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).

Comments

A lesson

[burtosis]

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.

Re:A lesson

[Harold Halloway]

Lesson duly learned.

Re:A lesson

[Anonymous Coward]

*shrug* My data and any of our data have already been compromised from a multitude of non-Facebook sources so does it really matter that this has happened? It just made it easier for them to get the information on people at that particular moment instead of taking a longer time accumulating the same info.

Re:A lesson

[PolygamousRanchKid]

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 . . . ?

Re:A lesson

[burtosis]

Where in the quote did I say "lost"? Pictures of your family in the Bahamas can lend information as to your finances and when coupled with metadata can be revealing. Same with that kale and organic Romano salad. Even if you weren't a swing voter, revealing that and letting anyone (including the government) use it anyway they want lets criminals rule you out and focus on the gullible sitting on the fence - also revealed through the same methods. These types of targeted attacks by anyone, even advertising, should be illegal, the US needs an improved version of data privacy that the U.K. has.

Re: A lesson

[jd]

What was lost by people accessing your private data in your account?

Every page you've ever visited, including any that could compromise you.

Every post you've ever written, even to closed and secret groups.

Every after you've chased. Every move you made. Every like you paid, every group you've saved, they've been watching you.

Oh, don't you see, you're in their data tree, every move you've made means that they get paid.

Re:A lesson

[burtosis]

Yes, data is everywhere, just like child porn. We don't just give up and legitimize child porn, turning it into a legal multi billion dollar industry. Make it the same criminal offense to even have in your possession, use, or even access and we will see a vast reduction in the collection, use and distribution of private data. Further treat data breaches in a similar matter and criminally prosecute those responsible instead of doing absolutely nothing.

Re:A lesson

[Anonymous Coward]

The only problem is that they were looking for (and found) dumb people. Then they targeted those dumb people with fake news. I did not say all conservatives are dumb - clearly they aren't. Just that dumb people are easily swayed by things like "lock her up" and "but those emails!" and "that pizza place where they do x, y, z to the children". So they used this to find enough of those people to help the Russian's sway the election. Now, are those dumb people going to change their data sharing habits? Not likely. Are they going to become less gullible? Hah!

Re:A lesson

[Anonymous Coward]

No one will learn a lesson. They're blaming Cambridge Analytica for doing what Facebook and advertisers and dataminers are doing as you read this. The only difference is that the Trump campaign apparently commissioned the data.

As the Facebook brass said, it wasn't a data breach. It was, in every respect, business as usual. And the public don't get that. The MA attorney general is making a big show of cracking down. Cracking down on what? Online spying? Great! But she probably has no idea that a dozen datamining companies are tracking her movements as she researches the case online.

"Say, why do I keep seeing ads for Wired and The Nation subscriptions?"

Re:A lesson

[postbigbang]

Child porn and privacy violations aren't synonymous. One is not the other. Your data is vacuumed everywhere, including this site, where there are eight different trackers. Unless you stop them, they'll count you, track you, and get into your social business.

That data in turn, becomes easily personally identifiable, thence characterized, and worse.

It's an industry-wide, Internet-wide problem. It won't be prosecuted because: profit. Until it's not profitable or satisfy their seemingly endless curiosity (for profit), it'll continue. Corporate immunity means that breaches are highly unlikely to be prosecuted, because: lobbying and expense in prosecution.

Face this reality and vote until they get it right.

Re:A lesson

[Anonymous Coward]

I suspected this is what they could do for a long time. Zippo to hide but facebook is in ublock and in noscript. These companies are advertising platforms. Advertising is *wildly* different than what it used to be. Now they want to track the metrics. The only way to do that is to record what I do.

That they track their employees is not surprising at all. These people are no longer the underdogs. They are the overlords. Treat them with suspicion and a wide berth. They are looking to monetize you at all costs. If you cross them they can make your job life and internet life a major PITA. These are the same people who are 'deplaforming' views they do not like. Yet in the same breath talk about free speech. Then do not see the irony in what they are doing.

Re:A lesson

[burtosis]

I guess I should have used the traditional car analogy instead.

Re:A lesson

[burtosis]

The difference here is people are starting to more clearly see the harm, whereas people didn't get it with targeted advertising. I also agree, we will see change when these politicans and judicial branch members realize that all thier dirty secrets can be leveraged against them, unless it's too late and they are all blackmailed already. Take out the profit by leveling criminal and civil charges and actually following through on prosecution.

