Whatsapp now passing data to Facebook and will allow businesses to send ads

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Whatsapp now passing data to Facebook and will allow businesses to send ads

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August 26, 2016 at 10:31 am

#704150
6

General Lighting

@general-lighting

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TBH I never saw any real need to use Whatsapp even before the FB takeover; as I get issued a mobile device for work, and even PAYG mobile call and data costs are dirt cheap (or included in bundles) compared to what they used to be, and the harsh reality is global telecoms networks are always going to be accessible to feds/govt/security services, as they are the biggest paying customers of such networks as well as having the power to regulate them.

Giving away your private data to private companies in the hope that they might “make it safer” (without actually paying these companies to do this and then still independently auditing what they are actually doing with it) isn’t going to work.

https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2016/aug/25/whatsapp-backlash-facebook-data-privacy-users
August 26, 2016 at 5:41 pm

#983309
1

Digital Buddha

@digital-buddha

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Facebook is scary good at ad placement and the relevance of the ads.
August 27, 2016 at 5:56 pm

#983308
6

General Lighting

@general-lighting

Moderator
Staff
I posted elsewhere how (if you use it) you can check the categories of data gathering FB collect, having been retweeted this info in both English and Dutch.

This did get me thinking on another related finding; whilst experimenting with how to read content without bothering to log in [1] I noticed that if I am following content in a different FB link than the US English/international one I also need to recreate the filter.

This confirms that FB either nudges users who are proficient in English into using English in preference to their own language; and others might be forced into “linguistic ghettos” without realising such. That of course makes it easier for marketers to target specific sections…
August 27, 2016 at 7:33 pm

#983310
1

Digital Buddha

@digital-buddha

Participant
Yeah, Facebook will translate stuff people post in Spanish automatically, and I have to click on it to get it to show the original and then Facebook wants me to rate the translation. It seems like a bit of a double whammy that I have to do the leg work of rating the translation whilst not being able to read it as it was posted. Not that I’m good enough with Spanish to set it as my preferred language or effectively translate it all but it does seem that FB would rather everything happen in English especially with languages that don’t translate for crap like Russian or Arabic.

English is effectively the world’s second language so I can see the desire that Facebook would rather not worry about other shit.
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