Cambridge Analytica May Have Had Facebook Data From 87 Million People (recode.net) 119
Cambridge Analytica may have had data from more unwitting Facebook users than originally thought. From a report: Facebook now says that the data firm, which collected data about users without their permission, may have collected data on as many as 87 million people. Original reports from the New York Times pegged that number at closer to 50 million people. "In total, we believe the Facebook information of up to 87 million people -- mostly in the U.S." may have been improperly shared with Cambridge Analytica by apps that they or their friends used," Facebook CTO Mike Schroepfer wrote in a blog post Wednesday. From Facebook's blog post, "Given the scale and sophistication of the activity we've seen, we believe most people on Facebook could have had their public profile scraped in this way. "
Always start low (Score:5, Interesting)
Ok, after observing issues like data leaks it looks like the corporate plan is to report some low number that will get people upset but hide the real and often scary number for a later 'confession'. This way people won't be upset with the now much bigger number.
I swear that they must teach this in evil^H^H^H^H MBA school.
Re:Always start low (Score:5, Insightful)
...hide the real and often scary number for a later 'confession'. This way people won't be upset...
I'm about equally upset by 87M as I was by 50M. Both numbers translate to "way too fucking many".
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Re:Always start low (Score:4, Insightful)
What data did you put on Facebook that you thought wouldn't be shared?
I'm not worried about the data I put on Facebook. I'm worried about everything else they've dug up on me.
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Ah ok. If people would only listen to Stallman we would be better off. The only good data collection is none at all.
Stallman is a nut.
For example, Amazon collects data on what I've bought from them, tied to my login. This makes it easy to re-buy something I want more of. It makes it easier to get a refund/return. It allows Amazon to notify me if there is a problem with an order. It allows Amazon to lie to me about when that order has been delivered.
Is that bad data collection? Of course not.
The BAD thing would be if Amazon sold that information to someone else, or had poor data security and the information leaked.
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"The BAD thing would be if Amazon sold that information to someone else, or had poor data security and the information leaked."
They already do share that information with others. Also, how many more hacks do you need to hear about until you realize that companies aren't keeping your data secure. You guys are hopeless.
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You have confused the term record of financial transactions with data collection. A required record of financial transactions to keep the tax people happy and to allow those transaction and keep you happy is sufficient. Once used and no longer necessary deleted. This versus data collection, with no limitations. One acceptable and the other, pretty much looking like it should be banned.
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The only way to stop this is to ban data collection completely.
Sigh. I could use personal insult like you did towards me, but I'll refrain.
No such law would ever pass. Too many people find too much value in having some data collected, like the Amazon example I presented. Too many people will reject outright your claim that there is no good data collection.
The best you can do it laws regarding release of such data once it is collected. But if you cannot rely on laws banning such releases, then you cannot rely on a law banning collection at all.
Therefore, this is a pi
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My bank has a website. I put data "on" that website, and I certainly expect it won't be shared by the bank.
Facebook users who left their profiles public have no reason to object to someone using their data.
Facebook users who clicked on some stupid survey and gave Facebook permission to give the shady author of the survey permission to use their data have no reason to object to someone using that data, except perhaps if the Facebook permission request was misleading.
Facebook users who set their profile priv
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Facebook users who clicked on some stupid survey and gave Facebook permission to give the shady author of the survey permission to use their data have no reason to object...
What about the Facebook user whose friend decided to take the survey. Most of the people targeted did not click the link or give consent.
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Didn't read the last paragraph hey?
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It got by me until about the time I hit "Submit". Apologies.
My understanding is that (Score:2)
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And then there are the photos and Facebook's facial recognition software. Whenever someone uploads a photo with your face Facebook can probably identify you, if any of y
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...hide the real and often scary number for a later 'confession'. This way people won't be upset...
I'm about equally upset by 87M as I was by 50M. Both numbers translate to "way too fucking many".
And apparently selling data to people who use hookers and lies to influence people is now called scraping.
