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Cambridge Analytica and Facebook

2018-03-19 22:09:39.475322+00 by Dan Lyke 8 comments

Motherboard: Why We're Not Calling the Cambridge Analytica Story a 'Data Breach'

In 2014, a researcher collected the data through an app that asked users to take a personality test for academic research purposes. Around 270,000 people agreed to have their data collected through the test, which its creator, Aleksandr Kogan, defined as “a very standard vanilla Facebook app.” But thanks to Facebook’s terms of service and its API at the time, the app was also able to collect data of their friends. This gave the researcher, who later handed the data to Cambridge Analytica, the raw information of more than 50 million people, according to the reports, which were largely based on the account of a former Cambridge Analytica data scientist.

Basically, Facebook was operating as designed. The problem from Facebook's point of view is that a hostile foreign government used the data rather than, say, your average marketing department. Facebook's complaint here is essentially that they were disintermediated in the ad marketing process.

The New York Times: How Trump Consultants Exploited the Facebook Data of Millions, the Guardian: Revealed: 50 million Facebook profiles harvested for Cambridge Analytica in major data breach

[ related topics: Politics Psychology, Psychiatry and Personality Invention and Design moron Current Events Consumerism and advertising Marketing New York ]

comments in ascending chronological order (reverse):

#Comment Re: Cambridge Analytica and Facebook made: 2018-03-20 00:45:32.126776+00 by: mkelley [edit history]

And as a huge thank you, Facebook suspended the whistleblower's Instagram and Facebook accounts.

https://www.cbsnews.com/news/c...tica-facebook-account-suspended/

I like Instagram but I'm evaluating a move to something else.

#Comment Re: Cambridge Analytica and Facebook made: 2018-03-20 18:17:20.563538+00 by: TheSHAD0W [edit history]

Y'know, it'd be a bit more alarming if the Obama campaign didn't already do this in 2008 and in 2012.

This twitter thread says they broke Facebook's rules - but FB was okay with it.

Edit: And on top of that, literally everyone was doing it.

#Comment Re: Cambridge Analytica and Facebook made: 2018-03-21 08:44:36.582729+00 by: DaveP

Also, your ISP: https://motherboard.vice.com/e.../wj7q4b/given-facebooks-privacy- backlash-why-arent-we-angrier-with-the-broadband-industry

Hell, the company I work for can tell when I walk into a hotel because they’ve connected my cell phone to my email account to my hotel rewards card.

Bring on the blipverts, I think I’m ready for my head to explode now.

#Comment Re: Cambridge Analytica and Facebook made: 2018-03-21 21:08:34.483565+00 by: Fred

I think that Facebook invades everybody's information for a profit. Zuck says he cares but I don't believe him. MONEY

#Comment Re: Cambridge Analytica and Facebook made: 2018-03-23 03:37:06.314954+00 by: topspin

I've given up on any semblance of privacy. I'm trying to lose weight/eat better (Triglycerides flirting with 600 will get anyone's attention,) so I rarely eat out without Sandy, but I wandered into a tiny, blue hair infested, "Look, Mabel, I got a new Tracfone/Jitterbug!"...... greasy..... God, I hope that's grease and not lard..... spoon, local, meat & 2 (Lillie Mae's in Red Bank, for the Chattanooga folks) place to feed a sudden jones for comfort food,

Before I could order my phone asked if I wanted to rate Lillie Mae's. I mean, really, if they're somehow making money off church groups and folks on their way home from PT, stroke rehab, or whatever..... bless their hearts.

I fully expected a message saying, "C'mon, Rick, stop eyeing the redheaded waitress...... you gave that crap up damn near 10 years ago and she's young enough to #metoo your creepy carcass."

Sigh. Technology is becoming our moral compass...... there's an essay in there.

#Comment Re: Cambridge Analytica and Facebook made: 2018-12-25 22:55:50.796411+00 by: Odessa Asphalt

Asphalt driveway

#Comment Re: Cambridge Analytica and Facebook made: 2018-12-26 01:22:33.680604+00 by: TheSHAD0W

Yay spam!

#Comment Re: Cambridge Analytica and Facebook made: 2018-12-26 11:40:15.258301+00 by: DaveP

Christmas spam, even!

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