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Facebook Gave Data About 57 Billion Friendships To Academic (theguardian.com)

Before Facebook suspended Aleksandr Kogan from its platform for the data harvesting "scam" at the centre of the unfolding Cambridge Analytica scandal, the social media company enjoyed a close enough relationship with the researcher that it provided him with an anonymised, aggregate dataset of 57bn Facebook friendships. From a report: Facebook provided the dataset of "every friendship formed in 2011 in every country in the world at the national aggregate level" to Kogan's University of Cambridge laboratory for a study on international friendships published in Personality and Individual Differences in 2015. Two Facebook employees were named as co-authors of the study, alongside researchers from Cambridge, Harvard and the University of California, Berkeley. Kogan was publishing under the name Aleksandr Spectre at the time. A University of Cambridge press release on the study's publication noted that the paper was "the first output of ongoing research collaborations between Spectre's lab in Cambridge and Facebook." Facebook did not respond to queries about whether any other collaborations occurred. "The sheer volume of the 57bn friend pairs implies a pre-existing relationship," said Jonathan Albright, research director at the Tow Center for Digital Journalism at Columbia University. "It's not common for Facebook to share that kind of data. It suggests a trusted partnership between Aleksandr Kogan/Spectre and Facebook."

114 comments

  1. And now I know why Facebooks is scared by rsilvergun · · Score: 3, Insightful

    this could be a major political issue if it doesn't turn out they did the same for the other side. The Dems might make it a campaign issue with FB stuck in the middle. The one thing they've got to be afraid of most is regulation. After all, you are the product. It's not the adverts where they make all their money, it's selling all that sweet, sweet demographic data.

    --
    Hi! I make Firefox Plug-ins. Check 'em out @ https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/youtube-mp3-podcaster/
    1. Re:And now I know why Facebooks is scared by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      this could be a major political issue if it doesn't turn out they did the same for the other side.

      The one thing we know for sure is that Facebook will gladly provide any data to anyone willing to pinky-promises that it's for research purposes only and that they will delete it once done.

      That likely includes the DNC.

    2. Re: And now I know why Facebooks is scared by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Yes, don't kid yourself, everyone had their fingers in that pie. In fact, as it stands, it would appear that the DNC's fingers were the longest.

    3. Re:And now I know why Facebooks is scared by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Thanks for your input, David Brock

    4. Re: And now I know why Facebooks is scared by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Informative

      But we know that the DNC was getting similar data from FaceBook as far back as the 2008 campaign.

      You can find youtube videos of them bragging about how they used it: https://www.youtube.com/watch?...

      This isn't new. What's new is some people with an (R) behind their name started to do the same ... and *that* is what made it evil.

    5. Re: And now I know why Facebooks is scared by TrumpThemAll · · Score: 0

      Funny how Trump is a traitor for trying to stop people from entering the country illegally and bring jobs back to America, yet Obama is great, even though he gave nukes and money to terrorists nations, and Hillary tried to rig the election (and still lost), sold uranium mines to Russia, and paid for the report that started the whole Russia collusion thing in the first place. And so far, there is still ZERO evidence of Trump/Russia collusion.

    6. Re: And now I know why Facebooks is scared by greenwow · · Score: 2

      The difference Obama was innovating when he did this. Trump is just copying so this is treason.

    7. Re: And now I know why Facebooks is scared by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      It is evil because you can be sure Obama used this data the right way and just know that Trump didn't.

    8. Re: And now I know why Facebooks is scared by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Good. We'll give a shit when the scandal involves someone who's a Democrat.

    9. Re: And now I know why Facebooks is scared by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      We also know Steve Bannon was heading Cambridge Analytica and was Trump's right hand nazi faggot. You moronic Trumptards should go to prison with him, you retarded treasonous chatbot faggots have no concept of integrity.

      Die in prison, Trumptard traitors.

      https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/bannon-oversaw-cambridge-analyticas-collection-of-facebook-data-according-to-former-employee/2018/03/20/8fb369a6-2c55-11e8-b0b0-f706877db618_story.html

    10. Re: And now I know why Facebooks is scared by Lisandro · · Score: 2

      Knowing that Trump's former Chief Strategist actually ran the program which collected Facebook data to create voter profiles, i'd say the differences are a bit deeper than that.

    11. Re:And now I know why Facebooks is scared by WindBourne · · Score: 1

      all of the companies give out data for R&D purposes. the question is, what they give out. Google will sell you clean data. By that, I mean, I find how many ppl have HIV or Sex offenses in a zip code. WHat I can not find, is who you are.

      With FB, MS, Apple, etc. I can get ALL of that data, including your name.

      Actually, let me say that I used to be able to do that. I suspect as of now, they have ALL switched to Google's model.

      --
      I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
    12. Re:And now I know why Facebooks is scared by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Exactly. Facebook helped us not become oppressed by Rmoney in 2008 by helping Obama and giving him information they never gave to any other third-party. That means that now that they're helping on the GOPpers that they're committing treason. I know a lot of thinking people are calling for the hanging of Zuck for treason for this act of treason. Don't treason if you don't want to be punished for treason. The drop-out Zuck just isn't smart enough to grok that.

