NRA Schilling for Facebook?

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Pretty sure Cee Zee's warnings are falling on deaf ears here. Nothing is free. Facebook just like other free social sites are in it for one thing, to obtain your info to sell to the highest bidder.
I just enrolled in a mobile payments company to increase sales for my business. Next thing I know I am bombarded with calls for safety classes for my company, advertisers, and random
salespeople who know my business. Granted I am not in hiding and I am definitely readily found on the internet but this was almost instantly a rush of solicitors at me. They, just like Facebook,
have my valuable info and make money whether I like it or not by selling it off to advertisers.

Every year I have to wipe my parents computer due to the contamination of using those social networking sites like Facebook. Not even AVG, adaware and spyware blaster can keep that garbage
out of their computer as they are unwittingly allowing it in. No Facebook/Twitter/etc accounts for me and my computers run fine.
 
It is true Facebook does not know anything you don't tell it

BUT

It is also true they are in the business to compile data about their users and sell it. I happen to think no good can come of it and don't want to participate in it. At the same time I believe if there is a give away which my membership dues and contributions have funded I should be able to enter without doing something I find objectionable. Having the opinion the amount of personal data collection going on today does not make me a "whack-job" just careful and concerned. Please notice I don't belittle or insult those who disagree with me . I would agree there is some "low road" stuff but it is not comming from me. I'm just trying to point out something I think is wrong - pardon me for expressing my opinion.
If the orgainization is having a drawing why not let all the members in good standing participate?????
 
Facebook does compile a certain number of data on people to make Facebook work more efficiently and integrated with as many other technologies as possible. These data can and have been accidentally leaked. However, (from the horse's mouth)

"Does Facebook sell my information?

No. You have control over how your information is shared. We don't share your personal information with people or services you don't want. We don't give advertisers access to your personal information. We don't sell any of your information to anyone and we never will."

You can choose to believe that Facebook makes it's money selling your information if you'd like. You can choose to believe that they are lying (isn't everyone?), but they make their money from advertising (and putting the appropriate advertisements in your face) NOT from selling your information.
 
I have a Facebook account, like many folks here. Like many folks here, I also have a split household: my better half detests Facebook, and won't use it.

It's a marketing tool, to be sure, and all marketing has a price. Even the government agency I work for in law enforcement has set up a Facebook page these days (that page is administered by one of my coworkers, who has a job that in no way involves technology).

There are some ways to safely use Facebook, and I can sum up most of them into a couple of quick points:

1) If you wouldn't want your grandmother, boss, or neighbor to be able to see it, you probably shouldn't post it.

2) If it is information about you that you wouldn't broadcast to a complete stranger (phone number, address, etc) you probably shouldn't post it.

True enough, someone could learn about my political opinions on Facebook. But, really, who cares? It's nothing that someone couldn't learn about me through a conversation... I'm not really hiding anything!

Whether you use Facebook or not, I don't think the NRA is to blame for tapping this market. But, I will say that I don't like when organizations or businesses require a Facebook account to participate in their promotions (it needlessly ties my business with them to another business that I may or may not support). But, that's capitalism, and each organization will ultimately need to decide how much they want their activities intertwined with another business!
 
The biggest problem with that NRA give away on facebook is that they are using either a facebook or a third party app for the drawing. In order to enter you have to allow the app to access your personal info on facebook which includes all of the info on your friends. At that point, I backed out and posted a very non-THR posting to the NRA page, at which time I saw hundreds of similar posting by others.

As an FYI, Kimber did the same thing for a free hat a couple of weeks ago and got the same kind of negative responses.
 
1) If you wouldn't want your grandmother, boss, or neighbor to be able to see it, you probably shouldn't post it.

2) If it is information about you that you wouldn't broadcast to a complete stranger (phone number, address, etc) you probably shouldn't post it.
Click to expand...

