Deceptive Facebook Apps
From Dark Patterns
Facebook Apps That Steal Your "Voice" Without Your Permission
The other day, I was looking at my email on my cell phone and while browsing it noticed a Facebook message from a good friend who wrote on my wall. The message said...
- "[MyGoodFriend'sName] said that Joe is crazy..."
and then trailed off into a "Read more.' message. It was troubling to see this because this was a good friend who I respect and who I wouldn't think would say that about me. I wondered why he would say such a thing and what he meant further than those first three words. Why was I crazy? Was he kidding? Did I do or say something weird that made me look crazy?
I was really curious, so I tried to log in to find out the details. Since I was on my mobile phone, I couldn't log in. I couldn't remember my password. So I had to wait till I got home. When I got home, I made a bee line to my computer to log in and find out what this person was saying about me. Once logged in I found the post and clicked on it. It asked me to give permission to share my information. My curiosity drove me to give the permission.
What I found was a Facebook application called, "Questions". It asks you stupid and sometimes embarrassing questions about your friends and asks for an answer of either yes, now, or skip this question. Worse than that, it shows you what others have said about you but only after you've answered five questions about others that you know. Here still, my curiosity drove me. I was shown a profile picture of a friend along with a question...
- "Do you think that "blank" would make a good gansta?"
- "Do you think that "so and so" is gullible?"
- "Do you think that "this person" has a sense of style?"
In the end, I gave permission to a random group of greed programmers that I know nothing about, who used "social engineering" to trick me into giving them permission to look at the names of pictures of five of my friends, and then sent them my answers to five stupid questions that I wouldn't have even thought to ask those five friends. And worse than that, caused me to trick those five friends to do the same thing, likely by sending them an incomplete picture of what I answered.
So my five friends got messages on their walls from me that said things like...
- "Joe said that you..."
- "Joe said you aren't gullible..."
- "Joe said you have a sense..."
- and, if I would have chosen this question to answer, it would have sent someone a message from me saying...
- "Joe said that you are crazy..."
These five messages wasted the time of five of my friends and could have caused them or me some embarrassment. Honestly, I don't see the fun, I don't think it's funny. The only good I see out of these kind of applications are that they reinforce my conviction about NOT giving Facebook Applications a single permission to access the names and contact information of my friends. In my opinion, we have been tricked into relinquishing our lives to public exposure forever.
Kids, think about this before you post any pictures on Facebook or Twitter. Think about how you look to future employers when they look at your "life stream" later on in life. How will it look to them if it becomes obvious that you are "twittering" your life away for hours upon hours each day online. How will those pictures of you partying with your friends for days on end look to your future employer? Everything that you post on Facebook or Twitter becomes public and stays someone else's property forever.
Regarding Facebook applications... The ones that ask your permission for access... be even more wary. Like the app that I described above, a great majority of them use social engineering and our natural curiosity to entice us into giving away our information, and worse than that, the information of our friends. Think of it... If a stranger walked up to you in a grocery store and asked you for the names and contact information contained in your address book, would you give it to them? I'm sorry, I just don't understand how we've gotten to the point in our lives where we feel this is perfectly ok to do online.
Be careful people. We're in a new and unexplored world right now. I use Facebook and there are many things I like about it. But I do not allow applications unless I am absolutely sure that I know what I'm doing. And now, after making that mistake, I will be even more wary.
Lastly, to those five people who I answered stupid questions about... I'm sorry... By the way, I didn't say that anyone was crazy. I tried to pick the most benign questions and answers, but I'm still embarrassed. Sorry!
P.S. I'm not the only one that this is happening to. There are hundreds of applications that use your "voice" without your permission. It is happening on a global scale and is quite responsible for the success of many companies and applications, but at the cost of your privacy. I believe that we, as a society, need to be more aware of these practices.
