Consumer Groups Want To Break Up Facebook's Monopoly

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"User data" would be anything that is specific to the user in question, such as his/her home location, things that are liked for the sake of research and data collection, etc. I don't make the rules. I'm just mentioning what I saw elsewhere and the explanation that what FB was doing was not legal in the EU based on their existing laws.

Unless... of course... your comment wasn't directed to me. :/
 


It was directed at many in here...

"Home location"
That bit of data that you personally enter, and is visible to anyone who looks at your profile.
 
Don't get me wrong....Facebook has some abysmal policies.
But it is not merely a chatboard.

If you don't want something shared on facebook...don't write it on there.
If you don't want anything of yours on facebook, don't go there at all.
 
Which article? The one above, or one of the myriad articles about this since the story hit the wire? I've read enough articles, to see they all share a common theme of, Facebook is doing bad things, but the articles keep appealing to an emotional response, more akin to a slur, rather than a cogent argument that states just why Facebook is committing either an immoral or illegal act.

It's pretty clear that the data was collected using methods that were allowed by Facebook. Articles may refer to the ability to collect data on a user's friends as a loophole, but that is speculation and doesn't guarantee it wasn't allowed by design. Furthermore, it's pretty clear we may never get the truth of internal company intentions in this regard from Facebook. It's been pointed out that there is disparity between the employees at FB tasked with monetizing the service and those tasked with securing it. As FB is made of many people of varied ideas, there is no simple answer to just what the truth is.

Once the data leaves Facebook and what other companies do with that data is outside of Facebook's ability to control. If Facebook needs to enforce their rule of, "you can't resell the data," which I suspect may border on illegal, they need to retain full ownership of the data, which isn't going to happen currently. If companies could generate self-destroying data, they would. Give them time. It will be like Gmail's self-destructing emails.

(Hollywood and the record companies will laud you if you invent self-deleting data, and of course pay you nothing, while limiting the number of plays you get from the licenses they sell you for your entertainment. This of course would be illegal, but who has the means to stand up to them? And in the time it takes to raise another generation of consumers, people will have gotten used to it and stop questioning the matter clearly.)

In the end, even if Facebook is never open and honest about what information is shared and how it can be used, many users now know better, including you, and can educate new or ignorant users if they feel so strongly about FB's data practices.

The same goes for other companies. It's been known for years that even department and grocery stores mine every ounce of value from customer's data. They even mine and sell their own internal data. Have you been living under a rock? Is this is the first you've heard of it? Have you been thinking that somehow companies giving away free online accounts are doing it out of the goodness of their hearts? Where was your outrage the last time Facebook data was mined for political purposes, or perhaps you didn't hear about it when it was bragged about, or is this all politically motivated and it's only a problem because it was one party rather than another?

If it's such a big deal to you, or others, vote with your usage of the service. Anybody that can't stop using the Facebook service because it's a monopoly, needs to seriously evaluate their life.
 


Maybe that was me just adding something in there I assumed might be part of it. Here's are two good reads:

https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2018/5/22/17381776/mark-zuckerberg-facebook-europe-privacy-gdpr

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-switch/wp/2018/05/22/zuckerberg-european-parliament-facebook-testimony/?utm_term=.1f3f497301ab

FB isn't going to escape all this unscathed. That much is certain.
 
No, they're not going to get out unscathed.
But if FB has to cough up a billion dollars...well...that's just the cost of doing business.

Just like what happens with fines to Google from the EU.
4 billion...3 years later, another 4 billion.
Meanwhile...they make 7 billion each time.

People seemingly want this level of interaction and service. Until someone tells them it is "bad".
Fines, etc.
And the people still post ALL their personal details on FB.

During and after the Cambridge Analytical information becoming public....has the FB user base or data frequency changed?
No.

People know what is going on...and they still use it.
People Do Not Care.

InstaTwitFace...Right before every single post....they could put up a banner that says "We are going to explicitly share this bit of text to anyone and everyone who asks for it." OK/Cancel?

And people would click OK, every time.
 
If Facebook is breaking laws in countries within which they operate, then throw the respective countries' books at them. Please don't get the impression that I'm arguing as a FB apologist, as I'm not. I'm concerned with government overreach and misuse by parties that think they are the moral arbiters of others' actions.

This really sounds to me like a philosophical debate. How do you determine where a company does business, especially when there is no monetary transaction taking place between the user and the service? You could argue that the user's data is the consideration for the agreement, but that would likely have to be clarified by the courts of each country involved, or in the case of the EU, by the massive ruling party of bureaucrats.

