I've noticed something sneaky about Facebook on my phone. I refuse to install their apps but I do use Facebook a bit so I use it via the phone Browser (in my case, Chrome on Android).
I've noticed that sometimes Facebook shows a fake 'youve got a message' icon to try and trick you into installing their messenger app.
To re-produce this behaviour: (this works best if you dont get a lot of facebook messages. Also you need a phone with no facebook apps installed)
- On your desktop PC, use facebook to send a message to someone
- Then switch to your phone, using facebook in the browser
- After about an hour, the little speechbubble message icon at the top will go red, showing you've got a message
- If you click on this from a phone browser, it redirects you to install messenger. (normally, phone-browser facebook doesnt do messenger features)
- Instead of that, switch on 'request desktop site' (not sure what iOS calls this option) to make your phone display the desktop version of facebook. And then you can (usually) read your messages in the browser
- But you will find that there is no new message, and the new message icon will no longer be lit up.
I've had this happen five or six times now - supposedly new messages have arrived but when you look there are none. It always happens about an hour after sending a message. I'm pretty convinced its deliberate behaviour on the phone browser version of facebook to get you to install their messenger app.
Just went on it. On a browser you have to enable desktop mode for login to show.
Also if you login this way and disable desktop mode it forces you out. If you reenable it renders the chat. Theres no reason the chat wouldnt work on Mobile desktop mode isnt using a different browser just lying to the web server and frontend JS.
Amazing. I already rarely use Facebook as it is. I might just outright stop since they are dying to infest your phone so badly.
I don't think it's an attempt to get you to install messenger so much as it's a cheap tactic to drive engagement, generally. I do have Messenger installed on a device, and it also shows unread notifications for conversations where I sent the last message, a bit (I've never timed how long) after the message was sent.
I assumed it was just some shitty dark pattern, that (enough) people are Pavlov-ing at unread notifications to pad their usage metrics nicely, because someone thought, "Let's poke people's brains to make the graphs look better!" or something. I mean, it is Facebook.
I had that icon too and was confused because I couldn’t find any message. On the desktop Facebook site it turned out I did have a new message from someone who wasn’t a Friend. I changed the settings to disallow messages from people who aren’t friends. And never had the issue again. But I just checked and I can’t find that setting now...
The exact same thing happens to me. Hate their messenger app too. The bad UI makes it so easy to send a message to the wrong person, and the app feels so slow and sluggish overall.
This is absolutely a dark pattern. I sometimes install the FB app if I need to check something, but NEVER the messaging app. And the FB app will always claim I have 5 or so messages... Which of course is never actually true.
I have messenger installed and I see the same. Honestly I think in this case it is only development team incompetence doing cache invalidation properly.
The "message" you see the notification for is the one from Facebook telling you how super great Messenger is and how you should join your 327 friends who already installed it. Then the notification arguably-correctly goes away once you've seen the upsell message.
I think simply ever having used Messenger does that - mine never shows up otherwise, even if I’ve just cleared out my messages. It reminds me of the dark pattern which got me to uninstall Messenger, where they’d send push notifications with fake alerts from your friends which when opened were simply telling you that the other person had Messenger.
The net effect is that I uninstalled all of their apps and only use https://mbasic.facebook.com/ a few times a month
I don't think it's intentional. Facebook has had this bug for several years. Interestingly one of the reasons they created react/flux was to fix it: https://youtu.be/nYkdrAPrdcw (15 minute mark)
I’ve noticed the same with their notifications. As of right now, I have 1 notification. I will open the menu and see there’s not actually anything there. The badge then goes away. Refresh the page and it’s there again despite not having any notifications
I have the same setup as you and can confirm this. If I go to facebook.com from my browser, it will always show 1 unread message even though there isn't one. It's pretty annoying.
Facebook isn't the only company to do this. I have a very,once in a blue moon, Twitter account. On the rare ocassion that I open the app, you can be sure that I'll get the red notification bubble soon after I stop using it. Open the app and are there any DMs or notifications? Nope. This pattern has happened enough times over the past few years that I finally got fed up and turned off notifications entirely last week.
All these Apps now seem to do evil things to drive engagement; for example you get notifications via app icon, email, inside the app and via push notifications all at different times so for one message you might end up interacting 3+ times which can be highly irritating. It seems like buggy software but it’s actually just making you go back to your apps more often.
I get something like this but on Instagram. I get a badge on Instagram saying that I have pending notifications on Facebook and there's an "Open Facebook" item in the Settings menu of the Instagram app.
