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Facebook Has Fired Multiple Employees for Snooping on Users: Motherboard (vice.com)
Joseph Cox and Max Hoppenstedt, reporting for Motherboard: On Tuesday, Facebook fired an employee who had allegedly used their privileged data access to stalk women online. Now, multiple former Facebook employees and people familiar with the company describe to Motherboard parts of the social media giant's data access policies. This includes how those in the security team, which the fired employee was allegedly a part of, have less oversight on their access than others. The news emphasizes something that typical users may forget when scrolling through a Silicon Valley company's service or site: although safeguards against abuse may be in place, there are people who have the power to see information you believe to be private, and sometimes they may look at that data.
Motherboard granted the sources in this story anonymity to speak more candidly about Facebook's policies and procedures. One source specifically mentioned Facebook's strict non-disclosure agreement. One former Facebook worker said when they joined the company multiple people had been terminated for abusing access to user data, including for stalking exes. Another former Facebook employee said that they know of three cases where people were fired because they mishandled data, one of which included stalking. Typically, these incidents are not publicly reported.
Motherboard granted the sources in this story anonymity to speak more candidly about Facebook's policies and procedures. One source specifically mentioned Facebook's strict non-disclosure agreement. One former Facebook worker said when they joined the company multiple people had been terminated for abusing access to user data, including for stalking exes. Another former Facebook employee said that they know of three cases where people were fired because they mishandled data, one of which included stalking. Typically, these incidents are not publicly reported.
There is really nothing new under the sun.
Some years ago now, I ran a MUD (a multiplayer text game, for those of us who wouldn't know what that is). We had strict rules as to under what circumstances the immortals (administrators) were allowed to monitor what the players were doing on private and local channels, essentially good cause to believe the player in question was engaged in cheating, harassing other players, etc. And if asked, you better be able to say just what those reasons were.
I had to remove more than one immortal for inappropriately snooping on players when they didn't have good cause to, including watching some, shall we say, rather intimate encounters. Unfortunately, some people apparently find the allure of spying irresistible. It's at least good in this case, as in the one I'm describing, that someone actually seems to be watching the watchers.
To fight the war on terror, stop being afraid.
Facebook Has Fired Multiple Employees for Snooping on Users
Facebook fired an employee who had allegedly used their privileged data access to stalk women online.
Bullshit.
Spying on you. Tracking you. Stalking you. All for the purpose of selling you to advertisers. This is Facebook's business. This is Facebook's ONLY business. Everything else is incidental.
This is simply an attempt to pretend that Facebook is actually doing something. Facebook has many thousands of employees, and they will gladly sacrifice a couple of them in an attempt to to generate some positive PR.
Punk ass spies on EVERYBODY
E-mail is probably the biggest one for abuse.
Good. Right?
Ken
Does Facebook inform the police, and the victim and divulge the name of the perpetrator?
If not, they could find themselves in great legal jeopardy.
Although I agree adhering to their internal policies is a good thing, I fear that these stories only serve to detract from the data abuse that Facebook performs as part of their business model.
It's true that people sign up and willingly use this service. But, if you interact with those not so familiar with technology, you'll realize that they are being taken advantage of in ways that could not be anticipated by those crafting older privacy laws.
Besides education on this issue, many countries should take a serious look at the EU's data privacy laws approach and consider applying it in their own country.
"What lies behind us, and what lies before us are tiny matters compared to what lies within us." Ralph Waldo Emerson
"Employees who abuse these controls will be fired”, Alex Stamos, Facebook’s chief information security officer, told Motherboard in a statement.
Is that all? Why isn't he prosecuted?
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For about as long as we've had email there have been t-shirts:
If it's on the internet someone else you don't want seeing it probably already has a copy of it.
Would you prosecute Beth for reading the note Andy asked her to pass to Cindy?
Surely someone else has thought of this or asked it.
Our president likes to Tweet, ya?
Does he or did he ever have a Facebook account?
Lunch is cheap if I'm a bad actor getting paid for a tip.