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Zuckerberg on Cambridge Analytica situation

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Re: Zuckerberg on Cambridge Analytica situation

#451

Post by downandout »

illumin8 wrote: post #442
mirimir wrote: post #362

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It does seem like the Obama campaigns got preferential access to Facebook data. Data for even more people than CA got. And perhaps the Clinton campaign did as well, or at least got access to the older data. What distinguishes CA and the Trump campaign is how well the data was used. CA staff apparently just did a better job at using the data to manipulate people. Their canvassing app. Using bots on Facebook and Twitte…

There's a lot of bad information in this thread. https://twitter.com/mbsimon/status/975231597183229953 "I ran the Obama 2008 data-driven microtargeting team. How dare you! We didn’t steal private Facebook profile data from voters under false pretenses. OFA voluntarily solicited opinions of hundreds of thousands of voters. We didn’t commit theft to do our groundbreaking work."

It's actually not such bad info [1] (from Carol Davidsen, Obama's former campaign manager). The guy you quote certainly has the opinion that it was OK to access and use the data of 190 MILLION people for political purposes, only 1 million of whom explicitly authorized him to do so, but I'm guessing that the majority of those 190 million people would vehemently disagree with him.

https://twitter.com/cld276/status/975568130117459975

Re: Zuckerberg on Cambridge Analytica situation

#452

Post by thebokehwokeh2 »

astro_robot wrote: post #297

I just don't get it. I don't get the enormous backlash over this. Users give away their data to a company, the company sells that data to advertisers (or sells ads and targets the ads according to data), and the users can continue using the service they enjoy for free. This was the contract you agreed to when you clicked the sign up button. I don't get why people are mad at Zuckerberg and not themselves! People act l…

For one, I don't think most people are acutely aware that this is what is going on. The HN reading crowd is the enlightened technical elite. We know that this is the transaction which occurs whenever we do something for "free" on the internet. Regular people may wonder why something as sophisticated as this is free, but are not aware that the cost is privacy. They just think "oh, this is a cool free fun thing. Awesome!" and be on their way.

Even then, the surprising, and technically not against TOS, open secret to every single social app that leverages it, is the comparative ease with which one could scrape a user's peer nodes' entire public history without explicit permission from said node. This is the thing that allows for all those "you may know" invite suggestion engines.

And this is by design, obviously, as it is literally the only thing that makes facebook valuable.

Re: Zuckerberg on Cambridge Analytica situation

#453

Post by weaksauce »

downandout wrote: post #446
weaksauce wrote: post #434

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> That’s because the more than 1 million Obama backers who signed up for the app gave the campaign permission to look at their Facebook friend lists. permission for one. > The campaign called this effort targeted sharing. And in those final weeks of the campaign, the team blitzed the supporters who had signed up for the app with requests to share specific online content with specific friends simply by clicking a butt…

permission for one. Which were the same permissions that the users of the Kogan app gave. Remember that the issue here revolves around the fact that friends of the users of either app never gave permission for their data to be used. The only difference is that Obama did this to about 4X as many people. Also, that number 189 million is absolutely likely to be way too high and is likely bullshit According to their own…

> Which were the same permissions that the users of the Kogan app gave. Remember that the issue here revolves around the fact that friends of the users of either app never gave permission for their data to be used. The only difference is that Obama did this to about 4X as many people.

you're still wrong but at this point, with all the evidence showing just how different the situation is, i suspect you want to be for whatever reason.

Re: Zuckerberg on Cambridge Analytica situation

#454

Post by philipodonnell »

astro_robot wrote: post #297

I just don't get it. I don't get the enormous backlash over this. Users give away their data to a company, the company sells that data to advertisers (or sells ads and targets the ads according to data), and the users can continue using the service they enjoy for free. This was the contract you agreed to when you clicked the sign up button. I don't get why people are mad at Zuckerberg and not themselves! People act l…

Well they sort of promised the FTC they wouldn't just do that without giving you a heads up, but then in the api they let your data out to apps that you didn't get a heads up about.

Re: Zuckerberg on Cambridge Analytica situation

#455

Post by katastic »

downandout wrote: post #220
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…

>When you singup for Facebook, you agree that anything you post might be shared with others on the platform.

