SuttaCentral
I’m suggesting that it might be something else other than credit cards. I see my dad about once every few months and we don’t use the same Wifi connection, let alone credit card.
I just checked location services on my phone. I suspect it’s using google maps plus our ip addresses on our phones. We both have opened maps this weekend.
I actually do find targeted advertising quite offensive though. I don’t want to create a homosexuality-specific tangent that others feel they can’t comment on, but if you saw the way that facebook directs ads at gays, I think you would be offended too.
My facebook is framed with almost-naked men in ads most of the time. I don’t think this would ever happen to someone who is not gay.
These men always have a “particular look” and a “particular manner” of dressing, presenting, etc.
Targeted marketing, IMO, is the new stereotyping of this age.
Case in point
I think that’s a reference to MN 12.
It is a good example but it is not what Bhante meant I think.
Sure, may not be the one. It’s a long sutta but there’s a bit in the middle with metaphors for the different realms (some involving shady or not so shady trees), and for the realm of ghosts:
(3) “By encompassing mind with mind I understand a certain person thus: ‘This person so behaves, so conducts himself, has taken such a path that on the dissolution of the body, after death, he will reappear in the realm of ghosts.’ And then later on…I see that…he has reappeared in the realm of ghosts and is experiencing much painful feeling. Suppose there were a tree growing on uneven ground with scanty foliage casting a dappled shadow; and then a man scorched and exhausted by hot weather, weary, parched, and thirsty, came by a path going in one way only and directed to that same tree. Then a man with good sight on seeing him would say: ‘This person so behaves… that he will come to this same tree’; and then later on he sees that he is sitting or lying in the shade of that tree experiencing much painful feeling. So too, by encompassing mind with mind …much painful feeling.
Right, and this exposes one of the huge problems with this whole thing. People think, “But I don’t mind if they see my data.”
That’s not the point. The problem is that they triangulate. They take a data point from one person, and a data point from another person, and make inferences about a third person. And those inferences can, and do, have real world consequences.
You’re a confident and out gay man. Congratulations! Maybe you make friends with a guy on FB, no big deal, just somehow came in contact and have some shared interests. Unbeknownst to you, that same guy has another friend who is also gay. Bingo: your friend is gay. Or at least, that’s what they can infer.
So they start sending him the same ads, with rainbows and pride flags. For many of us, that might be annoying or offensive, but not really such a big deal. But what if he’s married? What if he’s living in Saudi Arabia? Being unintentionally outed as gay—regardless of whether you’re actually gay or not—can have catastrophic consequences.
This is just one hypothetical. But this kind of thing is happening all day, every day. And it’s by no means the most dangerous consequence. See what’s happening in China, where social media has become so dominant it makes FB pale into insignificance; you have to have it, and the government is systematically watching it and shaping the narrative. Of course this will happen in other countries, it’s just a matter of time.
By using FB and other Big Social we’re contributing to the creation of a surveillance society. Maybe we don’t personally see the ill effects of that right now. But they are real, and they hurt.
Switching off FB is not going to stop this. But at least we do what we can to not make their job any easier.
Agree. There are unremovable speech-to-text engines in all (common) Operating Systems (eg. OS X, iOS, Windows, Android) except the Open Source ones. You’ll still get aggressively profiled by your happy-little-lemming, assumed-to-be-trustworthy Operating System even if you close your Facebook account.
Even if you switch to an Open Source operating system, your hardware still has one or more potentially exploitable back doors underneath the operating system (Intel’s ME being the famous example lately), giving full access to everything on the computer. ME-disabled computers are for sale on the market now, for those who know where to look. And gizmos like the Raspberry Pi 3 (are widely believed to) have nothing like an ME (nor are they vulnerable to Meltdown and Spectre).
When I talk to my family over WhatsApp, through a nice, secure end-to-end encrypted tunnel, Android (which comes before the tunnel) is still profiling everything I say. Highly unique things I mentioned only in those conversations, and in no other place, all of a sudden prominently come up as highly relevant video topics to watch in Youtube, that very same day. The same creepy, highly-profiled topics also will appear where they don’t seem to belong in Google search results in the Chrome web browser (now I’ve switched to DuckDuckgo and Firefox).
