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Facebook Suspends Donald Trump's Data Operations Team For Misusing People's Personal Information (theverge.com)

Posted by BeauHD on from the violation-of-terms dept.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from The Verge: Facebook said late Friday that it had suspended Strategic Communication Laboratories (SCL), along with its political data analytics firm, Cambridge Analytica, for violating its policies around data collection and retention. The companies, which ran data operations for Donald Trump's 2016 presidential election campaign, are widely credited with helping Trump more effectively target voters on Facebook than his rival, Hillary Clinton. While the exact nature of their role remains somewhat mysterious, Facebook's disclosure suggests that the company improperly obtained user data that could have given it an unfair advantage in reaching voters. Facebook said it cannot determine whether or how the data in question could have been used in conjunction with election ad campaigns.

In a blog post, Facebook deputy general counsel Paul Grewal laid out how SCL came into possession of the user data. In 2015, Aleksandr Kogan, a psychology professor at the University of Cambridge, created an app named "thisisyourdigitallife" that promised to predict aspects of users' personalities. About 270,000 people downloaded it and logged in through Facebook, giving Kogan access to information about their city of residence, Facebook content they had liked, and information about their friends. Kogan passed the data to SCL and a man named Christopher Wylie from a data harvesting firm known as Eunoia Technologies, in violation of Facebook rules that prevent app developers from giving away or selling users' personal information. Facebook learned of the violation that year and removed his app from Facebook. It also asked Kogan and his associates to certify that they had destroyed the improperly collected data. Everyone said that they did. The suspension is not permanent, a Facebook spokesman said. But the suspended users would need to take unspecified steps to certify that they would comply with Facebook's terms of service.

10 of 195 comments (clear)

  1. What a joke. by Narcocide · · Score: 5, Insightful

    And they seriously say they don't know how that information could have been misused? Bullshit. If I can figure it out after spending 20 minutes with their stupid API, then they built it into the business plan and it's not possible they aren't fully aware of exactly how it was meant to work.

    1. Re:What a joke. by Chris+Mattern · · Score: 5, Insightful

      It is rather amazing how they can track everything about you down to what you had for breakfast this morning, but when comes to determining any possible negative information about their operations, why, they just have no idea.

    2. Re:What a joke. by SharpFang · · Score: 5, Insightful

      From bulk of available data, completely new, formerly unavailable data can be extracted. Correlations, statistics, trends - stuff "hidden in plain sight". Use geolocation and racial background and you can reliably predict credit capacity. Analyze shopping patterns and you can find hobbies. Finding political preferences, in particular "hesitant, open to suggestion" is definitely possible following history of likes on various articles, and sites frequented.

      Of course the excuse of "misusing" here is total bullshit. Facebook constantly misuses personal information. Their app listens in while your phone is in sleep mode, to fine tune their ad suggestions,

      The only "misuse" here was "regular use, but helping Trump".

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  2. Blame allocation by bugs2squash · · Score: 4, Insightful

    I would attach more blame to Facebook for allowing people to pull a stunt like this

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    Nullius in verba
    1. Re:Blame allocation by iamhassi · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Maybe they voted for Trump because he was the better of the two options? I mean, US seems to be doing good from where I'm sitting, at least better than it was before the election. What I wonder is why are there still people that refuse to accept Trump is actually doing a good job?

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      my karma will be here long after I'm gone
    2. Re:Blame allocation by BlueStrat · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Line ticket democrats will never, ever admit that a Republican is doing a good job. They will admit grudgingly to Republicans that might have done a good job in the past so long as there is a greater Republican evil in the present.

      The people nor the country matter.
      It's all about that Blue Tribe.

      What's happening today including foreign collusion by political parties, corruption, and the bitter division among people, was foretold with shocking accuracy and precision over 200 years ago.

      A portion of a quote on the subject of the dangers of political parties:

      "...It serves always to distract the Public Councils, and enfeeble the Public Administration. It agitates the Community with ill-founded jealousies and false alarms; kindles the animosity of one part against another, foments occasionally riot and insurrection. It opens the door to foreign influence and corruption, which find a facilitated access to the government itself through the channels of party passions. Thus the policy and the will of one country are subjected to the policy and will of another. ..." -- George Washington

      I don't think Washington could have written more of a spot-on description of the current state of the US body-politic, unless it had a line at the bottom; "sent from my damned iPhone"!

      Strat

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      Progressivism (aka US 'Liberalism'): Ideas so good they need a police/surveillance-state to enforce.
    3. Re:Blame allocation by AmiMoJo · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Are you kidding? Trump is running out of staff to fire and just started a damaging trade war. He failed to improve healthcare, backed out of Paris, made the office of POTUS a global laughing stock...

      Is there anything positive he has actually done? H1B reform perhaps. He was a useful idiot for Kim. Not much of an achievement.

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      SJW, n: "Someone I don't like, and by the way I'm a fuckwit" - AC
  3. Re:"Nobody can misuse our data but us!" by iamhassi · · Score: 4, Insightful

    They're only mad that their proprietary data got out, not that it was being "misused." That's the power of marketing, baby!

    Exactly. Can't have other people selling personal data, only Google and Facebook are allowed to do that.

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    my karma will be here long after I'm gone
  4. There's plenty of blame to go around by rsilvergun · · Score: 4, Insightful

    All Hilary had to do was take him seriously and campaign properly (or at all) in the swing states. Instead she wasted time in states like Az where she didn't have a prayer in hell of winning. She thought she was gonna get some sorta Reaganesque style super victory. Funny thing is there were two things that I kept hearing people say they didn't like about her: Cold & Arrogant. And boy, did she prove that right.

    Worst thing is the right wing corporate Dems haven't learned a damn thing and they're probably gonna run Hilary 2.0 (Kamala Harris). What they hell is the bloody point of voting for a Democrat who's gonna run things like a Republican?

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    1. Re: There's plenty of blame to go around by c6gunner · · Score: 4, Insightful

      All Hilary had to do was take him seriously and campaign properly (or at all) in the swing states.

      Hillary's campaign had and spent about double the money that Trump did on his campaign. Seems they were pretty serious. The thing is ... no matter how much money you spend buying makeup for a pig, it's still going to be a pig.