> “To be clear—we are using the PushKit VoIP API to deliver a world-class, private messaging experience, not for the purpose of collecting data."
I think we must be at the point where it's arguably irresponsible journalism for The Information to broadcast a claim like that from Facebook without immediately pointing out the occasions in the past when identical claims about data collection have turned out to be barefaced lies. Not every reader is going to have that context when reading the article, and they need to be equipped with the appropriate skepticism.
I'm not saying we need to dredge up the 90s any time Microsoft speaks publicly about open source. But the Facebook thing is an ongoing issue, and it hasn't been that long since their absolute worst abusive behavior, and there's been no change in management since then. I think it's reasonable that any quote from Facebook denying privacy abuses should be positively dripping with disclaimers.
(By the way, I'm loving the articles from The Information when they hit HN. Quality content.)
> "I think we must be at the point where it's arguably irresponsible journalism for The Information to broadcast a claim like that from Facebook without immediately pointing out the occasions in the past when identical claims about data collection have turned out to be barefaced lies."
I am struggling to recall any unambiguous instances like you suggest, especially anything rising to the level of "barefaced lies". What would be the best examples?
I agree that journalists should give sufficient context about Facebook's history around data and privacy, but I also expect anyone that is subscribing to The Information doesn't need it rehashed for them.
The article focuses on making calls, but moxie (from Signal) had this to say:
"PushKit is the only way to do e2e encrypted messaging in iOS. If they take that away, they're disabling the ability for messaging apps to function with e2e encryption. I don't see how Apple can frame that as "enhancing user privacy and security?" "
Am I reading this right? If WhatsApp and similar are no longer able to implement End-To-End crypto because they have to use an Apple API which supports only specific protocols, this is going to be a huge loss for users.
I've considered switching to an iOS device, but stuff like this keeps me away, I'm very glad I can keep direct SIP, SSH, IMAP and XMPP connections open at all hours of the day.
Essence from this site (from my understanding, read the whole article):
WhatsApp is using VoIP iOS features to display end2end encrypted notifications in iOS. This loophole will be closed on iOS13. So either WhatsApp does not display any notifications text on iOS13 with WhatsApp or WhatsApp will remove end2end encryption for the sake of having notifications with text on iOS.
This is really alarming for privacy. Seems Apple does not care about privacy and comfort unless it's software from Apple.
I just hope WhatsApp will stay strong and never give up on end2end encryption.
It's not the case that they would need to give up encrypted notifications. Developers can support end-to-end encrypted notifications by creating a UNNotificationServiceExtension[1]. This is an extension which receives and can mutate the notification before it's shown to the user.
It has nothing to do with end-to-end encryption: they’re abusing the VoIP feature to stay running in the background, which is trading battery life for better surveillance of your activities. Apple is doing it to _protect_ privacy by closing one of the ways unscrupulous app developers keep trackers running.
It's a shame that in today's world we have to choose between platforms that are open-ended and platforms whose software respects its users. But given that choice, I support this outcome.
For anyone interested in the technical side of the changes getting introduced in iOS 13 regarding messaging apps, the 707 session 'Advances in App Background Execution' of WWDC 2019 is really helpful: https://developer.apple.com/videos/play/wwdc2019/707/
Messenger app initiated a conversation between me and a random friend so we could talk about our 5 year friendship anniversary. Couldn’t fathom who thought that would work.
I've been getting these notifications now for a year at least. It's extremely annoying, and I haven't found any way to toggle it off. Such a colossal misfeature.
I nowadays only use mbasic.facebook.com to check messages every two to four weeks, as FB is still kind of a backup contact platform for many people if everything else fails.
While not exactly the same, I see people in Slack workgroups that will dutifully respond to the Slack bot, which can die in a fire. While it's usually welcome someone to the channel or whatever, it's all annoying as hell. So, yes, I can easily see people dutifully following the app's suggestion.
Hell, people randomly text their phone number neighbor. People are really just sheep.
Facebook engineers know exactly what is going on, and I don't think they actually care.
If you want to see exactly how creepy the whole thing is going to get in the future, you just have to take a look at the transcripts from the Software Engineering Daily podcast where a group of engineers from FB were interviewed recently. The interviewer never once mentioned the word privacy in the entire interview across all the five interviews (with pretty senior FB folks who have been there for quite a while). Or for that matter, there wasn't really a single question across all the five interviews which left me thinking "Well, at least there is someone inside Facebook who disagrees at least minimally with company policies".
