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Facebook Placed An Employee Who Harvested User Data For Cambridge Analytica On Leave (buzzfeed.com)
Ryan Mac, reporting for BuzzFeed News: A Facebook employee, who helped harvest and sell data from millions of users of the social network for political consulting firm Cambridge Analytica in a previous job, has quietly been placed on administrative leave by the Menlo Park, California-based company. Joseph Chancellor, a quantitative social psychologist for Facebook, has been on leave for a few weeks following revelations of his role in a data privacy scandal that has rocked the Silicon Valley giant, according to two sources familiar with the situation.
In March, it was revealed that Cambridge Analytica, a consulting company that did elections work for Republican presidential candidates Ted Cruz, Ben Carson, and Donald Trump, inappropriately obtained user data from a third-party app developer. That app company, Global Science Research (GSR), was founded by Chancellor and his research partner Aleksandr Kogan, and obtained Facebook user data on up to 87 million people.
In March, it was revealed that Cambridge Analytica, a consulting company that did elections work for Republican presidential candidates Ted Cruz, Ben Carson, and Donald Trump, inappropriately obtained user data from a third-party app developer. That app company, Global Science Research (GSR), was founded by Chancellor and his research partner Aleksandr Kogan, and obtained Facebook user data on up to 87 million people.
Hang him at the town square.
You guys really need to create a new site for all this Facebook drivel. Most of it is not interesting...at all.
I object to power without constructive purpose. --Spock
yeah
"Administrative leave" is a polite way of saying "soon to be thrown under the bus".
Just like they found the one (and only one) using their Facebook admin access to stalk women. Problem solved!
"Have you ever thought about just turning off the TV, sitting down with your kids, and hitting them?"
Facebook is STILL COLLECTING AND HARVESTING this data.
They promise that "non-permitted parties" will no longer be able to do this. But that doesn't mean that they've stopped doing this analysis nor that they will GIVE PERMISSION to companies/countries as they deem fit.
Nonsense.
Obama supporting uses gave information on _all_ their contacts to the campaign.
Violating TOS is not the same as stealing.
Facebook putting their fingers on the electoral scale is worse! I'll take 'Cambridge Analytics' over 'Facebook' anyday. But they are both privacy violating scumbags.
John McAfee 'It was like that time I hired that Bangkok prostitute; to do my taxes, while I fucked my accountant'
False equivalencies destroy credibility for either side. You're not doing your party any favors.
Is Legal Defense Leave a thing?
Agreed.
Citation from an unbiased site needed.
The fact that they employ a "quantitative social psychologist" speaks volumes about the company. Suddenly the claim that their business model is merely to "sell ads" seems suspect.
Which has more power: the hammer, or the anvil?
So, a social psychologist, who likely lacked the requisite skills and access to collect this data, acted entirely on his own and without authorisation from someone else?
What, he was just moonlighting on the side and providing access to vast quantities of information to am external company because they asked him nicely? TFA says he was a co-founder of the company the data was handed to.
This sounds like bullshit to me. Even if he authorised other employees to do this, it sounds like he would have far overstepped his authority.
It simply can't be that one guy at Facebook had the access, skills, and authority to do this. You don't hand over data on that many people without some kind of proper documentation.
If this guy handed information over to a company he helped co-found, then accessing this data would be one of the rare examples where the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act, and this man needs to be criminally charged, because he essentially stole from Facebook to enrich a company he has ties to.
There's so much wrong in this claim it isn't funny. And it's impossible to see how this would be anything but a pretty significant violation of the law.
Mark Z made his name at Harvard because he "wgetted" their Intranet if i remember correctly. Now he fires someone who "kind of" pulled the same shit but while he's in charge. I call it ironic.
Also not forgetting the fact that he did it while he was at "Harvard" whilst the company who "wgetted" him was called "Cambridge".
they guy was just doing his job. I hope it's paid leave. It's one thing if what he was told to do was obviously illegal, but it's not even a little illegal. Basically, it feels like tossing a little guy under the bus. Like a sacrificial lamb.
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It was for his work at Cambridge not Facebook so Facebook has violated California labor law as you cannot be punished for a legal act outside work hours and especially not prior to your employment at the company. I'm sure it's a paid leave with bonus money to keep him quiet.
Coming soon!
When is Facebook going to commit to ceasing harvesting and selling our data themselves? Or when will they be regulated as such? Until then it means exactly jack and shit. Weak. Very weak.
Actually, Zuckerberg gave this employee extra vacation time and a promotion.
"What lies behind us, and what lies before us are tiny matters compared to what lies within us." Ralph Waldo Emerson