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50M Facebook profiles harvested for Cambridge Analytica in major data breach

theguardian.com

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Re: 50M Facebook profiles harvested for Cambridge Analytica in major data breach

#111

Post by mistermann »

shiftfocustime wrote: post #27

I think it is much more important to focus on an investigation to make clear to the public how this data was used. That i think will lead into a much more interesting story. No one seems to want to go there and i don't understand why. Maybe because a lot of its clients are political parties/political individuals around the world and they do not want to be ousted for using "public opinion manipulation technology" on a…

Any investigation would be about as thorough as the Russian bots "investigation".

Re: 50M Facebook profiles harvested for Cambridge Analytica in major data breach

#112

Post by allthenews »

forapurpose wrote: post #109
allthenews wrote: post #52

Let's be realistic here. This headline is nothing but partisanship. The only reason this is exaggerated as a "data breech" is because of the connection to the Trump campaign. The real scandal is that such data is so easily harvested and freely available. I'd be interested in seeing how much of facebook's data repository was used in targeted political ads by all parties. Including Russian agitators who have been shown…

It's essential to hold the President publicly accountable for his actions, especially when illicit actions pervert the foundation of the United States, the democratic process. That's not partisan; that's normal, healthy democracy; that's the primary public good provided by journalism.

Sure. But it is unethical to exaggerate and hold only part of the political system accountable for shady or illegal practices.

This is part of a consistent pattern. Our media has become as hopelessly partisan as our unfortunate two party system, and unethical behavior on one front does not justify the same on another in response.

Re: 50M Facebook profiles harvested for Cambridge Analytica in major data breach

#113

Post by IAmEveryone »

rhizome wrote: post #110
IAmEveryone wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To a certain degree, this is a problem that Facebook has already taken steps against in the last years. Remember that Facebook gives you zero access to users’ data just for being an advertiser. This scheme relied on users granting access to an app. Data access by apps was curtailed two or three years ago to no longer include friends’ data. The permissions dialog has also become far more granular. From my observation,…

FB has known all of this since it happened two years ago and only admitted it when a journalist asked them about it.

Yes. But the method that was used to siphon the data out of Facebook is no longer available.

Re: 50M Facebook profiles harvested for Cambridge Analytica in major data breach

#114

Post by IAmEveryone »

allthenews wrote: post #52

Let's be realistic here. This headline is nothing but partisanship. The only reason this is exaggerated as a "data breech" is because of the connection to the Trump campaign. The real scandal is that such data is so easily harvested and freely available. I'd be interested in seeing how much of facebook's data repository was used in targeted political ads by all parties. Including Russian agitators who have been shown…

There are at least 25 scandals surrounding the Trump administration currently that are each worse than the two pseudo-scandals surrounding HRC that Conservatives managed to drum up, I. e. E-Mails and “Benghazi”. And ts not like FOX and the entire US Congress have less power than the Guardian.

So, no: “They are all the same” isn’t just cynical and useless. It’s also wrong.

Re: 50M Facebook profiles harvested for Cambridge Analytica in major data breach

#115

Post by thisisit »

olivermarks wrote: post #44

My problem with this 'outing' of CA is that Facebook explicitly commercially exists to harvest user data for Procter & Gamble, Johnson & Johnson, Fidelity etc etc so they can profile us. A million dollars is chump change in the crazy US election game. This all seems overly selective - it's ok for some people to profile but not for others. I'm not in favor of any of it to be clear but there is a definite political bia…

>My problem with this 'outing' of CA is that Facebook explicitly commercially exists to harvest user data for Procter & Gamble, Johnson & Johnson, Fidelity etc etc so they can profile us.

Not only conglomerates but anyone with the money and know-how. Example P&G proxy fight:

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-procter-gamble-trian-inve...

Neubecker said he has seen several ads on his Facebook feed that link to Trian’s “Revitalize P&G” website and to videos of Peltz and former P&G Chief Financial Officer Clayton Daley, who is advising Trian.

The video of Peltz features him sitting in Trian’s Park Avenue, New York City headquarters, discussing P&G’s future, gripping a Trian-labeled coffee mug that reads “Sales up, expenses down.”

In response, P&G has called upon more than a century of product marketing experience with its own “Vote Blue” campaign.

One YouTube video begins with an image of P&G’s blue logo and a banner proclaiming “Every Single Vote Matters!”. A narrator and series of slick images offer step-by-step instructions, ending by asking viewers to vote for the blue proxy card and to throw Trian’s white card in the recycling bin.

Trian won this fight.

