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Mark Zuckerberg Addresses the Cambridge Analytica Scandal, Says Facebook 'Made Mistakes' in Protecting Data (buzzfeed.com)

Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg on Wednesday commented on the massive, deepening data harvesting scandal his company has been embroiled in since last Friday. From a report: "We have a responsibility to protect your data, and if we can't then we don't deserve to serve you. I've been working to understand exactly what happened and how to make sure this doesn't happen again," he said. The scandal -- involving the illicit collection of data from 50 million Facebook users, and its later use by Trump campaign analytics vendor Cambridge Analytica -- has helped chop off nearly $50 billion in value from Facebook's market cap since last Friday, led to calls from US lawmakers for Zuckerberg testify before congress, and raised eyebrows at the U.S. Federal Trade Commission, which is now probing the company. Speaking of things Facebook plans to do to ensure that this mess doesn't repeat itself, Zuckerberg added, "First, we will investigate all apps that had access to large amounts of information before we changed our platform to dramatically reduce data access in 2014, and we will conduct a full audit of any app with suspicious activity. We will ban any developer from our platform that does not agree to a thorough audit. And if we find developers that misused personally identifiable information, we will ban them and tell everyone affected by those apps. That includes people whose data Kogan misused here as well.

"Second, we will restrict developers' data access even further to prevent other kinds of abuse. For example, we will remove developers' access to your data if you haven't used their app in 3 months. We will reduce the data you give an app when you sign in -- to only your name, profile photo, and email address. We'll require developers to not only get approval but also sign a contract in order to ask anyone for access to their posts or other private data. And we'll have more changes to share in the next few days."

There is no explicit apology in Zuckerberg's comment today.

14 of 127 comments (clear)

  1. Sorry I got caught defense by OffTheLip · · Score: 5, Informative

    Facebook's business model is predicated on this data collection and selling to whomever is willing to pay.

    1. Re:Sorry I got caught defense by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Informative

      http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-5520303/Obama-campaign-director-reveals-Facebook-ALLOWED-data.html

    2. Re:Sorry I got caught defense by amicusNYCL · · Score: 4, Insightful

      In other news, Hitler said he "made mistakes" in protecting Jews.

      That Godwin was too easy.

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      "Our two-party system is like a bowl of shit looking at itself in a mirror." - Lewis Black
    3. Re:Sorry I got caught defense by Pseudonym · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Of course it is. Cambridge Analytics bought the data from third party apps though, not Facebook, thus undercutting Facebook's business model. This is why Facebook is cracking down.

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    4. Re:Sorry I got caught defense by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Informative

      https://nypost.com/2018/03/20/obamas-former-media-director-said-facebook-was-once-on-our-side/

    5. Re:Sorry I got caught defense by rogoshen1 · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Jesus fucking Christ. This 100%. Not even getting into the 'Trump did this, Obama did that bullshit'..

      These clowns have been hoovering as much fucking data as possible about everyone, going so far as building shadow profiles for non-members. Why else would they do this, other than to sell it?

      Zuck, no one fucking believes you, I hope you, and your your company goes the way of Myspace.

    6. Re: Sorry I got caught defense by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Informative

      That's a financial blog closely connected to Breitbart and a few other "alt-right" sites. In other words, information value = -1.

    7. Re: Sorry I got caught defense by Escogido · · Score: 4, Informative

      Did you actually read the article at the link? There are plenty of links to sources there - Time, Twitter, The Guardian etc. You can't really disregard them simply because they happened to appear in an article on a website you do not like or do not consider reputable.

  2. LOL by daveschroeder · · Score: 5, Informative

    It's so much bullshit, because it is a damage-control response to the CA issue only.

    The problem -- of which they are deeply and keenly aware -- is MUCH larger than just CA, and has existed this way, intentionally, for YEARS.

    This is a farcical non-response, though some of the measures they are now forced to take will indeed partially address the broader issues.

  3. email address? by b0s0z0ku · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Why are outside "app" vendors being essentially handed lists of emails? Unfortunate that this will continue, even after the changes -- this is bad practice and promotes spam if nothing else.

  4. OK... by Pseudonym · · Score: 5, Insightful

    "And if we find developers that misused personally identifiable information, we will ban them and tell everyone affected by those apps."

    The official Facebook app doesn't count.

    --
    sub f{($f)=@_;print"$f(q{$f});";}f(q{sub f{($f)=@_;print"$f(q{$f});";}f});
  5. Obama, Trump by labnet · · Score: 4, Insightful

    So have I got this right.
    Obama scrapes Facebook data for two elections = okidoki
    Trump may have used Facebook data = SJW fainting scandal.

    https://www.fastcompany.com/40...

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    46137
    1. Re:Obama, Trump by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Obama scrapes Facebook data for two elections = okidoki
      Trump may have used Facebook data = SJW fainting scandal.

      Obama used Facebook data = Facebook is bad
      Trump used Facebook data = Facebook is bad

      Facebook = bad

    2. Re:Obama, Trump by burtosis · · Score: 5, Insightful

      I don't really feel like defending Obama because I disagree with a lot of what he did but explain to me this:

      Did Obama's campaign hire foreign nationals to do the scraping?

      Did Obama's campaign break the TOS of facebook or any other data privacy laws?

      Was Obama's campaign transparent in his methods? Because Cambridge Analyitica is secretive, uses shell companies and encrypted self deleting emails, and Nix is on tape saying he happily lies, uses honey pots and the like, and misdirects - did Obama engage in hiring people who use those methods?

      Did obama's campaign use fake web logs, fake news articles, and other knowingly factually incorrect sources, in a highly targeted approach to misdirecting unsuspecting undecided voters?

      You may consider it splitting hairs, I certainly don't approve of Obama's use of invasion of privicy for his social media campaign, but this looks like a case of comparing theft of a stack of free newspapers to a bank robbery.