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Facebook Crime Social Networks

Facebook Exposes Employee Data To Terrorists (theguardian.com) 50

An anonymous reader writes: The Guardian is reporting that Facebook accidentally exposed the personal information of the moderators that remove terrorist content to the groups that posted that very content. From the article it looks like 6 of them actually had their profiles viewed. From the article, "The security lapse affected more than 1,000 workers across 22 departments at Facebook who used the company's moderation software to review and remove inappropriate content from the platform, including sexual material, hate speech and terrorist propaganda."

What are Facebook's responsibilities here?


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Facebook Exposes Employee Data To Terrorists

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  • we don't need no stinking responsibilities.
    • by Anonymous Coward

      They are one of the three biggest advertising companies on Earth (Google and Yahoo! being one and three respectively) and they are rich and above the law.

      See, corporations are people until it comes to criminal prosecution. "Oh, we'll fine them millions! And they just let the stockholders eat it (Ahahahahahah) and the stock goes up because they got off with just the cost of a month's worth of toilet paper.

    • facebook = everyones business is everyones business.
    • by XXongo ( 3986865 )
      No question Facebook screwed up badly, exposing the identity of its employees to potential terrorists.

      It is worth keeping in mind, though, that ultimately the real culprits here are the terrorists.

      • That is just racist. You are not respecting the piece loving, genital mutilating, mass murderers. Off to sensitivity training for you!
  • by Anonymous Coward

    In my opinion, as Facebook opened these persons to such a risk, they should assume full and complete liability for anything that comes from it.

  • by Grishnakh ( 216268 ) on Friday June 16, 2017 @01:27PM (#54634841)

    How much will it take for people to finally get a clue about how bad Facebook is?

  • Strange Policy (Score:5, Insightful)

    by mfh ( 56 ) on Friday June 16, 2017 @01:50PM (#54634993) Homepage Journal

    I find it utterly strange that the same profiles that a moderator would use in their official duties would be somehow linked to their own Facebook profile. That seems to me like a huge security oversight. Paid mods should ALWAYS have separate credentials from their own personal stuff. What happens when FB fires someone? They just change their FB acct to non-admin? Seems like a huge problem if there are any rollbacks.

    No. You gotta keep shit separated. I get that most forums around typically associate user accts with privs... but that's bad policy if your system is going to be targeted. Better to have secret hidden mod accts that can be audited internally but do not show up externally... and can't be accessed remotely. Remote mod accts should have extra layers of auditing and security as well.

    I'm probably preaching to the choir, but FB never seemed like a very talented company, or at best their amoral practices will always be to their disadvantage, as we see here.

    • I find it utterly strange that the same profiles that a moderator would use in their official duties would be somehow linked to their own Facebook profile. That seems to me like a huge security oversight.

      I'll bet they were linked to their corporate profile, which likely also doubles as the employee directory entry. As such, it probably didn't have truly personal details, like home address or personal phone number, which would only be in HR systems and wouldn't be exposed to other employees. But it would have their complete name, and office location (city), and other tidbits that might be usable to identify them IRL.

  • by Anonymous Coward

    Is that the employees even had a personal Facebook account to begin with instead of an Employees Only type of account that doesn't have any personal info on them.

  • by Anonymous Coward

    It's now prohibited under Facebook's Terms of Service to kill, maim, or place a hit on any member of Facebook's staff.

    Violators are subject to having their accounts suspended or deleted without notice.

  • by Anonymous Coward
    Ask Kathy Griffin.

    Who is Seth Rich?
  • by evolutionary ( 933064 ) on Friday June 16, 2017 @04:18PM (#54636005)
    This is what happens when a large amount of something valuable is available from one convenient location. when are people going to stop sending sensitive data to these guys. They send our data to various state police department (and probably federal+ groups as well) who are reportedly using that data for a face recognition system deemed illegal in two states (and the police don't seem to care the state laws make it's use illegal), marketing companies, and probably anyone who will pay Facebook enough. There is no real privacy on Facebook as it was never a priority. When are we all going to learn.
  • This seems an easy civil action. Fault from Facebook is obvious and documented, damages are huge. That should attract a lot of lawyers.
  • The FBI?
  • So, judging by the comments so far, all you have to do is say "terrorists", and then all of slashdot becomes a fan of faceless, unaccountable censorship.

    Let's all join hands and create a world where content is filtered by the anonymous minions of a few megacorporations, and you absolutely do not have the right to face your accuser, challenge the decision, or even know the rules by which you are being judged.

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