Facebook operates servers in the US. This isn't an issue until people from countries banning the storage or processing of user data outside of those countries come to FB and ask them to enter into a voluntary agreement. Which party is actually responsible for initiating the illegal action? The user, even when ignorant of the law, is asking FB to break the law when FB doesn't meet the standard of the law in the user's country. FB is something that users must seek out and sign up for. At the very best, I suspect that users should share culpability for the fact that FB was coerced into doing business in those countries in which it doesn't operate servers. If this was something more than a money grab by the EU bureaucrats, they could implement their own mandatory firewall software like China does, to prevent the use of services that violate the law, but as it is now, EU openly allows companies to be drawn into hefty fines. Since the users initiate the illegal transaction, in all fairness, fine the users. You'll see just how well the users like the law at that point.

Who says it was wasted? The public wanted a spectacle and they got one. I couldn't help thinking to myself how much Zuckerberg looked like a Revenant from Doom with a suit slapped on.

Who says a bunch of suits from across the pond know any more about reality than a bunch of old Americans who rightly question that people are addicted to such an unimportant service?

Does the EU honestly think that companies running server farms can open a server farm in each country they do business? This is either out of touch, or more likely, a legal means to impose heavy taxes in the form of fines on foreign companies.

I suspect that it's cheaper for FB to break the EU laws regarding where they store user data and just pony up the fines than to try and run massive server farms in the EU. At the same time, the EU gets to pretend they are in it for the consumer, while taking in many millions of dollars from yet another foreign company.
 

Sorry but, that is wrong on so many levels. You need to look up how and why this turned into a scandal. Millions were fed fake stories from faked sources, tailored for maximum impact thanks to the deep user profile data they were allowed to work with. Your assertion that it's wrong to regulate, based on how everything else works is also wrong. Radio is regulated. Television is regulated. Cinema is regulated. Because of this. This isn't the first time in history faked stories are used to create a sinister reaction. That is why social media needs the same types of regulation as all other media.
 
I think too many people like Star Wars. We need to break it up so some have to watch Star Trek. As long as there is a choice what is the problem? Shouldn't people have free choice on their entertainment?
 
I really don't need to research this.

Do you really believe that millions upon millions of voters changed their minds and voted for a different candidate because of "fake news" they saw on Facebook, affecting the outcome of the presidential election in the United States?

I'm not arguing that fake news is something that is okay, but it's reasonably clear that passing legislation to make fake news into a crime is wrong on so many levels, you could barely contain the litigious aftermath. Free speech will go the way of the dodo, which is what a lot of folks are actually pushing for, and why, and that is both immoral and wrong. It's a subversion of peoples rights, whether any countries acknowledge those rights or not. Even Tom's Hardware posting opinion pieces will be in jeopardy.

Why can't individuals, say, do a little research before they take every article or snippet they read as fact? For example, surely you've seen the meme in which Abraham Lincoln warns against the validity of everything read on the internet!

Regulations are not magic bullets that solve all problems they aim to. One problem with regulations is, once they are put in place, they hardly ever get revised or fixed, whether or not they accomplish the intended goal. They do however, quite often, raise the bar to entry for newcomers, making the market more difficult to compete in than it otherwise would have been, protecting the existing players. You often end up with state created and protected monopolies.

Another problem with regulations is, how they are applied and enforced is often a matter of which political party is in power. It's pretty clear that a few years back, one party had no issues weaponizing certain branches of the United States government when it came to silencing their political rivals. I would rather people educate themselves and think on their own than be stripped of their own personal agency in this regard. Weaponizing speech is a tool some folks have been after for years.

Finally, Facebook itself has pretty much assured people it is doing it's darnedest to self-regulate. They will soon likely (if not already,) be censoring more information than all of the fascist governments in history, and on a weekly basis to boot. If they are already taking measures to deal with their problems, why do we need somebody else to step in, who like you even pointed out, is less likely to even grasp the situation? A good swath of lawmakers in the United States are old and disconnected from the situation. How are they supposed to understand the situation better from without, than the people who created it?

But, you may argue that, because Facebook created the crisis, they cannot be trusted. Why not? They aren't any less human than the people you propose should do the regulating. I don't find the lawmakers to be any more benevolent than the people they wield power over. Replacing one human with another isn't always enough to right the ship.

