@freemo "If you are neutral in situations of injustice, you have chosen the side of the oppressor. If an elephant has its foot on the tail of a mouse, and you say that you are neutral, the mouse will not appreciate your neutrality." --Desmond Tutu

@koherecoWatchdog Its not a situation of injustice yet, it is a situation of potential injustice that has no occured, you are trying to mitigate the risk that it could occur... thats not an injustice, though as I said its a fine risk to try to mitigate against all the same, and i already expressed how and why that should be done (take away government oversight/power, get off the platforms you dont like the risk/reward on)

@koherecoWatchdog I dont..

1) they havent used that data to report anyone in this 76 countries we know about, so I have nothing to protest against directly.

2) in the off chance they could secretly be sharing it I would say its fine to encourage the gays in those country not tuse FB, its a precaution I would certainly understand. But its very different than me actively trying to boycott Fb from a crim they could commit but have not, and which can be protected against by people in that country not using it just in case they do, if they want (up to them what their risk tolerance is)

The bigger for me, as I said, isnt FB but its seeking reform from governments to try to reduce the power of governments in the first place, including the governments in those 76 countries.

@freemo the data collection is a threat, regardless of whether Facebook decides to sell it, or whether an insider goes rogue, or a gov infiltrates, or a gov hires FB to run an ad that traps gays (which doesn't even require FB to sell the data). E.g. the Saudi Arabians can advertise a product/svc to gays in that country & you wouldn't know.

@freemo the research shows that gay users are *astonished* to find that #Facebook determines they are gay, and obviously doesn't tell them. Of course it's an injustice to surreptitiously tag ppl with something that can get lead to extreme harm

@koherecoWatchdog

If gay users are astonished to learn somethign that should be obvious and which they state in their TOS indirectly (that they will analyze data to make inferences).. .thats kind of on them.. What that means is they need to be educated more on what data analysis can and will do.

I am all for making an effort to let more gays know that FB and any other company with access to data can and will infer their sexual orientation from their data.

But them being ignorant is no excuse or indication of injustice, thats on them for not knowing that which is obvious and expected of any company with data.

It also isnt harmful, it can be used in harmful ways, but the inference itself, in and of itself, is not harmful. If and when it is showed to be used to be harmful then those harms can and should be discussed (and there are even some minor examples of that which can be valid no doubt, I can think of a few)

@freemo "But them being ignorant is no excuse or indication of injustice" <= the ignorance is the injustice. This is why Senator Brown is pushing a law to stop FB from hiding evil shit in fine print.

@koherecoWatchdog I would disagree, it isnt "hidden in the fine print".. I already knew they used data in this and many other ways from the existing wording of their ToS, in fact I'd assume it is the case for any company that doesnt explicitly state they dont.

to me it takes an astonishing level of ignorance to think otherwise.

@freemo you're unable to step outside yourself to see the problem. When a large portion of users are astonished by what they learn Facebook collects on them, it proves that there is not a "meeting of the minds".. it demonstrates a large scale failure of FB to inform users.

@koherecoWatchdog

No, I dont usually buy the "masses" sort of arguments.

When a large portion of users are astonished to learn what facebook collects ont hem that symbolizes one thing to me... that a large number of users (and people in general) are ignorant and dont invest the proper effort into not being ignorant.

@freemo A Russian didn't like some terms in a credit card application - he crossed out penalties for non-payment & signed. He received the credit card & didn't pay the bills. He won, b/c Russia doesn't care if both parties to a contract have the same understanding. The same trick fails in the US because there is no meeting of the minds, & rightfully so.

@koherecoWatchdog Well two things with that scenario..

1) if you did that in the USA the credit card company would most likely just reject your application

2) Its not really a good example as the person signing it knows damn well that any modifications to the terms would not be accepted by the credit card company their hope is simply that it goes unnoticed and that they are able to manipulate/deceive the system. Moreover it is impossible to verify as they may have made a copy and crossed out the text afterwards.. so legally it doesnt really much sense to give them the win unless they really could prove it

3) generally speaking on any proper legal paperwork if a person had done that both parties would have to initial it to have it be valid and if they did it would be valid. If they didnt then it isnt a valid modification of the contract. It has little to do with any unfairness in power, that rule applies in both directions.

