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Facebook Security Chief Said to Leave After Clashes Over Disinformation

nytimes.com

191–200 of 436 posts

Re: Facebook Security Chief Said to Leave After Clashes Over Disinformation

#191
post #5

Only thing I want to know: did he sign an NDA?

Of course he did - C-level officer close to hugely controversial issue, leaving the company in 6 months. It'll be predicated on an NDA, some sort of success metrics for the transition process, and a monster golden parachute.

I am sure he is under NDA from the time of his hiring, and whatever his termination package will be, there will be a non-disparagement clause.

Re: Facebook Security Chief Said to Leave After Clashes Over Disinformation

#192

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sure do. This kind of double speak is rampant. One that bubbles to the top of my head is that when some people were targeted for anti-HRC messages(I think specifically it was Haitian Americans on the gulf coast), then that was labeled as "voter suppression", but targeting likely voters for Trump and spreading negative information about him, say the access Hollywood tapes, is "informing the voters"

Yes, it's funny. Titles for two articles, both are easy to google: 1. How Obama’s Team Used Big Data to Rally Voters (MIT Technology Review, 2012) 2. How Trump Consultants Exploited the Facebook Data of Millions (NYT, 2018) No bias here.

[deleted]

Re: Facebook Security Chief Said to Leave After Clashes Over Disinformation

#193
post #168
post #17

There's breaking reporting that Facebook just had personnel in the Cambridge Analytica offices before the UK authorities could get there with warrants. https://twitter.com/carolecadwalla/status/975844154361221121 > BREAKING: Facebook WAS inside Cambridge Analytica's office but have now "stood down" following dramatic intervention by UK Information Commissioner's Office.. https://twitter.com/carolecadwalla/status/9758…

Just curious, what authority does FB have to have the personnel in CA offices? Why didn't CA simply call the cops to get them out?

I would assume the banal reality is that they heard a lot of adverse publicity about someone who was a major client including claims they'd breached Facebook guidelines around storing data taken from APIs, and demanded a meeting. Which CA, who don't really want to get kicked off Facebook's platform, were happy to oblige, whether they were prepared to disclose much information or not.

Of course, when the ICO gets involved then whether CA breached Facebook's EULA or not is moot, and Facebook become relevant only inasmuch as the question of whether their own executives breached or encouraged breaches of data protection laws.

Re: Facebook Security Chief Said to Leave After Clashes Over Disinformation

#194

My greatest hope with all of the noise surrounding this, is that the engineers and employees at Facebook realize that Facebook and Zuckerberg’s vision does not line up with reality. Zuckerberg believes that Facebook will connect people and change the fabric of society and communities for good in a way that was heretofore impossible. Between Facebook’s political issues and the happiness-depressing effects of its use,…

Why would people leave? Facebook knows your buttons and pushes them just right. In aggregate this is terrible for society, but individually it feels good.

Re: Facebook Security Chief Said to Leave After Clashes Over Disinformation

#195
post #5

Only thing I want to know: did he sign an NDA?

There are quite a few ways he may have to get around an NDA: a congressional subpoena requiring testimony superceding NDAs, and so would any testimony in court if this spawns any civil or criminal cases.

All NDAs have exceptions for lawful warrants and other actions by government investigations. Some are even exempt from notifying the other party.

Re: Facebook Security Chief Said to Leave After Clashes Over Disinformation

#196
post #17

There's breaking reporting that Facebook just had personnel in the Cambridge Analytica offices before the UK authorities could get there with warrants. https://twitter.com/carolecadwalla/status/975844154361221121 > BREAKING: Facebook WAS inside Cambridge Analytica's office but have now "stood down" following dramatic intervention by UK Information Commissioner's Office.. https://twitter.com/carolecadwalla/status/9758…

Facebook had enough time to cleanup this mess with Cambridge Analytica (CA). The news about how CA exploited their platform was out just after 2016 election results. If FB was even little bit serious about it they could have done at that time what they are doing now

It's not an "exploit". This stuff was freely given to Obama back in 2012. My best friend was a canvasser and before going into each house, the iPad they used told canvassers what to talk about and not to talk about. It knew who was pro-life so you wouldn't bring up abortion. It knows who's pregnant and who's recently had an abortion (you can get this through knowing what purchases someone has made and not made). There is a file on everybody, their intricate political and consumer dispositions, and this is Facebook's product. CA has blown up in the news despite being only one of many consumers of the same thing because journalists can make the technically true charge that they are "Trump’s election consultants" and millions are primed to go apeshit at that. But CA is just one of many buying the unethical products, and Facebook is just one of many producers of these data sets.

Re: Facebook Security Chief Said to Leave After Clashes Over Disinformation

#197
post #97

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Here's a Twitter thread by someone who worked on Obama's campaign talking about her firm's use of Facebook data. It was tweeted by Julian Assange so I'm assuming it's one of the more damning examples of the Obama campaign using social media data: https://twitter.com/cld276/status/975564499297226752 https://twitter.com/cld276/status/975568130117459975 This person asserts that people from Facebook gave them their bless…

> I ran the Obama 2008 data-driven microtargeting team. How dare you! We didn’t steal private Facebook profile data from voters under false pretenses. OFA voluntarily solicited opinions of hundreds of thousands of voters. We didn’t commit theft to do our groundbreaking work. But isn't the bigger problem sucking up the entire social graph from a small seed of users, not how those users signed up in the first place? If…

Precisely! From what I cant tell, that tweet (which went rather viral) is misleading at best; based on the public information, the 2012 Obama campaign wasn't using that access to target people who volunteered access to their Facebook data, they were using that access to get info about their non-consenting friends and figure out how to get them to vote for Obama. (I commented about this in one of the other threads: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16620454) The 2008 campaign may have been more benign, but the CA Tweet he was debunking was about both, and those Carol Davidsen tweets appear to be about 2012 specifically.

Re: Facebook Security Chief Said to Leave After Clashes Over Disinformation

#199
post #92
post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because the "breaches" and "abuses" aren't breaches or abuses, it's Facebook's business model working as intended.

This fact has me more confused than anything. What did most people think Facebook was doing... Keeping all the data locked away an never letting anyone make use of it? The interest in that data by political entities should have been especially obvious. Additionally, this information about Cambridge Analytica came out months ago. I remember first hearing about it on a podcast that was mostly focused on the personality…

> Additionally, this information about Cambridge Analytica came out months ago.

Minor nit: Years ago.

The name Cambridge Analytica was being circulated in hacker circles since at least mid-2016. Thus far, the only new revelation was the Channel 4 reporting [1].

Security nerds have been complaining about Facebook's business model for years and it fell upon deaf ears.

Suddenly, the public gives a shit and I don't understand what changed.

[1]: https://www.channel4.com/news/cambridge-analytica-revealed-t...

Re: Facebook Security Chief Said to Leave After Clashes Over Disinformation

#200

My greatest hope with all of the noise surrounding this, is that the engineers and employees at Facebook realize that Facebook and Zuckerberg’s vision does not line up with reality. Zuckerberg believes that Facebook will connect people and change the fabric of society and communities for good in a way that was heretofore impossible. Between Facebook’s political issues and the happiness-depressing effects of its use,…

Why would people leave? Facebook knows your buttons and pushes them just right. In aggregate this is terrible for society, but individually it feels good.

my relationship with Facebook reminds me more of an abusive girlfriend than one which is on the whole good
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