Re: A lesson

[Anonymous Coward]

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

Re:A lesson

[Anonymous Coward]

That race on Deep Space 9 that was always quarreling with the Bajorans.

Re:A lesson

[I'm New Around Here]

Some of us don't use Facebook. I don't care what Facebook knows about me. And I'm sure they know something, since my family members use it. But they con't track my location, calls, emails, and other personal stuff that could only come from me.

Re: A lesson

[Anonymous Coward]

In the US, they have quite good protection of their privacy from the government,

Yeah. that's the theory. Not the practice.

Re:A lesson

[Ken McE]

I don't care what Facebook knows about me. And I'm sure they know something, since my family members use it. But they can't track my location, calls, emails, and other personal stuff that could only come from me.

That's kind of like saying that this octopus tentacle over here on my left can't hurt me when I've got this whole other side where it can't reach.

Our problem is that this is just one single arm, not the whole beast. The actual data aggregators are obscure companies or agencies that you may have never heard of, and they are OK with that, because you are their product, not their customer.

The consequences come when your automotive insurance shoots up for no reason (because some one in your family has hit the threshold to trigger some algorithm you've never heard of) or your medical insurance starts going up every quarter, without limit, because they've decided you're no longer a good risk and need to be shaken off, or you can't seem to buy property where you want because the HOA thinks your profile is "just not right", or when you can't get a job you're superbly prepared for because of something your son posted from your machine a few years ago and on and on.

Facebook gathers opinions, political views, and social networks. Someone else is responsible for tracking other bits of your life like location, phone calls, and emails.

You should be concerned about this because it is part of a larger and growing system, and that system is massively unconcerned with your best interests.

Re:A lesson

[pete6677]

Tends to be way less controversial than a child porn analogy, yes.

Re:A lesson

[knorthern knight]

> Some of us don't use Facebook.

Me neither, but...

> But they con't track my location, calls, emails, and
> other personal stuff that could only come from me.

Tell me about your smartphone. Have you rooted it and removed the default Facebook app? If not, it's still digging its tentacles into everything you say/do on the phone. The paraphrase a certain meme... only crAPPy crAPPs can crAPP on your privacy.

Re:A lesson

[Maxo-Texas]

Absolutely correct.

It's why privacy is essential and folks have signed theirs away for pennies or less.

Re: A lesson

[Anonymous Coward]

Hey sting fan, I see what you did there

Re:A lesson

[q4Fry]

Obama uses Big Data to great effect and is celebrated for it. Trump use it and OMG!

Perhaps in some circles. In others, the team you play for doesn't matter as much as what you stand for.

Re:A lesson

[ilsaloving]

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.

Pffft. That's awfully optimistic, now isn't it? They'll just find someone else to blame, or do basically anything that absolves them of any kind of self-responsibility, like always.

Enough of the hyperbole in the headlines

[Anonymous Coward]

Dear Slashdot, please knock it off with the hyperbole in the headline. Unless the Facebook executives are literally being torn limb from limb or being ground into dust, I don't really find the over top headline informative or useful.

Re:Enough of the hyperbole in the headlines

[MightyMartian]

It is a pretty idiotic headline. It looks like something a twelve year old would write.

Re:Enough of the hyperbole in the headlines

[giggleloop]

"Facebook Bosses Totes Pwned by Info Leak!!!!"

Re: Enough of the hyperbole in the headlines

[jd]

What did you expect? Plenty of experienced writers who are old-timers on Slashdot, but they aren't the ones who run the site or who were hired.

This is standard in industry and is why Apple and Microsoft write such defective software.

Re:Enough of the hyperbole in the headlines

[Anonymous Coward]

50,000,000 Users Hate Him! (Unironically)

Re:Enough of the hyperbole in the headlines

[fyzikapan]

Whoever wrote it has clearly been exposed to too many clickbait headlines on Facebook.

Destroyed

[110010001000]

I'm sure their tens in millions in stock options will soothe them. Give me a break.

Harvesting profiles is not a breach

[blogagog]

I'm confused. The only thing they did was view 40 Million profiles on Facebook? Google, Bing, and DuckDuckGo do more than that every single day.

