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Facebook sued for ‘losing control’ of users’ data

bbc.com

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Re: Facebook sued for ‘losing control’ of users’ data

#61

Post by paxys »

inetknght wrote: post #11
Nextgrid wrote: post #3

I'm no Facebook fan but the reasons behind the lawsuit are bad and could set a bad precedent. Cambridge Analytica used the Facebook API to ask users to share data about them & their friends. Stupid users agreed to that. The argument here isn't that Facebook is playing fast and loose with tracking & user data (which would be a legitimate argument), it's that Facebook is allowing people to grant access to their data to…

> Cambridge Analytica used the Facebook API to ask users to share data about them & their friends. Stupid users agreed to that. Not reading a 1000 page EULA doesn't make users stupid. It makes Facebook predatory.

The OAuth consent screen is like 3 lines of text, maybe 100 pixels in length and width. There is no EULA, so not sure what you are talking about.

Re: Facebook sued for ‘losing control’ of users’ data

#62

Post by Alex3917 »

Nextgrid wrote: post #3

I'm no Facebook fan but the reasons behind the lawsuit are bad and could set a bad precedent. Cambridge Analytica used the Facebook API to ask users to share data about them & their friends. Stupid users agreed to that. The argument here isn't that Facebook is playing fast and loose with tracking & user data (which would be a legitimate argument), it's that Facebook is allowing people to grant access to their data to…

Before the Cambridge Analytica thing, everyone was saying that Facebook was evil because they were a walled garden. So they created an API, and now everyone is saying they're evil because they created an API. Go figure.

There's even a Gaping Void cartoon memorializing the sentiment: http://vhirsch.com/blog/2011/10/06/walled-gardens/

Re: Facebook sued for ‘losing control’ of users’ data

#64

Post by efdee »

CivBase wrote: post #59
hn_throwaway_99 wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is ludicrous. So somebody friends me on Facebook, someone who I know and trust. Then that person comes along some quiz, and then in teeny text at the bottom of what looks like a standard "blah blah blah" popup is the information, carefully worded as to not be too alarmist, that that person's friends' data (i.e. me) will also be sucked up. At that point, why just stop at friends? Why not go to any transitive rela…

If you told Facebook to give someone access to your personal information and they took it and handed it off to a third party, what is Facebook supposed to do about that? What can Facebook do about that? What could any website do about that? I despise Facebook, but I really don't understand this whole Cambridge Analytica thing. There doesn't appear to be an endgame for those criticizing Facebook over the ordeal. Of al…

It's not that my friend gave my info to someone else. My friend allowed the app to ask Facebook information about me.

In the end, it's still Facebook who handed over my data. That my friend decided that was OK doesn't change much.

Re: Facebook sued for ‘losing control’ of users’ data

#67

Post by Nextgrid »

manux wrote: post #27
lupire wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Reading the EULA and T&C are irrelevant, because what CA did wrong was violate the EULA and T&C. Anyway, You are making an argument for regulations requiring disclosures, like in mortgages and nutrition labels, not an argument that Facebook is at fault for letting users interact with 3rd parties, which could have been a browser extension that scraped the same data that the FB API provides.

True, but until these regulations exists, I'm not sure why we shouldn't hold Facebook accountable, at least morally -- and in the example you give, why we shouldn't hold browser extension providers accountable.

Why should Facebook be accountable here instead of the party that acted maliciously? Facebook acted as a neutral carrier. Users told them to share their data with CA, and they did.

CA lied to both their users and even to Facebook itself (I think they breached FB API's terms and conditions), why should it be Facebook that's at fault?

In your argument, if a car is used in a robbery, should the car dealership or manufacturer be also at fault, even though the manufacturer had no idea this particular customer was going to use the car for malicious purposes?

Re: Facebook sued for ‘losing control’ of users’ data

#68

Post by dtech »

stickfigure wrote: post #43
ginko wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>The argument here isn't that Facebook is playing fast and loose with tracking & user data (which would be a legitimate argument), it's that Facebook is allowing people to grant access to their data to third-parties and Facebook should somehow be faulted for that. Even so you wrote yourself that users shared data about their friends. Why does Facebook allow people to share the data of others who didn't agree to this?

> Why does Facebook allow people to share the data of others who didn't agree to this? I have names, email addresses, phone numbers, birthdates, email contents, and more for most of my friends. There's no centralized arbiter of this information; I have the ability to share this data in any way I choose. And I do! I switch email providers, install apps on my phone, use calendaring systems, tell our friends where to me…

> I don't need your consent for any of it, because even though the information may be about you, we understand that it's "my" data.

You do need content though, if I provide my email in a social setting I implicitly give consent to birthday parties etc. I didn't consent to you selling my email as part of a bundle. If people found out you were providing data to random people at least a stern talking to would happen.

Under GDPR it works this way for business too, just because I gave you data for a specific purpose doesn't mean you can do whatever you want with it. I'm not aware of other jurisdictions.

Re: Facebook sued for ‘losing control’ of users’ data

#69

Post by leothecool »

Nextgrid wrote: post #3

I'm no Facebook fan but the reasons behind the lawsuit are bad and could set a bad precedent. Cambridge Analytica used the Facebook API to ask users to share data about them & their friends. Stupid users agreed to that. The argument here isn't that Facebook is playing fast and loose with tracking & user data (which would be a legitimate argument), it's that Facebook is allowing people to grant access to their data to…

Facebook processed data without the consent of the subject of the data, right? (The friends of the user who agreed)

Re: Facebook sued for ‘losing control’ of users’ data

#70

Post by lm28469 »

Nextgrid wrote: post #56
lm28469 wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Stupid users agreed to that. This is on the level of "poor people should just stop being poor" or "she was raped because she didn't dress decently enough" On on side you have a mega corp doing all it can to harvest as much data as possible, backed by behavioural analysis, AB testing, and all kind of studies on how to trick people's brain into feeding the algorithm with more data points. On the other hand you have "…

> On on side you have a mega corp doing all it can to harvest as much data as possible, backed by behavioural analysis, AB testing, and all kind of studies on how to trick people's brain into feeding the algorithm with more data points. On the other hand you have "stupid users" This lawsuit is explicitly not about the big tech giant's (Facebook) data processing (which I agree is a problem). The lawsuit is about how F…

> again nobody's data was shared without consent - people explicitly opted to share their data - which includes basic info about their friends, which I'd argue is their data too - with Cambridge Analytica

You frame this as if it was a logical train of thought but it isn't to me (and apparently I'm not the only one). You're not to decide what the UK courts determine to be acceptable or not and imho you're reasoning is rotten from the get go so any conclusions you draw from it are equally invalid. "consent" isn't a free pass, I can give you the explicit consent to kill me and it would still be illegal for you to do it in every country I know of.

Facebook has a systemic issue with the way they harvest, handle, share and monetise their users data, this case is just a drop in the ocean of sketchy things they've done, I'm not going to cry for them when they finally get a slap on the wrist

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