      Also, got the hateful "we think you are a subhuman" message three times. /. really is pushing the Nazi-style hate now. The Nazis made people believe Jewish people were subhuman so anything they did to them wasn't wrong. /. is now pushing the same sort of hate.

    13. Re: And now I know why Facebooks is scared by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      So, just to be really clear.

      It isn't the action that is evil. It's the person doing it.

      Thanks for making that crystal.

    14. Re: And now I know why Facebooks is scared by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      The only 'crystal' you faggot nazis know about is the night of broken glass. Don't forget, we're going to hang you treasonous faggots when this is over.

    15. Re: And now I know why Facebooks is scared by fahrbot-bot · · Score: 1

      Knowing that Trump's former Chief Strategist actually ran the program which collected Facebook data to create voter profiles, i'd say the differences are a bit deeper than that.

      A little more than that. Steve Bannon was one of the founders of Cambridge Analytica and was its Vice President at that time. The other founder is super conservative billionaire Robert Mercer (apparently also a big player in Brexit):

      From Cambridge Analytica

      Cambridge Analytica was founded by conservatives Steve Bannon and Robert Mercer. A minimum of 15 million dollars has been invested into the company by Mercer, according to The New York Times. Bannon's stake in the company was estimated at 1 to 5 million dollars, but he divested his holdings in April 2017 as required by his role as White House Chief Strategist.

      --
      It must have been something you assimilated. . . .
    16. Re:And now I know why Facebooks is scared by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Right...because Vlad wanted to install the person who sold him all that uranium. Oh, wait...

    17. Re: And now I know why Facebooks is scared by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      The only 'crystal' you faggot nazis know about is the night of broken glass. Don't forget, we're going to hang you treasonous faggots when this is over.

      But ... but ... but ... we "treasonable faggots" are the ones with the guns. Remember? Yeah, that didn't quite work out like you hoped ...

    18. Re: And now I know why Facebooks is scared by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Ivan doing work trying to make us liberals look crazy. Well played, sir.

      Doesn't mean anything because we will just go to the polls and fix the problem.

    19. Re:And now I know why Facebooks is scared by gnick · · Score: 1

      With FB, MS, Apple, etc. I can get ALL of that data, including your name.

      If you'd like to see the data FB keeps on you: "Settings"->"Download a copy of your Facebook data". It'll provide you with a zip file including all the dirt. A few things that surprised me:
      * Complete contact list from my phone including personal info and partial call logs
      * List of all applications that are, or were, installed on my current or previous phones
      * Complete transcripts of every conversation I've had using Messenger

      --
      He's getting rather old, but he's a good mouse.
    20. Re: And now I know why Facebooks is scared by sycodon · · Score: 1

      Sarcasm Tags are mandatory with stuff like this. It hews too closely with what some actually believe.

      --
      When Fascism comes to America, it will call itself Anti-Fascism, and tell you to give up your guns.
    21. Re:And now I know why Facebooks is scared by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Russia already has tens of thousands of nuclear weapons moron. Trump is sucking Putin's dick every chance he gets. Until prison.

    22. Re:And now I know why Facebooks is scared by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      The thing is, there is no such thing as permanently anonymized data. Given the information thats collected by different parties there will always be overlaps that can be used to reconstruct the identities. The more information on the individual that is available the the more likely they can be reidentified regardless whether their name is included in the data.

    23. Re:And now I know why Facebooks is scared by Curunir_wolf · · Score: 1

      this could be a major political issue if it doesn't turn out they did the same for the other side. The Dems might make it a campaign issue with FB stuck in the middle. The one thing they've got to be afraid of most is regulation. After all, you are the product. It's not the adverts where they make all their money, it's selling all that sweet, sweet demographic data.

      Not sure what you're going on about. The Trump campaign did not get voter data from Cambridge Analytica, and the Facebook data they had was not used by Trump or the Trump campaign at all. Facebook's political division offered to embed their employees in the campaigns to help with analysis and targeted advertising (the offer was made to both the Trump campaign and the Clinton campaign). The Trump campaign accepted and had Facebook folks working with them. The Clinton campaign rejected the offer because they wanted to use their own strategies.

      Source about Cambridge Analytica, and source for Facebook "embeds".

      --
      "Somebody has to do something. It's just incredibly pathetic it has to be us."
      --- Jerry Garcia
    24. Re: And now I know why Facebooks is scared by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      No shit.

      US Leftists violently attacking conservatives would result in the shortest and bloodiest revolution in many, many decades. Go ahead, Leftists...make our collective day. In case you've forgotten, the overwhelming majority of US police and members of the military are NRA members.

      They won't be helping you, they'll be helping us put you down like the rabid animals you behave as, if you turn (more) violent.

    25. Re: And now I know why Facebooks is scared by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Sorry, prison requires proof of breaking the law. Going by that Hillary is much more likely to be in prison than Trump... That is if she doesn't fall down and break her neck first. Looks like God is ever trying to get rid of her.

    26. Re: And now I know why Facebooks is scared by TrumpThemAll · · Score: 0

      "you faggot nazis" Spoken like a true liberal. So much compassion and understanding and tolerance. It reminds me of when the black girl (forgot her name) wore the MAGA dress and all the compassionate, tolerant liberals flooded her Facebook and Twitter accounts with racism and death threats. Every time you guys open your mouth anymore, you guys prove how empty your words are. You truly are still the same democrats who fought for slavery and tried to stop the integration of blacks into society.

