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You are here: Home / Economics / C.R.E.A.M. / Open Thread: Social Media Privacy Update, Maybe?

Open Thread: Social Media Privacy Update, Maybe?

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I don’t actually have a twitter account, because I’m fortunate enough not to need one, and I’m barely tech-competent enough to lurk there. But I’m seeing messages about the company’s latest “improvements”. Per Marketing Land:

When you visit a site that features a tweet button or an embedded tweet, Twitter is able to recognize that you’re on that site and use that information to target you with ads. And now it’s going to hang on to that information for a bit longer but give you more control over it.

Twitter updated its privacy policy on Wednesday so that it can use the information it collects about people’s off-Twitter web browsing for up to 30 days, as opposed to the previous 10-day maximum, according to the updated document that takes effect on June 18. The extension could help Twitter when it comes to making sure its ads are aimed at enough of the right people, which could aid its struggle to attract direct-response advertisers and reverse its advertising revenue declines…

While Twitter will no longer support Do Not Track once its new privacy policy takes effect on June 18, the company still offers options for people to disable ads targeted based information collected off Twitter. People can pull up Twitter’s settings menu, select “Privacy and Safety,” then “Personalization and data” and then toggle off “Personalize ads.” That menu also includes an option to disable Twitter from being able to see when a person visits a site that features a tweet button or an embedded tweet as well as a nuclear option that also prevents Twitter from sharing a person’s data with other companies, using location-based data to personalize content on Twitter and connecting data across the different devices a person may use to log in to Twitter…

More at the link. By all means, feel free to explain what I’ve gotten wrong in the comments.

Reader Interactions

84Comments

  1. 1.

    TenguPhule

    Iowa says to Texas: Hold my beer.

    Iowa lawmakers voted in April to strip Planned Parenthood of $400,000 in annual payments, which the group received as reimbursement for providing STI tests, contraception, and cancer screenings at no cost to patients on Medicaid. The funds cannot be used to pay for abortions.

    The payments to Planned Parenthood came from a $3m Medicaid fund that the federal government provided to Iowa so the state can subsidize family planning services.

    But, now because Iowa has violated Medicaid rules by blocking Planned Parenthood, the state will lose the entire $3m.

    Planned Parenthood’s opponents felt it was worth it.

    Reposted from below because this disturbing trend is accelerating across more and more states.

  2. 2.

    Corner Stone

    It really does not matter what you check Yes or No to for apps or social media. They are going to do whatever they feel like anyway, as long as they can monetize it.

  4. 4.

    Origuy

    A Czech financial newspaper is reporting that Iowa Representative Steve King (R-Racist) is Trump’s choice for ambassador to the Czech Republic. Source

    Czech newspaper: Steve King’s name submitted for U.S. ambassador

    Thursday, May 18 2017desmoinesdem 0 Comments
    Citing two unnamed separate Czech diplomatic sources, the Czech financial newspaper Hospodarske Noviny reported today that Representative Steve King (IA-04) might be President Donald Trump’s choice for U.S. ambassador to the Czech Republic. The sources told the newspaper that two weeks ago, American diplomats submitted King’s name to the Czech Foreign Ministry for their consent. The U.S. embassy in Prague declined to comment on the story.

    Hospodarske Noviny’s headline described King as “an admirer of European radicals [Marine] Le Pen and [Geert] Wilders.” King is on friendly terms with Norbert Hofer, last year’s presidential candidate for the far-right Freedom Party in Austria, as well as with anti-immigrant German politician Frauke Petry and anti-Islam Dutch politician Wilders. He met with Le Pen, leader of the far-right French party National Front, earlier this year and wished her luck in the recent presidential election runoff.

  5. 5.

    hellslittlestangel

    Ooh, select partnerships. They only select partnerships who pay them money to be selected. Ex-cloooo-sive.

  6. 6.

    p.a.

    @Origuy: worth it to get him out of the US?

    also too: look for signs Trump being drugged by his handlers to keep him from dick-stepping hourly. is it irresponsible to speculate? it’s irresponsible not to!

  8. 8.

    Groucho48

    Just came across this article, on Vox. I generally like Vox, but, after I skimmed trough this steaming pile, no more.

    The article claims that Comey SHOULD have been fired because he went way too easy on Clinton. Really!

    And, of course, there’s no need for a special prosecutor because Coingress is perfectly capable of investigating the Trump Administration, though, at present, there doesn’t seem to be a pressing need for such an investigation.

    At present, therefore, the near-hysterical charges against Trump on the underlying claims of impropriety are not supported. Given the mercurial state of affairs, the critics in Washington should hold their fire until they have something more concrete to go on. The great tragedy is that too many voices are so rigidly and irretrievably anti-Trump — so opposed to him on every aspect of domestic policy and foreign policy — that it clouds their judgment.

