50 million Facebook profiles harvested for firm linked to former Trump adviser

[Tassman]

Facebook itself said that it was legitimate and proper, and they've been allowing this sort of thing to happen for years, including by Obama who was slavishly praised as a "genius" for leveraging social media. But it appears to have only become a "problem" after Trump won the election.

Facebook has NOT said it was "legitimate and proper".

"A whistleblower has revealed to the Observer how Cambridge Analytica – a company owned by the hedge fund billionaire Robert Mercer, and headed at the time by Trump’s key adviser Steve Bannon – used personal information taken without authorisation in early 2014 to build a system that could profile individual US voters, in order to target them with personalised political advertisements".

https://www.theguardian.com/news/201...ce-us-election

Given that Trump's Security Adviser (and personal friend at the time) Steve Bannon was intimately involved, it is more than likely Trump was fully aware of the cheating being done in his favour by Cambrbridge-Analytica's Facebook scam.

[Mountain Man]

First of all Facebook did not allow for this to happen. Cambridge Analytica did not get permission by Facebook. Quite the opposite as I have pointed out repeatedly. It is very possible that Facebook have been way to relaxed when it comes to securing the data of their users, but that does nothing to change the fact that Cambridge Analytica's use of the data was not legitimate and they were not given permission by Facebook. If other companies have used the data without Facebook's permission and in was that are not legitimate this does nothing to better the situation for Cambridge Analytica.

I am a bit confused as to where you really stand on this issue. You have just quoted the following: “hundreds of millions of Facebook users are likely to have had their private information harvested by companies that exploited the same terms as the firm that collected data and passed it on to Cambridge Analytica.” But you yourself just claimed that: "As for my feelings on the matter, no, I really don't have a problem with it because these "data mining" operations are doing nothing more than collecting information that people have willingly made freely accessible." So in one case these data are refered to as private and in the other they are refered to as "information that people have willingly made freely accessible." Who of you are right. And why the talk about information being exploited if it was data people have willingly made freely accessible?

You should hand out barf bags before you start spinning like this.

The fact is that Facebook has been allowing this sort of thing to happen for years, but nobody thought anything of it until someone saw another chance to attempt to "delegitimize" Trump's humiliating defeat of Hillary.

[Mountain Man]

Facebook has NOT said it was "legitimate and proper".

"A whistleblower has revealed to the Observer how Cambridge Analytica – a company owned by the hedge fund billionaire Robert Mercer, and headed at the time by Trump’s key adviser Steve Bannon – used personal information taken without authorisation in early 2014 to build a system that could profile individual US voters, in order to target them with personalised political advertisements".

https://www.theguardian.com/news/201...ce-us-election

Given that Trump's Security Adviser (and personal friend at the time) Steve Bannon was intimately involved, it is more than likely Trump was fully aware of the cheating being done in his favour by Cambrbridge-Analytica's Facebook scam.

Keep reading, dummy...

[Facebook] said in a statement that Kogan “gained access to this information in a legitimate way and through the proper channels”...

[shunyadragon]

Keep reading, dummy...

[Facebook] said in a statement that Kogan “gained access to this information in a legitimate way and through the proper channels”...

. . . but not as the contract with Facebook limited the use of the information.

[Tassman]

Keep reading, dummy...

[Facebook] said in a statement that Kogan “gained access to this information in a legitimate way and through the proper channels”...

YOU keep reading: "Facebook denies that the harvesting of tens of millions of profiles by GSR and Cambridge Analytica was a data breach. It said in a statement that Kogan “gained access to this information in a legitimate way and through the proper channels” but “did not subsequently abide by our rules” because he passed the information on to third parties." As Shunya pointed out.

https://www.theguardian.com/news/201...ce-us-election

Note that this was all known to Bannon, who was in charge of Cambridge Analytica and who was friends at the time with Trump, and the wealthy Mercer family who funded both Cambridge Analytica AND your beloved Breitbart. So Trump was fully aware of the illegal and morally dubious shenanigans occurring on his behalf.

And this was all separate from the social media meddling by the St Petersburg Troll Factory, which Trump was also probably fully aware of.

[Sparko]

"Collusion" is a separate issue, I'm not referring to collusion. I'm referring to the illicit, outside manipulation of public opinion to influence their vote.

You mean like Obama did?

[rogue06]

You mean like Obama did?

Which the same MSM that condemns Trump for it were heaping praise upon Obama for doing it.

[Sparko]

Which the same MSM that condemns Trump for it were heaping praise upon Obama for doing it.

And they don't even try to justify their hypocrisy! They are blatant about it.

[Mountain Man]

. . . but not as the contract with Facebook limited the use of the information.

Except that Facebook had willingly turned a blind-eye to that sort of thing in the past:

Source: Former Employee: ‘Horrifying’ Misuse of User Data Was Routine at Facebook

Sandy Parakilas, a former Facebook platform operations manager, claimed the company’s “horrifying” misuse of user data was routine, and that Facebook preferred to have “no idea” what third parties were doing with the freely available data.
In their report, the Guardian noted that “hundreds of millions of Facebook users are likely to have had their private information harvested by companies that exploited the same terms as the firm that collected data and passed it on to Cambridge Analytica.”

