or delete it.
So in my opinion, it looks like Facebook is just going at this from a superficial level.
They're trying to deal with the problem that they think will result in more people saying, okay, Facebook fixed the problem, and then coming back to the platform and having more confidence in it.
But they're not going to volunteer any information on what they do behind the scenes that would probably freak all of us out.
So, suffice it to say, one more time, Facebook gives me the willies too.
It's not just Elon Musk.
I think Facebook is pretty damn creepy.
They're certainly spying on us, depending on how you want to define it.
But now, I'll bring it all back, and after hearing all of this, I will ask you just a couple of questions.
Does Facebook give you the willies too?
Do you like Facebook?
I gotta admit, I've asked a lot of people how they feel about it, and most people tell me they think Facebook is creepy.
I don't really know anybody who is really excited about what Facebook is doing, but again, for some reason, people keep using the platform because it's just so damn convenient.
Now, I don't even have the app on my phone anymore.
I basically only use Messenger, so there is some utility in Facebook, but I've just kind of drifted away, so maybe it really is dying.
But now I'll ask you again.
Do you think Facebook is dying?
Is delete Facebook the trend enough to bring it down?
Is Elon Musk and Playboy enough to put a dent in Facebook's giant fortress that expands over a billion users?
Let me know what you think in the comments below.
We'll keep the conversation going.
Thank you all so much for hanging out and watching.