  2. umm by supernova87a · · Score: 2

    "Aleksandr Spectre"? Are you fucking kidding me? Was it so cartoonishly evil that Facebook's legal and ethics team didn't believe it was real?

    1. Re: umm by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      In Russian, the word spektr means spectrum, and there is no similar word for the English spectre. So in Russian, it sounds boringly-science-like rather than sinister.

    2. Re: umm by Holi · · Score: 1

      Except the name he used is Spectre not Spektr (he legally changed it from Kogan, though has since changed it back).

      That kind ruins your point.

      --
      Sorry, teleporters just kill you and then make a copy. A perfect, soul-less copy.
    3. Re:umm by PolygamousRanchKid+ · · Score: 1

      "Aleksandr Spectre"? Are you fucking kidding me?

      Cool Hand Luke Voice: "Lotsa white pussycat photos down here in the private data, Boss!"

      Two Facebook employees were named as co-authors of the study, alongside researchers from Cambridge, Harvard and the University of California, Berkeley.

      . . . and each of the authors passed it on to their friends . . . under the condition that they, "Not give it to anyone else . . . "

      . . . which means, who knows how many copies of this are floating around . . . ?

      "Three can keep a secret, if two of them are dead." -- Benjamin Franklin

      --
      Schroedinger's Brexit: The UK is both in and out of the EU at the same time!
    4. Re: umm by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      What about "prizrak" ("ghost")?

    5. Re:umm by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      It would almost be funny if it didn't all keep coming back to the same old culprit, Putin's Russia:

      "Kogan is also an associate professor at the St Petersburg University â" a fact his Cambridge colleagues, aside from the head of the Department of Psychology, were not told, according to The Guardian/Observer. In this position, he received funding from the Russian government to study âStress, health and psychological wellbeing in social networksâ(TM). In a CV from 2014, which was previously available on the Universityâ(TM)s website, Kogan made no mention of his connection to St Petersburg, or to having received any grants."

      The West thought it won the cold war in about 1991. What they didn't realise was that Russia never stopped fighting it, and now they have a 25 year intelligence and psyops lead on us that we're just waking up to. People think it's all just about Hillary, it's not of course, because it's affecting countries that have nothing to do with Hillary like Germany, France, and in fact most European countries.

      Kogan is just another Russian FSB agent that's now been exposed and Facebook was helping him, either because they're astoundingly incompetent, or because they profit from it at the expense of Western democracy.

    6. Re:umm by PPH · · Score: 1

      . . . and each of the authors passed it on to their friends

      who knows how many copies of this are floating around

      57 billion?

      --
      Have gnu, will travel.
    7. Re:umm by PPH · · Score: 1

      And didn't the white cat give him away?

      --
      Have gnu, will travel.
  3. Friends by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Yeah they were both friends of Franklin , McKinley , Cleveland , Madison and Chase.

    Bigly Friends.

  4. So... Facebook is Facebook? by Kenja · · Score: 3, Insightful

    This is kind of what Facebook does... how do you think they went from 0$ to 15 billion $ a year in advertising over a few years?

    --

    "Have you ever thought about just turning off the TV, sitting down with your kids, and hitting them?"
  5. FB has been destroying privacy for years... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    ...and people are just now giving them sh!t for it?

    Thanks goodness everyone hates trump so much that this important issue will finally get some traction. Sure didn't raise any eyebrows when all those other businesses/presidents/bad-actors sold our data willy-nilly.

  6. Don't delete Facebook... by Locke2005 · · Score: 0

    Since Facebook's business model is built on selling user data, our response is obvious: poison the data! Create dozens of fake accounts with the most ridiculous user profiles imaginable, and friend them with random people. If we make the user data garbage enough, then it becomes useless and Facebook's business model fails.

    --
    I've abandoned my search for truth; now I'm just looking for some useful delusions.
    1. Re:Don't delete Facebook... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      So, we all become Russian bots?

  7. Amusing tidbit by Okian+Warrior · · Score: 1, Informative

    What I find amusing about this whole thing is that the Trump campaign never used the data, because they didn't trust it.

    The Trump campaign never used the psychographic data at the heart of a whistleblower who once worked to help acquire the data's reporting -- principally because it was relatively new and of suspect quality and value.

    So Facebook giving all that data to the Trump campaign had no effect on the election whatsoever.

    All this outrage and calls for regulation and boycotting - because it was Trump of course - over something that Trump didn't use.

    I don't care who y'are - that's funny right thare!

    1. Re:Amusing tidbit by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      It's funny that your faggot ass supports a traitor? Not really, it's pathetically nutless on your part.

    2. Re:Amusing tidbit by orlanz · · Score: 1

      So, what exactly are you saying (assuming that Trump's campaign didn't use the data)? That we shouldn't be outraged at Facebook or we shouldn't regulate this or this type of research and profiling be allowed without societal checks & bounds or without user consent?

    3. Re:Amusing tidbit by fahrbot-bot · · Score: 1

      What I find amusing about this whole thing is that the Trump campaign never used the data, because they didn't trust it.

