Slashdot Mirror
Facebook and Its Executives Are Getting Destroyed After Botching the Handling of a Massive Data Breach (businessinsider.com)
The way Facebook has disclosed the abuse of its system by Cambridge Analytica, which has been reported this week, speaks volumes of Facebook's core beliefs. Sample this except from Business Insider: Facebook executives waded into a firestorm of criticism on Saturday, after news reports revealed that a data firm with ties to the Trump campaign harvested private information from millions of Facebook users. Several executives took to Twitter to insist that the data leak was not technically a "breach." But critics were outraged by the response and accused the company of playing semantics and missing the point. Washington Post reporter Hamza Shaban: Facebook insists that the Cambridge Analytica debacle wasn't a data breach, but a "violation" by a third party app that abused user data. This offloading of responsibility says a lot about Facebook's approach to our privacy. Observer reporter Carole Cadwalladr, who broke the news about Cambridge Analytica: Yesterday Facebook threatened to sue us. Today we publish this. Meet the whistleblower blowing the lid off Facebook and Cambridge Analytica. [...] Facebook's chief strategy officer wading in. So, tell us @alexstamos (who expressed his displeasure with the use of "breach" in media reports) why didn't you inform users of this "non-breach" after The Guardian first reported the story in December 2015? Zeynep Tufekci: If your business is building a massive surveillance machinery, the data will eventually be used and misused. Hacked, breached, leaked, pilfered, conned, "targeted", "engaged", "profiled", sold.. There is no informed consent because it's not possible to reasonably inform or consent. [...] Facebook's defense that Cambridge Analytica harvesting of FB user data from millions is not technically a "breach" is a more profound and damning statement of what's wrong with Facebook's business model than a "breach." MIT Professor Dean Eckles: Definitely fascinating that Joseph Chancellor, who contributed to collection and contract-violating retention (?) of Facebook user data, now works for Facebook. Amir Efrati, a reporter at the Information: May seem like a small thing to non-reporters but Facebook loses credibility by issuing a Friday night press release to "front-run" publications that were set to publish negative articles about its platform. If you want us to become more suspicious, mission accomplished. Further reading: Facebook's latest privacy debacle stirs up more regulatory interest from lawmakers (TechCrunch).
I think its hilarious that Zuckerberg hates Trump and pulls this 'oh yeah well I'm gonna..' stunt and now it has drawn attention to what Facebook has become: Ugly and intrusive.
I want a Ferrari, but I'm not about to help the US Government nor a private company [insert terrible babies and pitchforks jokes here] to get one.
Does no one else think twice about this?
"""Facebook insists that the Cambridge Analytica debacle wasn't a data breach, but a "violation" by a third party app that abused user data."""
So, who owns the data?
Facebook says I own the data https://www.facebook.com/terms.php
But they are free to do what they want with it (Facebook is).
Like sell it.
I don't care for Facebook or what Cambridge Analytica is doing with user data, but just to see how it plays out:
I want Cambridge Analytica to be able to use my Facebook data for free, because it is mine.
For people who didn't see why they should care about who uses thier data or how it's used, thinking they had noting to hide and it wouldn't affect them, I hope you learned a lesson.
I highly doubt that anyone has learned a lesson:
"No one in this world, so far as I know ... has ever lost money by underestimating the intelligence of the great masses of the plain people." -- H. L. Mencken.
Often paraphrased as:
"Nobody ever went broke underestimating the intelligence of the American public."
Why did the Facebook execs take their story to Twitter . . . ?
Easy they want to calm the great masses of their user base, whose reading comprehension can't deal with anything longer than a Twitter message. The Facebook execs don't care about what other, more intelligent, folks think. They are a lost cause for Facebook anyway.
But most folks would react:
"Facebook was hacked? No, it wasn't . . . their management said so on Twitter!"
"Oh, look! Facebook! Baby pictures and ponies!"
Do most folks in the US care about what Facebook is up to . . . ? Or do they want to know what the Kardashians are up to . . . ?
Schroedinger's Brexit: The UK is both in and out of the EU at the same time!
Then you never understood Snowden's message, never understood what Facebook records and never understood European law.
And people wonder why the world is going to hell in a handbasket. Ignorance.
It's a small world and it smells funny; I'd buy another if it wasn't for the money; Take back what I paid (SoM)
Nah, it's very different. We (presuming you're in the UK as well) have good protection of our privacy from business and others members of the public, but very little protection from the government.
In the US, they have quite good protection of their privacy from the government, but very little from business.
I campaigned and protested heavily against the snoopers charter and many other invasions of our privacy (I still think May was the worst home secretary we've ever had), but somehow I still think we've got a better balance than the Merkins do
No, it's not a breach, Facebook is correct on that point. The real issue here, and one that Facebook seems to be pulling off successfully judging by some of the replies so far, is that Facebook's response to 50m user profiles being harvested and abused is to turn it into a discussion about semantics.... a bad actor like Cambridge Analytics in the mix.
It seems like you are lost in the same fight against semantics. User profiles were harvested, because that is what they are there for. But how are the users abused, other than receiving campaign attention? And how do you judge that Cambridge Analytics is a bad actor in establishing that attention?
These people were not scammed of their life savings, no one opened credit cards in their names, and no one lost their house over this. But because it favored one political candidate, it causes outrage. Why?
If you think I voted for Trump because of this post, you're wrong. I voted for Dr. Jill Stein of the Green Party. Again.