Since you bring up industries that have been regulated, which I assume you are using as an argument for the benefit of regulation, what, pray tell, has been the net benefit or effect for the consumer of some of those regulations?

I'm not against all regulations. I'm against government overreach. I prefer to see matters handled at the smallest level possible, not the highest, as that is where the most efficient use of resources always takes place. I believe the government should be left to do only those things which the individual, or the local government can't do. That of course is my personal opinion.

Now, back to the topic at hand, Facebook is a service that nobody needs. People can deactivate their accounts and they are no worse off in the world, unless there are some pretty peculiar circumstances in their life, and that certainly wouldn't be FB's fault. Therefore I do not consider FB to wield any sort of monopolistic powers over their user base. Do consumers even want an alternative for the service which Facebook offers? At best you might make the argument that Facebook is a natural monopoly, but that doesn't make the case for breaking it into some sort of component companies.

Now, when you look at the monetized portion of Facebook, there is clearly not a monopoly in place. They are an aggregator and broker of data, and a seller of advertising space, and there are plenty of other players in this game.
 
The problem isn't the data given, but the data collected.
Do you seriously mean that you (and just about everybody else) continously publish your entire web history, your current location (at any time), and what else is there?
That's the type of data FB collects using their cell phone app, cookies and scripts on sites that don't belong to FB.
The only way to not give info to FB is to stay completely off the net!

This is exactly where things get really shady and issues occur:
* Facebook has effectively no competition in terms of "social media". Since "everybody else" is there it's the one service you have to be part of if you are to have any on-line contact with your friends/peers/family.
* Google is a competitor only in the part regarding user data harvesting.
* The suggestion to break up FB and allow competing services to interact with each other just means that all competitors will have access to all significant data of all users, not just FB. So then there would be not just one but several companies that could misuse the (collective of) user's data!
* The information derived about any typical user is of good use to anybody with malicious intent towards that user. Is it good to know that it's on sale?
 
Do I think millions were affected by what they see on Facebook?

Short answer: Undoubtedly yes.

How do I know that? Because if it didn't you're saying advertising doesn't work. Which we both know isn't true.
Facebook was not the only place fake news were spammed. Facebook was just the most optimised globally connected echo chamber for it to succeed. Twitter, Reddit, YouTube and even seemingly harmless things like Google, Bing and Yahoo were also affected by targeted manipulations. The latter by creating popular faked search terms by hammering the services with specific terms to make them pop up as popular searches.
About your claim that companies like Twitter, Google and Facebook are doing their darndest best to self-regulate I say BS. They do the minimum required and they drag it on as late as possible. Anything else would be screwing their shareholder over as their services rely 100% on recurring internet traffic.
Regulation works. Don't get that mixed up with censorship. They're really not the same thing. One is to ensure facts not getting drowned by propaganda and lies, the latter is to prevent the truth to come out.
 
"The group also claims it wants to save the American democracy from the fake news phenomena that has expanded on Facebook."

Except that we are a Republic, not a democracy.
 
Affected? Everybody is affected by the things they see, but in which way and to what degree? And sure, product advertising works, some of the time, on some people, but as a traditional model it's been progressively in decline for a long time. It's even been said social media advertising doesn't work on millennials. A lot of people in business would absolutely love to concretely quantify just how well advertising works. You make it sound as though you have an insight into advertising's effectiveness. You stand to make a lot of money if you can prove your point here (Don't forget that many people don't even see web pages as intended due to scrip blocking, ad blocking, and other manipulations people equip their web browsers with.) But we're also not talking about Brawny vs Bounty paper towels, or which breakfast cereal a child will ask their parents for.

We're talking about politics, which most people take to a whole different level and are nowhere near as wishy-washy about when it comes to which values they are willing to support in a candidate. You can change your mind about what you're hungry for. You can change your mind about which brand paper towels you clean your kitchen with, or which car you drive to work in, as in the end, unless defective, you generally get a very similar outcome. Political policy is not so interchangeable. Vote in the wrong candidate, and suddenly a large number of full time jobs have the real possibility of becoming McJobs, affecting people's bottom line.

Furthermore, if you really think Cambridge Analytica was successful in using FB to swing the vote, you are giving those clowns too much credit.

There was a previous study conducted back in 2010 using FB and it's unwitting users. They wanted to see just how much they could influence voting numbers, and they got an answer. About 0.4 percent. They weren't even trying to change anybody's minds, they just wanted to see if they could use peer pressure to get them to go vote.