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Re:Always start low (Score:5, Informative)
...Obama campaign for doing this same thing.
Both campaigns accessed users' friends information without consent. But there were several differences [politifact.com] between what Obama's campaign did and what Cambridge Analytica did. A couple:
But in Obama’s case, direct users knew they were handing over their data to a political campaign. In the Cambridge Analytica case, users only knew were taking a personality quiz for academic purposes.
The Obama campaign used the data to have their supporters contact their most persuadable friends. Cambridge Analytica targeted users and their friends directly with digital ads.
That doesn't remotely excuse what O's campaign did, but it's not entirely the same.
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But in Obamaâ(TM)s case, direct users knew they were handing over their data to a political campaign. In the Cambridge Analytica case, users only knew were taking a personality quiz for academic purposes.
If you don't want someone seeing your public profile data, don't take their "personality quiz", because even at best that "quiz" for "academic purposes" has the intent of finding things out about you that you may not want to expose. In a similar vein, don't take the MMP (Minnesota Multi-phasic mumble something) if you don't want the results known by anyone.
And for God's sake, if you don't want someone to see your public profile data, don't give your name to them so they can go look it up easily.
The Obama campaign used the data to have their supporters contact their most persuadable friends. Cambridge Analytica targeted users and their friends directly with digital ads.
The only d
Re:Always start low (Score:4, Informative)
If you don't want someone seeing your public profile data, don't take their "personality quiz"...
Most of the people exposed did not take the "personality quiz" nor did they consent to their friends sharing their information.
The only difference is a difference that isn't a difference.
That wasn't the only difference. It wasn't even the only difference I quoted.
If you don't want anyone to know your public profile data, don't post it to a place where they call it a "public profile".
Most of the harvested accounts were not "public profiles".
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That wasn't the only difference. It wasn't even the only difference I quoted.
Sigh. THE ONLY DIFFERENCE BETWEEN THE TWO USES THAT YOU LISTED IN THAT ONE QUOTE is a difference that makes no difference. I was referring to that specific statement of yours that I quoted, which is why I quoted it. Context, please. There is no significant difference between Obama's campaign using volunteers to contact people and Cambridge Analytical contacting them directly.
Most of the harvested accounts were not "public profiles".
From Facebook's blog post, "Given the scale and sophistication of the activity we've seen, we believe most people on Facebook could have had their public profile scraped in this way. "
Re:Always start low (Score:5, Informative)
THE ONLY DIFFERENCE BETWEEN THE TWO USES THAT YOU LISTED IN THAT ONE QUOTE is a difference that makes no difference.
You don't think that it's significant that in one instance the user knew they were handing over their information to a political campaign and in the other the user thought they were taking an innocent personality quiz? It doesn't excuse either one, but I think it's significant.
From Facebook's blog post, "Given the scale and sophistication of the activity we've seen, we believe most people on Facebook could have had their public profile scraped in this way. "
Every Facebook user has a "public profile [facebook.com]". And when they say "most people on Facebook [washingtonpost.com]", they're not just talking about the Cambridge Analytica leak. They mean most users.
Information you share that is always public: Some of the information you give us when you fill out your profile is public, such as your age range, language and country. We also use a part of your profile, called your Public Profile, to help connect you with friends and family.
Cambridge Analytica accessed more than just the public profile. From that same Post article:
The third-party firm (Global Science Research) used a clicky personality quiz to get people to interact with the app, which then used a loophole to pull all the behind-the-scenes data of that user, and also the same data relating to all their friends -- typically 200-300 other people per user.
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Now, let's continue...
You don't think that it's significant that in one instance the user knew they were handing over their information to a political campaign
There is not one word in your statement about users knowing who or what they were turning over. The difference you pointed out is only that Obama used volunteers to contact other people and Cambridge Analytica
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There is not one word in your statement about users knowing who or what they were turning over.
