Facebook Sued by Investors Over Voter-Profile Harvesting • Hacker News Board

Re: Facebook Sued by Investors Over Voter-Profile Harvesting

#81

Post by bb88 » Wed, Mar 21, 2018, 2:36 AM UTC

adventured wrote: post #25

throwaway84742 wrote: post #11

I find it remarkable that when Obama did something similar in 2012, it was hailed as a major strength of his campaign and nobody had any problems with FB.

The data & privacy abuse by the Obama campaign was in fact dramatically worse. As an opinion piece at TheHill.com noted today: > The former Obama director of integration and media analytics stated that, during the 2012 campaign, Facebook allowed the Obama team to “suck out the whole social graph”; Facebook “was surprised we were able to suck out the whole social graph, but they didn’t stop us once they realized that…

> It's universally understood why the media wasn't interested in turning that story into a scandal.

I agree that it's bad (not just looks bad), but you can't blame the media for something they didn't know about. Fox News went on for years about Benghazi. So in 2018, you can't complain about media being too friendly to democrats.

Also, the piece links to a tweet[1] in 2018, not an article from 2012.

[1] https://twitter.com/cld276/status/975568208886484997

Re: Facebook Sued by Investors Over Voter-Profile Harvesting

#82

Post by downandout » Wed, Mar 21, 2018, 2:45 AM UTC

kaeawc wrote: post #80

downandout wrote: post #24

"...defendants made false or misleading statements and failed to disclose that Facebook violated its own data privacy policies by allowing third parties access to personal data of millions of Facebook users without their consent..." The "without their consent" part is BS, as is this lawsuit. When you use Facebook platform apps, you have to consent to the disclosure of your information to the developer, and have to ag…

I am a developer of an app that makes use of Facebook friend permissions and have seen the various API changes they have made since 2014. Applications using Facebook Graph 2.+ (which is the only option since Spring 2015 or so) who access friend data may only access data of friends who have also given consent to your app. So if A and C log into a Facebook app, and A is friends with B and C, the app can only be aware t…

That’s actually the point of my post. I have been developing Facebook apps since the very beginning of the developer platform, but stopped because the new rules were so restrictive that they made apps useless. There is no point to developing social network apps that can’t involve the user’s social network.

Since all apps have these restrictions, I don’t believe that any apps at issue here had special permissions. However, it is possible that they scraped public data and were assisted in being pointed to which data to scrape by the direct profile data they obtained through the apps. Enough friends lists etc. are public to make this potentially beneficial.

No specs have been released about CA’s “psychographic profiling”. We don’t know the extent of the data that they had access to, what data went into it (perhaps it was based on name and friends list only, which are mostly public etc.). So until we know more, we can only assume that these apps had the same constraints that all others do.

Re: Facebook Sued by Investors Over Voter-Profile Harvesting

#83

Post by rdtsc » Wed, Mar 21, 2018, 2:48 AM UTC

cjsawyer wrote: post #18

throwaway84742 wrote: post #11

I find it remarkable that when Obama did something similar in 2012, it was hailed as a major strength of his campaign and nobody had any problems with FB.

Their work was upfront and they weren’t trying to buy info or hide behind an unrelated app. This feels scummy in comparison.

As sibling comment pointed they were about just as scummy on average but everyone decided to look away and pretend to not notice, even FB after they caught them siphoning all social graph data.

Well actually that's not quite accurate, some didn't look away, they were singing praises. His campaign won a major marketing award in 2008, beating Coke, Nike and Apple:

http://adage.com/article/moy-2008/obama-wins-ad-age-s-market...

---

I honestly look at Obama's campaign and I look at it as something that we can all learn from as marketers [...] to see what he's done, to be able to create a social network ...

Jon Fine, marketing and media columnist for BusinessWeek, pointed to Mr. Obama's facility with engaging voters in social-media channels. "It's the fuckin' Web 2.0 thing," he said.

---

(Sorry for repeated link, I know it has been posted many times but I think it perfectly illustrates the point well).

Re: Facebook Sued by Investors Over Voter-Profile Harvesting

#84

Post by discoursism » Wed, Mar 21, 2018, 2:58 AM UTC

mancerayder wrote: post #65

mortenjorck wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Well duh, it says it right there in section 37, paragraph 12, in dense legalese – how could anyone be surprised?" Perhaps the very best thing that could come out of this is an end to the longstanding legal fig leaf of lengthy, complex legal documents presented as click-through agreements somehow constituting "informed consent."

I fully agree with this, there should be laws that enforce TOS length and legibility for those who didn't take the bar exam or had their personal counsel available before clicking I Agree. Except that the folks who'd write such laws...

I mean terms of service are not that hard to read. Facebook's TOS is only 4k words long. It is not particularly dense or full of legalese. I have written source code comments a tenth that length for a single function. That is not many words to describe the plethora of implications of using their service.

Go ahead and have a glance at it. What would you remove from it that wouldn't cause a significant gap?

Some example clauses:

> For content that is covered by intellectual property rights, like photos and videos (IP content), you specifically give us the following permission, subject to your privacy and application settings: you grant us a non-exclusive, transferable, sub-licensable, royalty-free, worldwide license to use any IP content that you post on or in connection with Facebook (IP License). This IP License ends when you delete your IP content or your account unless your content has been shared with others, and they have not deleted it.

(They have to put this. If they didn't, they would get sued by someone who shared a video and then was mad that other people could see it.)

> Facebook users provide their real names and information, and we need your help to keep it that way. Here are some commitments you make to us relating to registering and maintaining the security of your account:

>

> You will not provide any false personal information on Facebook, or create an account for anyone other than yourself without permission.

(Not exactly dense legalese. It is good to ban impersonation, and it is right that they should include such a ban in their terms.)

