I'm still not sure I understand why Cambridge Analytica management/executives aren't in prison for Computer Fraud and Abuse Act violations.
Facebook sued for ‘losing control’ of users’ data
181–190 of 198 posts
Re: Facebook sued for ‘losing control’ of users’ data
#182Earlier quoted context omitted.
> The end users granted Dr. Kogan permission with every opportunity to learn about Dr. Kogan. > Edit: Correction that users had a chance to learn about Dr. Kogan, not CA. The end users granted Facebook the right to share the friend data that their friends had granted them access to. Is there a screenshot of the 'Authorize App' screen at the time? Indeed, what did the fine print say? I can draw a chord chart of my fri…
If we’re friends, I’ve shared my information with you. I haven’t given you (or Facebook, or anyone else) permission to share my data with Cambridge analytica.
If you authorized an app to access the data shared with you, then you authorized release of your friends' information because that's what data you agreed to share with the app.
Indeed, where is a screenshot of the 'Authorize App' consent dialogue that users were presented with.
- A agrees to sharing info with B by accepting a friend request. Explicitly per the terms of service, and implicitly because technically anyone can take a screenshot or a photo or a video and share whatever's shared with them (even in DRM'd systems with limited key distribution).
- B authorizes C to retrieve the data available to B.
- C then reshares, sells, distributes, or otherwise transmits information to D.
F enabled A to share data with B, given explicit user consent. F enabled B to share data with C, given explicit user consent.
If you don't want people to know things, don't put that information on the internet; and don't authorize friends to share information you haven't volunteered.
Re: Facebook sued for ‘losing control’ of users’ data
#183Earlier quoted context omitted.
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.
Certainly. But there's also responsibility of the group members to understand what kind of topics and conversations they're about to enter. Facebook is divisive. It's a stressful topic. The crowd shouldn't click on a link about the 100th crime Facebook committed if the crowd is not ready for the gun fire. The crowd inherited an imperfect world, and it's okay to take a stand, because if the crowd doesn't stand for something, they fall for anything. In certain cultures, "swear words" don't even exist. If certain words deeply offend the crowd, they shouldn't blame other people, they should turn inward using introspection and ask themselves why they're so bothered by certain words written on a webpage. It's not like I hate Mark Zuckerburg with every fiber of my being. I'm sure there's some cool things about him. I'd love to sit down and have him show me his love for the video game Civilization, or what kind meats he likes cooking, or how he designed his smart home. But the topic at hand is business and legality. And frankly, I should be able to take as many shots as I want at him in the public sphere. Just because he's not personally inflicting violence on other humans, does not mean there's billions of lives at stake here. When people enter the ring, political correctness is entirely useless. It's not personal, it's "business".
“If I don’t scream, if I don’t say something, then no one’s going to say anything.”
“I care. I care about everything. Sometimes not giving a f#%k is caring the most.”
“The truth that hurts is the same truth that heals.”
Re: Facebook sued for ‘losing control’ of users’ data
#184I'm still not sure I understand why Cambridge Analytica management/executives aren't in prison for Computer Fraud and Abuse Act violations.
Money.
Re: Facebook sued for ‘losing control’ of users’ data
#185I'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.
Stupid users aren't allowed to say yes to share personal information on their friends. Only the friends are. That is how it should be. An API should never give access to other users data than the one who agreed. Luckily because of GDPR they now can't, though the same rules were there in most of the EU already so it was always illegal at least some of it. IMO the rules should be even tighter and the punishments harsher.
Re: Facebook sued for ‘losing control’ of users’ data
#186If Facebook can't maintain a business model without selling their well-trained and dopamine-addicted userbase like a commodity, then their business model does not deserve to be maintained.
Facebook did not "sell" anything in this case. Facebook is a neutral carrier that got duped like everyone else. A malicious company used Facebook's API to ask for access to people's data and certain data about their friends, and people stupidly said yes. Should we now fault Facebook for complying with their user's wishes?
That very plainly was not the users' wishes. The users' wishes were "go away, window, I want to see my feed, yes whatever, click."
That was something that ill-informed users were effectively tricked into doing by a malicious third party who intentionally fogged up the information they gave to those users.
The fact that Facebook gathered the data to begin with is already a huge problem. If they need to do that to exist, they shouldn't exist, and this is another tiny straw on top of the huge pile of reasons why that business model shouldn't exist.
I don't care how responsible you are with all that data, you shouldn't be gathering it.
Re: Facebook sued for ‘losing control’ of users’ data
#187Earlier quoted context omitted.
> 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…
> we understand that it's "my" data Not really; it's their data, and you're allowed to use it. > Inserting Facebook in this process doesn't really change the dynamic. Yes it does, because while you (the individual) are allowed under GDPR to use the personal data of your friends for personal purposes, that doesn't automatically entitle Facebook to use it for their purposes. Only on your behalf for your purposes.
> it's their data, and you're allowed to use it.