All that said there is some unfairness when it comes to EULA and other contracts specifically when signed implicitly, so i wont deny there are some areas legally in that regard that could use improvement.

@freemo 1) they would reject it if they /notice/ but with big contracts the party who drafts it often just looks on the sig page to see if it was signed. And that's good enough in the US, b/c the contract would become unenforceable. So when I make changes to a contract like that, I write "CHANGES AMENDED" on the top pg in large print and also write that next to the sig (per my lawyer)

@freemo I know Europeans who changed their work contracts in an editor like MS Word, so there was not even strikethrough of deleted text, making it quite hard to detect. They submitted that and it was accepted. They were certain it was enforceable, but I don't know. When I explained why that fails in the US, they didn't seem to think /meeting of the minds/ is a thing there.

@freemo I got the impession that the written text was the end of the story in Europe, and that's a shame if it's true b/c all kinds of shenanigans are possible.

@freemo And what about ambiguities? In the US, the benefit of vague/ambiguous text goes to the party who didn't draft the contract. But in Europe the interpetation by the judge is the one that's enforced, which I find a bit harsh. It's good for the drafter of an agreement to have incentive to be unambiguous.

@koherecoWatchdog well its not that simple.. vague and ambiguous text in contracts doesnt really get enforced on the party who didnt draft it.. in the case of ambiguity it really depends on just how ambiguous and what sort of things can be inferred from it. If either side can argue a a valid but different interpretation then the entire clause may get thrown out.. it depends.

@koherecoWatchdog it is true mostly.. assuming the written text is legal by contract law of course and presuming **both** parties sign. If only one parties sign then the other party can etiher reject the contract entierly or accept it, up to them but it only becomes binding on them if they sign and return it.

@koherecoWatchdog that works because the company also signs the contract. It **only** works when the company signs the changes.

With contracts that are credit cards the other side never signs your edited version so it doesnt count.

@koherecoWatchdog If youc hange a contract and sign it then its like you have no contract at all and never signed anything unless the other party signs your change and returns it to you.

So strictly speaking, yes, you should be able to do that and effectively would be the same as if you never signed and they accepted it anyway.

@koherecoWatchdog I want to be clear though, dont take my disagreement to mean I am against your purpose.. clearly we disagree on how we view solutions and problems when it comes to personal rights, thats fine. But I recognize that your intentions are well meaning and that most of what you do appears to be informing the public as fairly as you can (though i do disagree with some of the loaded language, but it doesnt appear to be with the intention of misinforming anyone).

So we may disagree on the details but I do respect the fact that your intentions are good, your honest, and the discussions you engage in so far have been respectful even when faced with disagreement. All things that give me respect for you, so again, dont take my disagreement as hostility please.

@koherecoWatchdog A possible maybe threat is not an injustice.. a realization of a threat is an injustice.

Again its up to each individual to decide how much of a risk that is both in terms of how much harm they feel it will cause them for their info to get out, and how much they trust FB security to ensure it doesnt. People can and should make that judgement call.

But until that "risk" becomes real it is not an injustice and I will not attack FB simply on the grounds that they are in a position to do harm that they have not done... I **will** however chastise Fb for any harm they have already done.

Talking about potential risks is fine, but talking about them as if they are injustices that already happened is not appropriate IMO.

@freemo it's not a "possible threat", it's a certain threat. "Again its up to each individual to decide how much of a risk" <= this assumes an informed user on a platform where FB exploits ppl being uninformed (and even lies to ensure ppl are uninformed)

@koherecoWatchdog

> this assumes an informed user on a platform where FB exploits ppl being uninformed

Indeed it does, I assume it is the duty of every person to be informed and the consequences that come from them not informing themselves are, at least partly, their own fault.