Social Media Sunday: Privacy Predator 'Most Used Words' on Facebook & Snapchat's New Story Explorer
This week in social media, experts warned that one of the most recent viral hits on Facebook, the "Most Used Words" app, is a privacy-infringing nightmare. Meanwhile, Snapchat launched a challenge to Twitter Moments called Story Explorer, and Reddit has decided to honor visitors' "Do Not Track" settings on browsers.
It's time for Social Media Sunday!
Millions Being Used by 'Most Used Words'
It seems innocuous: a mini app within Facebook that looks at your previous posts and makes one of those graphical mashups of the words you've used most often on the site.
It's a good way to get a sense of what's important to you and show it off to your friends, right?
Well it's also a great way for the app's developer, Vonvon, to collect your user name, profile picture, home town, education history, friend list, IP address, device information, photos, and practically everything you've ever posted on Facebook in one fell swoop.
That's according to an investigation from Comparitech (via Wired), which announced that the terms of service for "Most Used Words" states that users are willing to "give up almost every private detail" about themselves to use the app.
More than 17 million Facebook users have tried the app so far, which makes 17 million people that have given consent to Vonvon to "use any non-personally-identifying information" provided by your Facebook account and share it with third parties without further notice or consent -- because Vonvon counts the very mention of this practice, included in its privacy policy, as the implied notice and permission.
If you're tempted to use this app, maybe take a notepad and pen, look at your personal timeline and count the words yourself.
Snapchat
Story Explorer: A Hub for Live Stories
Now that Twitter's Moments feature has rolled out, with the aim of gathering all relevant tweets about an ongoing story in one easy-to-access section, Snapchat is firing back. This week, Snapchat announced an expansion of its user-generated Live Stories feature called Story Explorer.
Live Stories gathers Snapchatters' photos and videos into a multi-perspective, community-generated narrative about an event. Story Explorer takes that idea to the next level.
The Story Explorer feature, as Snapchat's announcement stated, "relies on technology developed by our research team to provide more depth to every Snap in a story. When you see a moment that inspires or excites you, simply swipe up to see more Snaps of that same moment -- from every perspective."
Rather than getting split-second glimpses into different events as you explore Snaps, Story Explorer promises to allow users to stick with a story they find interesting, flipping through multiple Snaps submitted by different users in a cohesive, more persistent way.
"The basic idea was we don't provide any depth inside Stories -- you're on the red carpet. Then you're at a concert for a split-second," said CEO and founder Evan Spiegel in the L.A. Times' in-depth feature on Story Explorer. "It was a feeling of 'show me more,' and we're fortunate that we just get so much video submitted to us that we had the ability from a content perspective to provide depth."
So instead of seeing one awesome NBA dunk and being navigated on to something unrelated, Snapchatters can swipe up and see that dunk from potential thousands of different unique angles, from Snapchatters in the crowd.
The feature is rolling out first in New York City and Los Angeles, and later everywhere else.
New Privacy Policy Honors "Do Not Track"
Even though Reddit isn't required by law to accept web browsers' "Do Not Track" requests, the "front page of the Internet" has decided to do so in an upcoming update to its privacy policy.
"Do Not Track" is a feature available in the settings of most web browsers that, when enabled, automatically sends requests to websites you visit not to download third-party analytic information to the browsers, which then tracks which sites you visit later, which ads you click, and other behavior information. This is usually used for advertising.
Reddit's new policy, which goes in effect on Jan. 1 2016, includes a stipulation that gives visitors to the site the right to not be tracked.
"Our overarching principle continues to be to request as little personally identifiable information as possible," wrote Reddit co-founder and CEO Steve Huffman in a post on the site.
"We are proud that Reddit is home to many of the most open and genuine conversations online, and we know this is only made possible by your trust, without which we would not exist," he added. "We will continue to do our best to earn this trust and to respect your basic assumptions of privacy."