You can search for this in the transcripts yourself.
>Facebook engineers know exactly what is going on, and I don't think they actually care.
I know of founders who would need to think carefully about even interviewing someone with Facebook on their resume. And I totally get these concerns given the attitude Facebook has towards the privacy of users.
We will still have VoIP Push Notifications? We personally rely on them to encrypt the notification payloads and increase privacy so our servers can’t read the plaintext of the notification. Is that now going away?
> more of a focus on privacy from the operating systems, and the impact that that can have on measurements and also on targeting.
That could have been lifted from an NSA brief. I don't think people realize just how much "targeting" really is indistinguishable from military targeting.
According to signal devs this is required to do e2ee. I worry apple is starting to use “privacy” as an excuse for any changes. Especially given that they build competing product (iMessage), that’s has all the access rights in the world.
Well this sucks, I'm using this same feature for a privacy app that I'm working on. It's a useful feature to have. Like all tools it can be used for good or bad. Folks will find ways to circumvent restrictions. Apple should enforce with policy, if someone violates. Remove their app. That hurts more. It's like blackhat SEO, Google delists you, it hurts and many people just don't anymore.
> The impact on battery life briefly made it into the headlines back in 2015 when it was discovered that the main Facebook app was using the voice-calling feature to run in the background.
The submitted URL was https://www.theinformation.com/articles/facebook-hit-by-appl..., which was hard-paywalled. But The Information has been unlocking many of their articles for HN readers. I asked if they would do that for this one and they said yes, so everyone who clicks on the link above should be able to read it now.
[+] [-] codeulike|6 years ago|reply
I've noticed that sometimes Facebook shows a fake 'youve got a message' icon to try and trick you into installing their messenger app.
To re-produce this behaviour: (this works best if you dont get a lot of facebook messages. Also you need a phone with no facebook apps installed)
- On your desktop PC, use facebook to send a message to someone
- Then switch to your phone, using facebook in the browser
- After about an hour, the little speechbubble message icon at the top will go red, showing you've got a message
- If you click on this from a phone browser, it redirects you to install messenger. (normally, phone-browser facebook doesnt do messenger features)
- Instead of that, switch on 'request desktop site' (not sure what iOS calls this option) to make your phone display the desktop version of facebook. And then you can (usually) read your messages in the browser
- But you will find that there is no new message, and the new message icon will no longer be lit up.
I've had this happen five or six times now - supposedly new messages have arrived but when you look there are none. It always happens about an hour after sending a message. I'm pretty convinced its deliberate behaviour on the phone browser version of facebook to get you to install their messenger app.
[+] [-] reimertz|6 years ago|reply
Messages work, no JavaScript, less noise.
[+] [-] giancarlostoro|6 years ago|reply
Edit:
Just went on it. On a browser you have to enable desktop mode for login to show.
Also if you login this way and disable desktop mode it forces you out. If you reenable it renders the chat. Theres no reason the chat wouldnt work on Mobile desktop mode isnt using a different browser just lying to the web server and frontend JS.
Amazing. I already rarely use Facebook as it is. I might just outright stop since they are dying to infest your phone so badly.
[+] [-] rosser|6 years ago|reply
I assumed it was just some shitty dark pattern, that (enough) people are Pavlov-ing at unread notifications to pad their usage metrics nicely, because someone thought, "Let's poke people's brains to make the graphs look better!" or something. I mean, it is Facebook.
EDIT: Phrasing
[+] [-] romdev|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] philliphaydon|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] familysized|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] oceanghost|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] daliusd|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] Lammy|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] acdha|6 years ago|reply
The net effect is that I uninstalled all of their apps and only use https://mbasic.facebook.com/ a few times a month
[+] [-] alexanderchr|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] andyhmltn|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] solarkraft|6 years ago|reply
And there's so much more.
[+] [-] coblers|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] hysan|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] andy_ppp|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] MaysonL|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] dannyr|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] Forge36|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] gambiting|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] brianpgordon|6 years ago|reply
I think we must be at the point where it's arguably irresponsible journalism for The Information to broadcast a claim like that from Facebook without immediately pointing out the occasions in the past when identical claims about data collection have turned out to be barefaced lies. Not every reader is going to have that context when reading the article, and they need to be equipped with the appropriate skepticism.
