Live data from Hacker News

Facebook sued for ‘losing control’ of users’ data

bbc.com

71–80 of 198 posts

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

#71
post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Facebook is allowing people to grant access to their data to third-parties and Facebook should somehow be faulted for that. It's not clear to me that they shouldn't be faulted. How many people read terms and conditions? How many people lack the technological literacy to understand what it means to share their facebook data with third-parties? It seems to me like we should make our systems robust to the average user…

> It's not clear to me that they shouldn't be faulted. How many people read terms and conditions? How many people lack the technological literacy to understand what it means to share their facebook data with third-parties? I'm not trying to argue here, but I see this argument pop up often when discussing big tech and user data. I'm curious why the tone is so different when it comes to mortgages or auto loans, for exa…

[deleted]

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

#72
post #55
post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I have the ability to share this data in any way I choose. Freely sharing your friends' data without their permission may be a GDPR violation. > because even though the information may be about you, we understand that it's "my" data. That's just not true. Why would you think that?!

> Freely sharing your friends' data without their permission may be a GDPR violation. Absurd, how would an email provider or social network even work if you couldn't enter your friends contact information.

There is an exception for data that is required for the functioning of the service. You need your friends email address to use email, but do you really need their birthday or a sentiment analysis of their opinion of cheesecakes?

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

#73
post #29
post #2

This is the result of open APIs. It shows why web sites like Facebook have to close them down. They are not worth it, they are a liability.

If you drive a car at 350kph on the highway, crash and die. Your death isn't due to "open roads", it's due to neglect/abuse

Roads are not really open, there is a ton a regulations around roads, what kind of cars can be sold for public road use and who can utilize the public road ways as a driver so your analogy fails on its face there.

besides that fact, we also do not sue a Car manufacturer if a User of their car does go 350kph on the highway' crashes and dies.....

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

#74
post #55
post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I have the ability to share this data in any way I choose. Freely sharing your friends' data without their permission may be a GDPR violation. > because even though the information may be about you, we understand that it's "my" data. That's just not true. Why would you think that?!

> Freely sharing your friends' data without their permission may be a GDPR violation. Absurd, how would an email provider or social network even work if you couldn't enter your friends contact information.

> Absurd

You're joking, right? Ever played a video game before? Add by user name. Share a link... There are tons of options without sharing real-world data.

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

#75
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…

Wow you should really think twice before you start calling people stupid, it has the opposite effect that you intend... especially considering you’re not right in this case.

Do you read the TOS of every service you sign up for? regardless, CA was found in violation of the TOS so there wasn’t much many people caught up in that scandal could have possibly done.

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

#76
post #64
post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

As I understand, it was a browser extension which scraped data off the Facebook pages visited by users. There is no way Facebook could reasonably detect or combat that.

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

#77
post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There’s no thousand page EULA. Just a screen that says “do you want to allow this app to access your profile data and your friend list” and they clicked yes.

Should Cambridge Analytica then be held accountable for being dubious in what users were giving access to and what they would do with that data? Do you think if they knew the full scope of Cambridge Analytica's work they would've allowed them to access the data?

Absolutely, but if I remember correctly Cambridge Analytica is no more and the law doesn't seem to be going after whoever was behind the company.

> Do you think if they knew the full scope of Cambridge Analytica's work they would've allowed them to access the data?

Honestly? I'm not sure - a lot of people already dismiss privacy concerns and ad tracking as "I've got nothing to hide" or "it's just ads, no big deal". Unfortunately I wouldn't be surprised if people opted in even if CA was fully transparent with their intentions.

However, CA even broke Facebook's API terms of use, so at least if CA was transparent Facebook wouldn't have allowed them API access to begin with (though I'm sure they would've worked around that, with malicious apps/browser extensions or just asking for raw Facebook credentials, bypassing the API completely).

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

#78
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…

IIRC the issue with CA was that a friend could share my data without me knowing. It could have been data that I uploaded and not my friend (and maybe the friend didn't even know the existence of this data).

I remember Facebook permissions for Apps in the past were quite laxes. I wonder even if theren't were data accessible to apps that were not visible from the browser interface.

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

#79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As Mr. Zuckerberg stated personally, the main product of Facebook are ads. That means, everything around ads and user tracking is their core business. Not whatever users do, but whatever users see and click when an ad is up. Making privacy settings more restrictive or convenient goes directly against Facebook's business model, as does transparency about data brokerage and third parties. Saying that basically the user…

The Cambridge Analytica scandal has nothing to do with Facebook's business model and Facebook did not gain anything from this. To the best of my knowledge CA abused a free feature (API access) designed for legitimate usage to collect user data for nefarious purposes. Facebook was acting as a neutral carrier here and respected the user's intention of sharing their data with CA.

> The Cambridge Analytica scandal has nothing to do with Facebook's business model and Facebook did not gain anything from this.

Hilarious.

The Cambridge Analytica scandal is in regards to a nefarious 3rd party using Facebook's pipes in a way that violated Facebook's policy. There are emails to show that Facebook knew about this, and did not act to remove CA's access to said pipes (no, [1] there are literally emails about this that were found during discovery).

You even mentioned it

> To the best of my knowledge CA abused a free feature (API access) designed for legitimate usage to collect user data for nefarious purposes

Yes. They abused it. They abused it and were allowed to continue abusing it because Facebook's business model is data, not user privacy. You're blaming CA for what FB quite literally (and I mean quite literally) allowed them to do, told them to stop doing, then turned a blind eye when CA _continued_ to do it.

Again. Not my opinion. It's a matter of factual record.

Links - https://www.businessinsider.com/facebook-emails-show-workers... - https://www.nbcnews.com/tech/social-media/newly-released-mes...

Edit: Formatting

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

#80

I'd just continually sue them for literally anything and everything, even if they didn't break the law. Fuck that zuckerburg cuck. Their apps are literal burning addiction dumpster fire garbage. I hope their offices get struck by a meteorite.

In what way is he a cuck?
Post reply on HN