Thread by @AlecMuffett

@OpenRightsGroup @jimkillock @Forbes @bazzacollins @Facebook @FBoversight Oh @jimkillock - I wish you had pinged me before writing this.

Obvious reason number 1: ranking the relationships between individuals so that you can show the user updates from people you interact with more often.

@OpenRightsGroup @jimkillock @Forbes @bazzacollins @Facebook @FBoversight Obvious reason number two: search suggestions and repeated searches are a thing. There is already a button for clearing them, just like in your browser history.

@OpenRightsGroup @jimkillock @Forbes @bazzacollins @Facebook @FBoversight Observation number three: unless the user has explicitly opted into something which deletes chats after {1 minute, 1 hour, 1 day} etc, it would be rude to erase stuff - "where have my baby photos gone they were in that chat with my sister!?!", etc

@OpenRightsGroup @jimkillock @Forbes @bazzacollins @Facebook @FBoversight I disagree firmly with @bazzacollins; we (including @OpenRightsGroup) all campaigned at length to have FB(etc) give us a convenient and complete download of all our data. Next: we expect them to delete it "behind the scenes" and not tell us? That would be bad.

@OpenRightsGroup @jimkillock @Forbes @bazzacollins @Facebook @FBoversight Aside from any other reason: some activists would accuse Facebook of "holding out on them" because "we know you had the information last year".

It would be a recipe for mass confusion.

@OpenRightsGroup @jimkillock @Forbes @bazzacollins @Facebook @FBoversight Your data download is protected the same as the account, and the content is similarly visible to anyone who has the account password: see the "account activity" tab for that, and scroll back in history. Whether you are horrified or nostalgic is up to you.

@OpenRightsGroup @jimkillock @Forbes @bazzacollins @Facebook @FBoversight One point I would agree on: it would be nice for some people to have a "delete crap that is older than <period>" - although it works also be sad, because presumably it would thoughtlessly remove the recipes you had posted to some group, which someone else had enjoyed. But hey.

@OpenRightsGroup @jimkillock @Forbes @bazzacollins @Facebook @FBoversight Also this is fairly pants clickbait; if the downloaded files were encrypted then we would all be bemoaning the lack of usability and utility, instead, quoting HCI experts to back us up.

If @bazzacollins is so concerned, he should try enabling PGP encrypted FB notifications 🙂

@OpenRightsGroup @jimkillock @Forbes @bazzacollins @Facebook @FBoversight It beggars belief that someone is complaining that Facebook makes it easy to access your own data, when we campaigned for that precise thing for so long, and backed up that call with welcoming GDPR.

I really just can't even.