This has happened to me several times now (it also happened to me in the past in Skype, which I no longer use). It’s intensely creepy. To make it yet a notch creepier, you effectively can’t remove Youtube, or Chrome in Android. Thus my distaste for Android and today’s mobile devices in general.
Thus my comments above about alternative software choices. There’s only so much creepiness I’m willing to tolerate before I carefully do something differently, something which isn’t too far flung or too out of reach (at least in my case).
I just spent 3 months in a Muslim-controlled country. Think about that for a minute. Guess how carefully I avoided talking about that religion while I was there. Thankfully that country has quite a moderate tone when it comes to religion, but if you think this issue isn’t a serious one, think again.
It would also behoove you to talk to some South Koreans and ask if it’s 1984 in their country.
I found this article on Facebook quite instructive:
Also, just read an interesting article on how blockchain might be a solution to some of these problems:
It is scary that by simply being present somewhere on the Internet, you could end up getting in trouble. This is especially an issue with the entrance gates of the Internet, the search engines.
I think the algorithms of search engines actually correlate with the way we humans are processing they’re information. It’s all fast paced and keyword based. But they completely clash with the way humans are emotionally experiencing this whole situation.
As an example:
Simply by posting something somewhere once, you could end up being mentioned in a search result in one line with someone or something you’d rather not be associated with. Since the internet is a fast paced medium and people use it in the same way, skipping through some content, only looking for keywords, some errors in the interpretation of this information are inevitable at some point.
After skipping through the search results, the next step would be to react to that information, which in most cases means turning to social media, creating more fast paced content. Most platforms even encourage this behavior by offering sharing, reposting, tagging or like button options. While those can be useful tools, the fast pace in which the actual information is being processed, leaves a huge margin for error again.
Within a second, things are being taken out of context. Consequences are not being considered. And someone’s life can get ruined with a click of a button. Which could result in a lifelong aftermath and a lot of suffering. 
It’s 1984-ish in my country too. For example, Twitter has started sending out emails to people alerting them that they have been identified as liking or retweeting content “potentially connected” to a “Russian government-linked organization.”
That said, there also is some disturbing evidence that by NOT being present on the Internet, you could get in trouble. Someone could pretend to be you and post damaging content. Or someone could post something about you, whether it being true, out of context or even fake. And since there is no “your side of story” to be found, people could automatically assume that this information is true.
There is a little backstory: A while ago, I was worried about an awkward picture of me that someone had posted on the internet (no, it’s not the one where I wear a giant leaf on my head…). In my desperation, I did some research on how to get stuff deleted from the Internet - and the answers I found were making me pretty uncomfortable. *
Basically, if you wanna delete some content about you from a website or social media account you are not in charge of, here is what the Internet (= some professional tech people) suggests you do:
1.) Contact the webmaster of that particular website (or the owner of the social media profile) and ask them to take it down.
OK, that sounds reasonable, but wait for it…
2.) If they refuse to take it down, create MORE content about yourself, so that the unwanted content is buried by this new and “better” content.
I find that whole idea very disturbing. And it’s not a solution at all.
First of all the content isn’t really gone. Everyone can still find it.
Second of all, I never really wanted to participate in this whole thing. Now I’m pretty much forced to do so. And yet things will still not be under control.
So basically, if you don’t want to be part of the Internet, you have to live with the fact that someone, at some point in your life, could make you part of it. It’s probably just a matter of time. And it could even turn out to be trouble. Someone could not only post an embarrassing picture of you, but ruin your reputation by posting damaging content. In some cases, simply taking a quote or picture out of context, could ruin someone’s life - online and offline. Not to mention manipulated or faked content…
I’m in no way saying that all this is a valid reason to join the club, but it is something to keep in mind and be aware of. It seems as if we are actually in charge of both our own online presence and absence, yet in reality we have little control over it. The Internet however likes us to believe that we can take control and the only way to do so, is by joining it.
* By the way, I eventually found my own solution on how to deal with that embarrassing picture. I’m still confronted with it by real-life people once in a while and I tried all those grown-up ways to get over it (you know… like embracing it, accepting it, putting it in perspective, getting professional counseling…). Some of it worked, some of it didn’t. But my last resort is the following realization: Screw the Internet. This too will pass. Everything is Impermanent!
