Facebook Knew of Cambridge Analytica Data Misuse Earlier Than Reported (theguardian.com) 70
An anonymous reader quotes a report from The Guardian: Facebook employees were aware of concerns about "improper data-gathering practices" by Cambridge Analytica months before the Guardian first reported, in December 2015, that the political consultancy had obtained data on millions from an academic. The concerns appeared in a court filing by the attorney general for Washington DC and were subsequently confirmed by Facebook. The new information "could suggest that Facebook has consistently mislead [sic]" British lawmakers "about what it knew and when about Cambridge Analytica," tweeted Damian Collins, the chair of the House of Commons digital culture media and sport select committee (DCMS) in response to the court filing.
In a statement, a company spokesperson said: "Facebook absolutely did not mislead anyone about this timeline." After publication of this article, the spokesperson acknowledged that Facebook employees heard rumors of data scraping by Cambridge Analytica in September 2015. The spokesperson said that this was a "different incident" from Cambridge Analytica's acquisition of a trove of data about as many as 87 million users that has been widely reported on for the past year. "In September 2015 employees heard speculation that Cambridge Analytica was scraping data, something that is unfortunately common for any internet service," the spokesperson said. "In December 2015, we first learned through media reports that Kogan sold data to Cambridge Analytica, and we took action. Those were two different things." The filing raised questions about when Facebook first learned about the misuse of personal data by Cambridge Analytica, the now defunct political consultancy.
In a statement, a company spokesperson said: "Facebook absolutely did not mislead anyone about this timeline." After publication of this article, the spokesperson acknowledged that Facebook employees heard rumors of data scraping by Cambridge Analytica in September 2015. The spokesperson said that this was a "different incident" from Cambridge Analytica's acquisition of a trove of data about as many as 87 million users that has been widely reported on for the past year. "In September 2015 employees heard speculation that Cambridge Analytica was scraping data, something that is unfortunately common for any internet service," the spokesperson said. "In December 2015, we first learned through media reports that Kogan sold data to Cambridge Analytica, and we took action. Those were two different things." The filing raised questions about when Facebook first learned about the misuse of personal data by Cambridge Analytica, the now defunct political consultancy.
Elizabeth Warren? (Score:2, Insightful)
While bringing the rambunctious Mr. T into this it seems a bit off topic, mentioning Elizabeth Warren here is completely on topic.
She has suggested that some of our major internet behemoths should be broken into their component parts and the parts that are the underlying infrastructure become regulated utilities or similar constructs.
This is an interesting idea with arguments pro and con. One of these arguments is if you force the profit making parts of this (like the data selling) to be severed from the "
Re: (Score:1)
Electing an awkward nerdy wonk like Warren as president would be worth it just as a soothing break from the daily twitter outrage. I could go back to worrying about the things that matter in my life rather than have to wonder what crazy shit is coming next. Would seem like a vacation. Sure she makes some faux pauxs now and then but really they are pretty small potatoes.
Re: (Score:2)
Did you shop at Target or Lowes or Kroger recently?
Makes you wonder (Score:2)
What other privacy destroying abuse of their data do they know already know about that will only surface in the weeks or months to come ... or never?
Re: (Score:1)
Users? You mean products, I guess?
Re: (Score:2)
Yes, the things they sell to advertisers.
Re: (Score:2)
What other privacy destroying abuse of their data do they know already know about that will only surface in the weeks or months to come ... or never?
I wonder this too- and suspect there are a lot of thing they know about that they're staying quiet on. They don't take privacy seriously, or have any sense of civic responsibility. They only let on that they've done something wrong or allowed something bad to happen as damage control.
Re: (Score:2)
Basic "admit what you can't deny any longer" strategy.
General rule (Score:2)
I've found as a general guideline, that when a person or group denies something using the word "absolutely", they did what they are accused of.
Re: (Score:2)
Just like countries that have 'Democratic' in the name....
You are not wrong.
Well, duh... (Score:3)
I really don't like just posting "Well, duh..." but nothing else really seems to fit here.
Re: (Score:2)
We still operate on an innocent until proven guilty mindset.
A concern that a paying customer is misusing the data, doesn't mean they have proof that they are misusing the data. Not Facebooks biggest mistake was just not digging further to find proof, but just reporting a general "Concern"
Re: (Score:2)
Who is this "we"?
Innocent until proven guilty applies in only one circumstance: when dealing with criminal charges. Otherwise: not applicable.
Facebook had a responsibility to investigate. Wilful blindness should not be a defence.
Re: (Score:2)
I think that if there were an ad that showed the reality of how FaceBook works... Maybe something like what the tobacco companies had to do with that whole Truth movement. That would be cool.
Breaking the narrative (Score:5, Insightful)
This is somewhat easy to misconstrue. Most people will take that as the data was used in the general election, when according to the mainstream media:
"In late September 2016, Cambridge and other data vendors were submitting bids to the Trump campaign. Then-candidate Trump's campaign used Cambridge Analytica during the primaries and in the summer because it was never certain the Republican National Committee would be a willing, cooperative partner. Cambridge Analytica instead was a hedge against the RNC, in case it wouldn't share its data.
The crucial decision was made in late September or early October when Mr. Trump's son-in-law Jared Kushner and Brad Parscale, Mr. Trump's digital guru on the 2016 campaign, decided to utilize just the RNC data for the general election and used nothing from that point from Cambridge Analytica or any other data vendor. The Trump campaign had tested the RNC data, and it proved to be vastly more accurate than Cambridge Analytica's, and when it was clear the RNC would be a willing partner, Mr. Trump's campaign was able to rely solely on the RNC. "
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/trump-campaign-phased-out-use-of-cambridge-analytica-data-before-election/
Re: (Score:1)
Even if that's true, (and consider me highly skeptical still) all it proves is that the RNC was smart enough to harvest the same Facebook data from the same Facebook developer's API that Cambridge Analytica did; A software development task that would take almost a whole afternoon for anyone with cursory experience in web development.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:1)
Well, what I mean by that is that it's all the proof I need. Obviously it doesn't prove it to you, but then, I actually have some awareness of the actual volume of data in question this time around and how few other places it could actually have come from.