      Although... Trump did eventually use at least some of their suggestions generated from that data. For example, Cambridge Analytica came up with the slogan "drain the swamp" based on the Facebook data they stole and passed it along to Trump -- who admitted (on video) he got it from them.

      --
      It must have been something you assimilated. . . .
    4. Re:Amusing tidbit by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      What's REALLY funny, is that you likely happen to be on the left, but have no problems calling this guy a "faggot" because of a political disagreement. That's hate speech comrade and I'd hate to have to report you to the Cheka.

    5. Re:Amusing tidbit by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      What anyone with at least the intelectual capacity of a walnut is saying is much closer to "this entire outrage is based on lies."

      As usual, the outrage is being used to suggest, nay, DEMAND bureaucratic intrusion into the daily lives of people who have done nothing wrong by any measure. If the end result somehow resembles a useful changes in legislation, I will be pleasantly surprised. I have no reason to expect that the end result of this outrage would be anything like outlawing redistribution of personal data in whole or in part, but that would be a healthy reaction now that some non-fringe are mildly aware of what login-based forums do for money. If it could go further and also hold the advertising channel responsible for the contents of the advertisements that they deliver, then we might be getting somewhere useful. (Currently, web sites and ad-space auctioners can claim complete ignorance about what advertisement ends up in any given browsing session, protecting themselves and the advertiser from any form of responsibility for damages caused by hostile scripts in the ads.)

    6. Re:Amusing tidbit by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      The law doesn't protect traitors, sorry FAGGOT. I'm a Republican - a real one, not some Trumptarded punk ass bitch like yourself. Get hung from your tiny bitch neck soon like your traitor hero will. #DEATH TO TRUMP TRAITORS

    7. Re:Amusing tidbit by WaffleMonster · · Score: 1

      What I find amusing about this whole thing is that the Trump campaign never used the data, because they didn't trust it.

      Perhaps you should re-read article you posted. This is NOT what it says.

      "Cambridge Analytica data was used for some targeted digital advertising and a large TV buy"

      So Facebook giving all that data to the Trump campaign had no effect on the election whatsoever.

      1. Facebook didn't give it to Trump.
      2. Article you cited says data was used.
      3. Whether it had an effect or not is irrelevant.

      All this outrage and calls for regulation and boycotting - because it was Trump of course - over something that Trump didn't use.

      Some simply grasp for excuses to pounce because they hate Trump.

      Some are concerned by revelations of how their data is being used. Perhaps belated contemplating issues they should have thought about much earlier.

      Yet others read about Nix and his Ukrainian girls and it's just another log on the fire. There are many dimensions to the story.

    8. Re:Amusing tidbit by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Oh my God you cannot be this naive.

    9. Re:Amusing tidbit by stephanruby · · Score: 1

      All this outrage and calls for regulation and boycotting - because it was Trump of course - over something that Trump didn't use.

      Cambridge Analytica is owned by the Mercers and the Mercers have been laundering Russian money for years.

      Cambridge Analytica's admission that they used Ukrainian prostitutes to blackmail politicians is interesting because Breitbart (another outfit owned by the Mercers) is the one that broke the news that Representative Conyers (a Democrat) had Congress pay 27 thousand dollars for a sexual harassment claim (out of the 17 million dollar fund that a number of other representatives used, although their names haven't been exposed).

      So the question then becomes, which other US politicians are the Russian-backed Mercers blackmailing? And is this the reason why the RNC is so unified behind President Trump? Did they also receive Russian money? And how many of them have actually been blackmailed with prostitutes? or blackmailed through the paper trail that Congress has on the sexual harassment settlements they've made?

      Frankly, it doesn't matter if Trump was the mastermind. He may not have been the mastermind, he very well could just be a pawn in this entire affair. But it can't be good to even have a pawn in the white house.

    10. Re:Amusing tidbit by NichardRixon · · Score: 1

      The Trump campaign didn't use the data that was handed over by Facebook because it was useless in and of itself. According to the story it was "every friendship formed in 2011 in every country in the world at the national aggregate level". What does that mean? Read on in the Guardian article and you find, “The data that was shared was literally numbers – numbers of how many friendships were made between pairs of countries – ie x number of friendships made between the US and UK,” Facebook spokeswoman Christine Chen said by email.

      Continue reading the Guardian story and you see there was more to it than what was handed over by Facebook:
      "Between June and August of that year, [2014] GSR paid approximately 270,000 individuals to use a Facebook questionnaire app that harvested data from their own Facebook profiles, as well as from their friends, resulting in a dataset of more than 50 million users. The data was subsequently given to Cambridge Analytica, in what Facebook has said was a violation of Kogan’s agreement to use the data solely for academic purposes."

      It was this data that could have allowed the Trump campaign to sway public opinion using a variety of methods. The (reported) fact that it wasn't used past late September or early October of 2016 doesn't mean it hadn't already been used. The Trump campaign paid $5.9 million to it. Do you really think they just changed their minds and threw it away?

  8. How is this such a big surprise? by WolfgangVL · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Huge social media company mines data for years. Trades data for money. Are we going after google next? What about the cell phone companies? Grocery store loyalty cards?

    Seriously. The people have decided.

    --
    You are being ripped off every second of every day, so that advertisers can help rip you off even more tomorrow.
    1. Re:How is this such a big surprise? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      The people most certainly have not decided. To make a decision you need information, and FB and their ilk are very careful about not informing their users, or rather "informing" them with weasel words.

