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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

#161

Post by intricatedetail »

Ajedi32 wrote: post #102
dfxm12 wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Cambridge Analytica used the Facebook API to ask users to share data about them & their friends. Stupid users agreed to that. According to Facebook, this is not what happened and CA's collection of this data represented a breach in their platform policies [0]: In 2015, we learned that a psychology professor at the University of Cambridge named Dr. Aleksandr Kogan lied to us and violated our Platform Policies by passi…

From the link: > The claim that this is a data breach is completely false. Aleksandr Kogan requested and gained access to information from users who chose to sign up to his app, and everyone involved gave their consent. People knowingly provided their information, no systems were infiltrated, and no passwords or sensitive pieces of information were stolen or hacked. Users knowingly _agreed_ to share their data with D…

You can agree to many things it doesn't mean it becomes legal.

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

#162

Post by ysavir »

dragontamer wrote: post #156
ysavir wrote: post #152

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Doesn't change my overall point. That's because you keep making points that ignore that the end users knowingly granted permission to Dr. Kogan . If I buy a car, I don't expect the transmission manufacturer to be part of the specs or shopping process, so yes, I would sue Ford. But if Ford says "comes with Goodyear tires", and then one of those tires proves faulty, I'll be suing Goodyear, not Ford. But if you really…

Analogies seem to be failing. So lets actually talk about the case then. Cambridge Analytica asked user A for permission. Facebook allowed CA to gather information about B (A's friend), and B NEVER provided consent. B now is wondering who to sue: Facebook or CA. My opinion: (IANAL). B sues Facebook. Then, Facebook sues CA. This leads to a few results: 1. If B loses its case against Facebook, the game is over. 2. If B…

If we're going with a chain lawsuit, then why skip the step where B sues A for sharing their information with Dr. Kogan?

B sues A for sharing their information, then A sues Facebook, then Facebook sues CA. That would be the full cycle, no? If B is allowed to skip suing A in favor of suing Facebook directly, why shouldn't they also skip suing Facebook and sue Dr. Kogan directly? Or maybe it doesn't even get to go that far: B just needs to sue A, Facebook gets to sue Dr. Kogan, and that's all we see.

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

#163

Post by munk-a »

saiya-jin wrote: post #158
musingsole wrote: post #147

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I haven't seen it phrased that way before, and now that I have, I simultaneously accept the logic of it and am horrified by the bureaucratic churn that must spin up just to ferry legal responsibility to (in theory) the correct party.

The real world is ridiculously complex place, something about almost endless fractal. I too would like to see companies like FB burn because they gave us plenty of reasons in the past, but in this case... I look it from outdoor equipment perspective - if on my goretex jacket an YKK zipper fails, for me the jacket manufacturer (say Rab) would be the one to raise a warranty ticket/questions, not japanese YKK which prod…

Well one potential outcome of a suit against YKK for a zipper failure might be that, in fact, the zipper itself didn't fail due to poor quality reasons - but instead the fabric shed and accumulated in the teeth wearing them down over time... Basically, with an assembled product, it's unreasonable to expect consumers to try and identify the actual fault of the design.

As an anecdote on this topic.... I recall having a long necked jacket as a kid where the zipper wore down heavily around the collar since the neck was so long that it ended up being too tall for normal day-wear - and thus a lot of unnecessary stress was put on the zipper mechanism when it was partially zipped up. After a few months the teeth had weakened in that area to the point where the zipper would frequently come off the tracks there. In this specific case fitting a jacket with a four inch collar caused a zipper failure - the zipper was probably cheaply made anyways but if the cut of the jacket had been different there likely wouldn't have been an issue.

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

#164

Post by dragontamer »

ysavir wrote: post #162
dragontamer wrote: post #156

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Analogies seem to be failing. So lets actually talk about the case then. Cambridge Analytica asked user A for permission. Facebook allowed CA to gather information about B (A's friend), and B NEVER provided consent. B now is wondering who to sue: Facebook or CA. My opinion: (IANAL). B sues Facebook. Then, Facebook sues CA. This leads to a few results: 1. If B loses its case against Facebook, the game is over. 2. If B…

If we're going with a chain lawsuit, then why skip the step where B sues A for sharing their information with Dr. Kogan? B sues A for sharing their information, then A sues Facebook, then Facebook sues CA. That would be the full cycle, no? If B is allowed to skip suing A in favor of suing Facebook directly, why shouldn't they also skip suing Facebook and sue Dr. Kogan directly? Or maybe it doesn't even get to go that…

> If we're going with a chain lawsuit, then why skip the step where B sues A for sharing their information with Dr. Kogan?

B interacts to A through Facebook, do they not?

