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Zuckerberg on Cambridge Analytica situation

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Re: Zuckerberg on Cambridge Analytica situation

#211

Post by WorldMaker »

andrewstellman wrote: post #109

> I'm serious about doing what it takes to protect our community. While this specific issue involving Cambridge Analytica should no longer happen with new apps today, that doesn't change what happened in the past. We will learn from this experience to secure our platform further and make our community safer for everyone going forward. It's good that Facebook took steps to secure the platform against third parties cra…

I'm also not convinced that it wasn't Facebook that did most of the work for CA. It was to Facebook's short term profit motive to provide the best micro-targeting ad tools to potential ad buyers. It's still in the realm of possibility that CA did get rid of all illicit data sources such as Kogan's dataset in 2015 and still had enough tools in that FB's ad sales platform team were more than happy to build for them for the easy short term profits.

Re: Zuckerberg on Cambridge Analytica situation

#212

Post by nugi »

mgazzer wrote: post #156

I don't feel like this post does enough to talk about how the online marketing tools were used for the sole purpose of persuading people's opinions.

Thats their marketing arm that explains it to those who buy their services. You are not the customer. They already have you.

Re: Zuckerberg on Cambridge Analytica situation

#214

Post by cmac2992 »

hvass wrote: post #43
rock_hard wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If I remember correctly, back in the day when the API still existed it would only give access to your friends public information

Yes, sorry, I should have been more specific. But what 'exactly' do they know. Does CA know that each person liked EXAMPLE POST ID #12379 on DATE XX/XX/XXXX and that you also like BRAND1, BRAND2, and that you also posted STATUS UPDATE1 on DATE .... What exactly do they have?

Here's a screenshot of the old api docs.

https://photos.app.goo.gl/x6WQmxyX0JIL26d62

If I'm remembering correctly the API would return all of the things you mentioned if that info was shared to your friends

Re: Zuckerberg on Cambridge Analytica situation

#216

Post by jd20 »

nabla9 wrote: post #84
gwicks56 wrote: post #54

1000 word statement. Number of times the word "advertising" was mentioned: 0 Facebook continues to pretend it's business model is unicorns and kittens, not selling user data for money.

It was standard crisis management PR sermon. "learn from this experience", "doesn't change what happened in the past. ", "responsibility", "going forward", "together". You find this same boilerplate from athletes who beat their wife, do drugs, or kill people.

I had a very hard time imagining Zuckerberg actually writing these words, it just felt too carefully crafted and full of standard PR tropes. The CNN interview should be interesting, then we can hear the actual words from his mouth.

Re: Zuckerberg on Cambridge Analytica situation

#217

Post by Mankhool »

>“We also made mistakes, there’s more to do, and we need to step up and do it,”

I, for one, am tired of hearing tech companies say that they are sorry - believing that this makes whatever the issue is, immediately a thing of the past so that they can start again from day zero with regard to whatever they failed at.

A company the size of FB must police the usage of their data if they want to be able to promise security of it. That this wasn't being done is a mistake of unforgivable magnitude.

Re: Zuckerberg on Cambridge Analytica situation

#218

Post by sp527 »

ZUCK: yea so if you ever need info about anyone at harvard

ZUCK: just ask

ZUCK: i have over 4000 emails, pictures, addresses, sns

FRIEND: what!? how'd you manage that one?

ZUCK: people just submitted it

ZUCK: i don't know why

ZUCK: they "trust me"

ZUCK: dumb f*cks

Re: Zuckerberg on Cambridge Analytica situation

#219

Post by hendzen »

prostoalex wrote: post #195
hendzen wrote: post #168

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The backend of the mobile app would run on FB servers.

Most apps that do "Login with Facebook" also support "Login with Google" and sometimes "Login with LinkedIn". The backend ownership issue becomes a bit more complicated. This is even before we get into trust issues most developers would have with Facebook having access to their user data.

The portion of the app that deals with FB data would be hosted at FB, the portion of the app that deals with Google would be hosted at Google, etc. And this is only a problem for applications that pull user data from FB itself, if it was merely using FB for authorization but wasn't actually using any FB profile data, photos, friend lists, etc, than it could all be hosted on a 3rd party server.

Re: Zuckerberg on Cambridge Analytica situation

#220

Post by downandout »

propman wrote: post #39

The trusting developers not to sell any data but putting zero safeguards in place to prevent this and extremely punitive repercussions despite being repeatedly told by the public, media, and even high level employees tells me Facebook can't plead ignorance to this and they not only knew this was happening, but they probably intended for it to happen. They knew it was illegal but put all the incentives for companies n…

They knew it was illegal

What, exactly, are you claiming about this that was “illegal”? When you singup for Facebook, you agree that anything you post might be shared with others on the platform.

The Facebook developer platform became so limited in 2014 that most developers (including me) left. There was no point in developing apps for the social graph that had no ability to be use the social graph. But even prior to that, the sharing of this information with apps, even those authorized by a friend, wasn’t “illegal”. You agreed to it when you signed up for Facebook and voluntarily handed them your information. Even the idea that developers were supposed to delete the information they had before was just a civil agreement between the company and themselves - it wasn't illegal. Facebook can certainly sue them over it, but there are no violations of the law occurring here.

So what about this whole situation is "illegal"?

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