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

Missing from this whole controversy,

[jenningsthecat]

is reporting on what happened to all the data collected on people who either never joined Facebook, or left it years ago. FB has made it its mission to collect all data possible on EVERYONE, but it seems only people who have been knowingly drinking that Kool-Aid are being notified and offered sympathy. What about all the private data scraped from people who never belonged to the club, and who therefore never signed on to have their lives on display to the highest bidders?

Seriously, it's starting to look as though the only real solution is to shut down FB, and destroy all copies of the data in their hands. There's still that huge trove of data that's already been let loose in the wild, but going nuclear on Zuckerberg's ass, (and all those investors too), would make the rest of these jerkoffs think twice about playing fast and loose with people's privacy. Sometimes pillaging and burning down a castle or two is the only thing that brings the kings and lords back into line.

Re:We are Big Brother.

[jenningsthecat]

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

Obviously, I agree with your entire comment. But I'd phrase that last part "everyone is granted the status of informant". It's not really 'everyone', of course; but the vast majority of smartphone users are spying on the people around them, simply by being in proximity while having WiFi, mobile data, and location services active.

It occurs to me that mobile phone usage and tracking is a kind of disease vector, and could be modelled with the same techniques and math used for epidemics. And the only vaccine, (and it's only partially effective), is to simply not carry a phone around.