Except you CAN'T sign away your rights in many jurisdictions, including this thing called HIPAA. So if Facebook sold people's mentions of health problems to third-parties... is that a violation?

I mean, this is the exact scenario people grilled Windows 10's spyware. But somehow, Facebook doing it, isn't an issue? What's the difference? I'm honestly asking.

Re: Zuckerberg on Cambridge Analytica situation

#456

Post by Mahn »

Does no one realize that this a bed that we have made ourselves? That the sea of data that the large five swim in is product of the modern deal that society has with tech, which no one forced us to make? Why is everyone happy to blame Facebook for what is fundamentally modern society's fault? I feel like I'm taking crazy pills.

Re: Zuckerberg on Cambridge Analytica situation

#457

Post by halfjoking »

astro_robot wrote: post #297

I just don't get it. I don't get the enormous backlash over this. Users give away their data to a company, the company sells that data to advertisers (or sells ads and targets the ads according to data), and the users can continue using the service they enjoy for free. This was the contract you agreed to when you clicked the sign up button. I don't get why people are mad at Zuckerberg and not themselves! People act l…

Also the people in this data scandal took a quiz from a shady company and probably clicked through the prompt to share their info without thinking twice. The only problem was it got some of their friends info... but that bug/feature was fixed years ago.

Personally I quit Facebook upon signing up the first time in 2009. I friended a real life friend then 20 assholes from high school saw that action on my friends timeline and tried friending me. Right away I closed my Facebook account and never signed up again.

It was obvious back then Facebook shares my actions I don't want public with anyone they feel like. If you don't want them to do that then you shouldn't use the service.

Re: Zuckerberg on Cambridge Analytica situation

#458

Post by thebokehwokeh2 »

Gaelan wrote: post #444

IMO, what CA did was more of a phishing attack than anything. People voluntarily gave the "personality quiz" access to their data, and that was abused. The reaction to the data being given to CA wasn't big enough, but beyond that I'm not sure I see what Facebook did wrong.

I think where facebook messed up is, by default (because it's the only thing that makes them valuable), set entire user permissions as public.

Re: Zuckerberg on Cambridge Analytica situation

#459

Post by Gaelan »

downandout wrote: post #360
JumpCrisscross wrote: post #350

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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…

CA didn't represent anything to Facebook. They never created an app. They bought data, years later, from Kogan, who had created an app. Kogan violated Facebook policies, but there again, he didn't "misrepresent his identity [or] intentions" to Facebook. You didn't (and still don't) have to represent any intentions to Facebook to create an app. You simply create the app and agree to the platform terms and conditions.…

The "false intentions" here are about the user agreeing to use the app.

Obama: "Give us a list of your Facebook friends, and we'll help you contact them about voting for Obama." While the Obama campaign did collect data about friends, this data was voluntarily given to them by users. If the Obama campaign had your Facebook data, it was because one of your friends knowingly and voluntarily gave it to the Obama campaign.

Kogan/CA: "Take a free personality quiz!" The people taking the quiz likely had no idea that they were supporting a political campaign or helping Trump win. You could have your data given to CA even if nobody in your friend graph supported it.

Also, that 190 million figure is probably inaccurate, because there is probably significant overlap in people's friends lists.

Re: Zuckerberg on Cambridge Analytica situation

#460

Post by downandout »

weaksauce wrote: post #453
downandout wrote: post #446

Earlier quoted context omitted.

permission for one. Which were the same permissions that the users of the Kogan app gave. Remember that the issue here revolves around the fact that friends of the users of either app never gave permission for their data to be used. The only difference is that Obama did this to about 4X as many people. Also, that number 189 million is absolutely likely to be way too high and is likely bullshit According to their own…

> Which were the same permissions that the users of the Kogan app gave. Remember that the issue here revolves around the fact that friends of the users of either app never gave permission for their data to be used. The only difference is that Obama did this to about 4X as many people. you're still wrong but at this point, with all the evidence showing just how different the situation is, i suspect you want to be for…

What exactly am I wrong about?
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