As far as the effectiveness of the microtargeting and physchographics that Cambridge Analytica was peddling, in 2016, they were first working for the Cruz campaign and came up with such unreliably bad numbers, they were ditched. Doesn't sound like story in successful data usage to me.

So, even if we give you the benefit of the doubt and use the 0.4 percent that were influenced to go vote in the prior study, and even give you a 100 percent rate of influencing them to vote a particular way, that still doesn't amount to enough extra votes to swing the US election in the direction it went.

It's also been pointed out, fake news was not unidirectional. Just because it's speculated some were influenced to vote for a particular candidate, I doubt it would ever be accurate to say that people only changed their mind in a single political direction.

There was obviously false information disseminated against many of the political candidates. Does anybody have any digital literacy anymore? Maybe we should up the age limit for people allowed to use social media, until they, say, can perform the task of critical thinking, except that would likely wipe out the user base.

Now you're taking things a bit too far. I clearly only said Facebook made that claim. I never said anything about Twitter or Google making any comments about self-regulating. You wouldn't want to put words in my mouth, would you?

Okay, you call BS. That's fine. I just happen to disagree with you. I actually believe that FB is taking proactive steps in a more regulatory direction. It's probably not the way you want to see them regulated, but that goes back to concerns regarding regulations. Different people have different ideas on how and what should be done. I think FB should at least be given first crack at it, not the US government. The US government has a much longer history of screwing things up than FB does, so why make them the first answer to anything?

It also seems to me that Zuckerberg sees the site as a publisher (I suspect he may have given a few company lawyers indigestion with some of his answers.) With that in mind, FB most certainly can regulate what people post. More censorship should be coming to the site. Like it or not.

Public companies work for their shareholders, not for you and me (unless of course we're shareholders.) Again, not a charity.

Why do we need to separate the two? Regulation and censorship go hand in hand. People often regulate for the very purpose of censorship. Regulations are basically rules, and many rules are written for the express purpose of censorship. You can have censorship without regulation, but until you regulate it, there is little to ensure uniformity, hence the need for regulatory action to enforce the censorship. This happens all over the world. To think otherwise is to ignore the reality that many people face every day.

Furthermore, what you are specifically calling for just happens to be censorship. You feel that fake news should not see the light of day, therefore you are calling for regulation to censor it from being published. If I'm mistaken, you are welcome to correct me with clarification.

You have yet to make a compelling case that allowing the publishing of so called fake news has caused more harm than the danger of imposing regulations on free speech.

 
Not sure I would call it shady, but go on...

What happened to the telephone, texting, and email?

Most people I know do not actually communicate through Facebook as their primary means, as folks that don't hover around a computer screen all day are likely to be hard to reach. Heck, I would be hard to reach through FB and I do happen to be looking at a computer screen quite often.

People need to remember that other forms of human interaction didn't just magically vanish due to the introduction of FB.

Don't overlook the selling of ad space.

Google used to be a competitor in the social media space with their Google Plus platform. This didn't work out. People don't leave service A, just because service B opens up. There has to be an incentive. It just goes to show, even if you open up a nicer playground right next door, kids are happiest to remain where their friends are. Funny thing about humans being social animals.

Because nothing could ever go wrong with that! 🙂

If the competition wants data, they can learn how to harvest it themselves, even if that means paying Facebook for it. Seems to me, FB hit on a gold mine, and some folks want a piece of it without putting in the hard work.

But we do know that it's on sale. Those that don't know or don't care probably take surveys that give FB customers harvesting data, access to all of their friends' accessible data as well. 🙂

The information is also good for people with reasonable intentions too. Not everything in the world is on the down low, or of nefarious intent. Every once in a while, Amazon tells me about something that I actually end up buying. It's a win-win for both parties, as they get my money and I get a product I want or need.
 
I up voted you to reset your score because you express the sentiment that the United States is not a strict democracy, which is true.

The United States is a federal republic and a constitutional representative democracy.

 
We obviously live in different societies...
Around here:
* Want to have the latest (or any) information from the club/assocoation where you're a member? Join their FB group!
* Want to comment on an article in a web magazine? Do it in the corresponding FB thread!
* Want to know what your colleagues are up to? Check their FB page! (That's how we got to know one colleague had a daughter 10 minutes after her birth and an hour before he called to tell us.)

Also it's not "hard to reach" when just about everybody seems to have the FB app set to give audible notice in their phone every time there's an update...

