Originally published April 28 2015
Facebook secretly records what you type even when you decide not to post it
by Daniel Barker
(NaturalNews) If you're one of the more than 1.3 billion people who use Facebook on a regular basis, you've probably experienced occasions when you decided against posting something before you hit "Enter" and assumed that whatever it was that you had typed would be permanently deleted.
This is not actually the case, according to Ireland-based tech consultant Priomh O hUiginn, who says that despite Facebook's claims to the contrary, every comment or status update an individual types is sent to their servers whether one deletes it before posting or not.
"I was inspecting Facebook's network traffic today in Firefox Devtools," O hUiginn wrote on his blog, "when I realized that any text I put into the status update box was sent to Facebook's servers, even if I did not click the post button."
Although Facebook asserts that it does not store this information, O hUiginn is rightly concerned that the social media giant collects the "self-censored" data in the first place.
He observed:
This is outright Orwellian, and inconvenient. Since I am now aware of this, I am more cautious about what I enter into the text area, however I can't help but notice the adverse effect of my new found awareness - am I experiencing the censorship of my own thoughts because of a faceless entity such as Facebook that doesn't care about you? I very much believe that is the case.
A recent study regarding self-censorship on Facebook found that 71 percent of the network's regular users have deleted text before posting it. Facebook's excuse for collecting these self-censored texts is that it is searching them for the names of other members - a bit like the way that Google and other apps employ an auto-suggest feature.
O hUiginn points out that such features are used mainly to aid in searches, while Facebook's collection of unsent text from a "status update box is a bit more personal." He also notes that neither Twitter nor Reddit, for example, stoop to the same practice, so why should Facebook?
He stated:
My main concern is that they are sending something to their servers in the status update box, and this raises issues relating to a lack of informed consent. Users are expected a modicum of privacy, even if it is Facebook we are talking about (where users expressly waive their right to privacy when agreeing to sign up).
This is far from being the only privacy breach that Facebook routinely imposes on its users, but it's further evidence of why you might want to consider not using the service if you value your privacy at all.
After all, both the NSA and the FBI have admitted to using Facebook to spy on the populace, calling it "a very rich source of information on targets" from which the agencies can collect information regarding "personal details, 'pattern of life,' connections to associates, [and] media."
The agencies are able to access this information "by exploiting inherent weaknesses in Facebook's security model."
There appears to be a very real possibility that these agencies are able to read the texts that you decide to delete before posting.
If that makes you uncomfortable - and it should, even if you have nothing to hide - you might want to consider using one of the alternative social media platforms, such as Unseen.is or Diaspora, both of which are dedicated to protecting personal privacy and providing surveillance-free social networking.
In essence, the internet has become a battleground in the struggle between those who would like to see it remain a place where ideas and information can be exchanged freely and those who seek to use it as a tool for surveillance and control of the masses.
Sources:
http://www.information-age.com
http://blog.higg.im
http://blog.higg.im
http://venturebeat.com
https://unseen.is
https://joindiaspora.com
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