    My view is somewhat different. I think that Trump à la carte is the only way to look at him: horrible on some issues, and sound on others. In this case, it is too soon to reach a definitive verdict, but here is my tentative conclusion about this current controversy: Where there is no smoke, there is no fire. Let the smoke appear, and we can and should reevaluate. But that time has not yet come.

  9. 9.

    Mary G

    M4 posted about that the other day and said to turn all of them off, so I did. If you ever read the fine print, the permissions they ask for can be outrageous. I wanted to respond to something on one of the big travel sites, don’t remember which one, and they wanted my entire email address book, which is none of their damn business.

    PS, Benjamin Wittes, of the Lawfare blog, is going to be on the PBS newshour, or may have already been where you are. He is a friend of Comey’s and dishes the dirt on his efforts to keep Twitler at arm’s length, including hiding behind the blue curtains in the East Room in a blue suit, but he was spotted anyway. I don’t have a link, because I didn’t want to post that on gnG’s thread.

  10. 10.

    Frankensteinbeck

    reverse its advertising revenue declines

    I’ll miss Twitter if it dies, but I also wouldn’t lift a finger to save it. The management prefers protecting neo-Nazis to the women and minorities they harass.

  11. 11.

    efgoldman

    @Corner Stone:

    They are going to do whatever they feel like anyway, as long as they can monetize it.

    Not if you don’t sign up for an account.
    It’s like watching Tweety: Nobody makes you do it.

  14. 14.

    Yarrow

    @Groucho48:

    I think that Trump à la carte is the only way to look at him: horrible on some issues, and sound on others.

    Yeah…no. Anyone who can’t look at Trump and recognize that he’s a toxic narcissist whose main goal is enriching himself and his family is not worth reading.

  17. 17.

    efgoldman

    @Groucho48:

    “…and sound on others…”

    Name one; really.
    Who is this asshole and why does any site waste pixels on him.

  20. 20.

    Mnemosyne

    Whine of the day: I finally had to break down and take some Excedrin for my sore throat (because aspirin + caffeine = sore throat relief). I’ll probably try to go to work tomorrow because I have a couple of orders that have to be placed before noon tomorrow or we won’t get them next week, and you do NOT want to see what happens in my office when we run out of coffee. It’s not pretty.

  21. 21.

    Splitting Image

    By all means, feel free to explain what I’ve gotten wrong in the comments.

    That’s easy. You appear to have your adblocker turned off.

  22. 22.

    Peale

    @p.a.: my thoughts, too. Who knows what that district will spew up, but having King be unavailable for comment on my TV wouldn’t be bad. Yeah, he may be there to coordinate With EU racists, but he’d be doing that anyway.

  24. 24.

    Corner Stone

    @efgoldman: Nobody is making you continue breathing. Or giving a shit what I watch. if you don’t fucking like it then pie me or scroll on by.

  25. 25.

    Mnemosyne

    @Timurid:

    Bad news: I’m not sure what the Czechs did to deserve this.

    They’re probably Googling him and wondering the same thing.

    I know that Hungary has gone proto-fascist — has the Czech Republic done the same?

  26. 26.

    Yarrow

    @Origuy: So…let’s see. He leaves Congress–yay! Trump and cronies get tossed out. King gets removed as ambassador and someone sane gets the job. Outside of the poor Czechs having to deal with him for a few months I don’t see a downside.

  28. 28.

    Steve in the ATL

    @Timurid:

    I’m not sure what the Czechs did to deserve this.

    Well, they use weird consonants, and weird combinations of consonants, and they are in that part of Europe where the countries are always changing and I can’t help my kids study for map quizzes.

  30. 30.

    efgoldman

    @Corner Stone:

    Or giving a shit what I watch.

    If you’re going to bitch about it every night, it’s a pretty good assumption that you want people to know and comment. Or you could just be demanding attention. “Look at me! I hate Tweety!”

  34. 34.

    Mnemosyne

    @Yarrow:

    Not to mention that Trump doesn’t have any stances on “issues” that are not completely fungible.

    Maybe racism, because I can’t picture him dropping that under any amount of pressure.

  35. 35.

    Corner Stone

    @efgoldman: And again. I feel like posting about shit on MSNBC, commercials I find odd, football games or any god damn thing under the sun or the deep blue fucking sea.
    Take your bullshit and cram it in your fucking cramhole if you do not god damn like it.

  38. 38.

    efgoldman

    @Groucho48:

    King asked to go to the whitest country in Europe.