Re: (Score:1)
This could also pollute the data if the Facebook data is of a lower quality.
Cambridge Analytica is NOT defunct. (Score:5, Informative)
It just shed its skin. It's now called Emerdata [wikipedia.org]. Same people, same building.
Cambridge Anal-ytica == Oxford Vaginal-ytica (Score:2)
How's that for re-naming?
The REAL lesson I learned from this.. (Score:3, Insightful)
When democrats abuse information for elections..."it's justified for the cause" but when republicans do it... "it's because they are evil".
Read this guys article.
https://www.snopes.com/fact-ch... [snopes.com]
Yes, BOTH side really are the same, big business federalists that have no reason to care about you beyond your vote. They only care about their constituents and that is where they appear different is because their constituents have differences.
The Cambridge Data lesson is in a nutshell... a beacon of the Hypocrisy of the Left... no so much on the right because it benefited them this time. BOTH Parties have been doing things like this in all sorts of ways for decades. Before Cambridge, Before the internet. They have been using census data, voter records, polls, and anything they can get their hands on to redraw districts, target campaign speech locations, issue spotting, and just about anything a campaign manager can think of to get the upper hand.
This is nothing shocking or surprising but instead, a NATURAL result of people giving up their privacy to a feckless company that generates revenue off of their personal data! The people upset about this are really just pissed off they didn't do a better job at it.
It's still going to be done, they will just now do it a different way and because of the mfg outrage machine they will just have to find other less obvious ways to do it.
Re:The REAL lesson I learned from this.. (Score:5, Insightful)
In the 2008 political season the Obama campaign bragged about their data analytics and social networking, something they continued to brag about for 2012 (reference: https://www.technologyreview.c... [technologyreview.com] ).
I do not remember if they used the same firm as the Trump campaign (Cambridge Analytica ) or not, but they did brag about scraping millions of users from Facebook.
The only major difference I am aware of, is that one campaign was loved and supported by both Facebook and the news networks, while the other is hated and reviled.
For Obama it was 'marketing genius' and for Trump is was a crime against Facebook users.
Re: (Score:2)
Nothing but straw man arguments 100%. I am not talking about the issue from a legal point of view, I am just talking about the data itself in relation to people giving it up and then getting upset about it being mined. The fact that such information was gained in various ways is really not germane here. But since you brought it up even the the law suit is not about Facebooks TOS being violated, but instead about Facebook's often talked about misleading "privacy" settings.https://www.theguardian.com/techn
Re: (Score:1)
Sure.. But Orange man BAD!
Queue the outrage machine, get people angry so they will vote for you...
Yea, but HRC did too and we are only now finding out the full extent of that.. But let's be honest, we are already in the presidential campaign for 2020, we have been since 2016.
This is just politics as usual. It's a dirty business with only really one rule, do what it takes to win. Lie, cheat, steal elections, whatever. Remember in politics the end's justify the means and ONLY the loser risks ending up
Re:The REAL lesson I learned from this.. (Score:4, Interesting)
Re: (Score:1)
That's the problem right there. Can't determine the facts because "muh politics"!
Yes, the "rhetoric" is different for both sides, but the outcome is shockingly much the same. Take for example how Obama trashed Bush policies but totally used them and strengthened them as well for HIS purposes. Heck he even tried to make it harder for future presidents to do the things he did after he left office... that totally does not smack of hubris huh? Now, lets point out how Trump trash talked Obamacare and many of
Re: (Score:2)
Stop creating division and lets all get back here in the middle!
I merely pointed out the obvious fallacy of your post.
I'm not creating division: I am a pragmatist, so I am in the middle.
Re: (Score:2)
You did not point out a fallacy you just said there was one and pointed nothing out.
You are creating division, you are not a pragmatist either, though I can accept you might be in the middle. It is possible for folks in the middle to be entirely opposite of each other and still be in the middle.
To be pragmatic about things you have to ignore the rhetoric and only review the outcome. I don't care if Obama is a Democrat or if Trump is a republican. I cheer when either does something right and boo when I ei
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
herp a derp... seriously?
For the article to no be true a shadow government is running the government then? That is one hell of a conspiracy! In fact that would still technically only goes to support the article anyway. Pray tell, what in the article is wrong? I can provide many things that help prove it true, can't think of any the prove it wrong though.
The only external force folks have no control over running the government is the Federal Reserve, but no matter what, They can still be removed if the L
Of course they did... (Score:5, Informative)
....because it wasn't MISUSE. It was Facebook's bloody BUSINESS MODEL.
Further, CA (and Facebook) is only in hot water today because they dared to use this information in a way that benefited Donald Trump. In the 2012 election we were bombarded with news stories about how 'sophisticated' and 'cutting edge' the Obama campaign was about leveraging internet big data for voter-engagement and campaigning.
This is news? (Score:2)
Poor Facebook (Score:2)
They are getting crucified for acting like a for profit business.
Why is *anybody* surprised or outraged over this? They where simply acting like any for profit business would.
This is when shitty science reporting matters... (Score:2)
There's no way FB could have known WHY Cambridge was web-scraping. If the truth matters in justice, then this story isn't about anything other than here's how websites work.
Reported (Score:1)