Is anyone concerned

[rary]

With the problems that have been highlighted with Facebook over the last few days, is there anyone concerned that the same thing could happen on the Vine. Personally I am not, there is nothing I have put out on the Vine that gives me any worry I have come across an article about something I was making a comment about on a web site that had as far as I know no connection with Grow Your Own, but though I don't know a lot about the web I am aware that there are ways people/groups can troll the web for any reference of things that they are interested in, so was not surprised to see something said by rary, as for the Vine its self, I find it reassuring that it is well policed by the Mods, who, I think are people interested in gardening, and want to keep the Vine clear of any disputes, out with gardening, so I am not concerned about any information that could be gathered from here.
Well apart from the fact that I am not a very good gardener

[Baldy]

The debacle here with the lost photos and the fact that the website has a padlock warning "Connection is not secure" makes me believe that the site is *not* run by people aiming to use deep-data techniques on us gardeners.

They may be lulling me into a false sense of security though...

[Snoop Puss]

I've made whatever changes I can to my Facebook page, but it feels a bit like I've tried to lock the door after the horse has bolted.

As for here, I'm not particularly worried. For starters, most of us don't use our real names. Though some of us swap names and addresses through private messages, and I'm not sure how private they would be to someone determined to get in to see what they could find.

I don't imagine GYO is selling our data or granting access to it. There isn't that much data here, after all, and it's pretty well all related to gardening or light chit-chat. Not that exciting for someone trying to influence our political views.

Facebook is different in that most people use their real names, talk about their real lives, give plenty of information away about their backgrounds and homes, and generally talk quite freely about their views on all kinds of things. It's quite easy to gauge educational background, spending power, religious and moral views, political beliefs, etc. from Facebook. And then to target them through Facebook.

The thing that really got me about Facebook was that all my friends who do those silly games and quizzes were giving away what little info is available about me as well as their own. I checked Mr Snoop to see who was 'harvesting' his data. Oddly, for someone who is so free and easy on Facebook, he had just one, Instagram. I checked mine and only had three, but one of them was Developer.

I've been pondering what to do about my Facebook page, but like many I'm pretty committed to it, as much as anything because my Mum likes it and she uses it and Messenger to keep up with family. Seeing as she's 82, I'm not going to stop despite the fact that we speak twice a day on the phone.

[Aberdeenplotter]

I don't think I've anything to fear on here except perhaps pointy sticks. I am on Facebok having resisted for years but the simple fact is that most club's and organisations I'm involved with are now using social media to communicate and I was losing touch.

The lost photo debacle having been mentioned did hack me off because it spoiled a thread I was immensely proud of but that's another matter or in fact the dreaded tangentisation.

Good post Rary. Very important subject.

[burnie]

My phone is just that a phone. no internet use at all, as to forums, well the only thing they are likely to find is my email address, which has obviously been sold to someone going on the 30 odd spam mails I get daily. I don't bank online so it would be less easy for them to get those details unless they hack my bank, which may or may not have happened, however they won't get far on the piddling amount of money left in there lol.

[Zelenina]

I'm not particularly worried. I've been on it for years, so if there's any useful info to harvest about me, I'm sure they've got it already. The mainstream media seem to be going to town on this, and I'm sure they'd love us to all to stop using social media and rely on them for all our news and opinions again. But I don't think that's going to happen. I'm more concerned about governments using such problems as an excuse to control the internet.

[Baldy]

Facebook is a particularly bad example IMHO - I use it under an assumed name - (once they spot this thread here I'm done for) - anyhow - they have facial recognition, use cookies (smal files that track your website interactions) in such a way that even if you are not on facebook if you have friends who are then almost certainly have data on you.

I'm trying to disrupt them by posting a lot on sites which I have no subject knowledge about nor interest in

I was about to install something called pi-hole https://pi-hole.net/ but Mrs Balders has said she likes the targetted ads that she is getting... so there you go - she hasn't thought about the possible potential issues of your life insurance company knowing you've been looking up info on inherited genetic disease or whatever - but she might spot a lamshade in the colour and style she was looking for.
At best a double edged sword

and I tend to disagree with her colour and style choices, not that it gets me anywhere.

[veggiechicken]

I downloaded a copy of my Facebook Data - to see what they had on me!! I put very little personal info on FB and I have a disposable email address to use there, which I would dump if it was spammed.

However, the thing that concerned me was that they had all the email addresses from my personal email contacts - NOT my FB "Friends" - from, maybe 5 years ago. It has puzzled me for a long time, why FB kept suggesting "Friends" with whom my only contact had been on Genealogy websites - and that was several years ago. Since there is a FB option to delete all contacts - which I have done.

I shall be watching out for the next "Friends" they suggest and if they are historical ones I shall be very Cross.

I recommend you obtain a copy of your Data, just in case.

[Jungle Jane]

The government already lost all mine & a load of other peoples information a few years back when they left a disk on a train,I’m not worried about stuff I purposefully put out there. Anything I do online I think I’m being watched & hacked anyway,I hope they like my plants. Anyone can use our photos on google images that come up,it’s the way life’s changing,everything is available for everyone to see. I was wondering the other day,iPads have fingerprint recognition could a third party get hold of the data & create a plastic surgery fingertip? All sorts of stuff could be going on but I don’t worry,none of it’s as bad as the government mess up.

[SarrissUK]

I'm not worried at all, but then I don't mind if Facebook knows what I am doing, who my friends are etc. I only put pictures on Facebook that I wouldn't mind being shared or used elsewhere, and so on.
I always knew that Facebook scans what you are doing outside of FB on the devices that you have it running on, and that is probably how they got hold of your email addresses VC.
The debacle in the press about FB is more what they, or rather Cambridge Analytica does with the gathered info. They basically figure out what type of person you are and adjust the messages they give you to line with that. For example, I'm an extrovert, social and so on... so they give me adverts that are bright, with lots of people in the pictures, amusing puns etc. If I was an introvert, they'd give more subdued, quiet looking adverts etc. This is what they did in the Trump campaign, and they tried hundreds of combinations of the same advert to finetune how they deliver a message, to get us to like what they're saying. So really, your information isn't interesting to them in isolation, but a real tool for them to hammer a message home world wide.
So no, I'm not worried about it at all. I'm honestly more worried about spam emails coming through with links that I might click by mistake.

[Kirk]

Your data has been collected and analysed for years.
Sky do it with your set top box, they used to have the condition that it was plugged into the phone - they collected the data via that, now it is via a broadband link. Purpose is to target adverts.

Mobiles phones are tracked by them registering on each basestation in turn, so any trip you make is easy to determine.

BT keep phone call data for a year for analysis.

Seem to recall Samsung were collecting data via the "Smart TV" on what you watched and so could target advertising.

Suppose the reality is that Facebook is behind the times in some ways. But a standard SQL enquiry is very easy. Something along the lines of:

Select Title from GrowfruitandvegDB where Author = "Veggiechicken";

Would show the titles of all VC posts.
So not sure what Cambridge group have really done, since the search method is not exactly revolutionary. Their algorithm may have been quicker but that I suspect is all.

As a friend once said:
Say nothing on a mobile phone that you wouldn't be happy shouting across a crowded room.

The same applies to Facebook and other social media sites.

[burnie]

I expect Facebook to crumble now all the advertisers are dumping them, expect a few distraught teenagers over the coming weeks, maybe they will have to learn to talk now, oh and look where they are going which will be good.

[Baldy]

^^^ from my experience teenagers only use facebook to keep their elders *happy* and are actually using a myriad of social media apps amongst themselves that we may or may not have heard of...