I have to try this one more time because is very important. They find out information on people who never have any connection to Facebook at all. Someone else will post your name and your email address to their online friends list. People often upload their entire list of names and info from Outlook, the email program. Facebook creates a file on people that have never connnected to Facebook at all. You don't have to give them your info. They find it anyway. If it was just people too stupid to realize they shouldn't post their own info then they deserve what they get. But Facebook has gone a million miles past that. They find your name from other people's lists and then they mine the internet for more information about you. It's not hard to do. Cookies on your hard drive have all sorts of data in them and just visiting web sites allows companies to collect that data. Facebook gets data from those companies. Before long they have a large amount of data on people THAT HAVE NEVER EVEN CONNECTED TO FACEBOOK.

And those that think Facebook isn't selling your info are living in a dream world. When was the last time you read the TOS for that service? There was a big stink about this a few years ago. Companies promise they won't sell your info then they change their TOS and send you a notification about it buried in a whole new TOS file which can be hundreds of pages of legal language that almost no one understands. And they do whatever they want to do including changing their policy about selling your info.

How do you think they managed to make billions of dollars? Advertising? Yeah right. TV networks don't bring in that kind of money. Facebook gets it's money from selling marketing info.

A whole lot of people are very naive about these things. That's the people that send in their friends lists to Facebook and give them info on all sorts of people that have no connection to Facebook other than knowing someone who has an account there.

Don't you get it? They lie, they cheat, they steal. If you think they don't you're just naive. Don't tell me I'm paranoid. I know exactly how they operate. I've been in this business for decades. I've done pretty much everything you can do with a computer from building them to writing programs for them to repairing them to writing database programs to teaching classes to doing security for businesses. I know what I'm talking about. If you think your info will remain private in the hands of a company like Facebook you're living in Candyland friends. I don't mean to be insulting. I just think people should be aware. Read the articles I mentioned. Find out who ZDNet is. They have been a major source of computer information since the PC was invented. It wasn't more than a few months after the PC hit the market that Ziff Davis published their first magazine dedicated to computers. They are telling you what Facebook is doing. To ignore them is like ignoring the Wall Street Journal and what it says about the stock market. They are probably THE major source of information about computers and all things connected to them. Don't trust me. Trust them. Heck I subscribed to their magazines for at least 20 years and probably more like 25. I only stopped because I could find the info on the net.

Do your own research. But do not believe what Facebook tells you. Why do they have files on people that don't have Facebook accounts? That is the key question.

Doesn't anyone know what made the government charge Edward Snowden with espionage? Read this article. Maybe you'll get a hint about what's going on.
http://articles.washingtonpost.com/2013-06-06/news/39784046_1_prism-nsa-u-s-servers

Pay attention to the part that says:

Equally unusual is the way the NSA extracts what it wants, according to the document: “Collection directly from the servers of these U.S. Service Providers: Microsoft, Yahoo, Google, Facebook, PalTalk, AOL, Skype, YouTube, Apple.”
 
Cee Zee,

Frankly, the most they'll get out of me through my Facebook account is my name (no secret), and an e-mail address that I set up primarily for places where I expect to get spam. In other words, if I need to give an e-mail address to a business, 90% of the time they get this e-mail address (which I rarely even check). My primary e-mail address is not linked to Facebook, or other places that require me to provide an e-mail address. Moreover, I don't use Outlook, and there's no address book information that they're pulling on me on the basis of my shell e-mail address and my name, or on my friends via my address book.

Now, admittedly, there's nothing that prevents anyone from posting information THEY have about me online, with or without my permission. That's a threat with or without the existence of Facebook. But, they sure aren't pulling it from the account that I setup!

I'm not trying to say that you don't have some valid concerns, I'm just pointing out that there are ways to deal with the modern world of data collection. I've absolutely never used the Facebook feature that allows you to upload your address book for the sake of 'locating more friends'. I understand your concern that others might use their address book (which may contain you). But, again, they aren't getting more than a name and an e-mail address... and the folks who know my REAL e-mail address are mostly people who either: 1) already know me on Facebook, or 2) aren't on Facebook.