Oh social media… the bane of my existence.
Here’s my artistic statement on the importance of Privacy:
This photo was recently taken at Changi Point, Changi Beach, Singapore. This art sculpture was apparently installed only in the last few weeks. I had to stare at it for several minutes until I had a Eurika moment of figuring out what it (possibly) meant.
BTW: the wind was blowing my robes around at that moment, should you think otherwise.
PS: those sandals I’m wearing were a gift from Ajahn Brahm, about a year ago when I met him in Sri Lanka at a 10-day retreat he did there. Thank you, Ajahn Brahm!
If only buddhists were as miffed about their own kilesas as they were about their cookies/caches… They are not functioning in your best interests (kilesas I mean). But they are not integrated into your operating system so the N8FP (code for …) can get rid of them! 
With metta
oh, thank you for making it clear, was a bit worried there … 
One detail really caught my eye from the above article: that Users profiles from WhatsApp flow back to Facebook. So if you want to pull out of Facebook, then you unfortunately also need to pull out of WhatsApp. From the article above:
There are 2 WhatsApp alternatives I’ve been learning more about (between meditating): Signal and Wire. I have a few Buddhist friends using each (one of whom introduced me to Signal and Wire, urging me to abandon WhatsApp).
BTW: WhatsApp wasn’t my idea, it’s just that all the other monks (and laypeople) I met at the monastery where I was staying were all using it. For them, WhatsApp is the “goto” messaging app these days.
Here are my findings, FWIW. Again, I apologize that this doesn’t sound Buddhist (but I feel it does have relevancy to the OP).
WhatsApp admittedly deserves its wild popularity, from a pure functionality perspective. It can do video chat well, even over a decent 3G cellular signal (as it needs only 40-60KB/sec sustained, both up and down. Very impressive.)
Signal and Wire can also do video chat, but it’s probably best to save doing that for when you have broadband wifi, as they’re much more “hungry” for bandwidth when doing video chat (Wire wants about 120KB/sec both up and down, and Signal wants 200-300 KB/sec both up and down).
So if you are willing to make do with merely text chat/voice chat over cellular data, saving video chat for when you have wifi broadband, then there’s no reason to not switch to Signal and/or Wire (instead of WhatsApp), IMHO. A small price to pay (in convenience), I say.
I also appreciate how both Wire and Signal have desktop (meaning “non-mobile”) clients (whereas WhatsApp is mobile-only). Note: I tend to prefer these desktop clients rather than the mobile ones when I can, to try to dodge the Operating System profiling me (since I use Linux), plus I can type way, way faster on a hardware keyboard. Wire has a web-based chat client, which can do video (WebRTC-based), and Signal has a native client, which can’t do voice or video chat (but can send brief, recorded audio clips back and forth), at least not in the Linux client, which is what I tested (ver 1.1.0 right now).
@sujato, I agree. But it seems that you here introduce another theme that is away from the OP. The list of articles presented about FB in the post cited above speak quite a bit about phenomena that might occur with any internet based media – including this forum!!
If there wasn’t a FB and twitter and only forums with technology like suttacentral my thinking is that most of what these articles describe would have happened.
There is a tendency to conflate the phenomena of the internet with FB.
That tends to confuse the issue. Even to distract from the particular elements of FB that tend to snag one in.
It seems to me the concern has many parallels to what’s said to be the #1 use of the internet - porn. That is, the attraction of the erotic / pornography - things designed to " elicit arousal" and thus hook the “monkey mind”.
Worse, FB’s “personalization” logic may do the opposite of what you want it to do. When people that you want to pay attention to disappear from your news feed.
Eli Pariser’s The Filter Bubble, which came out in the summer of 2011, became the most widely cited distillation of the effects Facebook and other internet platforms could have on public discourse.
Pariser began the book research when he noticed conservative people, whom he’d befriended on the platform despite his left-leaning politics, had disappeared from his News Feed. “I was still clicking my progressive friends’ links more than my conservative friends’— and links to the latest Lady Gaga videos more than either,” he wrote. “So no conservative links for me.”
Through the book, he traces the many potential problems that the “personalization” of media might bring.
– What Facebook Did to American Democracy - The Atlantic