If Facebook wants to sue A as the next leg in the chain, they're certainly welcome to try. That's the joy about just following the edge of the graph: its Facebook's job to figure out if A is more at fault (and should be sued) or if Cambridge Analytica is more at fault.

This "chain" methodology further demonstrates which lawsuits are likely fruitless. The concept of Facebook suing A, or even Cambridge Analytica for suing A (if it goes that far) is clearly improper at face value. Breaking things up one-step at a time allows us to seek justice.

IE: the entire point of the justice system.

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

#166

Post by f430 »

man the comments on HN blaming people and defending Facebook is creepy.

Facebook screwed up, now they need to pony up and compensate its users.

If this lawsuit goes through then expect more all over the world.

It's open season on social networks and it's perfectly justified. Facebook's role in bringing 4 years of Trump was punishment enough.

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

#167

Post by munk-a »

ergocoder wrote: post #155
orangeoxidation wrote: post #139

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Cambridge Analytica's app on Facebook had harvested the data of people who interacted with it - and that of friends who had not given consent. This is the problem (quote from op article). Facebook collected data on people and than shared this data to third parties without their consent. That friends gave consent to this has no relevance. They don't have the right to do so and they didn't do it themselves. Facebook…

Yeah, it's relevant. If you share your friend's data, it's primarily your fault. You know your friend's email, and you decide to share it with someone else. Now I agree that FB should bear some responsibility since it's such a large platform. But it's you who is mainly at fault for sharing. If you shout your friend's email in a hotel's lobby, you wouldn't blame the hotel, right?

> If you shout your friend's email in a hotel's lobby, you wouldn't blame the hotel, right?

No but your friend would be quite in the right to blame you if they got threatening emails as a result of it. Depending on whether actual harm came from the act and whether you shouted their email with an intent to cause harm (even a different harm like a cascade of d** pics) then you could be held liable for damages.

If you act in a manner intended to cause harm and harm results - even if not in the manner you intended - then you can be held liable. Greasing a sidewalk so that folks will fall on their ass for the giggles and then causing someone to break their spine still leaves you liable for damages - even if you were unable to foresee the potential outcome of someone breaking their spine.

The hotel lobby example is likely to not result in liability due to difficulties in showing you acted maliciously but there certainly is a possibility there.

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

#168

Post by thaumasiotes »

mandevil wrote: post #153
btown wrote: post #128

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And Facebook is being sued for... not having technical mitigations to guard against contractual breaches?

Well sure, I don't have a contract with Dr. Kogan, so what can I sue him for? There is no breach of any contract between us. I do have a contract with Facebook, so they are pretty much the only people I can sue. They can turn around and sue Dr. Kogan because they did have a contract with him, but I can't sue him directly for breaching a contract I'm not a part of.

> I do have a contract with Facebook, so they are pretty much the only people I can sue.

Can you sue them for this, though? Your contract would need to say "if I personally turn my data over to a third party, that third party will not misuse it". And in the unlikely event that it did say that, misuse of your data by the third party still wouldn't violate the contract, because... the third party is not party to the contract.

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

#169

Post by hinkley »

shanemlk wrote: post #106
jagged-chisel wrote: post #100

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Probably because the language you chose to use is less than civil.

Touché, valid point. But someone's gotta break the Matrix once in a while... at the end of the day, this is just a text based website, and I'm hammering keys. It wasn't like I was walking down the street yelling obscenities. It's OK, to be aggressive sometimes. Everything in moderation.

It's okay to be loud sometimes. But in a large room? It's the group's sense of 'sometimes', that matters, not the individual's. In a big group it's always somebody's "sometime", unless you divide by the population.

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

#170

Post by orangeoxidation »

ergocoder wrote: post #155
orangeoxidation wrote: post #139

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Cambridge Analytica's app on Facebook had harvested the data of people who interacted with it - and that of friends who had not given consent. This is the problem (quote from op article). Facebook collected data on people and than shared this data to third parties without their consent. That friends gave consent to this has no relevance. They don't have the right to do so and they didn't do it themselves. Facebook…

Yeah, it's relevant. If you share your friend's data, it's primarily your fault. You know your friend's email, and you decide to share it with someone else. Now I agree that FB should bear some responsibility since it's such a large platform. But it's you who is mainly at fault for sharing. If you shout your friend's email in a hotel's lobby, you wouldn't blame the hotel, right?

> If you shout your friend's email in a hotel's lobby, you wouldn't blame the hotel, right?

I wouldn't. But if my friend went to reception and told the staff "Hey, you know my friend in room 101? Please share their mail with the stranger in room 301. Thank you." I very much would.

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