Does anyone really believe that FB wants to figure out what went wrong? For some reason, I imagine it playing out like the "Top Men" scene from Indiana Jones.
Zuck will put on the Hoodie of Credibility and promise a Full Investigation. Sheryl will invite others to Lean In. Staff will nervously finger their stock options and ponder their vesting schedules.
Having said that I don't really want them to fix it so I'm being a touch cynical.
Not the GP, but I too feel like if they actually fix it, then there is less chance of catching the other equally culpable actors who now seem to think they have gone above the law (AmaGooFaceSoft). Or worse, actually emboldening them to continue their mad rush to collect every piece of information they can about you.
If FB actually faces complete implosion, their employees are more likely to rat out on the practices of the other companies based on nothing more than having worked at the other company too (after all, when one tech giant hires someone, they are more likely to be hired by a competing tech giant).
They know what went wrong, they already fixed the barn door a while ago, although 50M profiles had already left the barn.
And they are angry (or should be). Not because they care about users, but because their business is selling influence, and it's not enough that someone managed to outsmart them and sell the most expensive form of influence using facebook's data (with facebook getting little or nothing, certainly not the lion's share or even 100% as they are used to when selling influence) - they are being publicly shamed about it.
Everyone who cared (including facebook, politicians, journalists, and a non-trivial amount of the population) knew what was happening. Every single thing about the outrage is a charade, except perhaps Facebook's outrage that CA ate their lunch and left them holding the bag.
> The meeting, which is scheduled for 10AM PT, will be led by Paul Grewal, the company’s deputy general counsel. Grewal is expected to explain the background of the case, which involves the user profiles of as many as 50 million people being used by Cambridge Analytica as part of its ad targeting efforts during the 2016 election. Grewal is also expected to take questions via a polling feature found on the meeting’s internal event page.
Why is being run by the head of their general counsel? Because this isn't about addressing employees' concerns or addressing the issue. It's about making sure that everyone at the company has a shared understanding of Facebook's legal stance on CA.
In a more pessimistic light, that might include an understanding of what FB will do to you as an employee if you publicly disagree with their narrative.
For a single month, he was in that position for six years prior though. Not necessarily wrong but it doesn't look great. Probably a normal level of revolving door though.
At least here in Italy/Europe, beside the "tech bubble", people is vaguely aware that FB is collecting information about them but they are sure "there is nothing they can do with my data beside showing me some silly ad". The discovery that data can be used to actually affect their life has been a shock.
Yes I know, like you, that there is nothing new in the "discovery" but it seems that it's not what people perceive. And this is a significant fact, whatever we think about it.
This is not at all unique to Italy/Europe. Americans have the same attitude as I'm sure many others do. People simply cannot think abstractly enough or far enough ahead (depending on how you want to look at it) to make sense of their world and protect themselves. Or won't. I don't know which, but this failure is hardly unique and encompasses most of most people's lives.
It's a collective moment of "yeah but we didn't think they would ACTUALLY DO those things they asserted their right to do in the TOS."
As you've said, everything has been "above board" (in the sense of it being advised in the TOS) apart from maybe the fact that apps get access to friends' profiles. Everyone's just outraged that someone put some real effort into using the tools that Facebook provided as they were clearly intended to be used.
(Also maybe it's due to the success of the campaigns by Facebook, Google etc. to redefine 'privacy' as 'no-one but us gets your data'. People were fine with Facebook having the data, but despite being told it would happen, are really not fine with other companies getting access to significant chunks of that data.)
Well there's three parts to this: One is that data was collected without consent - ie, the third party can collect information about me because my friend gave consent. That's something that facebook has actually stopped now - but the damage is already done.
The second is that Facebook weren't diligent with who allowed to access this data - the 'researcher' collected data and then passed it to a commercial entity with no consequences. This is probably in breach of quite a few laws (especially in the EU).
The third is that Facebook knew that CA had participated in this deliberate breach of their terms to steal data and allowed CA to continue to use this data to target advertising on FB during an election campaign. They only banned CA after it got bad publicity, rather than when the actual infraction occured.
They showed their hand on a topic the news has taught the normies to care about.
Better yet, this will allow everyday people to see the problem because they're given a lens that doesn't make them feel like a rube. (i.e. They will think the data can be abused because it convinced people that are not them to do a thing they find stupid (vote Trump)).
Do you think because "we" know what they're doing, it has any impact on how they act? 95% of people with the vaguest notion of what they're doing find a way to rationalize it as good-or-neutral because they make money from a surveillance company and want to sleep well at night.
CA's CEO said it best: "It sounds a dreadful thing to say, but these are things that don’t necessarily need to be true as long as they’re believed.”
This concept is the skeleton key that explains maybe 85-90% of the legitimately dumb bullshit & disgraceful/reckless behavior from the United States' right-wing
REQUEST: if there's any FB moles reading, maybe live stream that Q&A & ask questions from HN
Well, Hillary Clinton still believes her bitterness is something people want to hear. Nancy Pelosi still thinks she's going to be the Dem leader in the House next year.