Re:Harvesting profiles is not a breach

[Zocalo]

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 through misdirection. That's *exactly* what Facebook wants the discussion to be on, because it puts them in a favourable light, rather than the real point of TFS, which is that their business model is not only based almost entirely on sharing user data with third parties, but also has no controls or policies in place to effectively govern what happens when they get a bad actor like Cambridge Analytics in the mix.

tl;dr: it's not just about "All your data belong to Facebook (and the rest)", it's that they'll freely share that data with third parties and don't give a fuck what happens when someone abuses their access to it.

Re:Harvesting profiles is not a breach

[Entrope]

You are almost right. Facebook isn't upset that this company got so much information about Facebook users. They are upset that this company didn't pay Facebook for that information, and that the company didn't pay them more to used Facebook's targeting services.

Re: Harvesting profiles is not a breach

[jd]

No, that is not what they did. RTFA. They used malware to gain access to the entire user profile, including every Facebook link clicked on. Everything Facebook stores on you. Including in the closed and secret groups. Every click, time spent viewing something, everything.

By going through the UK, it wouldn't matter, malware is covered by the computer misuse act, personally identifying information (even if public) is covered by the data protection act.

It's no wonder such lunacy happens, if nobody bothers to understand simple things like laws and regulation. Time was, if you worked in computer science, you were expected to know. Ignorance is no excuse.

Re: Harvesting profiles is not a breach

[Entrope]

Which FA calls it malware? Or is that your embellishment?

Re: Harvesting profiles is not a breach

[Anonymous Coward]

But they didn't use malware. People downloaded themselves and gave consent. Again semantic.

It's no different than millions of user give consent over access their information with android or apple apps. Nothing really prevent the app developer to harvest the information and sell it to another party other than a written rule.

Re:Harvesting profiles is not a breach

[I'm New Around Here]

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?

Re:Harvesting profiles is not a breach

[Zocalo]

I didn't say the users were abused, I said their profile data was, although there's a pretty good case for both since what they do with that data is to allow the users to be profiled, filtered, and the more susceptible recipients targetted with information (often fake, or at least misleading) that is designed to push buttons and sway opinions. It also seems highly likely that Cambridge Analytics may have gone a bit further than just accessing the information that Facebook made available to them and also deployed some grey/black hat techniques to acquire private profile data as well, in which case if Facebook really wants to make a statement they should probably be thinking about a legal action in the form of a civil suit and at least make a pretense of standing up for their social media platform users (as distinct from their analytics data users). All in all, what Cambridge Analytics does is exactly the same kind of thing that many people are up in arms about when the Russians (or whoever) do it, in otherwords - look at the bigger picture, not the specific circumstances of the one event.

That's something Facebook seems to agree with since they've suspended Cambridge Analytics' account, which speaks volumes given how little value they place on their social platform user's privacy in general, although perhaps Facebook just didn't get the extra payment necessary for that level of abuse as others have postulated and this is retaliation for that. Between their profiling of users and subsequent trolling of them with information designed to incite a given opinion (regardless of what political position it is, they were also involved in the Pro-Brexit campaign and a few other political elections around the world) and potential borderline/actual hacking of Facebook, I'd say that qualifies them as a bad actor, although it's a matter of opinion as to just how "bad" you might think they are. There are certainly far worse players out there.

Re: Harvesting profiles is not a breach

[jd]

The report in the Observer by the person who actually discussed the software by one of its authors and saw the internal documents. You know, the FA that you're always supposed to go to, the source. Use the source, Luke.

Re:Harvesting profiles is not a breach

[Rob Y.]

The kind of targeted advertising that was delivered via Facebook (outright falsities and incitements to violence, etc) would be illegal on just about any other medium. Certainly on Television, and certainly as relates to electioneering rules. That it wasn't illegal in 2016 - and that it was so widespread - is just more indication that Facebook needs to be regulated as an advertising medium. Ads and other commercial items clearly labeled as such - with their sponsors identities either shown or made available.

"Hi, I'm Vladimir Putin, and I approve this message"

Re: Harvesting profiles is not a breach

[Entrope]

I haven't seen a link to a single article from the Observer. I've seen links to articles on this subject by Carole Cadwalladr, who is described as a reporter for the Observer, but (as far as I've seen) those haven't used the term "malware". So, again, which FA are you talking about?

Re:Harvesting profiles is not a breach

[meta-monkey]

It does seem CA got the data through violating FaceBook's TOS, but as far as harvesting your friends and targeting ads...that's what FaceBook does. And political ads are no different, and Obama did the same thing in 2012 and it was lauded as breaking new ground in political engagement.

