Currently you have to delete thousands of individual items (like played Spotify songs) one-by-one, using a tediously slow and inconvenient UI that individually confirms each delete.
There should be a simple law: the mechanism for deletion of any user data must be no more complex than its creation.
It would also be nice to have deletion terms always specified at point of creation, e.g. “bookmark this link to remove what you’re about to create”.
I don't think that'd work too well... indeed, it's already in place. You can create a single post with one click, you can delete a single post with one click. I guess we're looking for "batch deletion".
That's one of the nice points of GDPR, albeit around withdrawal of consent. It must be "as easy to withdraw as to give consent".
That prevents the "call or fax us to cancel consent, but give it via a single tick-box on sign-up that you can never change". Deletion is a right under GDPR; although there's no specification it must be as simple as to create (as at very least you likely want some kind of simple confirmation before losing something).
Deleting data in Facebook itself isn't enough when there are apps out there that could have siphoned your personal data and details. Going through each app one by one and contacting them to delete your data is just painful and usually falls on deaf ears.
https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/social-book-post-m...
It would really be so much better if Facebook was forced to implement batch delete in their API and/or in their UI.
Even a delete script on Github. I just haven't found anything. Or do the APIs just not exist?
The best I found were Greasemonkey scripts, and I'm just not going to do that.
I would much prefer a feature where the user can define what gets deleted when via a policy setting in the profile, and when posting you could also modify the default (delete in 12 hours, next year, after x people read it, whatever...)
Probably most of the country, actually. =\
Mark my words, their stock price goes right back to $180 over the next two weeks.
Let's say a user makes these settings as strict as feasible, but only some or none of their contacts do the same; in that, the default and common case, the information about the concerned user may still exist in some form.
Doesn't seem to work on iOS (at least on iOS 11, it redirects to the normal mobile site that asks you to install Messenger) but it works on Android.
> Facebook announced on Wednesday that it’s redesigning the settings menu on mobile devices, consolidating privacy options in one place, rather than sending users to some 20 different screens
There is no indication in the article that they are allowing users more control over their data, and fb remain free to do what they will with your data once you sign up for their service.
This does nothing to resolve the problem that people are up in arms about:
> Under the revamp, users still won’t be able to delete data that they had given third-party apps on the platform previously, even if it was used for reasons other than what was agreed to. That data, generated over years of games and personality quizzes that had access to private information, is largely still stored outside of Facebook’s grasp by the private individuals and companies that built those applications.
I don't believe it's possible to resolve that problem.
"New Security Settings" implies that I'm given options I didn't have before. That does not seem to be the case here.
What FB does is innocuous compared to the CIA vault7 leaks, and yet the media shoved that down the memory hole. The real question is why is this being pushed now when literally of this has been public info for years?
Another interesting "bad guy" right now is Russia -- justified or not, notice how media outlets are trying their hardest to find any Russian links whatsoever to every bit of political news, even things completely unrelated. For instance, try searching for "cambridge analytica russia" and look at the number of results.
> What FB does is innocuous compared to the CIA vault7 leaks, and yet the media shoved that down the memory hole.
But it's Facebook controlling your mind! They know what you like and can manipulate you with that! \s
> The real question is why is this being pushed now when literally of this has been public info for years?
I have a theory it's the recent shift in Newsfeed reducing news and increasing friend's posts. It was reported earlier that there were tensions between Zukerberg and Murdoch over ad revenue [1]. Wouldn't surprise me if other media magnates feel the same way.
[1]: https://www.cnbc.com/2018/02/12/facebook-rupert-murdoch-thre...
But doing this after May 25 would mean I definitely want it gone for good and if they don't fully delete what I manually remove, I expect them to get themselves into trouble.
You're technically right here, but it seems at present that most companies won't be complying with this for quite some time (perhaps an opportunity for some litigations?)
Backups appear to be the "black hole" in GDPR, as nobody spent the 2 years actually planning and preparing. Therefore, most people I've spoken to are planning to simply add a "gdpr_deleted" flag to each row in the database, and set it to true when it happens. They don't return those rows in queries. The inter-dependent nature of many databases (you shared a post with 10 users, you delete your account now, FB wants to retain the view records), coupled with nobody taking GDPR seriously until the last minute, means we'll likely see "soft deletes" for quite some time.
It would be interesting though to make a GDPR request to companies for data held specifically on backups, and held in databases records that would normally not be shown (i.e. these hidden records), as that could get them in trouble if you could prove they lied!
To delete backed up data, first encrypt the data with a key. To delete the data, delete the encryption key, leaving your "backed up data" meaningless bits.
So, users have no privacy, but visitors have their privacy protected.
Facebook should list "who" visited user profiles. I dont know why they dont do this already. And even more, they could somehow list what photos the visitor chose to see, how long visitor stayed on user profile, which 'full resolution pictures' visitor had downloaded. If they only saw thumbnails then no need to list, but if visitor made the effort to download all full resolution user pictures then the owner of those pictures should be able to see who has downloaded them.
So this way, the user would be able to see how frequently visitor X, Y, Z has stayed on their profiles, and how many/which full res pictures they have downloaded/seen.
If the user profile is not a person, but a store, then the store would be able to benefit from this data and send some message saying "We noticed you have been visiting us lately, and you seem to have a lot of intrest in product X. Do you want to know the price or make an offer?"
Or, if the user is a person and has seen weird behaviour from weird users, then user would be able to take precautions.
So in the end, the user profiles are public and have no privacy. But the visitors/consumer of other people profiles can snoop on other lifes and have their privacy protected because the page they visited is never able to know they have been visited by visitor X Ntimes.
I think people will fall under two categories.
Group 1: They want attention, followers, etc. Facebook becomes more like Instagram (which is redundant)
Group 2: They want privacy and a place to connect with peers, but that "profile use" knowledge will prevent them from sharing their lives on Facebook further more.
Also, I think people have the right to view publicly posted information and photos without being monitored by the poster. Information overload, irrational responses, reactionary culture, and all that.
Facebook Chief Privacy Officer. Now there's a job title.
Seriously what does a Chief Privacy Officer at FB do? What are the responsibilities of a Privacy Officer at a company whose entire existence is predicated on their users having no privacy? Here's 15 years worth of their boss's views on privacy:
https://www.cnbc.com/2018/03/21/facebook-ceo-mark-zuckerberg...
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-facebook-sandberg-privacy...
'I really can't make sense of it.'
Gergely Biczok, CrySys Lab"
https://www.wired.com/story/facebook-privacy-setting-doesnt-...