      It's perfectly possible to collect a boat-load of data and monetize it without selling the data. Preferable even, because once the data is out of your hands, it can be traded by whoever you sold it to without you getting a cut, and maybe even used for purposes you don't like, as FB have found out.

      Rather than giving advertisers/researchers/crooks a list of users who meet the demographics they suppley, you offer to show them adverts. The only info they get is the number of people in their demographic, the number of ad impressions and the number of clicks. This is what most people who have stopped to think about it believe that FB+co do.

      That FB has been handing out private infromation willy-nilly is a shock to most people. That "quiz" that tells you "Which Friends character are YOU?" doesn't need to know where you live to provide the function advertised to the user, nor who your friends are. Anyone actually informed would never agree to share that with an unknown, potentially nefarious party, but FB has been blithely handing the data over for years.

      They say they "welcome regulation", but nothing is stopping them from behaving properly now, other than their own self interest. What they are actually hoping for is to "work with lawmakers" to codify their shady business practices in law, and give themselves both legal protection and a sheen of respectability that they do not deserve.

    2. Re:How is this such a big surprise? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Trades data for money

      Facebook does not sell your data. Their business model is advertising, pure and simple. What makes them effective is the huge amounts of data they have on individuals, which allows them to provide better targeting for advertisement than any other platforms. Facebook generally has better ROI than any other advertising platform because of this.

      Selling your data would mean losing competitive advantage in advertising. It would be extremely stupid business wise.

      Disclaimer: I work for one of the most trusted Facebook marketing partners (hence AC) and know for fact that Facebook is so paranoid that they don't even share any information with us, even though that would help them to earn more money. Also, I'd like to see Facebook gone, but you're not particularly helping the cause by spreading false information.

    3. Re:How is this such a big surprise? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Oh for the lack of mod points.

  9. They've always downplayed this aspect by rsilvergun · · Score: 1

    and focused on the Adverts. It's now front and center and in the minds of regular people. There's also a sizable Anti-Trump faction in America (he did lose the popular vote after all) that is going to seize on this and keep it from going away. Facebook'll end up caught in the middle of a political fight. Worst case scenario a bunch of new privacy regulations get passed that make a significant portion of their business illegal.

    --
    Hi! I make Firefox Plug-ins. Check 'em out @ https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/youtube-mp3-podcaster/
    1. Re:They've always downplayed this aspect by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Worst case scenario a bunch of new privacy regulations get passed that make a significant portion of their business illegal.

      Worst case!?!?! Sounds like best case to me!

  10. I know why they were good friends! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    They gave them money. Duh.

  11. Re: Who cares? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Any excuse to divert the blame for losing...

    But without Russians:
    - Jeb beats Trump
    - Jeb beats Hillary

    Too bad!

  12. Re:Who cares? by Holi · · Score: 1

    Really, Obama used a company run by the Mercers and Bannon? You have ANY evidence to back up that ridiculous assertion?

    --
    Sorry, teleporters just kill you and then make a copy. A perfect, soul-less copy.
  13. well hmm.. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Zucker is a fucker.
    click bait bitches

  14. So....what is google doing with your kids data ? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Finally people are waking up to privacy/security data harvesting and brokering. !!

    So does anyone know what exactly is google doing with all the school kids data being stored on servers , google docs etc...?
    I don't know but wonder what it is being used for (now or in the future) how secure it is, what controls are in place, should it even be collected in the first place ?

    Perhaps a simple question:- If a user deletes it....is is actually deleted or just hidden from the public... that tells you who really owns your data ?

  15. this is why I use Google by WindBourne · · Score: 1

    Facebook, Apple, Microsoft, etc sell our data. When you go to these companies, I can buy who you are, your address, your pix, and most of all, your name, etc. .
    With Google, I can buy clean data for stats, but it will not come with address, pix, names, OR, I can buy access to you. That is I can direct Ads at ppl that live in Houston Texas and then sell them cheap ACs from China. While I can not direct it to an individual, I can give criteria that would allow me to focus on those most likely to buy junk.

    That is the right approach. It is fair, and honest. Google is not giving it to gov, unless they have a warrant. And Google has fought giving it to some of the nations that will use it for political purposes.

    --
    I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
    1. Re:this is why I use Google by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Google is gov, libtard wing...

    2. Re:this is why I use Google by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      bless...

    3. Re:this is why I use Google by MightyMartian · · Score: 1

      Don't ever lose your tinfoil hat, mate. And remember to throw in the phrase "black ops" wherever you can. That makes you look smart!

      --
      The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
    4. Re:this is why I use Google by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I think you're deluding yourself. Google is just as shady as the rest of them.

      Far from "Do no evil" we've been seeing tidbits of Google's deceitfulness coming out over the years. It's only a matter of time before they find themselves exposed in a massive scam like the current Facebook-Kogan/Spectre deal.

    5. Re:this is why I use Google by WindBourne · · Score: 1

      yeah, comrade. I really believe an AC on /. esp. knowing that Russia and CHina are trolling here.

      --
      I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
    6. Re:this is why I use Google by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Anything you disagree with or don't know about is trolling?
      Must be quite pleasant living in your bubble.