Every time an individual volunteers to help out – for instance by offering to host a fundraising party for the president – he or she will be asked to log onto the re-election website with their Facebook credentials. That in turn will engage Facebook Connect, the digital interface that shares a user's personal information with a third party.

Consciously or otherwise, the individual volunteer will be injecting all the information they store publicly on their Facebook page – home location, date of birth, interests and, crucially, network of friends – directly into the central Obama database.

"If you log in with Facebook, now the campaign has connected you with all your relationships," a digital campaign organiser who has worked on behalf of Obama says.

Whiner

[Anonymous Coward]

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.

What's the real issue?

[Anonymous Coward]

Because Trump's campaign did it and Hillary didn't?

Re: What's the real issue?

[jd]

No, multiple European laws were violated, malware was used, and the military's psychological warfare division attempted to rig an election (aka a military coup).

Re: What's the real issue?

[Anonymous Coward]

Hillary's campaign was very proud of their use of social media platforms to harvest votes. Obama's campaign bragged about their efficiency at doing so.
Trump hires advisors who beat them and suddenly it's a breach?

That Facebook decides its response based on the politics of their customer tells us all we need to know about their lack of values

Re: What's the real issue?

[Mitreya]

multiple European laws were violated, malware was used, and the military's psychological warfare division attempted?

Yes, and Facebook is being "destroyed" as we speak.
They might even pay a small fine when this is all over. Or not.

Equifax is still standing, and that was financial, non-voluntarily given data, and on a far larger scale.

Re: What's the real issue?

[jd]

Facebook has a European presence. That means they can be fined. Cambridge Analytics is in the UK and will be ripped a new one iff (if and only if) May doesn't try and exonerate it.

Re: What's the real issue?

[pjt33]

TFA (don't judge me, I read it before coming to /.) says that

In Britain, the head of the parliamentary committee investigating fake news accused Cambridge Analytica and Facebook of misleading MPs

Although unlikely, that could theoretically mean charges of contempt of parliament, leading to imprisonment.

Color me surprised

[quonset]

Who would have thought that a company founded on collecting people's personal data and selling it to third parties would be involved in a scandal about the collection of people's personal data without those people's permissions?

It's almost as if the people using FB had no clue what was going on.

Re:Color me surprised

[Anonymous Coward]

Yes, people that use FB are clueless.

Can we just shut down the facebook already?

[Anonymous Coward]

And get on with our lives? Or how about we create a pros and cons list, I'll start...

Pros: Well nothing really comes to mind.

Cons: Where do I start?

They're not wrong

[Notabadguy]

Using Facebook as intended doesn't make it a data breach, as facebook quite clearly told everyone.

The "other" political party using facebook for their own ends is the reason for this autistic screeching.

Re:What's The Problem?

[Anonymous Coward]

You mean neoliberal. If they were left leaning they would promote unions and ethical treatment of workers, maintianing personal privacy, collective ownership, executive pay caps, and on and on.

Re: What's The Problem?

[jd]

Umm, no it doesn't, you know this, and frankly I wish for a new constitutional amendment requiring conspiracy theorists be dropped in a volcano.

Re: What

[jd]

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.

Anyone surprised by this?

[Locke2005]

The old rule still applies: don't post ANYTHING on the internet that you would be upset to seeing printed in the newspaper that next day! I'd advise against taking any digital nudes or videos in the first place; no telling where they will end up. Don't google anything that would trigger NSA keywords, no matter how interesting the subject of homemade explosives is. Avoid watching kitty porn. Don't mention online how much you would love to see Trump have a heart attack. Probably need to avoid monitored keywords in your phone conversations as well.

Re:Anyone surprised by this?

[Kohath]

It's not about posting. FB tracks nearly every web site you go to, whether you post or not. They track your location when you use their app, whether you post or not. They know what everyone around you posted, everyone you've associated with, everything posted about you.

Re:Anyone surprised by this?

[drinkypoo]

FB tracks nearly every web site you go to, whether you post or not.

Unless you use something like uMatrix to just go ahead and block all that crap. The only thing you "lose" is access to the comment functionality on some sites.

It's not as intended

[jd]

If malware is used to download FB's internal profile of you using your credentials, it's not access as intended by the user.

This is an EU company, EU laws hold. Including the computer misuse act and the data protection act. As does the right to be forgotten, along with various pieces of human rights legislation.

This is a criminal enterprise and Cambridge University should be shut down until its role is established.