Yes, they desperately needs to be reminded of that!
Not my problem though. Last time i logged in to FB was almost two years ago.

...which is based on their data harvesting.
I was commenting from the consumers' perspective.

Exactly. In this business being big is what matters!

Of course not, but everything that can be misused will be misused, sooner or later.
Way too often has good intentions and inventions turned bad after a couple of years. Facebook (the service) itself as well as the behind-the-scene work done by the FB company are just some examples in a long row of many.
 

Whether or not FB knew the extent of how data was being used and abused is irrelevant to what I said. The fact is that what FB says about how data is collected/managed/used does reflect what was actually happening. E.g.
https://www.tomshardware.com/news/congress-facebook-ceo-shadow-profiles,36869.html

Once the data leaves Facebook and what other companies do with that data is outside of Facebook's ability to control. If Facebook needs to enforce their rule of, "you can't resell the data," which I suspect may border on illegal, they need to retain full ownership of the data, which isn't going to happen currently. If companies could generate self-destroying data, they would. Give them time. It will be like Gmail's self-destructing emails.
Click to expand...

Umm, what? Why would that be illegal? You can absolutely implement a policy that dictates how data is used after you sell it. It's called terms of use/service. You're right that Facebook can't prevent the buyer from breaking the ToU, but it can at least take steps to check if the data was being misused and take some sort of action if it finds that to be the case. But FB didn't, and allegedly deliberately avoided looking into whether the data they sold was being used in a manner compliant to the ToS, so as to maintain plausible deniability.
https://www.tomshardware.com/news/facebook-lax-rules-data-harvesting,36697.html

The same goes for other companies. It's been known for years that even department and grocery stores mine every ounce of value from customer's data. They even mine and sell their own internal data. Have you been living under a rock? Is this is the first you've heard of it? Have you been thinking that somehow companies giving away free online accounts are doing it out of the goodness of their hearts? Where was your outrage the last time Facebook data was mined for political purposes, or perhaps you didn't hear about it when it was bragged about, or is this all politically motivated and it's only a problem because it was one party rather than another?
Click to expand...
Massive red herring. Whether or not every other company under the sun is doing it does not affect whether or not it is right for Facebook to do it. All those other companies should be abiding by their own stated privacy policies as well. Whether or not something similar was done it the past also doesn't dictate whether it's right or wrong to do it now.
I didn't hear about the previous case of massive FB mining for political purposes at the time, and I wouldn't say I'm "outraged" about this time. Just pointing out that there are valid reasons to be holding FB at least somewhat accountable for stuff like this.

If it's such a big deal to you, or others, vote with your usage of the service. Anybody that can't stop using the Facebook service because it's a monopoly, needs to seriously evaluate their life.
Click to expand...
FB has been caught multiple times tracking people who aren't logged in or who don't even have an account (see my first link).

Which article?
Click to expand...
If I refer to "the article" in the comments section of an article, it should be obvious which article I'm referring to. Both links I provided in this post came from said article.
 
I very much agree. I still see many people doing what they can to keep human interactions as far from digitized as possible.

I guess Yahoo Groups is no longer a thing? 🙂

Because most major publications don't have their own online site?

Because most people don't understand proper privacy when it comes to social media?

Also, some folks have lives outside of work that doesn't involve knowing everything about their colleagues, or hanging out with them afterward.

Perhaps it's peer pressure causing many of these interactions to take place via FB! People and businesses wanting to be seen as hip or current wouldn't want to miss out on having a FB presence.

Shall we give them trophies for participating in the internet too, to boost any flagging self-esteem?

Except that, not everyone has the FB app, and not all that do have it set to notify in that manner. Further still, this is only applicable to those with phones capable of running the FB app. Yes, I still know people with flip phones.

I've known two people in my life that thought they needed this kind of constant nonsense, and I suspect only a few others who might do something like this. One whom quickly realized how irritating it was and grew to hate it, and then couldn't figure out how to turn it back off again. The other is an ex that felt an overwhelming need to be an overgrown adolescent.

I also know people who have a no FB rule. They won't date people who waste time on FB, period.

I don't tolerate the FB app myself at this point. I don't have to.

Sometimes, but don't tell MySpace and Atari. Competition works, even against big, established players, when allowed by law and executed well. That of course doesn't preclude those large companies from torpedoing their own ships.

And that's a good reason not to give the US government more power, through more regulations.