Here, let me refresh the context of my statement since you seem unable to find it yourself. I wrote:
...in Obama’s case, direct users knew they were handing over their data to a political campaign. In the Cambridge Analytica case, users only knew were taking a personality quiz for academic purposes.
I quoted 2 differences cited in PolitiFact's article. You seem to be consistently missing this one.
THAT statement, which I quoted when I initially replied, is the context in which I made my statement about "the only difference" and it making no difference.
Right. While ignoring the other difference I quoted, and the others in TFA, and announcing inaccurately that the difference you were addressing was the only one.
That's right. "Most people on Facebook" includes the people whose data was leaked. The comment was about "public profile data", and that was the context in which I wrote about "public profile data".
You made it pretty clear you were talking about the Cambridge Analytica leak. There's no shame in the fact that you were confused, only in the fact tha
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I quoted 2 differences cited in PolitiFact's article. You seem to be consistently missing this one.
I quoted and replied to that first statement. I'm sorry you didn't read those paragraphs. It was where I referred to people taking the "personality quiz"; it should have been obvious from the context what I was replying to.
Right. While ignoring the other difference I quoted, and announcing inaccurately that the difference you were addressing was the only one.
I quoted and replied to both of your quotes in my comments. How is that ignoring either one?
The second quote was what my comment about "the only difference" referred to. Had it applied to the first quote, it would have appeared in that part of my reply. Since it appeared following the se
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It is too tiresome trying to correct you.
It is painfully obvious why you're having such a difficult time trying to correct me.
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It is too tiresome trying to correct you.
It is painfully obvious why you're having such a difficult time trying to correct me.
Is it because you are being deliberately obtuse? Or because you are just that stupid?
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Isn't This What Facebook Was Engineered To Do ? (Score:5, Insightful)
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They are just surprised the Trump campaign was able to pay for this data and actually use it. Had the data ended up in the hands of say the Obama campaign, nobody would have cared (nor did they when it happened). Had Hillary won, nobody would have cared then either.
The issue here is Trump unexpectedly won and ANYBODY or ANYTHING that may have contributed to that is now subject to a proctology exam all the way up to the tonsils. Why? Because somebody needs to explain how this could happen when all the m
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I don't understand this "plausible deniability" angle. What do you mean? Who is denying what?
You don't? The party who's candidate was the sure thing failed to get elected. Their voters don't take kindly to failure and are in the mood to punish those responsible for the loss. In an effort to keep the Bernie Sanders left wing wacko's from taking over, they have to deny they are responsible. Oh no, it's not my fault.... The other side cheated... Was helped by others who are not legally allowed to help... That way their voters are kept angry at somebody or something other than the party, it's plat
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How did this conversation devolve into an emotional political debate?
I posted, "I don't think people are surprised that Facebook has the data, but many still aren't really aware what can be done with it. It's this dawning realization that causes most of the concern."
This had nothing to do with politics, at least not directly, rather (implicitly) on the fact that data like that recovered from Facebook could be used in combination with AI to reliably infer ways in which people can be influenced. The technolog
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How did this conversation devolve into an emotional political debate?
I posted, "I don't think people are surprised that Facebook has the data, but many still aren't really aware what can be done with it. It's this dawning realization that causes most of the concern."
Sorry.. I assumed everybody understood that none of this would matter if the media wasn't reporting on it because you'd not know. I'm also assuming that the REASON the media came out swinging on Facebook's "failure to prevent" this is because of the connection to the Trump campaign though Cambridge Analytica.
In short, if Hillary had won, nobody would know or care about this. Clearly this is political.
Am I wrong about that?
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"In short, if Hillary had won, nobody would know or care about this. Clearly this is political.
"Am I wrong about that? "
I hope so. I wouldn't put it past either political party to misuse the Facebook data, similar, or just about any other dirty trick. It seems to me that the main reason this has become a disagreement between right and left wingers is because both parties would rather divert attention from the erosion of Constitutional rights that is happening so rapidly in this country. Personally, I'm more
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"In short, if Hillary had won, nobody would know or care about this. Clearly this is political.
