Please remove the „Share on Twitter/Facebook" buttons from Clozemaster

Clozemaster Questions, Suggestions, Feedback
#1

@mike: Please remove the „Share on Twitter/Facebook" buttons from Clozemaster. They are, for example, on the profile pages.

I’m not at all interested in that feature, and worse, the mere existence of these buttons strengthens the surveillance capitalism forced upon us by big tech companies such as Twitter and Facebook. Surveillance capitalism spreads through the internet like a disease and I don’t want a happy place such as Clozemaster to have any part in that.

We Clozemaster users don’t want our every click and mouse movement to be sent to big tech companies that undermine democracy when we’re studying our languages.

4 Likes
#2

I disagree.

Nobody is holding a gun to your head to use those buttons. They appear on a player’s personal profile only, meaning that they player can share their OWN progress on Twatter and Faceplant if they want to, but they do NOT appear on other players’ profiles. Nobody can click on a button and share YOUR progress, just their own.

Personally, I detest antisocial media and I have never and would never use those buttons.

That, however, is not the point.

The point is that I don’t get to declare that functionality (functionality that isn’t forced on me) should be removed just because I don’t personally think that other players should be using it. I haven’t been appointed as spokesman for the entire paying membership, with the power to decide what other members are and are not allowed to have. Nor has anyone else.

Now if you want to ask for an OPTION to have the buttons hidden on your profile so that YOU can choose what YOUR profile looks like… that’s a different matter, and THAT is something that I would support.

1 Like
#3

What I meant to say is that any time any Clozemaster user visits their own profile (or other parts of Clozemaster that integrate these buttons), they are being tracked and spied upon by Facebook/Twitter.

So it’s not about me not needing these buttons. It’s that literally every single user of Clozemaster is spied upon by Facebook/Twitter, regardless whether they ever use these buttons or not.

I’m not talking about removing a feature for everyone, just because I myself don’t need it.

Being a software developer myself, I’m talking about the nefarious methods that tech corporations use to spy on us and sell the data they collected about us to the highest bidder. This is Edward Snowden stuff.

“If those buttons are on the page, regardless of whether you touch them or not, Facebook is collecting data,” Oppenheim says. (Source)

The Facebook like and share buttons that appear on shopping, news and other sites contain Facebook trackers. Even if you don’t use them, Facebook uses these buttons to track you. (Source)

I’m afraid that misses the point. As I said, the mere existence of these buttons means that everyone of us is surveilled.

This is the equivalent of letting the CIA install microphones and surveillance cameras in your bathroom and bedroom, just because they bring some candy with them for you in exchange for letting them watch you taking a shower or having sex.

Currently, all Clozemaster users are figuratively coming home at night, finding lots of candy on the kitchen table, without even realizing that their babysitter let in the CIA during the day. It doesn’t make a difference if you actually eat the candy or not, the cameras are installed and watching you.

If I have to decide between having the option to share my Clozemaster progress with my Facebook followers, or not making myself naked for Mark Zuckerberg so that he can become even richer, I know how I’d decide. Unfortunately, nobody of us Clozemaster users can make this decision because it was already made for us by the babysitter: we are currently all standing naked before Mark Zuckerberg without even knowing it.

What this topic is about, and what I’m asking Mike is to throw the CIA with both their candy and their cameras/microphones out of our homes.

1 Like
#4

While I share your point about not wanting to be spied on, I think your comparison goes too far.

Clozemaster is not “our home”. It’s more like going to the gym to work out, and now you’re asking the gym owner to remove their cameras. It’s your choice to go to this gym or not.

Of course, that doesn’t mean I wouldn’t welcome the removal of the cameras.

2 Likes
#5

Fair enough. :slight_smile:

Although I’d compare the cameras in a gym rather with Google Analytics. You can’t realistically ask a gym owner to remove all their security cameras, and I won’t ask Mike to remove Google Analytics from his website.

But accepting a whole bunch of additional surveillance measures in exchange for the option to visit that one Zumba course with the weird trainer on Sunday 4 A.M. that probably nobody ever visits, is a fool’s bargain.

I’d rather train in the gym with only the cameras if I must, and without all the additional surveillance crap that comes with the unnecessary Facebook/Twitter buttons, just so that I get the offer to take a course I won’t ever take anyway.

1 Like
#6

'Fraid I don’t really take much notice of them to be honest. These buttons appear in so many places these days I just make sure to ignore them and get on with learning on my favourite site. (Right now I’m more worried about how to use my new smart washing machine! Mamma mia! )

#7

Somebody who’s felt the full effect of what having a Facebook account can do to you I feel that my opinion is very important here. First off it is beyond any doubt a tool that the agents of unholy like CID who are from the army who repeatedly poisoned me used it as a device to track my moves. They could do things such as phone ahead to an officer when I’m driving to town for whatever reason to pull me over like we live in Nazi America. One of the ways that you can tell that someone has hacked your profile and otherwise tracking your movements is if you go to the inner notification pages where is my location on Facebook it will show that your account appears up in several different spots all over the state at any given time even if you’ve never been to those places before because the people are using vpn’s to hide their actual location. Not only did my roommate repeatedly poison me with antifreeze and almost kill me but since I’ve been out I have been poisoned and nearly ran off the road by criminals of the cult agencies. Drugged and raped drugged and beaten drugged and stole from. On a side note if you don’t know what scopolamine is it’s a drug that the Mayans and the Aztecs were using for a ceremonial drink when it was time to bury the king they would serve it to virgin girls and then bury them alive in a human sacrifice. To this day even in my little bitty town there are people being murdered raped and drugged and nobody knows about it because the s*** causes amnesia. Be careful people don’t let someone serve you a drink that you do not trust. Drink not from another man’s well. Drink not a strong drink. Drink but do not indulge. We are living in The matrix this is 1984 God be with you.
However I said these things I will say this that if I were going to share it to anything I would share it to Hello Talk that is a social media platform for language learners. I don’t have a problem with social media I have a problem with the way that it’s abused. Respect to both of you brothers who are reading this thank you.

#8

But I mean you know sharing your doings on Clozemaster doesn’t really devolve any kind of private information that I could see being used against somebody however? But what do I know?