Yup. Unless people have a higher purpose outside of themselves, they do what's in their own best interest. Without any sort of moral framework, why shouldn't they? People in society have become immoral and the results are pretty clear all over.
 
But what you said was:

I think I may have a bit of a grasp of what happened. Maybe that's why I disagree with you and assert what you wrote in the above paragraph is factually incorrect.

Let's clarify.

The researcher who wrote the FB app and was using it to gather data, had FB's permission to perform his research, and had even given talks about the very data collected and of what uses it could be, on the FB campus.

The data was harvested by an app, which first requested and was granted permission to mine data from the account of the person accessing the app. You said that the data was harvested without permission. I say the data was harvested with permission, both from the user, and from FB. The user granted permission in order to use the app and FB granted permission for the app to exist on their site at all.

This goes beyond any agreement the user may or may not have with FB regarding privacy. Can anyone point out when or where FB contractually obligated itself to protect users from their own stupidity or ignorance when it comes to allowances those users make for apps? What do people actually think happens when you grant permission to an app to access all, or even limited portions of your profile?

Finally, using information that the user consented in giving the app, a script then scraped the publicly available information from the profiles, of the friends of, those users who allowed their friends list data to be used by the app. By allowing the information to remain in view of the public, that amounts to tacit consent for the information to be viewed.

I'm more than open to listening if you can show that private friends' data was also scraped. The only possibly compromised private friend data I can find are in the cases where users also granted permission to access their mailbox. FB says only 1,500 users gave the app this specific permission, and both Cambridge Analytica and the researcher have said no data was taken in that regard. Hmm, who to believe?

As I've alluded to before, maybe more users should learn how to best make use of the privacy controls that are at their disposal? Maybe not FB's fault?

At this point FB has said they closed the "loophole." So, it looks like FB is holding themselves accountable already, and making at least some effort in regards privacy.

Cambridge Analytica never acquired it's data from FB.

Cambridge Analytica acquired it's data from the researcher, and the terms of service for his app that mined the data which he sold, were up on the FB site for over a year without FB taking issue.

If FB had a real issue with their terms of use being violated, they waited a long time to do anything about it. In fact, FB only seems to have done anything after the media coverage began to affect their bottom line.

I will listen if you can explain how Cambridge Analytica is subject to any terms of use that FB might have for it's service, since CA didn't contact or contract with FB for the data. FB has severed ties with the researcher and banned him from the site, although ironically, FB employs his coworker, who was working with him during his research and data gathering.

I've heard a lot of bloviated emotional diatribes to this point, concerning how this use of data is abusive, but I've yet to see an actual argument or case made against either the legality or immorality of it. I'm certainly not convinced we need a bunch of nanny organizations trying to push their own agenda here.

It's been said before, if you are really that concerned about data privacy, contact your legislators.

Umm, what, what? The only clear way you can protect the data is through contract law. FB lost control of the data when it left their hands. They may seek damages from the party who broke their terms of service, but I see little recourse against Cambridge Analytica.

If you want to try for copyright law and say that FB's user database was copied, you may run into problems.

While databases can be subject to copyright protection, not all databases trigger this protection. The database must employ a creative enough construction to construe something other than the ordinary organization of that data. Even if the database does qualify for copyright protection, the data in the database has to individually qualify for protection as well, otherwise, you can freely take the data out of the database without permission.

In the case of the app, it created it's own database.

Even if contracted to FB via terms and conditions, it may be a stretch to say no derivative works may be sold resulting from collected data. I wouldn't bet on the outcome of any court case challenging this.

Not really. It's neither big nor a fish. 🙂

If other companies are doing it (data mining and such,) and you're not upset at them, it makes this look a bit more like an unevenly applied standard.

Do you know whether those other companies are abiding by their own stated privacy policies or not? I suspect you only know about the controversy surrounding FB now because the media made a big deal out of it, and a lot of that fuss appears to be politically motivated. Not all of it, but there's been enough bias in the main US broadcast networks and some of the major print media over the last year it's pretty unmistakable.

In the end, what do you want to hold FB accountable for? Has FB actually contractually obligated itself to safeguard your personal data, and never ever share it with it's affiliates? It isn't as though they allowed credit card information to be gathered or stolen. Also, wouldn't FB be allowed to overlook it's own privacy policy for one of it's consultants? Again, the app didn't do anything that FB didn't actually allow at the time, so they weren't even overlooking any privacy policies there. The biggest no no seems to be that the researcher sold the data.

