Facebook Data Collected By Quiz App Included Private Messages (nytimes.com)

In addition to the public profile data of up to 87 million Facebook users, political data firm Cambridge Analytica also reportedly harvested people's private messages, too (Warning: source may be paywalled; alternative source). The New York Times reports: On Monday, Facebook began informing people whose data may have been compromised by Cambridge Analytica through an app developed by the researcher Aleksandr Kogan. In its notifications, Facebook said that while the information harvested was largely limited to what was on people's public profiles, "a small number of people" also shared information from their Facebook timeline, posts and messages. Facebook did not specify how many people's messages were gathered and said it was taking as broad a view as possible when notifying people that their data may have been taken.

Comments

We are Big Brother.

[Capsaicin]

I was just considering that the other day: party A and party B discussing party C on social media--party C NEVER having been on any form of social media.

It extends beyond simply "discussing." Take for instance name-tagging of friends in photos shared on FB (or on Apple Photos etc), which amounts to submitting a (usually) non-consenting third party's face into a facial recognition database.

The new surveillance state is distinguished from those hitherto existing, by the enthusiastic participation of hoi polloi in their own* surveillance [*as individuals and as a people]. Not only do we willingly carry tracking devices on our persons, we employ them to photograph, film, otherwise record and then publish on "social" media, snapshots and impressions of unwilling bystanders all neatly geo-located and time stamped. We amuse ourselves with shared videos of "public" altercations, without fearing for our own privacy --indeed, ensnared by too simple a division of public/private we are locked out from conceiveing of varying levels of privacy in the world outside our room, without even enjoying it in there.

In an age where everyone always carries a tracking and recording device, everyone is granted the opportunity, at any time, to be an informant.