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Zuckerberg on Cambridge Analytica situation

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Re: Zuckerberg on Cambridge Analytica situation

#342

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why they admit that they'd audit the pre-2014 apps now when NYT and Guardian/Observer broke the news? I don't know, they should have done it when Obama committed even worse Facebook privacy violations back in 2008/2012. I guess when you have Chris Hughes working for your campaign, it's easier to keep things under wraps and spin what does become public as a positive. It was only after Trump won that this kind of use o…

> I don't know, they should have done it when Obama committed even worse Facebook privacy violations back in 2008/2012. I know a lot of folks have been desperate to make a false equivalence with the Obama campaign's social media use, but it doesn't pass the sniff test: https://washingtonmonthly.com/2018/03/21/no-obama-didnt-empl...

I hope you're kidding. Not sure what the rule on repeating myself is but since this is currently the top comment in this chain, I'll post it here anyway:

https://www.investors.com/politics/editorials/facebook-data-....

"Facebook was surprised we were able to suck out the whole social graph, but they didn't stop us once they realized that was what we were doing." - Carol Davidsen, Former Obama Campaign Director

They used the exact same technique to access data from 190 million profiles - and about 189 million of those were without explicit authorization. Exactly the same technique, just with 4X the reach that CA had.

Re: Zuckerberg on Cambridge Analytica situation

#343
post #200

I have to wonder if Facebook was even competently exploiting people's data for money. It sounds like they essentially gave away nearly all of their users' profiles for free to any app developer who could get a user to sign up. Facebook didn't even charge app developers for access to the Platform. This would allow app developers to create a copy of the data and re-sell that. And Facebook wouldn't see a dime. If their…

This assumes that the profiles are the most valuable data they have, which I tend to doubt. It seems like the real money is in the interactions between users, the engagement with the feed (what gets eyeballs) and the third-party sources like their tracking pixels and referrer data.

Re: Zuckerberg on Cambridge Analytica situation

#345
post #106

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not really selling it's user data for money; it's selling access to it's users for money. Sure, user data allows some advanced targeting, but the reason they make the profit they do is that people are buying ads for people to see, not data about them. That's an important distinction.

Most people are buying ads for people to see. Some others, however, are using the platform as access to user’s extensive 3P data, once they click and are shuffled through multiple shady ad exchanges gathering and selling data, including the social graph. Some others, like CA and ilk, also get easy access to user’s psychometric data, by embedding the psychometrics into A/B tested ad content. The adage “you are the pro…

Facebook has cut down more and more on that as they've decided to be an advertising company instead of a platform. The vast majority of their data issues come from pre-2015 when they were still experimenting with their business model.

Honestly, at the moment, Facebook has huge economic incentives to keep as much data to itself as possible. Facebook being the only place where you can microtarget to such an extent is a huge moat around their business.

Re: Zuckerberg on Cambridge Analytica situation

#346

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why they admit that they'd audit the pre-2014 apps now when NYT and Guardian/Observer broke the news? I don't know, they should have done it when Obama committed even worse Facebook privacy violations back in 2008/2012. I guess when you have Chris Hughes working for your campaign, it's easier to keep things under wraps and spin what does become public as a positive. It was only after Trump won that this kind of use o…

> I don't know, they should have done it when Obama committed even worse Facebook privacy violations back in 2008/2012. I know a lot of folks have been desperate to make a false equivalence with the Obama campaign's social media use, but it doesn't pass the sniff test: https://washingtonmonthly.com/2018/03/21/no-obama-didnt-empl...

[deleted]

Re: Zuckerberg on Cambridge Analytica situation

#347
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…

If this was about tracking and informed consent, then the illegal ity is there https://amp.theguardian.com/technology/2015/mar/31/facebook-...

There was no consent because tracking was not opt-in but opt out.

More recently regarding user personal details and lack of consent, again deemed illegal in Germany https://amp.theguardian.com/technology/2018/feb/12/facebook-...

The pattern I see is that europe considers facebook's methods to commoditize users' data to be unreasonable and will be regulated.

Re: Zuckerberg on Cambridge Analytica situation

#348
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…

Yeah this is one of the worst part about this whole situation. Everyone screaming ILLEGAL!! and also somehow acting like Facebook is the only one doing this?

Almost EVERY free site is trying their damn best to collect as much info and link everything together to sell it so they can- you know.. make money.

I guess those people are instead willing to pay for virtually every site they use on the internet, right? Right? crickets

Re: Zuckerberg on Cambridge Analytica situation

#349
post #106

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not really selling it's user data for money; it's selling access to it's users for money. Sure, user data allows some advanced targeting, but the reason they make the profit they do is that people are buying ads for people to see, not data about them. That's an important distinction.

They are selling market making for an ad market. Any market is a trade of both value and information.

I disagree, because Facebook's incentive is to keep all their information to themselves in an advertising business. If their the only ones who have it, then in order to get the same form of targeting you have to pay them.

Re: Zuckerberg on Cambridge Analytica situation

#350

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> They didn't tell Facebook what they were doing Source?

https://www.investors.com/politics/editorials/facebook-data-... "Facebook was surprised we were able to suck out the whole social graph, but they didn't stop us once they realized that was what we were doing." - Carol Davidsen, Former Obama Campaign Director

> Facebook was surprised we were able to suck out the whole social graph, but they didn't stop us once they realized that was what we were doing

The extraction of Facebook's social graph is the element I agree "finds comparison in the 2008 or 2012 races" [1]. But Obama's campaign didn't mis-represent its identity nor intentions to Facebook. Kogan and Cambridge Analytica did. Obama's campaign didn't lie about deleting its data when asked to (which, to my understanding, it wasn't). Kogan and Cambridge Analytica did. Moreover, Obama's campaign reported its backers to the FEC; Kogan and Cambridge Analytica do not.

[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16642536

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