If you want to speculate, another issue may very well be the party affiliation of the purchaser of that data.

This is silly.

Of course Facebook is tracking people, but do you think they get their little web tracker widgets on sites surreptitiously, without the consent of the site it's being hosted on?

Is the FB app installing on your phone or computer without your permission?

Maybe it's a conspiracy, between FB and all the other sites out there allowing you to be tracked through them.

I'll say it again, even though you quoted me there... If it's such a big deal to you, or others, vote with your usage of the service. I'll add, vote with your usage of Facebook's affiliates as well, as it would seem they are complicit in FB's tracking. Good luck!
Shame on me. I should have used an exclamation point, because my question was meant more rhetorically than actual. But alas, digital communication can be that way sometimes.
 
bigpinkdragon286, you keep reading the half you prefer to read of everything you reply to. It's a rather useless discussion that way as you're discussing your own idea of what's happening with yourself.

For the umpteenth time. This is not about user data and behaviour harvesting. Everybody has known Facebook, Google and all that are founded oln that. This is all about how the data is used. How users are manipulated into believing information comes from trusted sources instead of shady backwater organisations. Facebook, Google and all has been fully aware of what's been going on for years, yet they do nothing until they're threatened to be completely shut down.
 
Instead of slurring me, why don't you counter my arguments with a decent counter argument?

All I see is that you keep downvoting people without even saying why. Is this some sort of moral quest with you, or do you just like to hit people over the head that you disagree with? Make a clear point if you have one to make.

If the issue is about how users are being manipulated, you should have no problem in pointing out just how users are being manipulated.

At the same time, beyond just claiming users are being manipulated, show something to back up your claim. The data thus far has pointed to psychographics and microtargeting as having a minimul affect on elections. You want to point to data that says otherwise, rather than emoting with down votes, feel free.

 

Yes, but the terms in that consent stated that the information would be used for academic use, not political or otherwise.
https://www.theguardian.com/news/2018/mar/17/cambridge-analytica-facebook-influence-us-election

Finally, using information that the user consented in giving the app, a script then scraped the publicly available information from the profiles, of the friends of, those users who allowed their friends list data to be used by the app. By allowing the information to remain in view of the public, that amounts to tacit consent for the information to be viewed.
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A number of sources state that the private data of tens of millions of accounts was scraped, in addition to the public information of possibly billions.
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/03/17/us/politics/cambridge-analytica-trump-campaign.html
Furthermore, the policy that allows for friends' facebook pages to be scraped "allowed only collection of friends’ data to improve user experience in the app and barred it being sold on or used for advertising."
https://www.theguardian.com/news/2018/mar/17/cambridge-analytica-facebook-influence-us-election

Cambridge Analytica never acquired it's data from FB. Cambridge Analytica acquired it's data from the researcher
[...]
I will listen if you can explain how Cambridge Analytica is subject to any terms of use that FB might have for it's service, since CA didn't contact or contract with FB for the data.
[...]
FB lost control of the data when it left their hands. They may seek damages from the party who broke their terms of service, but I see little recourse against Cambridge Analytica.
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Well, it's actually not clear to me exactly what point CA came in. Yes, the app used to obtain the data was developed by a researcher working for a different company (GSR), but a number of articles state that CA started working GSR to mine the data. I don't know whether GSR had already obtained all the data by this point (meaning that the interaction with FB would have largely come to an end), or if CA came in and participated while the data was still being harvested.

Regardless, I hadn't mentioned CA in any of my posts (other than to refer to news coming out regarding Facebook after the CA news first broke). I'm talking about FB's data policies. They could have audited GSR to see how the data was being obtained and used, in which case they could have maybe blocked the data from being shared with CA, or caught what was going on as it was in process and maybe limit the scope. But they didn't make any efforts to do so.

Not really. It's neither big nor a fish. 🙂

If other companies are doing it (data mining and such,) and you're not upset at them, it makes this look a bit more like an unevenly applied standard.
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So? I and everyone else could be massive hypocrites, and every other company could be breaking their own privacy rules, but none of that would change whether or not FB was abiding by their own policies.

Of course Facebook is tracking people, but do you think they get their little web tracker widgets on sites surreptitiously, without the consent of the site it's being hosted on?