> We’ll notify you before we make changes to these terms and give you the opportunity to review and comment on the revised terms before continuing to use our Services.

(Seems reasonable to me. Many years ago, people used to complain that the terms changed without notice, so FB committed to not doing that any more.)

I don't know. This whole "terms of service are impossible to read except by a lawyer" meme just doesn't hold water for me.

Re: Facebook Sued by Investors Over Voter-Profile Harvesting

#85

Post by rdtsc » Wed, Mar 21, 2018, 2:58 AM UTC

LukaAl wrote: post #52

throwaway84742 wrote: post #11

I find it remarkable that when Obama did something similar in 2012, it was hailed as a major strength of his campaign and nobody had any problems with FB.

I find it remarkable that people don't understand there's a non-subtle difference between signing up voluntarily on the Obama website using Facebook and consenting to the information collection vs. signing up for a quiz from an unrelated company and having that data used by the Trump campaign. If you don't understand the difference, it is the same difference between having consensual sex with your girlfriend and rapi…

> signing up voluntarily on the Obama website using Facebook

So the whole social graph signed up to Obama's website? Because that's exactly what was happening.

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2012/feb/17/obama-digital-...

---

Every time an individual volunteers to help out – for instance by offering to host a fundraising party for the president – he or she will be asked to log onto the re-election website with their Facebook credentials. That in turn will engage Facebook Connect, the digital interface that shares a user's personal information with a third party.

Consciously or otherwise, the individual volunteer will be injecting all the information they store publicly on their Facebook page – home location, date of birth, interests and, crucially, network of friends – directly into the central Obama database.

---

> it is the same difference between having consensual sex with your girlfriend and raping your neighbor girlfriend because she consented to have sex with him...

Really, rape, that's the best metaphor to reach for...

Re: Facebook Sued by Investors Over Voter-Profile Harvesting

#86

Post by bunderbunder » Wed, Mar 21, 2018, 3:09 AM UTC

downandout wrote: post #24

"...defendants made false or misleading statements and failed to disclose that Facebook violated its own data privacy policies by allowing third parties access to personal data of millions of Facebook users without their consent..." The "without their consent" part is BS, as is this lawsuit. When you use Facebook platform apps, you have to consent to the disclosure of your information to the developer, and have to ag…

The modern approach to consent in these things arguably immoral, and indisputably awful.

Most adults simply don't have the ability to understand the dense legalese that these contracts are written in, so they don't. Asking people to take an hour or two to properly read and digest it just to sign up for a website is ridiculous, and expecting them to actually do so is like something out of a Terry Gilliam movie.

Re: Facebook Sued by Investors Over Voter-Profile Harvesting

#87

Post by throwaway84742 » Wed, Mar 21, 2018, 3:17 AM UTC

Armisael16 wrote: post #71

throwaway84742 wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It’s not whataboutism in the sense that both campaigns have done things that I would like to see outlawed. I was merely pointing out a peculiar selectivity in reporting and outrage.

That's definitional whataboutism.

The definition of whataboutism is excusing someone’s actions because someone else has done the same. What I’m pointing out here is the opposite.

Re: Facebook Sued by Investors Over Voter-Profile Harvesting

#88

Post by abetlen » Wed, Mar 21, 2018, 3:18 AM UTC

bunderbunder wrote: post #86

downandout wrote: post #24

"...defendants made false or misleading statements and failed to disclose that Facebook violated its own data privacy policies by allowing third parties access to personal data of millions of Facebook users without their consent..." The "without their consent" part is BS, as is this lawsuit. When you use Facebook platform apps, you have to consent to the disclosure of your information to the developer, and have to ag…

The modern approach to consent in these things arguably immoral, and indisputably awful. Most adults simply don't have the ability to understand the dense legalese that these contracts are written in, so they don't. Asking people to take an hour or two to properly read and digest it just to sign up for a website is ridiculous, and expecting them to actually do so is like something out of a Terry Gilliam movie.

I get this argument for users but we're talking about investors, surely they should be taking an interest in the companies they put their money into.

Re: Facebook Sued by Investors Over Voter-Profile Harvesting

#89

Post by michaelchisari » Wed, Mar 21, 2018, 3:24 AM UTC

rdtsc wrote: post #83

cjsawyer wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Their work was upfront and they weren’t trying to buy info or hide behind an unrelated app. This feels scummy in comparison.

As sibling comment pointed they were about just as scummy on average but everyone decided to look away and pretend to not notice, even FB after they caught them siphoning all social graph data. Well actually that's not quite accurate, some didn't look away, they were singing praises. His campaign won a major marketing award in 2008, beating Coke, Nike and Apple: http://adage.com/article/moy-2008/obama-wins-ad-age-s-m…

> His campaign won a major marketing award in 2008, beating Coke, Nike and Apple:

People are referencing 2012, not 2008. The data operations of both campaigns were very different.

Re: Facebook Sued by Investors Over Voter-Profile Harvesting

#90

Post by mancerayder » Wed, Mar 21, 2018, 5:03 AM UTC

discoursism wrote: post #84

mancerayder wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I fully agree with this, there should be laws that enforce TOS length and legibility for those who didn't take the bar exam or had their personal counsel available before clicking I Agree. Except that the folks who'd write such laws...

I mean terms of service are not that hard to read. Facebook's TOS is only 4k words long. It is not particularly dense or full of legalese. I have written source code comments a tenth that length for a single function. That is not many words to describe the plethora of implications of using their service. Go ahead and have a glance at it. What would you remove from it that wouldn't cause a significant gap? Some exampl…

Great. So far so good. Where was the part where I agreed they could harvest my profile information because a friend filled out a quiz/questionnaire/etc.?