Re:It's not as intended

[Fnord666]

If malware is used to download FB's internal profile of you using your credentials, it's not access as intended by the user.

Please provide a citation that says malware was used as part of the data collection process.

Re:It's not as intended

[jd]

Try the article in the Observer/Guardian, you know, the only article that actually invokves the source. It is stated very clearly that malware is used, I trust you can read.

Breach

[onyxruby]

A breach has a specific technical meaning. This is a technical site. This wasn't a breach, this was at most a contract violation. This page does a decent job of describing incidents, breaches and the like:

https://iapp.org/news/a/is-it-...

This isn't CNN, these things matter. Please keep your politics out of our technology news site. Is that too much to ask?

Re:Problem is WHO they let collect data

[apoc.famine]

Can you point to a similar thing done by Democrats where nobody raised a stink?

Re:Problem is WHO they let collect data

[mea_culpa]

You're not wrong. This being modded as flamebait is hilarious.

Hey wire tap, how do you make pancakes?

[approachingZero]

Sadly the age when most people felt inclined to not share every aspect of their lives is past. The new impulse is to share every thought, image and opinion with the world for attention - and social media companies sell what is given to them to the highest bidder. That's the world we live in, that's the Social Network business model.

Re: What's The Problem?

[Anonymous Coward]

The former digital director of President Trumpâ(TM)s 2016 campaign, Brad Parscale, has been named campaign manager for the 2020 re-election campaign.

What began as a one-man operation in 2015 grew into one of the most successfulâ"and controversialâ"digital campaigns in presidential history, with Parscaleâ(TM)s team working alongside embedded staffers from Facebook, Twitter, and Google to fine-tune the campaignâ(TM)s advertising online.

As Parscale told WIRED shortly after the election, "Facebook and Twitter were the reason we won this thing. Twitter for Mr. Trump. And Facebook for fundraising."

Re: What's The Problem?

[jd]

A totally evidence-free piece of bullshit and you know it. You are fabricating claims you know to be false, relying on Slashdot never censoring and the first amendment to cover you for blatantly false accusations and a rabid hatred of anyone different from you. See Godwin for details.

Re: What

[jd]

He was not, and is not, a Russian agent. That was investigated and thrown out. Your pukeworthy bullshit has no business here or in any civilized society. Go back under your rock.

who's fault, exactly?

[l3v1]

I'm aware what sh*tstorm this may bring, but I have to say, this is your/our fault. The US has basically no data and user privacy protection laws whatsoever, companies allowed to essentially do as they see fit with the data they gather. Why some get suddenly surprised that the companies actually do what they are allowed to do? Yes, you can get enraged, but unless you actually do something, it's really your fault this has been allowed to get this far. It's been already time - and time, and time - that people learn.

And msmash writes: Nothing

[thegarbz]

Because putting together a readable summary rather than a list of tweets is too frigging hard.

Re:What

[Rob Y.]

It's not what they know about you - it's that they're using what they know about you to send you fraudulent 'news' items that make it increasingly hard to know what's real. The crime here, such as it is, is that they fraudulently got permission to use info about a set of Facebook users - by posing as academic researchers, and to use the info in that research. They most certainly did not disclose that they were a political opposition research firm.

And they they scraped the facebook accounts of all the friends of those original users - which is surely a breach of Facebook's terms of service, assuming they did it by opening Facebook accounts and then looking at the 'publicly available' info on those people. Of course, Facebook is guilty of 'leaving the barn door open' if they can't stop their site from being harvested this way. But that doesn't make it less criminal that Cambridge Analytics did this. Yes, they stole the data in violation of the FB terms of service - plain and simple. I'm sure Google scrapes Facebook too, but I assume they do it with Facebook's permission, and for the purpose of allowing people to find Facebook friends via Google search (Facebook's internal search capabilities are God awful).

There are a hundred things Facebook could do to mitigate all of this, of course. And they don't do it, because it would cost them money. That's why we the public need to cost them users if they don't...

Expectation of privacy

[rsilvergun]

applies to phone conversations. If a .com company is selling me a service that is supposed to be secured then I have the same expectation of privacy. Most states have pretty strict laws about wiretapping. Just because its "on the internet" doesn't make it anything else when you listen in on my private conversations without notice or perimission.

It's not even about that rule, though ....

[King_TJ]

You're on the right track, generally speaking. But the biggest danger with all of this information culled from social media sites is the potential to mis-use it by taking it out of context.