I've certainly got a lot of gripes about Facebook, and I do think that a lot of folks don't realize how their information is being used on that site. Still, there's nothing on my Facebook account that couldn't be made public. As such, I don't have a great deal of concern about what happens with that information... things I want to keep private aren't posted there to begin with!

But, more to the point of the thread, I just don't see a reason to be mad at the NRA if they try to have a Facebook presence in addition to a web presence. There's no requirement for you to approach them on Facebook, but it is an option if you choose to. Frankly, a LOT of people/businesses are using Facebook these days, for good or for bad.
 
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Much ado anout nothing, in my opinion. You can either get a FB page, or be excluded. Companies give stuff away every day, but to get these freebies, you must play by their rules. Just like if I wanted to give my car away, I should be able to do so as I see fit, not as the potential/possible winners think I should. I don't think its a conspiracy, nor do I think its worth getting the least bit upset about. If you don't have a FB page, you can't get benefits exclusive to those that have one. That is sort of like me trying to file an insurance claim with a company I'm not insured under.....
 
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I've got news for you guys, THR is compiling data about you, your ISP is compiling data about you, your phone company is compiling data about you, so is your bank, cable company, grocery store and the oil change place. Unless you want to go off the grid completely, if you participate in any form of electronic communication - data is being stored sorted and processed about you.

FB has enabled me to connect with more gun owners in my community in the last 2 months via the Texarkana gun swap group, then I got to know in the last 9 year's I have lived there. I consider that a fair trade off for letting 'the man' know that I like shiner bock beer and Nikon optics.

And to be honest, the targeted advertising has actually put me onto a few pretty good deals.

What exactly is a 'shadow file'?
 
"Much ado anout nothing, in my opinion. You can either get a FB page, or be excluded. Companies give stuff away every day, but to get these freebies, you must play by their rules. Just like if I wanted to give my car away, I should be able to do so as I see fit, not as the potential/possible winners think I should. I don't think its a conspiracy, nor do I think its worth getting the least bit upset about. If you don't have a FB page, you can't get benefits exclusive to those that have one. That is sort of like me trying to file an insurance claim with a company I'm not insured under....."

The objection I and many others have to this is we are MEMBERS and ILA SUPPORTERS whose DUES helped PAY for this drawing. In the case of Kimber giving away a gun on Facebook I would agree - they should do it how ever they see fit BUT in the case of the NRA excluding it's non Facebook members that is very different.
Why not just get a Facebook account? Go along with it!! After all everybody's got one right? Facebook may or may not be selling personal information but they DO gather as much information about your associations as possible. Many of us think there is way too much information gathering going on today and while I can't stop it I don't believe it is good and don't want to endorse that behavior on the part of the government or private business. To be pragmatic privacy is dead anyway so why not give information to whoever asks - it's just a little thing and you'll never miss it. We all know it will NEVER be abused. Does wearing a seat belt make you a paranoid kook or just concerned about your safety? IF caring enough about the direction in which our country is headed by refusing to participate in something I believe may not be in our best interest then I'm proud to be nut case #1 - pleased to meet you!!
 
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Cee Zee said:
And those that think Facebook isn't selling your info are living in a dream world. When was the last time you read the TOS for that service? There was a big stink about this a few years ago. Companies promise they won't sell your info then they change their TOS and send you a notification about it buried in a whole new TOS file which can be hundreds of pages of legal language that almost no one understands. And they do whatever they want to do including changing their policy about selling your info.
Click to expand...

Excellent! Then you should be able to quote their TOS and show us exactly where Facebook states that they sell user information to third parties.

Or you can just repeat unsubstantiated claims that they are lying and selling military secrets to the Taliban.
 
