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Facebook suspended the account of whistleblower who exposed Cambridge Analytica

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Re: Facebook suspended the account of whistleblower who exposed Cambridge Analytica

#81

Post by bogomipz »

sithadmin wrote: post #6
JumpCrisscross wrote: post #4

The arrogance of Facebook's response to this breach, quibbling over what to call it and now this, is mind-blowing. Their "it wasn't a robbery because we left the front door open" excuse may finally bring about trans-Atlantic regulation of social media.

>The arrogance of Facebook's response to this breach Is it even clear that there was a 'breach' of any kind that Facebook was responsible for? Correct me if I'm wrong here, but it seems like the chain of events is: 1.) Third party (Aleksandr Kogan) creates 'personality quiz' app, Facebook users opt-in to share information from their profile 2.) Aleksandr Kogan hands off data gathered by the app to Cambridge Analytica…

>"Is it even clear that there was a 'breach' of any kind that Facebook was responsible for?"

How about a breach of basic responsibility to inform users that their data has been used inappropriately and transferred to a third party. FB knew about this as far back as 2015[1]. Did they let users know at any point? No.

Further FB's Chief Security Officers's tweets on Friday failed to show any concern for FB users who were used as pawns. His main concern was to point out that this wasn't actually a FB problem.

And let's not forget that Mark Zuckerberg dismissed the idea that fake news on Facebook influenced the US elections as "a pretty crazy idea."[2]

So the "pitchforks" are a culmination of a significantly longer time frame and not just a reaction to this single news story.

[1] https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2015/dec/11/senator-ted-...

[2] https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2016/nov/10/facebook-...

Re: Facebook suspended the account of whistleblower who exposed Cambridge Analytica

#82

Post by freejulian »

gowld wrote: post #70
watertom wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Didn't Zuck take the idea for Facebook from someone else and then run with it?

No. The "idea" was already quite old. He scammed the scammers: he stole the company from the "idea guys" who tried to hire a naive nerd to build a company for them and hand it over.

Maybe he should have built his own platform then instead without accepting payment from the “idea guys” to build it for them.

Re: Facebook suspended the account of whistleblower who exposed Cambridge Analytica

#83

Post by Klathmon »

runeb wrote: post #75
Klathmon wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>If someone calls my bank and convinces customer service they are me, it would be reasonable to say the bank was breached. Not electronically. But breached nonetheless. That's a bad analogy. A more appropriate one would be if you called your bank and told them to allow a 3rd party to have access to all of your accounts, then blamed your bank when the 3rd party drained all your accounts. Facebook has no obligation to…

Agree with your general statement, but still a bad analogy. You tell your bank to release all your info to third party, then a fourth party learns all your balances. The problem seems to be that people do not realize what it means to agree to information access for a third party, and the question remains weather Facebook is to blame for it being release to a fourth party. So really the problem is that people are not…

>the question remains weather Facebook is to blame for it being release to a fourth party.

And I personally don't think Facebook should be to blame for it ending up in a fourth party's hands. They gave it to the 3rd party at the request of the user. What that 3rd party does with it should be of no concern to Facebook.

If Facebook has to police what users are doing with their own data on other platforms, then strict DRM is going to become a legal necessity. That is what I see when I read comments saying how Facebook should take responsibility here.

I agree that people don't seem to grasp what it means when they click the "i agree" button, and that Facebook (and others) should work much harder on getting the user to understand the full extent of what they are doing, as well as greater control over what data is shared and when. But that's not a problem that's easily solvable (or possibly even solvable at all). And calling for Facebook to simply not accept this information (which isn't a possibility, they are a social network, so social data has to exist on their systems), or to not allow users to have control over their own information is the exact opposite of what I and many others have been fighting for for years.

If I want to export my information, or give it to a 3rd party, that is my right. And Facebook should have no ability to stop me from doing that. This will lead to people giving their personal information to parties that they do not intend to, but I feel that is a risk worth taking to keep your information yours.

Re: Facebook suspended the account of whistleblower who exposed Cambridge Analytica

#84

Post by dillondoyle »

makomk wrote: post #38
cycrutchfield wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

CA also scraped the data of friends of those users, meaning that many millions of people had their info exposed instead of a few hundred thousand.

I don't think that's really the problem. I mean, Obama's 2012 campaign scraped the data of Facebook friends of people who'd signed into the campaign website in order to figure out the most effective way to convince those friends to vote for him via microtargeting and other techniques, in particular working out which friends their volunteers could most easily convince to vote for him. We're not just talking about gene…

One significant difference is the authorized app. Obama's version of friend graph collection was owned by OFA and API creds to campaign.

The data collection discussed today used API creds granted to an academic who then used the data he collected through the lens of academic survey for commercial gain, passing it to a 3rd party (CA) not listed in the FB app/api and this seems to be the crux of the violation.

