2018-03-20

Endgame for Facebook?

Update: FTC Probing Facebook for Use of Personal Data, Source Says
Under the 2011 settlement, Facebook agreed to get user consent for certain changes to privacy settings as part of a settlement of federal charges that it deceived consumers and forced them to share more personal information than they intended. That complaint arose after the company changed some user settings without notifying its customers, according to an FTC statement at the time.

Spokesmen for Facebook and the FTC didn’t immediately respond to requests for comment.

If the FTC finds Facebook violated terms of the consent decree, it has the power to fine the company thousands of dollars a day per violation.
50 million violations.

During the 2012 campaign, the media praised President Obama's social media strategy. It was part of an overall youth narrative, while the Romney campaign, representing older voters, was using outdated methods. That was all true to a degree, but what has now been revealed is the Obama team (or any consultants they hired) didn't need to scrape data from Facebook (FB) like Cambridge Analytica. Facebook opened up all their data to them.

IJR: Ex-Obama Campaign Director Drops Bombshell Claim on Facebook: 'They Were on Our Side'
A former Obama campaign official is claiming that Facebook knowingly allowed them to mine massive amounts of Facebook data — more than they would’ve allowed someone else to do — because they were supportive of the campaign.

In a Sunday tweet thread, Carol Davidsen, former director of integration and media analytics for Obama for America, said the 2012 campaign led Facebook to “suck out the whole social graph” and target potential voters. They would then use that data to do things like append their email lists.
ZH: Obama's Former Campaign Director Makes Bombshell Claim: Facebook Was "On Our Side"
Cambridge Analytica bought data harvested using a personality app called "thisisyourdigitallife," created by two psychology professors. When CA was asked to stop and delete all of the harvested data, they did - however Facebook banned Cambridge Analytics and their parent company SCL after an anonymous source which Facebook won't disclose reported that not all of the data had been deleted.

So the 2012 Obama campaign was scraping data from Facebook, got caught, and was specifically told they were allowed to do things "they wouldn't have allowed someone else to do because they were on our side."

Davidsen then tweeted "I am also 100% positive that Facebook activity recruits and staffs people that are on the other side."
What other side?
Turns out one of the two founding directors of Global Science Research (GSR), which sold the data to Cambridge Analytics, is employed by Facebook!

...And as the broader public has merely scratched the surface of the tangled webs politicized social media platforms weave, Facebook's Chief Security Officer has already decided to get the hell out of dodge. One can only imagine what some real digging would unveil.
Facebook is between 5 and 7 percent of many technology and Internet funds, including the S&P 500 technology sector and the Nasdaq 100, and the tracking ETF (QQQ).

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