I'll say it again, even though you quoted me there... If it's such a big deal to you, or others, vote with your usage of the service. I'll add, vote with your usage of Facebook's affiliates as well, as it would seem they are complicit in FB's tracking. Good luck!
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You're moving your goal posts. You said that if people didn't want FB tracking them, it's as easy as not using FB. I pointed out how this was incorrect, as that doesn't necessarily stop them from tracking you. Now you say people should not use any FB affiliated site. Do you realize how much broader a scope that is than just avoiding FB itself? Did you notice that even Tom's Hardware has a FB button?



Let me reiterate my original point:

Both you and derekullo stated that FB informs its users that their data is sold, and therefore did nothing wrong and that it's the users' fault for not reading the ToS.
I argued that FB did not adequately inform its users, or if it did then it failed to take reasonable measures to ensure that what was actually happening complied with what they were saying was happening publicly. I feel I have repeatedly shown this to be the case, with sources to prove it. That's it. AFAIK I have not expressed any opinion in this thread on Cambridge Analytica, nor the push to break up FB being talked about in this article.

If you wish, you can keep moving your goal posts, trying to bait me into tangential arguments, bringing up red herrings and strawman arguments, etc. But I'm done.
 


Then CA is at fault, in this instance, for letting that data be channeled into the political world.

FB itself is at fault for the earlier usage during the previous administrations data mining.

[video="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eIA1lQBqH1s"][/video]
 
From the terms of service for "This Is Your Digital Life" app that users had to agree to:

[Y]ou permit GSR to edit, copy, disseminate, publish, transfer, append or merge with other databases, sell, license (by whatever means and on whatever terms) and archive your contribution and data.
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It's reasonably clear from just this sentence, users of the app were granting permission to monetize their data for any purpose.

Facebook's own words on the matter:

We have banned the app "This Is Your Digital Life," which one of your friends used Facebook to log into. We did this because the app may have misused some of your Facebook information by sharing it with a company called Cambridge Analytica. In most cases, the information was limited to public profile, Page likes, birthday, and current city.
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I think we're both in agreement and always have been that FB ToS were broken. FB gave permission to the app to exist in the FB ecosystem, was able to make itself aware of the app's ToS, and the users still agreed to the possible dissemination and sale of their personal data.

I completely agree about their being able to audit GSR.

FB says they can monitor whether developers are following the developer policies and could have audited the goings on of the app at any time. Again the researcher has stated his ToS were on the site for a year and a half prior to running afoul of FB. Looks like no one at FB reads ToS either!

Moving my goal posts? No, not really. I was never intentionally planting goal posts, I was making a hyperbolic statement in the same vein as when children are having a disagreement, "Jimmy isn't playing nice," so you tell the child, "Then don't play with Jimmy."

I never actually expected anybody to stop using FB on account of my statement. The whole point of "Good luck!" in my earlier addition is because I know it's asking more than most people will do. People aren't at that point. Also, adding that people should further stop using affiliate websites was clarification for other readers. You clearly already know about FB's past tracking of users through their web widgets, just as I do. It's an underlying theme and not necessary a detail that needs be brought up just between the two of us, but it dawned on me, this isn't just two people having a simple discussion, as there are users of this site that haven't been sitting in front of computers for quite as long as we have.

Of course I see the scope goes beyond the FB site and membership therein.

Glad you brought that up. I did not happen to see the FB button because my web browser never showed it.

As I mentioned earlier, not every web browser renders pages as intended. Users have many tools at their disposal to make usage of web sites more manageable, tolerable, private, etc. If folks don't want social media tracking when not signed into FB, the tools are available.

Nobody has to refrain from visiting FB affiliates at all, just prevent the tracking devices on those websites.

It isn't FB's fault if users don't avail themselves of the opportunity to learn the terms of the agreement they are making with FB or an app hosted on it.

I'll go one further. After more reading, it appears that FB does not offer private user profile data for sale. At least, that is what I understand from statements made by the company. So, if that's true, in alleging FB is selling user data, I accuse myself of being wrong. I should have done more of my own research and then phrased my statements better.

I do however hold the opinion, I suspect FB sells anonymized derivatives made from user data, but I don't really care what FB does with their data any more than I do in regards other companies.

I think FB has informed it's users in as much as the law requires of them. The burden of further informing oneself should rest with the individual. Actions have consequences, even the ubiquitous act of having a Facebook account.

Well, I'm sorry if I've upset you. It was never my intent. I even tried injecting some humor into some of my responses to express that I wasn't meaning for all of this back and forth to be taken quite so seriously, but perhaps the humor was missed.
 
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