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Facebook has sent a cease-and-desist letter to researchers

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Re: Facebook has sent a cease-and-desist letter to researchers

#81

Post by echlebek »

cronix wrote: post #45
2arrs2ells wrote: post #33

Don't miss Alex Stamos (former Facebook Chief Security Officer's reply): https://twitter.com/alexstamos/status/1320006154424967170 If I'm understanding Alex right, he's saying that Facebook's 2019 FTC consent decree requires them to limit the personal information collected by apps on the platform.

It's a browser plugin, not a facebook app. Why should facebook have a say on what plugins I have installed in my browser that did not come from facebook? Should they be able to have a say about ublock origin or other apps I have installed on my computer/browser?

I'm sure they would absolutely love to dictate this.

Re: Facebook has sent a cease-and-desist letter to researchers

#82

Post by aluminum96 »

macspoofing wrote: post #73

Mixed feelings on this. On the one hand, I'm against Facebook censorship, especially of academics. On the other hand, the researchers (and journalists) are going to use this research to browbeat Facebook into more censorship (and specifically censorship of the right, though some non-mainstream progressives will be caught up in the dragnet as well) as they have already done with a ton of hit pieces [1]. What to do, wh…

The evidence just doesn't support your claim that Facebook predominantly censors content from the political right. Facebook produces disproportionately more engagements for right-wing sites[1]. This is reflected in the best performing content on the site -- after the first debate, 9 of the top 10 posts were right leaning [2], which is a regular occurrence.

[1] https://www.economist.com/graphic-detail/2020/09/10/facebook... [2] https://www.washingtonpost.com/graphics/2020/elections/debat...

Re: Facebook has sent a cease-and-desist letter to researchers

#83

Post by leothecool »

mobileexpert wrote: post #20

Some takes From Benedict Evans that are worth considering: https://twitter.com/benedictevans/status/1320378054150148098... “Meanwhile: the NYU app has access to friend data in your feed and friend data is also in the ads it scrapes. And it replaces an actual security model with our trust that NYU are nice people and won't abuse this access. That is exactly how Cambridge Analytica happened.”

Too bad he didn't cite where in the source code it does any of this stuff.

Re: Facebook has sent a cease-and-desist letter to researchers

#84

Post by Emendo »

Facebook's complaint about user privacy is really a red herring. I am sure that someone is worried about negative stories written based on the data collected and tasked another person to shut it down in a way that makes the researchers look like a villain and Facebook looks like a hero.

Re: Facebook has sent a cease-and-desist letter to researchers

#86

Post by macspoofing »

aluminum96 wrote: post #82
macspoofing wrote: post #73

Mixed feelings on this. On the one hand, I'm against Facebook censorship, especially of academics. On the other hand, the researchers (and journalists) are going to use this research to browbeat Facebook into more censorship (and specifically censorship of the right, though some non-mainstream progressives will be caught up in the dragnet as well) as they have already done with a ton of hit pieces [1]. What to do, wh…

The evidence just doesn't support your claim that Facebook predominantly censors content from the political right. Facebook produces disproportionately more engagements for right-wing sites[1]. This is reflected in the best performing content on the site -- after the first debate, 9 of the top 10 posts were right leaning [2], which is a regular occurrence. [1] https://www.economist.com/graphic-detail/2020/09/10/faceb…

>Facebook produces disproportionately more engagements for right-wing sites

Bull.

America is a country where any given election 50% vote Democrat and 50% vote Republican. Look at the chart. Look at the total number of left-wing vs right-wing sites. I bet if you add those up, total left-wing engagements will dwarf the number of total right-wing engagements. Looks to me that engagement is skewed towards left-wing, it's just that there are way more left-wing outfits so individual share is lower. Which makes sense, there is one major right-wing news network, Fox News, there's like 10 that are center-left/left wing which have to share the audience.

Re: Facebook has sent a cease-and-desist letter to researchers

#87

Post by libeclipse »

edouard-harris wrote: post #58
MAGZine wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Comparing Cambridge Analytica, who harvested data though means that were not transparent to users (and for malicious purpose), to NYU has explained what data and why, AND has the consent of its users, seems disingenuous at best.

The point is that CA's data harvesting looked like it was transparent to users at the time they were doing it — which is precisely the appearance you'd expect a malicious app to try to convey. The NYU project is probably on the level, but "they're probably on the level" isn't a very good security model at Facebook's scale. More to the point, the FTC's 2019 Consent Decree [1] makes it fairly clear that FB is responsib…

Users have to install a browser extension in order to participate in the study. That's a way higher barrier than the personality quizzes that Cambridge Analytica used.

It also happens at a different layer of abstraction. Cambridge Analytica extracted data through the permissions framework that Facebook itself implemented.

Facebook's interest in its users' data doesn't need further explanation after you see that most of their profits derive from their control over it. The same control that allowed the profitable mass political targeting that these researchers are trying to study.

Re: Facebook has sent a cease-and-desist letter to researchers

#88

Post by mFixman »

libeclipse wrote: post #87
edouard-harris wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The point is that CA's data harvesting looked like it was transparent to users at the time they were doing it — which is precisely the appearance you'd expect a malicious app to try to convey. The NYU project is probably on the level, but "they're probably on the level" isn't a very good security model at Facebook's scale. More to the point, the FTC's 2019 Consent Decree [1] makes it fairly clear that FB is responsib…

Users have to install a browser extension in order to participate in the study. That's a way higher barrier than the personality quizzes that Cambridge Analytica used. It also happens at a different layer of abstraction. Cambridge Analytica extracted data through the permissions framework that Facebook itself implemented. Facebook's interest in its users' data doesn't need further explanation after you see that most…

The researchers ask people to opt in tracking a restricted amount of data, and then install an extension that has access to their entire Facebook accounts.

There is no way for Facebook or anyone else to prove that the current or a future version of the NYU's extension won't scrape more data than people agreed to.

Re: Facebook has sent a cease-and-desist letter to researchers

#89

Post by 013a »

I legitimately don't understand how Facebook has any grounds to C&D this application.

Its a Terms and Conditions violation. Ok, I get that. But, at what point did the developers of this application ever agree to any terms and conditions? Its not like its accessing data via the API, or requires some kind of privileged access levels.

Morals, ethics, security, whatever aside; I just don't understand the legal angle Facebook is using here.

Re: Facebook has sent a cease-and-desist letter to researchers

#90

Post by mFixman »

mcguire wrote: post #57
mobileexpert wrote: post #20

Some takes From Benedict Evans that are worth considering: https://twitter.com/benedictevans/status/1320378054150148098... “Meanwhile: the NYU app has access to friend data in your feed and friend data is also in the ads it scrapes. And it replaces an actual security model with our trust that NYU are nice people and won't abuse this access. That is exactly how Cambridge Analytica happened.”

Doesn't NYU have an Institutional Review Board?

So does the University of Cambridge, and that didn't prevent one of their researchers from scraping and selling user data to Cambridge Analytica.
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