Re: Facebook suspended the account of whistleblower who exposed Cambridge Analytica

#85

Post by manfredo »

scoggs wrote: post #51
medyadaily wrote: post #32

I have a personal story from inside facebook to share. and when I shared this story on my facebook my personal facebook was suspended too. 5 years ago Facebook recruiter reached out to me and invited me to the W hotel in Chicago. I was very excited -not for the job- but for the opportunity to meet with senior Facebook managers and tell them about an evil thing Facebook does. Here is the background story: I am Kurdish…

I just find it disgusting that, as a company, they feel they have the right to act in such a way. At the end of the day I guess it's safe to assume that somebody inside or outside of Facebook has an agenda to proceed with actions like these and I'm sure there are many other cases of things like this around the world but the entire thing just leaves the worst taste in my mouth.

My disgust lies with the regime that's suppressing that regional identity. Unless we have reason to believe that Facebook would still disallow the Kurdistan option even if governments didn't criminalize recognition of Kurdistan, then this blame rests on Turkey.

I can't find a reason to fault Facebook's response to this harmful government policy. Would it be better to allow people to select the "Kurdistan" option, knowing full well that this could cause people to be imprisoned, or killed? "Facebook disallows selecting of contested regional identities" is bad, but not nearly as bad as "Facebook helps oppressive governments hunt down disenfranchised people".

Re: Facebook suspended the account of whistleblower who exposed Cambridge Analytica

#86

Post by matthewcford »

sithadmin wrote: post #6
JumpCrisscross wrote: post #4

The arrogance of Facebook's response to this breach, quibbling over what to call it and now this, is mind-blowing. Their "it wasn't a robbery because we left the front door open" excuse may finally bring about trans-Atlantic regulation of social media.

>The arrogance of Facebook's response to this breach Is it even clear that there was a 'breach' of any kind that Facebook was responsible for? Correct me if I'm wrong here, but it seems like the chain of events is: 1.) Third party (Aleksandr Kogan) creates 'personality quiz' app, Facebook users opt-in to share information from their profile 2.) Aleksandr Kogan hands off data gathered by the app to Cambridge Analytica…

The issue was back in the day the FB APIs were not as tightly scope controlled as they are now - you were not just giving access to your data but also of that of your friends - even if they did not.

Re: Facebook suspended the account of whistleblower who exposed Cambridge Analytica

#87

Post by pjc50 »

JumpCrisscross wrote: post #4

The arrogance of Facebook's response to this breach, quibbling over what to call it and now this, is mind-blowing. Their "it wasn't a robbery because we left the front door open" excuse may finally bring about trans-Atlantic regulation of social media.

They're now getting their doors kicked in by the Information Commissioner: https://twitter.com/traciemac_Bmore/status/97582507693856768...

(how much will be left after they pre announced the raid on twitter I don't know)

Re: Facebook suspended the account of whistleblower who exposed Cambridge Analytica

#88

Post by pjc50 »

medyadaily wrote: post #32

I have a personal story from inside facebook to share. and when I shared this story on my facebook my personal facebook was suspended too. 5 years ago Facebook recruiter reached out to me and invited me to the W hotel in Chicago. I was very excited -not for the job- but for the opportunity to meet with senior Facebook managers and tell them about an evil thing Facebook does. Here is the background story: I am Kurdish…

Thank you for telling this story :(

Situations where countries try to dictate this kind of thing outside their borders produce stupid bad results. A previous example: no maps are legal in both India and Pakistan. https://blogs.msdn.microsoft.com/oldnewthing/20030822-00/?p=...

Re: Facebook suspended the account of whistleblower who exposed Cambridge Analytica

#89

Post by joering2 »

gowld wrote: post #69
warent wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That text was so long ago I don't think it's relevant anymore. Oprah Winfrey was also crack cocaine smoker in a cycle of abusive relationships in her late twenties. If people choose to change their perspectives they can, and everything indicates that Mark has matured quite a bit since then.

What indicates that Mark has matured quite a bit since then?

Exactly. Also doesnt say much about Oprah maturing - search youtbe on “oprah saying white people need to die”

Re: Facebook suspended the account of whistleblower who exposed Cambridge Analytica

#90

Post by medyadaily »

manfredo wrote: post #85
scoggs wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I just find it disgusting that, as a company, they feel they have the right to act in such a way. At the end of the day I guess it's safe to assume that somebody inside or outside of Facebook has an agenda to proceed with actions like these and I'm sure there are many other cases of things like this around the world but the entire thing just leaves the worst taste in my mouth.

My disgust lies with the regime that's suppressing that regional identity. Unless we have reason to believe that Facebook would still disallow the Kurdistan option even if governments didn't criminalize recognition of Kurdistan, then this blame rests on Turkey. I can't find a reason to fault Facebook's response to this harmful government policy. Would it be better to allow people to select the "Kurdistan" option, kno…

I can confirm iranian government not only does not have any problem with word Kurdistan, Iran has an official Province called Kurdistan, and it is constitutional. (same with Iraq) and I am form Iran living in USA, I should be allowed to enter my hometown's province, just like every other iranian proviince( Tehran, Isfahan, Shiraz, ...) but Facebook enforces Turkey's disgusting rules on Iran too.
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