  16. Re:Who cares? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Lies, lies, and more lies. This claim is easily debunked. Mostly by the fact that Obama's 2nd term started in 2012 (and thus his campaign ended in 2011) and Cambridge Analytica was founded December 31 2013.

  17. Re:Who cares? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Really, Obama used a company run by the Mercers and Bannon? You have ANY evidence to back up that ridiculous assertion?

    Sound to me like the libertarian GP managed to get some bad weed--free market BOOYA!!.

  18. Re: Trump the traitor will die in prison either wa by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Is that you Joe?

  19. Roughly 100 friends per user? by 140Mandak262Jamuna · · Score: 1
    With a rough guestimate of half a billion users at that time, it comes to 100 friends per person.

    It is an interesting number. Steven Pinker argued our brains evolved in extended family clan social structure. And that our brains are incapable of holding more than 200 persons. We extended the "persons" to entities. Most people can not name more than 50 friends or relatives strictly from memory. With address books and contacts etc they can stretch it to about 150 to 200 range. If asked to "like" or "dislike" people, entities, national groups, any grouping, most people can not go beyond 200 without resorting to paper, notes and other aids.

    People wore distinctive clothing, religious marks, war paints and other external symbols so that strangers will know who they are. Treating aggregate groups of people and marking the whole group friendly, hostile, to be obeyed, to be ruled is a mental leap that took some 10,000 years to form. Starting from the sedentism created by domestication of dogs, then animals and then plants at around 20,000 years ago, we could become peaceful enough to live in larger and larger agglomerations by about 7000 years ago. That was the start of aggregation from clans to tribes, tribes to nations, nations to empires.

    --
    sed -e 's/Chuck Norris/Rajnikant/g' joke > fact
    1. Re:Roughly 100 friends per user? by burtosis · · Score: 1

      You are confusing friends with popularity. You don't want to hear thier nonsense (though you could pretend to listen to curry popularity) you want them all to bask in the glow that is you and keep that number rising.

    2. Re:Roughly 100 friends per user? by sexconker · · Score: 2

      Most people can not name more than 50 friends or relatives strictly from memory. With address books and contacts etc they can stretch it to about 150 to 200 range. If asked to "like" or "dislike" people, entities, national groups, any grouping, most people can not go beyond 200 without resorting to paper, notes and other aids.

      That's a load of horse shit.

      Your average tween can prattle off endlessly about the mundane details of hundreds of celebrities they've never met, including up-to-the-minute relationship statuses, fashion choices, career info, and a personal rating of how much they hate/love that person.

      You've got the same thing with weeaboos and their anime and video games.

      You've got the same thing with little boys and dinosaurs, construction equipment, and sometimes trains.

      You've got the same thing with movie buffs, baseball stat nerds (most of these guys are dead now, though), military history aficionados, Trekkies, gun enthusiasts, comic book nerds, gear heads, soap opera / asian drama fans, etc.

  20. A gift from Trump by iMadeGhostzilla · · Score: 3, Insightful

    It doesn't matter whether it had any effect on the election -- the perception on the left is that it had. To them FB will be forever tainted with the unbearable thought that it helped Trump win. If this drives people away from FB and social media, or at least curbs the addiction, that alone will be a phenomenal consequence of Trump presidency.

  21. Re:Trump the traitor will die in prison either way by campuscodi · · Score: 1

    No they won't come to grip with it. Political dissent has been happening since the Bronze Age. If people could get along, we wouldn't have had so many stupid (civil) wars by now.

  22. A mantra to remember..... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    If you arent paying for something, then you are likely what is being sold.

    1. Re:A mantra to remember..... by sdinfoserv · · Score: 1

      even then, if it can be monetized, you're still being sold.

  23. Re: Trump the traitor will die in prison either w by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    I believe he goes by Ivan now.

  24. Re: Trump the traitor will die in prison either w by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Ivan Biden? Trumptards have broken brains. No wonder Putin is able to manipulate the morons so easily. Physically weak traitor bitches.

  25. Re:Who cares? by sexconker · · Score: 1

    Who cares when CA was founded? Facebook is the issue here. CA just bought data from Facebook. Facebook was more than happy to sell it without any contract or enforceable terms in place. Facebook was also happy to include data that they shouldn't have been collecting (per user preferences).

    Obama used Facebook data the same way. He was applauded for it.

  26. Re:Who cares? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    No dumb ass, they used a company run by Zuckerberg.

  27. Re:Trump the traitor will die in prison either way by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    It's Joe O'Biden.

  28. Scam?!? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Why is it when Obama's election team harvests and utilizes the same data in the same way from Facebook and other socials it is lauded as genius and clever, but when Trump's election team does it, it is a scam and criminal?

    1. Re:Scam?!? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      No scam.
      Bottom line is, if ur willing to publish your private information, thoughts, feelings and opinions to a private company that told you it was going to use it to make money, this is what you get.
      Get real people.
      Get some decorum.
      Lose the shameless self-publication.
      Think critically.

  29. Re: Trump the traitor will die in prison either w by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    There you are shit posting again with yet another fake account, you revenue stream hogging disgusting fat sexist tube of lard, Christopher Dale Reimer!

