How do I remove Facebook's tyrranical "Facebook Comments Plugin"?

1

Some websites I go to using Chrome, there is a comment section in which you can post with your facebook account. Under it, it says "Facebook Comments Plugin".

For some bizarre reason, this comments plugin knows my facebook account. I consider this to be a tyrannical invasion of privacy, so I want to remove it.

However, I cannot find a "Facebook Comments Plugin" in Chrome (Chrome by the way has removed "chrome://plugins"). I'm not even sure if it's in chrome. I suspect it is in the website itself.

But if it is in the website itself, how does the website know what my facebook account is? Does this mean Chrome complicit in the conspiracy? How otherwise would the information get from facebook to the website with the embedded FB plugin? How does the website know that my facebook account has been accessed with my browser?

This tyranny needs to stop. How do I remove those sites' ability to know my facebook account?

user56834

Posted 2017-05-06T16:42:40.020

Reputation: 157

Question was closed 2017-05-07T10:26:31.623

Can you give an example of such a website? – DavidPostill – 2017-05-06T16:48:04.237

It's not a Chrome plugin, it's a Facebook plugin. The behaviour that you see is independent of the browser and is not limited to Chrome. See: https://developers.facebook.com/docs/plugins/comments/

– Steve – 2017-05-06T17:02:01.453

Logging out of Facebook will prevent other websites from know[ing your] facebook account. However, short of avoiding sites that offer Facebook comment functionality, you have little control over the content the site owner chooses to put on their own site. – I say Reinstate Monica – 2017-05-07T00:34:20.957

1@Twisty,@Steve, I'm not sure if you understand my question. My point is that the website that has the facebook comment plugin embedded, somehow knows that its webpage is being browsed by the same person as the one who is logged into facebook in another tab.

let me put it differently: If I have two tabs open: one is facebook.com(logged in), and the other is some website with the facebook comments plugin embedded. How do these two websites know about eachother that I have them both opened? – user56834 – 2017-05-07T09:43:49.970

How does website X (with the facebook comments plugin) know that I am logged into facebook in SOME OTHER tab in the same browser? This information would have to be somehow passed through by the browser (through a cookie perhaps) to the FB plugin on website X, right? How else would the plugin know with what account I'm logged in?

To put it in yet another way, if m question isn't clear: How does facebook know that the plugin on website X is being accessed by the same browser that is logged into a FB account on ANOTHER tab? – user56834 – 2017-05-07T09:48:37.547

2The comment section is hosted by Facebook and retrieved directly from Facebook’s servers. It can of course access your Facebook cookies. The plugin is executed exclusively in your browser. – Daniel B – 2017-05-07T10:02:52.577

Answers

4

this comments plugin knows my facebook account

Yes; its HTML and JavaScript are hosted from Facebook's servers on facebook.com, and hence have access to your Facebook cookies.† (It's not a plugin in your browser, but it's embedded in the web site you're visiting. You cannot uninstall that, but you can use a browser plugin to block it.)

how does the website know what my facebook account is

It doesn't. Only the embedded comments section on that webpage knows; a sane browser (including Chrome) will not allow the website that embeds that section to access any of its details.

† So yes, Facebook knows which web sites you're visiting, for all sites that include some Facebook widget, even if that's only the "Like" button. Stop using Facebook if that bothers you, or at least install something like Privacy Badger.

Arjan

Posted 2017-05-06T16:42:40.020

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Asked: 2017-05-06T16:42:40.020

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Active: 2017-05-07T10:06:43.757