Anything I was willing to post on Facebook under my name is a statement I'm willing to stand up and take the credit for posting. Therefore, if someone published it in the local newspaper? I'd be fine with that too. (Why you'd find it worthy of an article in the paper, I'm not quite sure? But for the sake of argument ... let's say I became famous and people suddenly care about details of my life, like where I go out to eat and what I think about things. Ok .... publish away and attribute what I typed to me. I can handle that.)

What scares me is the ability to selectively seek out certain tidbits of information on people that can be spun in some way to use it against them.

A whole lot of things that aren't particularly meaningful, in context of hundreds or thousands of random posts, can suddenly SEEM relevant if they're quoted out of context.

EG. Say I'm upset with poor customer service at a chain store, so I rant about it online one day? Maybe I just wanted to vent, or hoped someone in a position to improve things at that location might see it and have it serve as a "wake up call"? But let's say a year goes by, and all of a sudden I'm trying to get a job with a firm that has that chain store as one of their clients? Someone on a mission to show why they shouldn't hire me could hunt down that one rant and position it as proof that I'm going to badmouth their client.

Getting destroyed?

[Trogre]

They're getting destroyed, are they?

Okay, so is it a ritual hanging for the executives, or will fire be involved? Will they make it public or more of a behind-closed-doors event?

And as for Facebook, I guess the userbase will migrate to something else over the next few days. A pity, as some of my elderly relatives would use it to keep in touch with various hobby groups.

Re:Morality and ethics is something you are born w

[Zontar The Mindless]

Another example of the simple fact that morality and ethics are things you are born with, or not.

[Citation needed]

(IOW you're wrong: We're born knowing that sucking on something does something about that bad feeling inside, and that's about it.)

Re:Sanders did it

[apoc.famine]

Wow....you think that's the same thing? I bet you think white bread with ketchup is pizza too, eh?

Stopped using facebook over 7 years ago

[Maxo-Texas]

They repeatedly violated user privacy rights, changed settings without warning, and I finally cut ties with them. I've never gone back.

They are not trustworthy.

You are the product being sold.

Re: mathematics

[Evtim]

That's the answer. Only from your food habits one can tell all kinds of things about you....from health to finance to political preferences... it might seem tedious and useless to a human to sift through all that boring data but the machine does not care and does it millions of times faster.
100 likes and they know you better than your friends. 300 likes and they know you better than you know yourself. That's proven BTW....

Re: What

[Anonymous Coward]

Your proof is an opinion piece at the Observer?

Go drink your juice box and take a nap. Let the adults continue the discussion.

Re: What

[thegarbz]

And people wonder why the world is going to hell in a handbasket. Ignorance.

The world is going to hell? That's an interesting thought given that other than the environment, the world and our lives in it have never been better.

Violation of agreement

[VikingNation]

There are reports that the company in question told Facebook they had destroyed data and in fact they didnâ(TM)t. Why is there so much back lash against Facebook and not against the company who kept the user data?

Destroyed?

[Provocateur]

Like consumed by those nanobugs in the movie The Day the Earth Stood Still, the recent 'green' version not the original one.

Is this really Facebook's fault?

[Murdoch5]

If you use a system which you know stores and harvests your data, then you can't be surprised or worried when that data gets used by other parties.

Facebook's response was correct, this wasn't breach, and just because the over liberalized media doesn't understand that, doesn't make it Facebook's problem. The only reason that Cambridge Analytica was able to grab the data is because people provided it and provided it openly without any second thought for the consequences of what they were doing at the time.

if you don't want to be tracked, then stop willfully giving your data up to everyone who wants it, otherwise you have no right to complain when it gets used against you.

Harvesting information is the entire point of FB

[walterbyrd]

What did anybody expect? How naive can you be?

Re:Problem is WHO they let collect data

[meta-monkey]

This maybe? I don't really see the difference between CA getting your data because you're friends with someone who took a survey and Obama getting your data because you're friends with someone who signed up for their campaign. At the end of the day, the political campaigns have your data because of stuff people you maybe know did, but you sure didn't give Obama or CA your info.

This amuses me

[Eubeleus]

... since back in the day I was writing facebook apps and in the end user agreements you were made to agree to said something along the lines of being "obligated" to not misuse customer data. The use of the word "obligated" made me giggle. We'll give you access to nefarious shit, but you're "obligated" not to sniff around.