Facebook Is Going After Its Critics in the Name of Privacy

Post by david_stillwell » Mon, Nov 23, 2020, 9:41 PM UTC

bogomipz wrote: post #120

SpicyLemonZest wrote: post #108

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I really don't follow your point here. It's plausible, but lots of things are plausible - it's plausible that the original reporting is correct, plausible that Stillwell is embarrassed about his involvement, plausible that Cambridge was involved in some way that didn't involve Stillwell. You seem to have reached a stronger conclusion, that Stillwell's statement is definitely correct and the reporting was definitely w…

I actually provided a link that to a well-researched article by Wired Magazine. I have also pointed out that the differentiation between the two different apps is well-documented. In that I have given you the two key points that you could easily use in your own Google search. What have you provided? You have provided exactly nothing to substantiate your "strong" conclusion. It's hard to see how you yourself "got ther…

The story is unfortunately complicated, so many news outlets get it wrong. myPersonality was my app that ran from 2007-12. Michal and I published papers based on its resulting data, which was collected with user consent and only from users who used the app (not their friends). We worked in the Psychometrics Centre - a research group in Cambridge University. Prof. Kogan joined Cambridge University later on in 2013 as an independent faculty member not in the Psychometrics Centre, created his own app 'mydigitallife,' and went on to work with Cambridge Analytica using data from users of his app and their friends.

So key points from my perspective are (1) My app isn't the same as Kogan's app, (2) I didn't work with Cambridge Analytica, (3) Kogan was independent faculty, not part of the Psychometrics Centre.

As you've noticed from my post history, I don't usually use this website. I do, however, have an alert set up that pings me links when someone uses my name online. I have it set up so that I can attempt to correct journalists who write about me and my research group and get the facts wrong.

Hope this clarifies things

Edit: Since I'm here. I think it's critical that NYU's Ad Observatory continues and that academics have freedom to collect data and report results that might embarrass rich and powerful companies. Tweet #9 in this thread is the key one ( https://twitter.com/doctorow/status/1329873620353515520 ) - how do we know that FB's own ad library isn't good enough? Because Ad Observatory found that it wasn't reporting all instances of political ads.

Post by djohnston » Tue, Nov 24, 2020, 2:14 PM UTC

bobthepanda wrote: post #106

djohnston wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

i think the point is that no academic is owed any of this data, and while FB was collaborating with academic institutions, its clearly not worth the risk

NYU isn't collaborating with FB though. It's collaborating with FB users, who explicitly agree to do this. Does FB get to dictate how its users get to share their own data?

I would argue yes, particularly social media data. For one thing most interactions on these platforms involve at least two parties interacting. If one of these parties decides to send the transactions to a chrome extension, it seems they are making a decision unilaterally for all participants. Certainly if anyone is going to do that it will be the platform itself.

Re: Facebook Is Going After Its Critics in the Name of Privacy

Re: Facebook Is Going After Its Critics in the Name of Privacy