    It would serve him right if the entire senior staff and Marine guard were African American

  39. 39.

    Steve in the ATL

    @Major Major Major Major:

    some libertarian Hoover Institute lawyer and U Chicago economist

    Libertarian: strike one!
    Hoover Institute lawyer: strike two!
    U Chicago economist: you’re out!

  40. 40.

    efgoldman

    @Corner Stone:

    Take your bullshit and cram it in your fucking cramhole if you do not god damn like it.

    My doodness. Such tender feefees!
    Why comment if you don’t expect responses?

  50. 50.

    Corner Stone

    @efgoldman: You just keep running this into the ground. If you don’t have anything to say except, “Well why you watch muh channelses?” then it’s not really commenting anymore after the first thousand or so times, is it?
    I comment because I feel like it. It’s a blog. 90% of what I post get no responses. And that’s fine! Some do and sometimes it’s even fun!
    But it’s fucking boring to keep hearing the same stupid fucking retort over and over and over and over. There has to be a buffer. There has to be a place that doesn’t echo all the same shit all the damn time. Not saying it’s going to change by me bitching on this blog but we know that things can change with involvement, sometimes. If i send up a signal, let’s say about Hugh Hewitt on MSNBC, and some number of people here and their friends are against him getting a show on MSNBC maybe it makes a difference. Maybe it does not. Either way maybe me just saying it on a sympathetic forum makes sense to me.
    We just watched a digital persona pass away. None of us had met her. But there was something there for a lot of folks here, as well as her family. Who is to say that fighting back in small bites is no less important to this forum than pet rescue, car recommendations, rooting on favorite sports teams or virtually holding a loved one’s hand while they watch someone pass?
    I am just beyond tired of hearing that I don’t “have” to do something I choose to do. No shit. Last I checked I pay my bills, get up everyday and get my son to school. If I want to demand better from the only fucking TV outlet I can stand in doses then I don’t really give a shit what you think.

  51. 51.

    Another Scott

    @efgoldman: Yup.

    But it is nearly impossible to avoid some company, somewhere, tracking what you do.

    Anyone who has ever shopped at Amazon (who doesn’t use an ad-blocker) probably gets customized ads wherever they go. They used to be kinda creepy about it (putting your name on the ads, IIRC). It’s part of the environment.

    “If you’re not paying, you’re the product” is a good thing to keep in mind.

    I don’t mind Twitter doing advertising things that it needs to do to survive. I do resent, though, them (and similar companies) following me wherever I go. I’ve been tempted by Twitter a few times, but still haven’t made the jump (I have enough time sinks already, and I doubt that anyone who accepts a Tweet from me really cares what I have to say (not any more than they do to my e-mails and letters, I’m sure)). And I’m really not any good at 140 characters… :-/

    And their “members” having to play whack-a-mole with Facebook’s ever-changing policies has made it such that I don’t think I’ll ever sign up there.

    All that is why one of the top 3 things I first install on a new PC is an ad blocker.

    Until companies start having sensible privacy policies, I’m not going to watch their stupid ads.

    FWIW.

    Cheers,
    Scott.
    (Who is aware of the EFF’s tools, etc.)

  52. 52.

    Yarrow

    @Mnemosyne: We’ve seen him make vaguely negative comments about Russia, but not like he speaks poorly of just about everyone and everything else. They own him so his avoidance of speaking poorly of Russia must be tied to some type of self-preservation. He knows they can destroy him so he doesn’t risk it.

    How does that fit in with narcissism?

  53. 53.

    Barbara

    @SiubhanDuinne: I don’t know the exact protocol but as this post alluded to, we almost always get consent of a country to whomever is being put up for ambassador. Czech Republic is not our most important ally but it is a member of NATO and probably requires more than a trophy pick. It also deserves better than King but a sitting House rep at least gets past “You have got to be f’ing kidding.”

  55. 55.

    Barbara

    @Another Scott: I find Twitter useful for following breaking news or events like the debates. But following it generally is just mind numbing.

  56. 56.

    Steve in the ATL

    @Barbara:

    I find Twitter useful for following breaking news or events like the debates. But following it generally is just mind numbing.

    I prefer secondhand Twitter, to wit: I come to Balloon Juice and see what people have reposted from Twitter. Sure, I still get bombarded by the Ossoff campaign, but that’s better than a sharp Handel in the eye.

  57. 57.

    efgoldman

    @Corner Stone: My goodness you used a lot of pixels (most of them not relevant) to prove that you are their creature; they have captured you. Here I thought you were smarter than that.
    They don’t care whether you love watch, hate watch, or indifference watch, as long as your eyeballs are there for the commercials.