"Am I wrong about that? "
I hope so.
You should consider your hope summarily dashed. The Obama campaign BRAGGED about doing the exact same thing, and the media PRAISED them for it. You can't get much more political than that.
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Of course you're technically right, there's no getting around the fact that the whole discussion is by definition political. But what I mean is that it doesn't need to go the route of us vs them / red vs blue. In my opinion it's not a partisan issue, it effects all of us, and no ones hands are clean. My hope was that we can all see that.
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As proof you only need to look that facebook went to the Obama campaign and gave them access to similar data for free. That is against the law yet you don't hear much of it.
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I don't think people are surprised that Facebook has the data, but many still aren't really aware what can be done with it. It's this dawning realization that causes most of the concern.
Because Facebook markets itself (Score:3)
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My impression of Facebook has always been a) a pretty poorly designed website with little going for it besides, erm, "connecting people" in a very basic way b) a massive database back-end that scoops up as much data about everybody as possible, analyzes it a bit, and then lets that data be sold to whoever the fuck pays enough money for it. Why is everybody suddenly panicking "Gosh-OMG-NoWay-They-Sold-Our-Datazzz". Isn't this what Facebook was engineered to do from day one? Why is anybody surprised by this at all???
Because of who did it this time. But you knew that ...
Whats the point now? (Score:2)
Expect people coming out of wood work blaming Hillary for being dumb out of touch politician and a master criminal at the same time.
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They have already done demographic analyses, found the opinion leaders, found the arguments that would be persuasive to them, verified them using focus group testing. Now all that 87 million people think it is no big deal if they are trolled and emotionally manipulated for their vote.
Expect people coming out of wood work blaming Hillary for being dumb out of touch politician and a master criminal at the same time.
She's no master criminal... Just a liar who got caught multiple times trying to explain away a two bit crime... But yes, that's basically why she failed.
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Expect people coming out of wood work blaming Hillary for being dumb out of touch politician and a master criminal at the same time.
Um, yeah, that'd be pretty silly to make two such contradictory accusations about somebody prominent ...
No, I can't; it's just too easy.
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Now all that 87 million people think it is no big deal if they are trolled and emotionally manipulated for their vote.
How many people are still outraged by the Daisy Ad [wikipedia.org] run by Lyndon Johnson against Goldwater? I remember that ad, and I remember that not a lot of Democrats were upset by the "emotional manipulation" that got their candidate elected.
Expect people coming out of wood work blaming Hillary for being dumb out of touch politician and a master criminal at the same time.
Are you trying to say that someone cannot be both out of touch with their campaign and a criminal at the same time? How naive.
I'm wondering if this'll be Trump's Acorn (Score:3)
Given the scope of the data and how it was likely being used losing CamAnal (fark meme) might hurt Trump in the next campaign a lot. Now, I'm not saying the Dems are doing this on purpose (that would be giving them way, way too much credit for being smart, these are they guys that lost to Trump after all) but this seems like the kind of resource that if you can't replace it you're gonna lose. Well, unless the Dems run another dead pan Hilary Clinton style right of center milktoast.
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Well, unless the Dems run another dead pan Hilary Clinton style right of center milktoast.
The scary thing is, I fully expect them to do exactly that!
You Misspelled "Voter Registration Fraud" (Score:1)
Acorn committed numerous documented instances of campaign fraud [ballotpedia.org]. That's why Acorn was "dismantled," not because they favored Democrats?
How's that lying working out for you, liar?
The Truth About "Free" Services (Score:1)
If you are not paying for it, you are what is being sold.
That's a lot of people (Score:2)
Heh, everyone's all worried about Cambridge Analytica. Ever wonder how many of those peoples' data, Facebook has?
Re:The most aggravating thing about this (Score:4, Insightful)
What if I told you that you can condemn Facebook and call Obama's campaign and Cambridge Analytica symptoms of the disease...