    You can be sure I will be watching this fake account too. I know this is you because you told me you were working on your freepass 11 file server and you are so dumb that you can't even masquerade yourself properly.

    Now, I told you I was out of meds last week and you didn't even care to contact me you lazy fucker.

    How many times do I have to express the emergency of the situation??????

    The python click script you wrote for my pheromone revenue stream web site suddenly stopped to work!!!!!!

    You fucking incompetent python script writer!!!

    When it works, I get 4000+ clicks a day on my pheromone revenue stream web site but only 5 or 6 without it!!!!

    Now, it seems like you dont care and that you have abandoned me you heartless fucking pig!

    Bonus:
    Here is a story that creimer told me when convincing me what a hard life he had:

    The tree was him and the tree knot was his butt hole!

    So, his uncle packed his fat ass with lard and with his cock! Not that it makes much of a difference but anyway, there it is!

    Signed:
    Ethell, The girl that used to love you and now hates you, burn in hell where you belong you sexist pig!

  30. Alert creimer sock puppet post!!! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Creimertards have broken brains. No wonder Creimer was able to manipulate the morons so easilly. They're still harassing the Slashdot community after creimer left Slashdot for YouTube. Sad.

    Hahaha creimer; "Team Creimer" and now "creimertards"?

    Everybody knows that you're alone and that there is only one creimertard, yourself you 400 pounds content digital nuisance!


    Alert creimer sock puppet post to build up his karma!

    CREIMER' SUBMISSIONS UPDATE:
    Note also that creimer is trying to regain karma by getting his submissions published as articles on /. so make sure to go to:
    https://slashdot.org/~_sharp'r...
    https://slashdot.org/~crreimer
    https://slashdot.org/~cdreimer
    https://slashdot.org/~criss69
    https://slashdot.org/~Anonymou...
    https://slashdot.org/~FatCashe...
    https://slashdot.org/~ILoveFat...
    https://slashdot.org/~IHateFat...
    https://slashdot.org/~IAteFatC...
    https://slashdot.org/~ITapeFat...
    https://slashdot.org/~IApeFatC...
    https://slashdot.org/~IPrayFat...
    https://slashdot.org/~FatCashe...
    and mod down his submissions as well. The great thing is that you don't even need mod points to mod down a submission, just click on the "minus" icon!

    Yes, believe it or not, creimer owns all the above sock puppet accounts. It is a mystery why Slashdot management tolerates it!

    creimer wrote:

    I don't bother with mod points. I'm doing something much more sinister. It took ten story submissions ? I'll have to double check the number ? to move cdreimer's karma from neutral to excellent without ever being exposed to the capricious mods. Mmmmmwwwwahahahahahahaha!

    https://slashdot.org/comments....

    Danger, Will Robinson, Danger! Creimy is posting more than 2 posts a day. Hurry! mod down otherwise /. will go to hell again!

    Note: you can mod down even if already at -1 to lower karma and to prevent lost /. users to accidentally mod up.

    creimer wrote:

    All you need to do is find a website with a permissive TOS, say, Slashdot, create a Python script to scrape your own comments, sprinkle Amazon affiliate links in various posts, and then re-post past links whenever possible. Won't be long before you start making "coffee money" each month.

    https://slashdot.org/comments....

    C.D. Reimer is a renowned Slashdot collaborator, as he puts it himself; "Because of the quality of my posts and my article submissions, I'm a highly rated commentator and moderator."

    But does anybody ever wondered what "C.D." stands for? Well, it stands for Creimy Dumpty of course!

    Creimy Dumpty sat on the wall,
    Creimy Dumpty had a great fall.
    All the king's horses
    And all the king's men
    Couldn't put Creimy Dumpty
    Together again.

    Creimy's siblings video and theme song, very realistic, especially the pants, just like Creimy's:
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?...

    With "Vice President Pence Vowing US Astronauts Will Return To the Moon", we are sure they will need miracle workers up there, here is what it would look li

  31. Anonimizing by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Why are they not required to anonymize the data ?

    The research community has been doing this for a long time with medical trials, etc.

  32. Its a TRAP! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Right now they've got everyone screaming for regulation.

    Guess what they're gonna get: Regulation!

    What are they going to regulate? Stuff on the internet!

    What is the stuff? Free Speech!

    Facebook is already violating everyone's privacy for their own profit and for the US Government. Why give them more?

  33. Re: Trump the traitor will die in prison either w by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Hahaha creimer!

    creimer has moved the talking with himself to youtube! He created the "King Slayer69" sock puppet on youtube and now argues with himself on youtube! He is more like a "King Dumpty" but anyway.

    CROFLOL!

    Anyway, I already filed on complaint with youtube at:
    https://www.youtube.com/create...

    Please complain as well, youtube is far from being "as permissive" as Slashdot!

    Chris' case is getting worse, he spends all day replying to himself as AC on /.

    The tests we ran on Chris have shown that Chris has the intelligence of an ameba:
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...

    So, technically, he is able to conceive some kind of agenda but it will be silly or impossible to follow on a human scale.

    For example, Chris had an agenda to post anything he felt like on Slashdot which did not work well because it was based on his false beliefs that he had an infinite number of karma points as he wrote here several times.

    Several people here explained to Chris that karma maxed out at some level like 50 or so but Chris kept on insisting that his python script had confirmed that he had millions of karma points!

