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Facebook Suspends Another Data Analytics Firm After CNBC Discovers It Was Using Tactics like Cambridge Analytica (cnbc.com)
Facebook suspended a company from its site over the weekend while it investigates claims it harvested user information under the guise of academic research, in a case with echoes of the Cambridge Analytica scandal. From a report: Facebook is suspending a data analytics firm called CubeYou from the platform after CNBC notified the company that CubeYou was collecting information about users through quizzes. CubeYou misleadingly labeled its quizzes "for non-profit academic research," then shared user information with marketers. The scenario is eerily similar to how Cambridge Analytica received unauthorized access to data from as many as 87 million Facebook user accounts to target political marketing. CubeYou, whose CEO denies any deception, sold data that had been collected by researchers working with the Psychometrics Lab at Cambridge University, similar to how Cambridge Analytica used information it obtained from other professors at the school for political marketing.
That there was another one. The issue is that a news organization needed to point it out, instead of Facebook discovering this through the analysis of their access patterns from these firms. After they realized that one was doing this, they should have been analyzing to find others immediately.
It seems the problem is the following:
* Facebook's business model is aggregating user data in order to allow marketers to "micro-target" ads at people with stuff they are most likely to click on
* Facebook is upset when other people use their APIs to get access to data of a subset of users, and then do their own analytics, presumably to allow them to buy ads at a cheaper rate.
* People are upset because a company associated, with some degrees of separation, with Trump, used the technique to find people to "target," and this is some how a "data breach" and "interference in democracy," but when Facebook gave the same type of data to the Obama or Clinton campaigns, it was "the campaign tactics of the future" and "an excellent use of technology and analytics".
So, from what I gather, the controversy is almost entirely to do with people discovering that Facebook isn't on their "side", that they're a company that exists to make money off of data about people, and that, worst of all, not just Democrats no how to do something with data. Even worse, one of the people involved as a Russian name, and that means that Putin did it with "z0mg h4x0rz" or something.
Critically, let us think -- anyone that was targeted with ads had it done because analysis of their data suggested that they were receptive, probably due to already agreeing. Therefor, what the hell difference did it make? Probably none.
You give the users way too much credit. People just click on anything that matches their own bias. i.e. Obama supporters happy to click away, share, answer surveys, etc that match their bias. Other groups do the same. In the end it has zero affect on anything because people to not form their ideology on FB. The last election was the perfect example of this. Good friends and family that always got along fine even with their political differences now hate each other because they will not abandon or even tone down their bias. Social media makes people dig in because there is confirmation available for any viewpoint. Anything not matching your viewpoint is fake or biased.
All of this is just more sour grapes by people that cannot accept they were wrong.
The problem here is that this isn't a problem. You can't fix this because this is how the product and business model were designed. The goal in mind is to suck as much information out of the population as possible and to slice our social groups into manageable and manipulatable chunks so as to maximize ad revenues. "I'm shocked, shocked to find that abuses of privacy on a global scale is going on here!" This model is most definitely not in the best interest of fostering healthy societies and social constructs, despite how much the Zuck et al claim to be about 'connecting the world.' Expect much more news like this from Facebook in the near future unless they are forced to change.
The debate is about unauthorized access, not if users are stupid or biased.