I'm not saying we need to dredge up the 90s any time Microsoft speaks publicly about open source. But the Facebook thing is an ongoing issue, and it hasn't been that long since their absolute worst abusive behavior, and there's been no change in management since then. I think it's reasonable that any quote from Facebook denying privacy abuses should be positively dripping with disclaimers.
(By the way, I'm loving the articles from The Information when they hit HN. Quality content.)
[+] [-] SeanBoocock|6 years ago|reply
I am struggling to recall any unambiguous instances like you suggest, especially anything rising to the level of "barefaced lies". What would be the best examples?
I agree that journalists should give sufficient context about Facebook's history around data and privacy, but I also expect anyone that is subscribing to The Information doesn't need it rehashed for them.
[+] [-] ilikehurdles|6 years ago|reply
That just sounds like skirting the fact that they likely are collecting data.
[+] [-] bertman|6 years ago|reply
"PushKit is the only way to do e2e encrypted messaging in iOS. If they take that away, they're disabling the ability for messaging apps to function with e2e encryption. I don't see how Apple can frame that as "enhancing user privacy and security?" "
https://twitter.com/moxie/status/1158852855291269120 So it's not only about being able to answer calls quickly.
[+] [-] hart_russell|6 years ago|reply
I do not regret switching from Android to iOS (even if siri is woefully behind the voice assistant game)
[+] [-] buildzr|6 years ago|reply
I've considered switching to an iOS device, but stuff like this keeps me away, I'm very glad I can keep direct SIP, SSH, IMAP and XMPP connections open at all hours of the day.
[+] [-] therealmarv|6 years ago|reply
WhatsApp is using VoIP iOS features to display end2end encrypted notifications in iOS. This loophole will be closed on iOS13. So either WhatsApp does not display any notifications text on iOS13 with WhatsApp or WhatsApp will remove end2end encryption for the sake of having notifications with text on iOS.
This is really alarming for privacy. Seems Apple does not care about privacy and comfort unless it's software from Apple.
I just hope WhatsApp will stay strong and never give up on end2end encryption.
[+] [-] zacwest|6 years ago|reply
[1]: https://developer.apple.com/documentation/usernotifications/...
Straight from Apple's documentation:
> For example, you could use the extension to decrypt an encrypted data block or to download images associated with the notification.
[+] [-] acdha|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] _bxg1|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] medecau|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] stelabouras|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] yipeedipee|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] b_tterc_p|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] distances|6 years ago|reply
I nowadays only use mbasic.facebook.com to check messages every two to four weeks, as FB is still kind of a backup contact platform for many people if everything else fails.
[+] [-] dylan604|6 years ago|reply
Hell, people randomly text their phone number neighbor. People are really just sheep.
[+] [-] bubble_talk|6 years ago|reply
If you want to see exactly how creepy the whole thing is going to get in the future, you just have to take a look at the transcripts from the Software Engineering Daily podcast where a group of engineers from FB were interviewed recently. The interviewer never once mentioned the word privacy in the entire interview across all the five interviews (with pretty senior FB folks who have been there for quite a while). Or for that matter, there wasn't really a single question across all the five interviews which left me thinking "Well, at least there is someone inside Facebook who disagrees at least minimally with company policies".
You can search for this in the transcripts yourself.
https://softwareengineeringdaily.com/wp-content/uploads/2019...
https://softwareengineeringdaily.com/wp-content/uploads/2019...
https://softwareengineeringdaily.com/wp-content/uploads/2019...
https://softwareengineeringdaily.com/wp-content/uploads/2019...
https://softwareengineeringdaily.com/wp-content/uploads/2019...
[+] [-] tjpnz|6 years ago|reply
I know of founders who would need to think carefully about even interviewing someone with Facebook on their resume. And I totally get these concerns given the attitude Facebook has towards the privacy of users.
[+] [-] rhacker|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] EGreg|6 years ago|reply
We will still have VoIP Push Notifications? We personally rely on them to encrypt the notification payloads and increase privacy so our servers can’t read the plaintext of the notification. Is that now going away?
[+] [-] workingpatrick|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] killjoywashere|6 years ago|reply
> more of a focus on privacy from the operating systems, and the impact that that can have on measurements and also on targeting.
That could have been lifted from an NSA brief. I don't think people realize just how much "targeting" really is indistinguishable from military targeting.
[+] [-] fourthark|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] justapassenger|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] segmondy|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] saagarjha|6 years ago|reply
I thought they were just running silent audio?
[+] [-] dwighttk|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] dang|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] kingo55|6 years ago|reply