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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).
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.
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.
I'm sure their tens in millions in stock options will soothe them. Give me a break.
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.
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.
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.
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)
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).
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)
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
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.
I've abandoned my search for truth; now I'm just looking for some useful delusions.
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.
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)
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.
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.
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)
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.
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)
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.
She was like chocolate when she drank... semi-sweet at first and then increasingly bitter.
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....
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.
What did anybody expect? How naive can you be?