I see the "like" button is back again...

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Its a major pain in the butt for me. I am always logged into facebook, even when I am not actually looking at it. It is a pain to constantly have to log in and out of stuff all the time just to surf this board.

Plus there is also the butterfingers issue with my phone, I am realising I probably shouldnt surf WP with my phone in case I accidentally post someone's Haven/depression thread on my wall/newsfeed, or their thread about having problems finding a date, or their schizoaffective symptoms, or unusual special interest.

But it is a bummer for the person who writes a highly personal thread, and then my nosey Cousin Sara and Aunt Maggie end up reading their stuff.

And FB is logged in on my phone, so if I would have to choose between being logged into one I would probably choose FB.

I can't see it.. has it gone? Or does ghostery block it?

(nevermind, I see it does. for those concerned about accidently pressing it, if you use firefox, download 'ghostery' and you can block it)

I still think it's a stupid decision to be able to 'like' threads on a support site.

It isn't stupid. It's malicious.

You don't need to 'like' anything for it to be a problem. If you are logged into Facebook it's already reporting everything you read just by being loaded.

Seconded.



That is probably a good decision. Unless the Facebook account is one you created specifically for communicating with other WP members, in which case it doesn't really matter I suppose

You can ad block the 'Like' button, and the other stuff at the bottom of the page. And the ads of course.

Sorry I didn't realise you were already discussing this issue.

See here too folks!

http://www.wrongplanet.net/postp4149038.html#4149038

I dont actually have any Facebook friends currently on WP....



In some ways the "like" button is good for me, I wont be sitting in cafes surfing WP with my phone now....

I will instead be surfing my other forum I frequent.... WP is so addictive anyway, maybe it is Gods way of telling me to stay off it when I am out of the house.

However I believe it is a serious privacy issue to have these like buttons on this forum, there is a lot of sensitive, personal information here and people trust this place.

I "dislike" the presence of these "like" buttons.

Why don't you just modify your facebook settings to prevent facebook from sharing like button clicks with your friends/anyone other than you?

That would be way easier than logging in and out and would be a one time permanent fix.

I dont really understand, do you mean that I should change my settings so that all my "likes" are kept for my eyes only?

Im not sure if I want to do that. I "like" a number of things on the web including things to do with my interests, recipes etc... I kind of want my friends to see those.

Pages that are "liked" show who "likes" them as far as I know so it is only partially solving the problem to hide it on your own page. Additionally Facebook reserves the right to alter their privacy controls on a whim, which they certainly prosecute, so the safest bet IMO is to
A) Don't like anything, whatsoever (I already do this with Facebook, I *never* like anything that isn't a comment or photo by friends, so yeah, nobody knows I am a fan of "drinking coffee naked" or whatever frivolity most pages represent, but my account is not now associated with a public page)
B) Do not sign into your Facebook and Wrongplanet.net at the same time under any circumstances

That wouldn't prevent details of all you read here being shared with Facebook. Only blocking the button from loading can do that.

Though given this I suppose Facebook can't really be considered any less trustworthy than wrongplanet.

To be honest I dont understand much about Facebook and its privacy rules. It all goes quite over my head... and it continues to get more and more complicated as time goes by...

The problem is that your Facebook footprint isn't limited to what appears in your profile. It is all information which Facebook holds about you, which could be used in unspecified and unpredictable ways in future.
There is the potential for real harm to be caused. But maybe having a cool 'Like' button and the additional traffic it drives is more important.

^ Ugh that all sounds really creepy...

My guess is that the autotagging bits are only used on photos uploaded directly to Facebook. It'd seem very wrong, and very obvious, if Facebook started examining images hosted on a page just because the page has a Like button on it.



This may have more weight. When my browser still retains a login session with Facebook, the Facebook Like button text is localized to my language. Since most people on Earth don't use Facebook in Irish, I'm pretty sure Facebook's like widget "knows who I am" when it's rendered. Since it's loaded via HTTP referrer, that means the fact that the Like button is rendered as part of the content for a given URL means that Facebook probably records that URL somewhere. All of this part presumes a stock browser installation without any plugins.

(edit for clarity on the technobabble bit)

Last edited by AngelKnight on 11 Nov 2011, 8:06 pm, edited 1 time in total.

Can't see any like buttons myself. Oh yeah, it's because my NoScript extension blocks all scripts unless I specifically whitelist them, and Facebook... Yeah, they're not on that whitelist