Here in the US, facts are not copyrightable. Your phone number, birthdate, email address, likes on facebook, list of friends, etc are not things that you can "take away" from someone. In theory you could exercise copyright over an email you've written, but I'm not sure that's ever been worked out in court.
> GDPR
You have a jurisdiction problem.
Re: Facebook sued for ‘losing control’ of users’ data
#188I'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 is a neutral carrier here, and they acted on behalf of the user..."
I think that argument is fatally flawed.
The issue with all these user data cases is that the license between the user and Facebook does not restrict how Facebook can use the data. Not simply the data the user submits[1] but the data that Facebook involuntarily collects from the user.
1. This always seems to be how outside observers define "the user's data". They believe it is the data (e.g., photos, etc.) that the user has submitted to Facebook. Facebook may be an optimal place to store photos, etc. Regardless of whether that is true, that is not what is at issue. The issue is what use Facebook is permitted. Can it use the data a user submits any way that it chooses. Yes, it can. Can Facebook collect data on the user, based on their usage, and other sources. Yes, they can. The user has no control over how Facebook uses that data. This is the "loss of control".
It is not always concerned with "transfers" of data, necessarily. It is concerned with how Facebook may use the data it receives from users (knowingly/voluntarily or unknowingly/involuntarily) to support its business. Users pay nothing to Facebook so obviously the data, Facebook's primary asset, is going to be used in ways that generate revenue for Facebook. Users have no say in the decisions over how the data will be used, yet it is "their data" (or data about them). Can it be used in academic research. Yes, it can. Market research. Yes. Users have no control over these uses. It is not simply a matter of changing some setting, which Facebook is constantly fiddling with. It is a matter of the the license the user has with Facebook. The user has no enforceable rights throught that license to control how the data is used.
Re: Facebook sued for ‘losing control’ of users’ data
#189Earlier quoted context omitted.
If we’re friends, I’ve shared my information with you. I haven’t given you (or Facebook, or anyone else) permission to share my data with Cambridge analytica.
If you authorized an app to access the data shared with you, then you authorized release of your friends' information because that's what data you agreed to share with the app . Indeed, where is a screenshot of the 'Authorize App' consent dialogue that users were presented with. - A agrees to sharing info with B by accepting a friend request. Explicitly per the terms of service, and implicitly because technically any…
Your post conflates ethics (what should happen), law (what is legal to happen) and what actually happens.
Ethically, if I tell you my email address, and you sell my name + email address to advertisers without telling me, you've done me wrong. You violated my reasonable expectation of privacy. I have the same expectation if I make a private post to facebook, visible only to my (curated) list of friends. That content is for your eyes only.
Violating that expectation probably has no repercussions under US law. But it is almost certainly illegal under the GDPR. I installed Clubhouse the other day and clubhouse asked me to share my contacts with the app. Saying yes without checking with everyone on my contacts' list was probably illegal in europe. (Rightfully so, in my opinion.)
In this case, A shared information (posts, etc) with B (A's friend) on Facebook. B authorized app X to access their information - which in turn passed that information to Z (Cambridge Analytica) with neither A nor B's consent. Things that went wrong here:
- B should not have been able to pass A's information to a third party (X) without A's explicit consent.
- X should not have passed information to Z (Cambridge Analytica)
- Facebook shouldn't have built a platform which permitted / encouraged such obvious and blatant abuses of privacy. If a user told facebook that some content was private, facebook violated user's trust by sharing that information with a random 3rd party app. B's consent isn't relevant wrt A's data. (Permission isn't transitive.)
Who's legally at fault here? I have no idea, and I'm glad the courts exist to figure all this out.
Meanwhile, our technology is utterly failing user's expectations of privacy - which, yes, actually exists in much of the rest of the world.
> If you don't want people to know things, don't put that information on the internet
What a ridiculous sentiment. No. I want to use the internet and have an expectation of privacy. I will not settle for mediocrity so that facebook can make more money.
Re: Facebook sued for ‘losing control’ of users’ data
#190Earlier quoted context omitted.
> There's no way for Z to even know that X exists Other than the time that X explicitly and directly asked Z for access to their data, you mean. This isn't similar to a case where I stored my users' info in a database on Cloud Hosting Service Inc machines, CHS's lax security allowed the data to be hacked, and I am now accountable to my users because I used an insecure service. Facebook's role in this situation was, l…
> The end users granted Dr. Kogan permission with every opportunity to learn about Dr. Kogan. > Edit: Correction that users had a chance to learn about Dr. Kogan, not CA. The end users granted Facebook the right to share the friend data that their friends had granted them access to. Is there a screenshot of the 'Authorize App' screen at the time? Indeed, what did the fine print say? I can draw a chord chart of my fri…
I believe this is an example Authorize App screen at the time:
https://i.imgur.com/nti4ShY.png
The print wasn't very fine; it was very clear about what information was shared.