i give it a year or less.
They will get to decide what to do with their likenesses when they're older. It seemed cruel to let Facebook train a model on them from the time they were babies until they first start using social media in earnest.
Also in many places WhatsApp is practically a requirement for daily life which is frustrating. What I need is some kind of restricted app sandbox in which to place untrustworthy apps, they see a fake filesystem, fake system calls, etc.
I’m grateful though. We would have called meta malware back when.
Limited Access to Your Library
"App" can only access the items that you select. The app can add to your library even if no items are selected.
Basically every kindergarten, primary school and high school will want to post pictures.
It took the rest of us much longer to realize they were right.
The non-paywalled TechCrunch story shows the consent screen that people agree to before Facebook uses the photos in this way: https://techcrunch.com/2025/06/27/facebook-is-asking-to-use-...
I encourage everyone to look at that screenshot and decide for yourself if the media coverage is reasonable here.
I bet "agree to" is "we clicked the box for you anyway"
It's surprising(not) how that class of error always seems to fall on the side of Facebook grabbing more data without consent, and never on the side of accidentally increasing user privacy.
I’m sure if you log the Facebook app’s network traffic on your phone and show that it uploads photos without you clicking on the agree button, they’ll happily publish an article about your findings.
Nothing on that screen says they’re using your photos for training. I’m sure it’s in the linked terms, but Facebook knows those won’t be read.
This isn’t buried. The user has to see the screen and click accept for their photos to be uploaded.
Compared to the usual buried disclaimers and vague references to “improving services,” consenting to 1000 things when you sign up for an account, this is pretty transparent. If someone is concerned, they at least have a clear opportunity to decline before anything gets uploaded.
It’s just surprising to me that people look at this example of Facebook going out of their way to not do the bad thing and respond with a bunch of comments about how they doing the bad thing.
if (userId == 1) {
// don't add mark's data to training set
}Unfortunately parasocial behavior is good for engagement.
Maybe this will finally convince people to throw out their smartphones.
goku12•2h ago
As an aside, there was a discussion a few days back where someone argued that being locked in to popular and abusive social/messaging platforms like these is an acceptable compromise, if it means retaining online contacts with everyone you know. Well, this is precisely the sort of apathy that gives these platforms the power to abuse their marketshare so blatantly. However, it doesn't affect only the people who choose to be irresponsible about privacy. It also drags the ignorant and the unwilling participants under the influence of these spyware.
ethan_smith•1h ago
dylan604•1h ago
esseph•1h ago
goku12•12m ago