“My concerns were that all of the data that left Facebook servers to developers could not be monitored by Facebook, so we had no idea what developers were doing with the data,” claimed Parakilas. “It has been painful watching… Because I know that they could have prevented it.”

“Once the data left Facebook servers there was not any control, and there was no insight into what was going on,” he continued, adding, “Facebook was in a stronger legal position if it didn’t know about the abuse that was happening.”

“They felt that it was better not to know."

http://www.breitbart.com/tech/2018/0...e-at-facebook/

© Copyright Original Source

When a company repeatedly refuses to enforce its own rules, legally speaking, those rules cease to exist. This is why I keep saying that Facebook has to tread very carefully here, because they could be in a mess of legal trouble if they step one wrong foot.

[Mountain Man]

And this was all separate from the social media meddling by the St Petersburg Troll Factory, which Trump was also probably fully aware of.

You mean the troll factory that had pretty much zero impact on the election?

The vast majority of ads were purchased after the election, Facebook has said that less then 5-million people even saw the ads before the election, and those same "troll factories" promoted militant liberal groups like Black Lives Matter and organized anti-Trump rallies (one of which was famously headlined by Michael Moron).

But I'm sure they had a significant impact on the election in Trump's favor. No, really.

[Mountain Man]

I think Facebook is starting to wish this can of worms had never been opened:

Source: acebook App Collects Data on Users’ Phone Calls, Texts Outside of Platform

Facebook’s Android app has been collecting data on its users’ phone calls and texts outside of the platform, prompting privacy concerns from consumers who didn’t know just how far Facebook’s data collection efforts really go.

According to a report by Ars Technica, Facebook has been recording the data of its users’ phone calls and texts for a number of years.

“This past week, a New Zealand man was looking through the data Facebook had collected from him in an archive he had pulled down from the social networking site. While scanning the information Facebook had stored about his contacts, Dylan McKay discovered something distressing: Facebook also had about two years’ worth of phone call metadata from his Android phone, including names, phone numbers, and the length of each call made or received,” the news outlet reported. “This experience has been shared by a number of other Facebook users who spoke with Ars, as well as independently by us — my own Facebook data archive, I found, contained call-log data for a certain Android device I used in 2015 and 2016, along with SMS and MMS message metadata.”

http://www.breitbart.com/tech/2018/0...e-of-platform/

© Copyright Original Source

Especially now that a federal investigation has been opened by the FTC.

[rogue06]

I think Facebook is starting to wish this can of worms had never been opened:

Source: acebook App Collects Data on Users’ Phone Calls, Texts Outside of Platform

Facebook’s Android app has been collecting data on its users’ phone calls and texts outside of the platform, prompting privacy concerns from consumers who didn’t know just how far Facebook’s data collection efforts really go.

According to a report by Ars Technica, Facebook has been recording the data of its users’ phone calls and texts for a number of years.

“This past week, a New Zealand man was looking through the data Facebook had collected from him in an archive he had pulled down from the social networking site. While scanning the information Facebook had stored about his contacts, Dylan McKay discovered something distressing: Facebook also had about two years’ worth of phone call metadata from his Android phone, including names, phone numbers, and the length of each call made or received,” the news outlet reported. “This experience has been shared by a number of other Facebook users who spoke with Ars, as well as independently by us — my own Facebook data archive, I found, contained call-log data for a certain Android device I used in 2015 and 2016, along with SMS and MMS message metadata.”

http://www.breitbart.com/tech/2018/0...e-of-platform/

© Copyright Original Source

Especially now that a federal investigation has been opened by the FTC.

Advertisers are starting to bail specifically citing this Auto parts retailer Pep Boys joins Monzilla Corp. in pulling their ads.

The EU is forcing Facebook to better protect user data or face fines in the billions.

And the updated version of the Ars Technica story

[Mountain Man]

The beginning of the end for Facebook? According to whistleblowers, Facebook has been cavalier with its users' privacy and data for well over a decade, and if they're charged with multiple crimes over that span of time, it could be enough to bankrupt the company. Not to mention the number of users they could potentially lose if this story gets into the public consciousness.

[One Bad Pig]

The beginning of the end for Facebook? According to whistleblowers, Facebook has been cavalier with its users' privacy and data for well over a decade, and if they're charged with multiple crimes over that span of time, it could be enough to bankrupt the company. Not to mention the number of users they could potentially lose if this story gets into the public consciousness.

I'm sure they'd lose some users, but a significant portion of those who would be worried also highly depend on Facebook to keep in touch with friends. Bankruptcy is much more of a potential problem; if enough advertisers flee, FB's income model tanks.

[Mountain Man]

Facebook loses $70 billion in market value.

http://www.breitbart.com/tech/2018/0...on-in-10-days/