Mozilla Pulls Advertising from Facebook (betanews.com)

An anonymous reader shares a report: Mozilla is not happy with Facebook. Not happy at all. Having already started a petition to try to force the social network to do more about user privacy, the company has now decided to withdraw its advertising from the platform. The organization is voting with its money following the misuse of user data by Cambridge Analytica, as it tries to force Facebook into taking privacy more seriously. Mozilla says that it is not happy to financially support a platform that does not do enough to protect user privacy. But the company is not severing ties completely. It says that advertising is being "paused" and that if the right steps are taken by Facebook "we'll consider returning."

Comments

Probably a net win

[SuperKendall]

From everything I've read, the value of advertising on Facebook is pretty questionable.

Facebook is so noisy normally, I'm not sure how people would even see ads apart from those annoying product adds embedded in the timeline view.

Re:Probably a net win

[gnick]

I'm not sure how people would even see ads...

Depends on the ad. A lot of ads are crafted to look like normal FB posts with only a small "Suggested App" or "Sponsored" identifier at the top to indicate that it's advertising.

Re:Still not useful

[gnick]

...while they are probably more useful than other kinds of ads I still doubt they have a large impact.

I wouldn't expect most forms of advertising to have much of an impact, but companies are putting out a LOT of money betting that I'm wrong.

Re:Any group that suddenly cares

[Luthair]

There is a distinct difference between using Facebooks API collecting information about visitors while following the terms they agreed to and someone with access provided for research using it to slurp up data on everyone then proceeding to sell it. If you can't understand it then it suggests you don't have a grasp of ethics.

If you care at all about privacy you should be happy about the scrutiny, these are far from the only actors collecting data.

Yeah, right.

[TheRaven64]

If Mozilla cares about Facebook's data mining, why do they have a Facebook page and links to their Facebook page on the Firefox page (and presumably other pages, I couldn't be bothered to check)? If they care about data mining in general, then why are they making it difficult to get the Android version of Firefox via any mechanism other than the Google Play store, why don't they just provide an F-Droid repository that users can subscribe to?

Re:Still not useful

[tehcyder]

...while they are probably more useful than other kinds of ads I still doubt they have a large impact.

I wouldn't expect most forms of advertising to have much of an impact, but companies are putting out a LOT of money betting that I'm wrong.

There's an old gag about half of advertising spending being a waste of money, but no-one knows which half.

Facebook's business model

[Dracos]

Facebook's business model is analyzing and selling user data. They're not going to change it at all. User privacy goes against their core values, they only really support the illusion of it.

Re:Facebook's business model

[Anonymous Coward]

...Oh, I bet they change quite a bit. As you said, their business model is selling user data... not giving it away for free.

From the FB POV, this essentially amounts to theft - no wonder they are bumping the security force and screening apps, etc. If your house was broken into and valuables stolen, you'd likely increase security, too!

The hypocrisy

[Khyber]

I find it funny that just a few versions ago Mozilla was doing privacy-invading shit, now they're calling upon Facebook to be more responsible with user privacy.

Give me a break.

Shocked, shocked to find, user data is being sold!

[mi]

following the misuse of user data by Cambridge Analytica

The same "misuse" occurred in 2012, when it was hailed as Obama's genius and "mastery of Big Data". I don't understand, why anyone would use Facebook — and allow them to sell one's data — but to be suddenly scandalized by Cambridge Analytica's use of it is just blatant hypocrisy.

Re:Shocked, shocked to find, user data is being so

[pointybits]

No, Obama didn't employ the same strategies as Cambridge Analytica

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.

Notice that this was an invitation that came directly from the Obama campaign, which the volunteer could either chose to accept or reject. From there, the information went into a central database.

...

In other words, the Obama campaign used Facebook as a community organizing tool, which is pretty much the opposite of stealing data in order to engage in psychological warfare.

Re:Shocked, shocked to find, user data is being so

[mi]

No, Obama didn't employ the same strategies as Cambridge Analytica

Oh, yes, he did:

because the more than 1 million Obama backers who signed up for the app gave the campaign permission to look at their Facebook friend lists. [...] More than 600,000 supporters followed through with more than 5 million contacts, asking their friends to register to vote, give money, vote or look at a video designed to change their mind.

a community organizing tool, which is pretty much the opposite of stealing data in order to engage in psychological warfare.

The only difference is in the spin — one's "community organizing" is another's "psychological warfare". From the same source:

A geek squad in Chicago created models from vast data sets to find the best approaches for each potential voter.

In other words, having the misfortune of being a "friend" with an Obama-fan, allowed this "geek squad" to "steal" your data — and subjected you to the same "psychological warfare".

No, it was not particularly wrong back then. And it is not wrong now either.

Re:Shocked, shocked to find, user data is being so

[mi]

Oh, well, if Snopes finds a fault in Republicans, while white-washing Democrats, that's a real shocker... Every word must be true.

information was gathered from users and given to a third party

Bullshit — every campaign involves a multitude of "parties", who share the information. Each of those qualifies as "a third" party...

University of Cambridge psychologist Aleksandr Kogan created a personality quiz which users could download in an app called “thisisyourdigitallife.” Kogan presented the app as a tool that would be used for academic research

And he did. And then offered results of his research to a political campaign — is it really so unheard of, that results of an academic research are shared with others?

We did not build any complex (certainly not the so-called psychographic) models of facebook users using their facebook data

This may speak to Obama campaign not using the data at their disposal to its full potential. But they certainly had full access to it.

Most of the models we built were using the publicly available “voter file”

Most....

We only contacted the people who had given us access and permission to get their own email address. We did not get any contact information for their friend

That contradicts the Time's article I cited — and I'm inclined to believe Time on this, because it was written in 2012, before the topic became contentious and various partisans started making spins...