Twitter Looks at Your DMs and Saves those for Later

FrgMstr

Just Plain Mean
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May 18, 1997
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Apparently Twitter employees look at all your Twitter direct messages and at least one of these guys is saving all those pictures of your girlfriends to show to your wives later when they file to divorce you. My mom always told me when I was a little boy, "Kyle, never take pics of your junk and DM it on Twitter. Those guys are will extort you one day." Of course, this happening back in 1972 really makes me think of just how much a visionary my mom was.

Check out the video.

Project Veritas has released undercover footage of Twitter Engineers and employees admitting that Twitter employees view all of your private messages on their servers and analyze it to create a “virtual profile” of you which they sell to advertisers. The footage features four current Twitter software engineers–Conrado Miranda, Clay Haynes, Pranay Singh, and Mihai Alexandru Florea.

One more reason not to use Twitter. That makes for reason number 1,248 on my short list.
 
What exactly do people expect when using a free service on the cloud. Do people honestly think any of these companies run just for the sake of being a public good for society. Do these same people also think their servers are powered with magic love sprinkles and cotton candy.
 
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Could be the devil in me, but I am tempted to start a Twitter account just to trolls these asshats with Bizarre DM's

something something Human Scorpion something something Goatse on the white house lawn something @twitter.com
 
You're closer to reality as you'd think. Social media = the new religion

Doesn't that make Zuckerberg a prophet of some sort? Saint Zuckerberg?

I think I just threw up in my mouth a little bit.
 
Kyle are you becoming a grumpy old man? Don't like Facebook, Don't like Twitter, Don't like to load bank apps on your Phone. You are rejecting all the cool kids stuff, you know what that makes you. Just need to add "Get off my Lawn!" to the end of all your post :p
 
well hey we cant make money, lets do this so everyone hates us more.

I rarely find anyone that uses twitter anymore other than "What did trump say this week"... and comedians.
 
sounds like a fun job. Reading all the dm's as entertainment when you're bored.

send all the vagina pics my way...
 
All you need to do is realize and accept that if you're not the vendor (selling it), and you're not the customer (paying for it), then you're the product.
 
yeah saw this from the beginning, i have veritas on my favorites, funny is always the ugly people, the rejects, that are involved into this, im now kinda starting to think some people are ugly because thats an exterior reflection of all the crap they have in their brains, not kidding, maybe all the bullying (fun times, funny memories, for one as me :p) was just evolution talking and these people are really shitty human beings, that would explain why liberals are usually so ugly, ugly people with their ugly beliefs doing ugly things.
 
Post my girlfriends' pix on my Twitter stream? Naw, they'd just be pix of other guys' wives. :D
 
We all need to make an effort to post stupid nonsense to everything. They waste their time data mining all the BS in the world.
 
probably one of the few that has never used twitter or facebook and just find this all social media stuff creepy.
 
Well I look forward to the interesting marketing strategies they come up with from the 1-2 DM's I send on Twitter a year.

Most of which will be "Thanks!"
 
People are shocked, shocked I tell you, that a web company datamines messages.

WTF is this, 1997? If people find data mining shocking, they probably should be alive, period.
 
People are shocked, shocked I tell you, that a web company datamines messages.

WTF is this, 1997? If people find data mining shocking, they probably should be alive, period.
Data mining is one thing. A Twitter employee saying he is saving your private messaged girlfriend nasty pics to get your divorced later is not data mining. I can count the times on one hand in the last 20 years that I have ever even viewed anyone's PMs here. And it damn sure was not for my personal or political motivations.
 
Well in one month I've used it I've never DMed or been DMed. I do now have two followers, wow. They can profile me all they want, I make my politics quite well known anyway. Unless they trace me back to my ISP they don't know who I am anyway.
It was funny though when I used the word 'glaziers' in a post and started getting ads about surety bonds for glaziers. Wow if I get one I can join the "big boys" and replace windows on big business high rises...wonder what would have happened if I put the word 'vertigo' next to it ;) .

edit: missing word
 
But if you wanted to, you could read every single one without issue. Anyone trusting private communication to non-end-to-end encrypted communication is an idiot. If you aren't assuming that anything not encrypted is being read, you are doing it wrong.
Unfortunately most people need to be taught this, do they not teach basic computer skills in schools?
 
But if you wanted to, you could read every single one without issue. Anyone trusting private communication to non-end-to-end encrypted communication is an idiot. If you aren't assuming that anything not encrypted is being read, you are doing it wrong.
I think you are missing the point here. Having that data used against you in a destructive way is what is at hand here and what was openly discussed. Serving ads and showing your wife pics that would get your divorced a bit removed from each other.
 
not from a technology standpoint. Both are simple data mining operations taking advantage of available data.
Well at least we now know that you can totally miss the entire point of the news post. But thanks for your obvious input, which by the way, I did specifically point out in the OP in an effort to not have this conversation.
 
The question of credible source material aside, case in point: Anthony's vs. Oscar Meier's Weiners. If not dressed right, one might get you 20, and the other, a bad case of gas. Both can be mined by something other than a proctologist performing scratch 'n sniff procedures.

Ethical questions deserve far more attention and understanding than they seem to get today.
 
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The details provided in the Veritas video also serve to give good warning and insight into what Microsoft does with the personal data it collects from Windows 10 owners. Just as the Dutch DPA investigation reported, all of the data that Microsoft collects through Windows 10 is personal, and none of it is anonymous, with all of it having multiple IDs to tie the data to the system, user, applications, device usage, location, Windows version, etc, that form a unique fingerprint for the person that the data came from. And that information is likewise used to create a virtual profile of each Windows 10 user, which is sold to advertisers, researchers, shared with government and law enforcement, etc

Of course, to get that data to sell is the whole reason why Microsoft was offering a "free" update to Windows 10, why Microsoft left so many loopholes to continue accessing the "free" update to Windows 10 after the "free" period officially ended, and why Microsoft forced and tricked millions of people to get Windows 10 to install their PCs. The "free" offer was a sleight of hand move, not for Windows owners, but for Microsoft, who wants to be making as much perpetual data-based money from every person who hooks into Microsoft's massive data-theft farm.
 
Oh I missed this was Veritas, grain of salt taken.

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"grain of salt"
n. A bit of common sense and skepticism. Generally used in some form of to take with a grain of salt.

i.e. this may or may not be what it seems. This company and the guy heading it have a history of distorting things which warrants some caution is all I'm saying.
 
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If you doubt the source, I fully respect that, but let's keep the thread on topic please. Feel free to hit the Soapbox sub, you can go off the deepend in there about Veritas if you wish.
 
I wonder when we will start seeing data or stuff like this in court cases? As in government using this data - a lot about advertising - not much about other groups who have access. Taping a phone conversation without the parties involved (some states only one have to know while others both, federal law only requires one party to know) is a crime in most states and federal law. Plus a court order is required for law enforcement to do (not that this doesn't happen without one). There is a reasonable amount or expectation of privacy so this may make a interesting future court case against Twitter, Facebook or Google, especially if harm can be proven done - as in getting fired from a job - not being hired due to Twitter etc. Background checks already include social media data, at least for the company I work for.
 
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