Re: 50M Facebook profiles harvested for Cambridge Analytica in major data breach

#116

Post by olivermarks »

IAmEveryone wrote: post #95
olivermarks wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

https://www.wsj.com/articles/p-g-to-scale-back-targeted-face... Not hard to find information, although it is typically couched as brand reach and advertising spots. The big data sales side of FB and other sites is more sensitive and less overt https://www.facebook.com/help/494750870625830?helpref=uf_per...

Your links do not support the idea of “harvest[ing] user data”. They describe the usual Facebook ad platform, where you can set criteria to target users. But nowhere does it mention data on individual users flowing from Facebook to advertisers.

from my original Bloomberg link in post about FB

'Politicians running for office can be lucrative ad buyers. For those who spend enough, Facebook offers customized services to help them build effective campaigns, the same way it would Unilever NV or Coca-Cola Co. ahead of a product launch.

While Facebook declined to give the size of its politics unit, one executive said it can expand to include hundreds during the peak of an election, drawing in people from the company’s legal, information security and policy teams.'

It is harder to find information about FB's data sales policies (which are very opaque unless you speak to people high up in marketing large companies and their activities). FB's ad platform information is pretty transparent, but the quarterly numbers don't really add up for me based on spend by large firms like Procter & Gamble etc in those areas...

Re: 50M Facebook profiles harvested for Cambridge Analytica in major data breach

#117

Post by xienze »

ChicagoDave wrote: post #61
olivermarks wrote: post #44

My problem with this 'outing' of CA is that Facebook explicitly commercially exists to harvest user data for Procter & Gamble, Johnson & Johnson, Fidelity etc etc so they can profile us. A million dollars is chump change in the crazy US election game. This all seems overly selective - it's ok for some people to profile but not for others. I'm not in favor of any of it to be clear but there is a definite political bia…

I could see a constitutional amendment barring psycho-graphic profiling from election advertising and intent. Not sure how it could be enforced because this is very technical. Even so, there is a significant difference between Coke trying to sell me a flavored soft drink and a firm tweaking my emotions to get me to abstain from voting with false information or to vote against my best interests with false information.…

> and a firm tweaking my emotions to get me to abstain from voting with false information or to vote against my best interests with false information.

Better ban 24 hour news networks then. And any form of political advertising.

Re: 50M Facebook profiles harvested for Cambridge Analytica in major data breach

#118

Post by doubt_me »

mistermann wrote: post #105
dang wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> How much did Putin pay you to gas light articles? That is an egregious violation of the guidelines and a bannable offense on HN. If the rest of the internet is losing its mind, that makes following HN's rules more important, not less. > Let's not forget about that one time you This also crosses into personal attack, which is not ok. Heated political arguments are bad enough without users trying to take each other o…

Something I have been noticing for quite some time now is an increasing tendency for people to seemingly believe they can read other people's minds &/or the future, or that they somehow have an omniscient insight into the world. You might expect this on Facebook or Reddit, and I know this will not please most people here, but it is becoming rather common on HN as well. To those of you who disagree with me, keep this…

There is a cult of ignorance in the United States, and there always has been. The strain of anti-intellectualism has been a constant thread winding its way through our political and cultural life, nurtured by the false notion that democracy means that "my ignorance is just as good as your knowledge."

Isaac Asimov, Column in Newsweek (21 January 1980)

Re: 50M Facebook profiles harvested for Cambridge Analytica in major data breach

#119

Post by mbostleman »

olivermarks wrote: post #44

My problem with this 'outing' of CA is that Facebook explicitly commercially exists to harvest user data for Procter & Gamble, Johnson & Johnson, Fidelity etc etc so they can profile us. A million dollars is chump change in the crazy US election game. This all seems overly selective - it's ok for some people to profile but not for others. I'm not in favor of any of it to be clear but there is a definite political bia…

Agreed. This is marketing. The tone of the article makes it sound like some egregiously illegal scandal. The only wrongdoing is that one private entity breached the terms of service with another private entity. Innuendo.

Re: 50M Facebook profiles harvested for Cambridge Analytica in major data breach

#120

Post by tobilg »

616c wrote: post #46
tobilg wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You could get access to the full friends‘ user profile data in Graph API earlier than v2.0. If you had 500 friends, and granted friends_* OAuth permissions to an app, the app had access to 501 user profiles.

You know where you read this?

It’s gone from the FB Graph API docs, but the wayback machine still has it:

https://web.archive.org/web/20130911191323/https://developer...

I was possible to use the v1.0 API until Q2/2015 if I remember correctly (only if you had a v1.0 app though)

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