    Oh well, as I wrote before: "It isn't Chris' fault if he is the way he is. We do the best we can do with him and he is partially integrated into society. We try to cure his abnormal need for attention but he is kind of stubborn and won't listen to anybody."

    For the valuable /. users that might already have read the following, please note that there is an important update.

    IMPORTANT UPDATE:
    Special Education for the Santa Clara County Office of Education has invested money to buy Chris a new chair:
    http://www.keynamics.com/image...

    Information about Christopher Dale Reimer and autistic people:

    Autistic people have obsessions about things normal people don't care. For example, one of our autistic patient went haywire when he realized that there was a penny missing in his pocket change.

    To calm him down, one of our educator pretended to have found it on the floor and gave a penny to him.

    The autistic patient condition went even worse because he realized it wasn't the same penny!

    Chris has an obsession with budgeting every penny. He doesn't understand that most people do not budget to the penny and have a flexible amount they allow for miscellaneous items.

    I am Nancy Guerrero and I am Director of Special Education for the Santa Clara County Office of Education. We use Chris' (a.k.a. creimer,cdreimer) picture in our document because he is the hardest case we have ever had to handle:
    http://www.sccoe.org/depts/stu...

    Our artists were inspired by the low carb diet that Christopher follows scrupulously for the small lunch box and by the picture linked below for the rest. I am sure that you will notice the similarities such as the bump on the side of his chest and more:
    https://ibb.co/gVad65

    Please be easy on Christopher although, I am aware that some of our staff handling Chris post joke comments here and obvoiusly, the Santa Clara County Office of Education disapprove that behavior vehemently:
    http://ibb.co/mRVSaG

    But it isn't Chris' fault if he is the way he is. We do the best we can do with him and he is partially integrated into society. We try to cure his abnormal need for attention but he is kind of stubborn and won't listen to anybody.

    Thank You dear users,
    ---
    Nancy Guerrero
    Director
    Special Education
    Santa Clara County Office of Education

  34. 57 billion friendships? by sdinfoserv · · Score: 1

    Someone seriously under counted the Earths population!

  35. another non-scandal by sdinfoserv · · Score: 1

    The only scandal here is the shear number of people unaware that the purpose of all social media is to sell your private information...
    "Google isn't free, the cost is your information" - Eric Schmidt Former CEO Google.
    so just go head, fill your house with Alexa, Google home, Nest, FitBit, Apple watch, use websites to analyze your DNA... and pay no attention to those annoying little ELUA popup's where you waive all your rights. Then be shocked when they sell that information..considering it's their business model.

  36. Re: Trump the traitor will die in prison either w by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    He created the "King Slayer69" sock puppet on youtube and now argues with himself on youtube!

    Why don't you join creimer on YouTube? I'm sure he would love to ban you from his channel.

  37. Math fail by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Try again

  38. Re: Trump the traitor will die in prison either w by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Wow, so few people have 30 year old girl friends in New York City that are willing to defend their friends like you do.

    Chris sure is a lucky guy.

  39. Re: Trump the traitor will die in prison either w by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    You have no one to ban on your channel, Chris. I don't think YouTube uses a signed int to count subscribers, so how can they track -1 followers?

  40. Re:Who cares? by belthize · · Score: 1

    Not really no.

    In Obama's case Facebook users went to Obama's re-election page and were asked if they'd like to provide information. So yes they're the same in that the campaigns used Facebook data but one asked permission in a context that made it painfully obvious what it was for and the other didn't ask permission and there was no obvious link to it's purpose until years later.

    So, yeah, not quite the same thing.

  41. Re:Who cares? by sexconker · · Score: 1

    Obama's campaign was not relying on such data. They were spoon fed all the data they asked for from Facebook, regardless of whether they had opted in on his campaign page. Where the fuck did you get that story from?

  42. Re:Who cares? by belthize · · Score: 1

    If only there was some way to search the internet for information. I'd envision some web portal thingy where you type in a string and it searches for you, if such a thing existed in might pop up pages from say 2012 that were relevant at the time, though maybe it's possible that the same people who had the foresight to change his birth certificate had the same foresight to plant the story in case they needed it.

    http://www.adweek.com/digital/...

    That article describes the Facebook app his campaign used. Romney had one too.

    Again the difference is the app made it painfully clear that it wasn't a quiz or a chance to win a free pony, it was to support his campaign. I don't have a Facebook page, never will so at some level I don't really give a shit, but false equivalences are false equivalences regardless.

  43. Re: Trump the traitor will die in prison either w by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Wait , you are say by people duped by Russians are weak traitor bitches? Uh oh...

    https://www.buzzfeed.com/amphtml/ryancbrooks/thousands-of-new-yorkers-took-to-the-streets-in-anti-trump

  44. Help me understand this... by martinfb · · Score: 1

    Help me understand this.

    There are roughly 7.6 billion people on earth.
    Consider that most people do not have Facebook accounts, thus cannot be 'friended'.
    A 2017 survey shows ~2.2 billion Facebook users.
    That leaves an average friends per Facebook user at 25.9.

    So, then, for any researcher to have "friendships" data on me, they know who I have "friended".
    How can this be "anonymised"?

    --


    Self-importance and self-indulgence is the root of ALL evil.