  58. 58.

    Another Scott

    @Barbara: There are a few people who Tweet that I glance at once or twice a day, but I do it through the web interface. I haven’t seen the need to sign up, yet, myself.

    And for breaking news, it’s hard to beat Memeorandum, but I hate the way it seems to be dominated by RWNJ sites, but maybe that is a reflection of reality… :-/

    I do recognize the appeal though (while it irks me that many NPR shows ignore comments on their own web sites, but really, really push people to post on their FB and T feeds – I assume they get some sort of kickback that way).

    Cheers,
    Scott.

  60. 60.

    FlyingToaster

    Up to the OP:

    You don’t have anything wrong, but Twitter has utterly and completely missed the point.

    I don’t use their app, except on my telephone, sitting in the pickup line at school once a week. They’re welcome to try and figure out what to advertise to me, since Google — who I suspect is better at this — defaults to Harry’s Razors and Zulily (not a customer of either). I checked with my usual suspects and we’re all using 3rd party apps on devices with keyboards, and their app for timeline browsing on our phones.

    On the tablet, and on the laptop, I use Tweetbot, which doesn’t serve me ads. Hmmm. And I would happily pay for a Twitter account that I could turn that shit off (and Facebook too), if they ever gave me that option.

    If they want to monetize me, they’re gonna have to actually be willing to sell me something.

  61. 61.

    Corner Stone

    @efgoldman: I like watching commercials. I am currently trying to determine why credit card companies keep putting out vaguely homosexual (NTTIAWWT) Bro Dates as examples of ways their specific card best serves them.

    And you’re wrong. I am not contracting with Boeing or Lockheed. I just watch the damn channel because it gives me a roundtable of issues I can then go find more info on from other sources, as I choose.
    I watch NatGeo when Alaska State Troopers is on also, sometimes. I guess I’ll start bitching about things they do also just to keep you on your toes about things you feel I shouldn’t be doing.
    I also like Delicious Destinations on Travel Channel. There’s a whole universe of shit out there that they are doing wrong I am going to start commenting on.

  62. 62.

    Mnemosyne

    @Yarrow:

    He knows they can destroy him so he doesn’t risk it.

    For now, sure. Plus I bet they’ve been flattering him for years, telling him how great and smart he is and how much better he is than That Black Man.

    But narcissists will discard anything they have to discard to protect their self-image. Not even to protect themselves — specifically their self-image. So it’s quite likely that Trump will never need to give up liking them if doing so never threatens his self-image, but if it ever does, he will do a 180 so fast, he’ll break the sound barrier.

  63. 63.

    Corner Stone

    @Another Scott:

    And for breaking news, it’s hard to beat Memeorandum, but I hate the way it seems to be dominated by RWNJ sites

    Nobody is making you go there! Why do you do that to yourself? You should stop going there since you do not have to. Or at least, stop commenting about it here.

  64. 64.

    Steve in the ATL

    @efgoldman: who the fuck knows? There is a lot of enthusiasm for Jon, but there are a shitload of retrograde assholes who would vote for Bill Belichick over Jesus Christ if he had an R by his name.

    We are counting on the GOTV efforts of SiubhanDuinne and JPL, so God help us!

  65. 65.

    Steve in the ATL

    @Corner Stone:

    There’s a whole universe of shit out there that they are doing wrong I am going to start commenting on.

    Oh shit–game on–Corner Stone v. efgoldman in a cage match for most curmudgeonly BJ poster!

  66. 66.

    Another Scott

    @Corner Stone: Hehe. ;-)

    I only check it occasionally, because I don’t like the implementation (even though I very much like the idea).

    FWIW.

    Take it easy, fella.

    Cheers,
    Scott.

  69. 69.

    Mike in NC

    Apparently the only people into this Twitter thing are complete self-absorbed assholes like Trump.

  72. 72.

    NotMax

    @Corner Stone

    I am currently trying to determine why credit card companies keep putting out vaguely homosexual (NTTIAWWT) Bro Dates as examples of ways their specific card best serves them.

    Does the term “disposable income” ring a bell?

  78. 78.

    Jacel

    @Groucho48: I found the article. It is by Richard A. Epstein under the VOX department “The Big Idea” where outside writers provide perspective. This one is rather hackish, but seems to be the only piece by Epstein at the site — and in general, the authors in this department seem to appear in one-off pieces.

    I don’t think the opinions expressed here are representative of an overall direction for VOX.

  81. 81.

    Groucho48

    @Jacel:

    I hope not! As I mentioned. I generally like the site. But, the article was complete crap. Having a different viewpoint is fine, but, at least make it moderately credible.

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