@ Cee Zee: You didn't get a "wow" from me because of you say Facebook collects data on members and non-members. I have no doubt that they do. No, it was the comments about being stalked for not being an American hating liberal or worshiping mass killers, gun owners being denied medical care, and Facebook conspiring with retail stores to profile gun owners that makes me think you march with the tinfoil hat brigade. You provided a lot of good information in your posts but most people will ignore it because of the other outlandish claims you make.

@ LubeckTech: Sometimes organizations will do things that you don't agree with. You aren't going to get into the drawing on Facebook unless you "like" the NRA on Facebook. As an existing member you won't be eligible for a drawing for new members. If a contest requires you to mail in a form you won't be able to call it in. Such is life. I suspect this has nothing to do with the drawing and everything do with your dislike for Facebook.
 
Guys, this may come as a shock to many of you but I feel I have no choice but to say it - most of the folks posting on THR are not ethnic minorities, women, or under the age of 25, most of America is. If we as gun owners cannot quit walling ourselves up in a fortress of denial, the rights we are working so hard to preserve will mean nothing to future generations.

We HAVE to start reaching out to people that don't look like us and bring them into the fold with something besides fear and shouting if we hope to stem the tide. The secret LubeckTech, is that the NRA already has you, they don't want you to win the drawing. They want a young person who is on the fence to win that drawing so that they will have dues paying members 30 years from now.
 
We HAVE to start reaching out to people that don't look like us and bring them into the fold with something besides fear and shouting if we hope to stem the tide. The secret LubeckTech, is that the NRA already has you, they don't want you to win the drawing. They want a young person who is on the fence to win that drawing so that they will have dues paying members 30 years from now.
Click to expand...

Recently an NRA rep did a survey over on Reddit.com regarding issues with the NRA. This response basically hits the nail on the head of what transpired over there. The response was that nobody who is either young, atheistic/agnostic (or anything but christian really), an ethnic minority, an alternative sexuality (LGBT), or a registered Democrat wants to join the NRA. The NRA is a Republican, Christian, and racist group of old guys that is engaged in fear mongering.
 
"Recently an NRA rep did a survey over on Reddit.com regarding issues with the NRA. This response basically hits the nail on the head of what transpired over there. The response was that nobody who is either young, atheistic/agnostic (or anything but christian really), an ethnic minority, an alternative sexuality (LGBT), or a registered Democrat wants to join the NRA. The NRA is a Republican, Christian, and racist group of old guys that is engaged in fear mongering."


Is this their perception of the NRA or that of gun owners in general?
I believe (perhaps incorrectly) most of the "demographic" spoken of tend not to be gun owners.
 
Is this a RKBA forum or a web-based business bashing forum? Most of this "chat" is circular in nature my brethren (and sistren of course). If the NRA/ILA uses FB to further the cause and we are all aware of the risks in participating, then so be it. Either "go off the grid" or participate and get your data stored. And even if you think you're hiding...
 
Is this a RKBA forum or a web-based business bashing forum? Most of this "chat" is circular in nature my brethren (and sistren of course). If the NRA/ILA uses FB to further the cause and we are all aware of the risks in participating, then so be it. Either "go off the grid" or participate and get your data stored. And even if you think you're hiding...
Click to expand...

Here-Here.
 
I quit smoking cigarettes years ago.
I haven't had a drink of alcohol in 3 years
I could stand to lose 20 (or 30) pounds
My cholesterol is a little too high
I live in a suburb of one of the most violent cities in America

Facebook doesn't scare me
 
JC,I'll let you work that out for yourself.
Click to expand...

There went the credibility I guess.

As far as face book, who cares, it is what it is, whatever is, is.

As far as the NRA, I'm waiting for them to show up here in No. Indiana for the Smallbore Metric Matches, year 3 for them.
 
TennJed said:
I quit smoking cigarettes years ago.
I haven't had a drink of alcohol in 3 years
I could stand to lose 20 (or 30) pounds
My cholesterol is a little too high
I live in a suburb of one of the most violent cities in America

Facebook doesn't scare me
Click to expand...
Is that a GD name Jed?
 
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