Live data from Hacker News

Zuckerberg on Cambridge Analytica situation

facebook.com

21–30 of 583 posts

Re: Zuckerberg on Cambridge Analytica situation

#21

I haven't used Facebook in a while, so maybe things have changed, but don't they show you a permissions page where you agree to give the developer access to your information?

Yes, and it always has been the case. The issue here is the scope of data requested, and what that data is being used for.

Re: Zuckerberg on Cambridge Analytica situation

#22

"... we immediately banned Kogan's app from our platform, and demanded that Kogan and Cambridge Analytica formally certify that they had deleted all improperly acquired data. They provided these certifications." How is it at all possible to certify that data has been deleted and no copies were taken..?

It's called "manufactured credibility" and it's about as worthless as the paper it is written on.

Re: Zuckerberg on Cambridge Analytica situation

#23

On the FB developer side: > Second, we will restrict developers' data access even further to prevent other kinds of abuse. For example, we will remove developers' access to your data if you haven't used their app in 3 months. Won't this behavior break a ton of apps?

>> Second, we will restrict developers' data access even further to prevent other kinds of abuse. For example, we will remove developers' access to your data if you haven't used their app in 3 months.

The problem was data that was secretly kept, right? How would removing access change anything? Or am I misunderstanding what happened?

Re: Zuckerberg on Cambridge Analytica situation

#24

"... we immediately banned Kogan's app from our platform, and demanded that Kogan and Cambridge Analytica formally certify that they had deleted all improperly acquired data. They provided these certifications." How is it at all possible to certify that data has been deleted and no copies were taken..?

This feels strange to those of us from technical spheres, but much of the world works without formal verification of facts. There are in theory severe penalties, both implicit and explicit, that ostensibly act as deterrent to bad actors.

This is usually only noteworthy when it fails, but by and large it works. The friction involved if we did not generally accept someone's (signed, notarized, appropriately formalized) word as bond would cause our world to grind to a halt.

Re: Zuckerberg on Cambridge Analytica situation

#25

I haven't used Facebook in a while, so maybe things have changed, but don't they show you a permissions page where you agree to give the developer access to your information?

Yes, but the problem is that Facebook's API also allowed lax access to your friend data, so people who had not consented to the collection of their data through this app ended up with their data harvested as well.

Also, there are various ethical issues with the users consenting to provide data under the guise of academics and then the data being turned over to commercial and political interests.

Re: Zuckerberg on Cambridge Analytica situation

#26
post #7

The 2007 and 2013 paragraphs are pretty scary. Your friend takes a personality quiz from a random app developer and then that developer gets access to _your_ personal data. Obviously Zuckerberg doesn't go into detail about what kind of data that was, but if they needed to rein that in in 2014... I imagine it was potentially pretty personal.

I created an app so I could grant myself access to the API with it. It was an embarrassing amount of data on all your friends.

Re: Zuckerberg on Cambridge Analytica situation

#27
post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

He "trusts them" [1] [1] http://www.businessinsider.com/well-these-new-zuckerberg-ims...

Like we should trust him.

On that note, saw this on Reddit this morning: https://www.reddit.com/r/quotes/comments/8605g9/people_just_...

Re: Zuckerberg on Cambridge Analytica situation

#28
I think Zuckerberg should have taken this opportunity to more substantially address the larger discussion around data privacy and Facebook. The outrage surrounding the CA revelations are based on a larger trend of continuous privacy abuse by FB.

Re: Zuckerberg on Cambridge Analytica situation

#29
> First, we will investigate all apps that had access to large amounts of information before we changed our platform to dramatically reduce data access in 2014, and we will conduct a full audit of any app with suspicious activity. We will ban any developer from our platform that does not agree to a thorough audit.

Isn't there a bit of moral hazard here - as in, Facebook potentially getting material business advantages from reading other people's repos? Are they going to put up a Chinese Wall between the audit team and the product team?

Post reply on HN