1. Two wrongs don't make a right. We don't ignore a crime just because someone else committed the same crime.
2. Please hold your elected officials accountable for not prosecuting Obama et al. next time. It was (and is) a republican controlled fed. I'd look long and hard at who you vote for if you think they are letting such heinous crimes go unpunished.
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2. Please hold your elected officials accountable for not prosecuting Obama et al. next time. It was (and is) a republican controlled fed.
For eight years following Obama's election, a Democrat was the head of the executive branch of the US government, within which is the Department of Justice.
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For eight years following Obama's election, a Democrat was the head of the executive branch of the US government, within which is the Department of Justice.
And during that same period, a certain democratic senator was raked over the coals for Benghazi (and many other things). It's weird isn't it? They were able to persecute H but you heard nothing about Obama's apparent harvesting and use of private citizen's data against their will?
Oh, and remember Mr. Clinton's transgressions with a Ms. Lewinsky? Somehow we had public hearings on that in spite of he himself being the head of the executive branch! How did that happen?
Sheesh.
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Back when I worked in the financial sector building trading systems, I got to see "how the sausage is made." The deregulation started by Ronald Reagan lead to the financial melt down. That resulted in more than 80% of the people over 30 loosing 30-50% of their retirement fund/ 401K/ Pension. You know who did that to the middle class?
Both parties went along and unethical "economists" in the Ivy League schools were bought out. They paid for research claiming "regulation hampers innovation
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Sanctimonious hyperbole only goes so far when tinged with hypocrisy.
Nah, it's really quite simple. Hold everyone accountable fairly and evenly. If the admin of Obama's era failed to hold him accountable, they either didn't have a reason or otherwise chose not to for some reason I don't know. That doesn't change our current situation.
Why should anyone be held accountable besides Facebook?
I agree for the most part. I don't think there's any crime. Even by Facebook. This is more about opening peoples' eyes. People want to know how they were manipulated and to what ends.
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whether you like Obama or not, there is an important difference between what Obama's team did and what CA did. Both are creepy, while one is illegal. Propaganda is propaganda and any attempt by a
"Public Profiles" got scraped? (Score:1)
Uh.. Yea... They are "Public" right?
Except that Facebook didn't necessarily control the data collection, how's this even a thing? Any two bit bot could hoover up all the public profile information by just sorting through what Facebook provides the public access to. "Search here for friends!"
Who didn't already know this could happen?
There are more than that (Score:1)
And, yes, you're included due to some people having lots of friends.
Ask the correct questions.
Are we talking people in the US? Are we talking people in the UK? Are we talking people in North America? Are we talking people in the EU?
American citizens live everywhere.
Erm (Score:2)
we believe most people on Facebook could have had their public profile scraped in this way
Uh ... can't a public profile be scraped pretty much any way?
Let's all play the blame game! (Score:2)
Facebook now says that [Cambridge Analytica] collected data about [87 million] users without their permission...
And Facebook is attempting to rewrite the script after the fact, by using very careful phrasing to imply that Cambridge Analytica is the real villain here... not Facebook.
<sarcasm>Because clearly Facebook is just as much a victim in this debacle as are all of their users... it's not as though they left this huge gaping hole in the security of their system, and the folks over at Cambridge just basically waltzed right in using only the most basic of social engineering tactics... no, nothing like that at
Why not all of them? (Score:2)
Sure, why?
I predict (Score:2)
I predict that he of the long face, droopy gob & hoodie will try to spin this as "Hey, nearly 99% of the world's population didn't have their data accessed!", followed up by that gormless grin that somebody told him is endearing.
But wait, there's more! (Score:2)
Facebook is now admitting that data of most of its 2 billion users has been collected and used [washingtonpost.com] by third parties.
Needless to say, Zuckerberg and Facebook proper sincerely apologize for this usage and take people's privacy very seriously.
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