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Zuckerberg on Cambridge Analytica situation

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Re: Zuckerberg on Cambridge Analytica situation

#531

Post by pyjammas »

rock_hard wrote: post #40
hvass wrote: post #32

Is it clear exactly what 'data' was actually obtained by CA on those millions of people? (I am referring specifically to the millions, not the original subset of 200,000 or so). Is it all public and friends-visible activity? Or it is basics such as name, email, profile photo, etc.? I cannot find so far addressed in the coverage exactly what kind of information CA have had on a per-person basis. If someone can share c…

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

If by public information you mean 'information a friend has shared with you', then yes.

I would not exactly call that public, though.

Re: Zuckerberg on Cambridge Analytica situation

#532

Post by intended »

downandout wrote: post #470
Gaelan wrote: post #465

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think the point neuronexmachina was trying to make about microtargeting is that Obama simply asked their users to send messages to their friends, whereas CA directly advertised to people.

The Obama campaign used that data in every way that CA did. The fact that the app only represented that it was sending messages to friends is just as misleading as what Kogan (not CA, who never had an app) did. They used this data that 99.5% of the people didn't authorize them to have for targeting, campaign strategy, etc.

But this then suggests that we should look far more closely at the Hillary campaign and see why it didn’t win.

Was it bad management ?

Was it not using Facebook data effectively ?

Was CA that pivotal? Was it fake news or better microtargetting?

If both sides used it why did one side lose?

Re: Zuckerberg on Cambridge Analytica situation

#533

Post by sundvor »

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…

One day, the whole farce that is "you agreed to the terms and conditions" deserves to just die.

Almost no one reads them, so they should not be enforceable.

I mean, as developers we know when a session is established, pages are visited, and can easily see how long they've been on the page.

No one can read the typical T&C in 10 seconds .. let alone 1 minute .. especially without even opening the page! So the options should be something like:

[x] I don't care, just whatever dude.

[ ] No. Get me out of here. Because I don't know how to close the browser window myself.

EDIT: Found this as a way of proof http://www.pcpitstop.com/spycheck/eula.asp

Re: Zuckerberg on Cambridge Analytica situation

#534

Post by downandout »

cmac2992 wrote: post #527
downandout wrote: post #523

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Pullling the data that your app needed for its stated functionality, exclusively for use within your app , was “fair game”. Pulling anything beyond that, and/or using it outside your app, was absolutely not allowed, ever, on the platform, even at the very beginning in 2007. Allowing it to be analyzed for targeting was never allowed, nor was it the point of the platform. You’re simply wrong. How do I know this? I deve…

I'd have to dig through the TOS again to confirm my memory on some of this stuff. You definitely could create a custom audience and target your fb app users based on UID. Unless I'm reading this interface totally wrong http://www.jonloomer.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/09/create-f...

You used to be able to target ads based on user ID. That option was closed off a few years ago - I was actually awarded a $2,000 Facebook Bug Bounty for spotting a vulnerability that allowed that option even after they shut it off.

But regardless, it was still a developer TOS violation to export user IDs of people that hadn’t personally authorized your app and use those IDs in any custom audience even back when Obama did it. In other words, you weren’t supposed to grab user IDs of friends of your users and use those in custom audiences. In fact at one point, in an attempt to enforce this policy, Facebook stopped returning friend user IDs, and instead gave proxy user IDs that were meaningful only within the API, but couldn’t be used for custom audience targeting. Then they got rid of the target by ID option altogether.

Re: Zuckerberg on Cambridge Analytica situation

#535

Post by downandout »

gbhn wrote: post #529
downandout wrote: post #460

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What exactly am I wrong about?

It's an agency issue. If I use an attributed channel it's like meeting you and saying "hey remember your friend the CS guy? Our company is looking for someone like that. Could you pass the word along?" vs pretending to be chatting with you when all I'm looking for is relevant recruiting leads which I will then use unbeknownst to you. For hiring this isn't as touchy a subject, but surely there's a qualitative differen…

The end result for the friends, which comprise 99.5% of the victims in both the Obama and Kogan cases, is precisely the same. Nothing was represented to them, their data was just used because someone they were friends with installed the app.

Re: Zuckerberg on Cambridge Analytica situation

#536

Post by codezero »

downandout wrote: post #436
codezero wrote: post #427

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not taking sides here, and I could be very wrong – my assumption here is that Cambridge didn't have a "Trump Campaign App" they had some other app, then sold that data to a third party. Obama's campaign had a "campaign" app, and used the data collected from that app. We can all argue about whether facebook should even allow apps the kind of data they do, but the crux of what CA did was to re-sell data they collec…

the crux of what CA did was to re-sell data they collected from Facebook, right? No. An independent developer had an app many years ago, recorded data from that app, and then sold that data to CA years after the fact. That developer did in fact violate Facebook's developer platform policies by selling the data, but CA had nothing to do with the app or what was represented to the people using it when they installed it…

Are you playing mental gymnastics here? CA bought the data. CA had nothing to do with the app. They did, they bought the data. I get that they aren’t responsible for the person violating facebook’s rules. I think we already established Facebook is the boogeyman here. But we were comparing the Obama campaign app to an app unrelated to a campaign. In this thread there was the implication “obama did the same thing” and I think we can hopefully agree that Obama’s campaign didn’t sell their data in violation of the fb tos as far as we know and the owner of the app who sold to CA did. Sorry I got the name mixed up. Yes CA didn’t sell. But neither did the Obama campaign. So there is not an equivalence.

Re: Zuckerberg on Cambridge Analytica situation

#537

Post by product50 »

anonnel wrote: post #495
product50 wrote: post #483

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do you have a better idea? Be productive with your comments vs. just being a hater.

They are well aware there is no way to assure they haven’t copied data 5 years ago. Pointing that out with rightful indigence is not “being a hater”. (which isn’t a trope that belongs in reasonable conversation)

Unless you have some sort of background in this area, I don't know why I should trust you. Your argument is - yeah sure, this is a bogus exercise, and then you are expecting people to fall in line with you. That is not how you build trust or win debates.

I am hopeful they will find something useful.

Re: Zuckerberg on Cambridge Analytica situation

#539

Post by dredmorbius »

joering2 wrote: post #369

I can't access Facebook page, because I followed yesterday's HN post on adding list of FB domains to my hosts list :) But from reading HNers comments, it doesn't seem I missed anything.

archive.is or the Internet Archive will show the content.
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