Technology

It looks like the important part is here:

After publication, Maca Ferguson, a spokesperson for Volunteers of America Western Washington, said the pixel was used for fundraising efforts and “not intended to collect personally identifiable information for purposes of tracking or transmitting this data back to Meta, its subsidiaries, or any third party for any reason” and that any data was sent “without our knowledge or consent.” Ferguson told The Markup the organization has since removed the pixel.

It's possible these crisis websites were using Facebook for fundraising efforts without reading the fine print of what adding a "click here to go to Facebook and donate" actually captures. It's part of what makes these integrations with large social media corporations so insidious.

Reason 10000 why facebook is a fucking cancer on society.

They also promise to help you, then send a squad of goons to your house to kidnap you and confine you indefinitely in a mental institution (read: torture chamber).

Suicide prevention organizations have been inhumanly cruel for many years, so there's nothing surprising about their cooperation with Facebook.

"Are you feeling depressed? Here are some extremist organizations we recommend you to join!"

-Facebook

It sounds like the organization might not have been aware that this fundraising tool was doing this, that's even worse. They think they're providing a service to people and raising money meanwhile the people they're helping are unwittingly being tracked - who knows how this information could be misused by insurers/employers/etc etc.

I wonder what recourse the organizations could take? A lawsuit? Going to the media?

I appreciate that the only JS scripts Beehaw seems to load are from beehaw.org. Usually NoScript shows like two full pages of domains, and (at least—you know, the obvious ones) half of them are for ads and "analytics".

Oh, I read that headline and growled out loud. Yet another reason not to trust those places nor expect anything good out of them. Maybe they'll call the cops, maybe they'll just call Facebook. Maybe they didn't mean to, maybe it doesn't matter. sigh

That's just nasty.

they send data to a lot more than just facebook.

The true extent is chilling. https://robwipond.com/your-consent-is-not-required

Wauw seemed like they really looking out for their users from the bottom of their hearth. Did they use that info to provide daily motivational messages or changed the personal algorithm to push less content that causes negative emptions… Or did they figure out its yet another demographic that can get triggered into an action/purchase from a wel designed ad?

@alyaza That's not surprising to me. At this point I can only believe in privacy if they made their app/software open source.

That's fucked

I can't say I'm surprised at all.

Pretty shitty ngl