If what you mean by "unhinged" is "disconnected from what most of us call real life", you would be hard pressed to find national politicians who aren't.
If only there were term limits for all offices at that level.
No, I don’t mean political positions, I mean reality like “how many people were at my inauguration” or “how many million illegal immigrants voted in the 2016 election” (hint: ~0.00 to ~0.00000)
Of course, Trump also says true things that nobody else does.
It wasn't the right wing that spied on US citizens using the FISA process, and that unmasked an unprecedented number of peoples names from the intercepts, and that leaked their target's names to the press. These things are serious felonies.
All those things are terrible, but how do they fit with "but these are things that don’t necessarily need to be true as long as they’re believed."?
Illegally spying on people only seems worth doing if you're not just making things up. If you are then why bother risking illegally spying and leaking?
33 comments
[ 2.6 ms ] story [ 78.5 ms ] threadHaving said that I don't really want them to fix it so I'm being a touch cynical.
Any particular reason for saying so?
If FB actually faces complete implosion, their employees are more likely to rat out on the practices of the other companies based on nothing more than having worked at the other company too (after all, when one tech giant hires someone, they are more likely to be hired by a competing tech giant).
And they are angry (or should be). Not because they care about users, but because their business is selling influence, and it's not enough that someone managed to outsmart them and sell the most expensive form of influence using facebook's data (with facebook getting little or nothing, certainly not the lion's share or even 100% as they are used to when selling influence) - they are being publicly shamed about it.
Everyone who cared (including facebook, politicians, journalists, and a non-trivial amount of the population) knew what was happening. Every single thing about the outrage is a charade, except perhaps Facebook's outrage that CA ate their lunch and left them holding the bag.
Why is being run by the head of their general counsel? Because this isn't about addressing employees' concerns or addressing the issue. It's about making sure that everyone at the company has a shared understanding of Facebook's legal stance on CA.
In a more pessimistic light, that might include an understanding of what FB will do to you as an employee if you publicly disagree with their narrative.
What? Paul Grewal was a judge who presided over Facebook court cases. How is that legal?
Is it that they collect too much data? We've known that they been doing that for years.
Is it that they allow apps to read not only your data but your friends data? That's not a surprise either.
So some company somewhere figured out a way to abuse these already known parts of Facebook in a way that already violates the their ToS.
What should/could they have reasonably done differently that didn't require changing their entire business model?
Yes I know, like you, that there is nothing new in the "discovery" but it seems that it's not what people perceive. And this is a significant fact, whatever we think about it.
As you've said, everything has been "above board" (in the sense of it being advised in the TOS) apart from maybe the fact that apps get access to friends' profiles. Everyone's just outraged that someone put some real effort into using the tools that Facebook provided as they were clearly intended to be used.
(Also maybe it's due to the success of the campaigns by Facebook, Google etc. to redefine 'privacy' as 'no-one but us gets your data'. People were fine with Facebook having the data, but despite being told it would happen, are really not fine with other companies getting access to significant chunks of that data.)
The 50M users whose information was handed to Kogan, and then Kogan sold to CA, should have been notified by Facebook as soon as Facebook found out.
Those users did not agree to that kind of usage of their information.
The second is that Facebook weren't diligent with who allowed to access this data - the 'researcher' collected data and then passed it to a commercial entity with no consequences. This is probably in breach of quite a few laws (especially in the EU).
The third is that Facebook knew that CA had participated in this deliberate breach of their terms to steal data and allowed CA to continue to use this data to target advertising on FB during an election campaign. They only banned CA after it got bad publicity, rather than when the actual infraction occured.
Better yet, this will allow everyday people to see the problem because they're given a lens that doesn't make them feel like a rube. (i.e. They will think the data can be abused because it convinced people that are not them to do a thing they find stupid (vote Trump)).
Do you think because "we" know what they're doing, it has any impact on how they act? 95% of people with the vaguest notion of what they're doing find a way to rationalize it as good-or-neutral because they make money from a surveillance company and want to sleep well at night.
This concept is the skeleton key that explains maybe 85-90% of the legitimately dumb bullshit & disgraceful/reckless behavior from the United States' right-wing
REQUEST: if there's any FB moles reading, maybe live stream that Q&A & ask questions from HN
If what you mean by "unhinged" is "disconnected from what most of us call real life", you would be hard pressed to find national politicians who aren't.
If only there were term limits for all offices at that level.
Of course, Trump also says true things that nobody else does.
It wasn't the right wing that spied on congress.
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/jul/31/cia-admits-spy...
It wasn't the right wing that spied on the press.
https://theweek.com/articles/464430/why-did-obama-administra...
https://cpj.org/reports/2013/10/obama-and-the-press-us-leaks...
It wasn't the right wing that spied on US citizens using the FISA process, and that unmasked an unprecedented number of peoples names from the intercepts, and that leaked their target's names to the press. These things are serious felonies.
http://thehill.com/policy/national-security/344226-intellige...
Illegally spying on people only seems worth doing if you're not just making things up. If you are then why bother risking illegally spying and leaking?