There is fire in Zuckerville and the frenzy that accompanied the advent of Facebook is becoming less exciting, as users become more acquainted with the unholy romance between Aleksandr Kogan and Cambridge Analytica, aided by Facebook privacy policies.
Most internet users don’t bother to read the ‘terms and conditions’ of a website before using it, solely because of its Byzantine and lengthy style, an act which may put one’s privacy at risk.
A brief Rundown
From 2007 through 2014, Facebook policies allowed third-party application developers to extract personal data of Users and friends.
Its development in 2014 to reduce the amount of personal data available to third-parties came too late, as Aleksandr Kogan, a Cambridge University Researcher has already extracted personal data of more than 50 million people with an app, which he sold to Cambridge Analytica (a company that mines data for political and commercial use).
The Guardian reporters informed Facebook of the data misuse in 2015, but the Company failed to inform the users whose privacy were compromised.
Following this revelation, Facebook banned Kogan’s app in 2015 and ordered all parties he had given data to destroy it, including Cambridge Analytica. These data were never destroyed according to latest reports, though Cambridge Analytica insists it did carry out the order.
Recently, more facts were brought to light by the collaborative efforts of whistleblower Christopher Wylie (former employee of Cambridge Analytica who helped construct the Psychographic tools), the Observer and the Guardian newspapers.
Wylie claims these data sold to Cambridge Analytica were used to develop “psychographic” profiles of people and deliver pro-Trump material to them online.
Mark Zuckerberg, CEO of Facebook has acknowledged that its policies that allowed the misuse of data were a “breach of trust between Facebook and the people who share their data with us and expect us to protect it”, while also noting the Company’s willingness to amend the policies that gave such allowance.
“We have a responsibility to protect your data, and if we can’t then we don’t deserve to serve. We also made mistakes, there’s more to do, and we need to step up and do it”.
Cambridge Analytica and the Trump alliance
Cambridge Analytica is a British consultancy involved in data mining, data brokerage, and data analysis, combined with strategic communication for electoral purposes.
According to reports, Cambridge Analytica had worked for Ted Cruz, Ben Carson had supported voters who were inclined towards Brexit, and also helped in Trump’s campaign, while also being linked to Russia’s interference in US 2016 elections and an attempt to influence the Nigerian 2015 elections.
Caught on record boasting is Alexander Nix, Cambridge Analytica Chief Executive;”We did all the research, all the data, all the analytics, all the targeting, we ran all the digital campaign, the television campaign and our data-informed all the strategy.”
Nix was sacked on March 23, 2018, as comments made by him and “other allegations”, which according to the Firm does not represent its “values or operations”.
Although the data received from Kogan were obtained legally, Kogan “lied” to Facebook, claiming the data were for academic purposes and violated its policies in transferring the data.
Little assurance for data safety
Although Companies try to update their privacy policies to protect users, the attempt fails because the policies are written in legalese or too vague for understanding, thus leading to more confusion.
Imran Ahmad, a partner at Miller Thomson who leads the firm’s cybersecurity practice said; “If you read a privacy statement and can’t understand it, are you really giving informed consent?”
Will #DeleteFacebook cut short Zuckerberg’s reign?
The #DeleteFacebook campaign on Twitter is threatening the fibers of the world’s most used social media platform, Facebook, with cyber dignitaries like Brian Acton, Whatsapp co-founder, Elon Musk, joining the campaign, (Elon deleted his personal and two of his company’s Facebook accounts).
This threat has not been taken lightly, as Facebook officially released an apology on full-page ads on UK’s The Observer, The Sunday Times, Mail on Sunday, Sunday Mirror, Sunday Express and Sunday Telegraph. The ads also appeared in America’s New York Times, The Washington Post, and The Wall Street Journal.
The ad which was signed by Zuckerberg read in part
We have a responsibility to protect your information. If we can’t, we don’t deserve it.
You may have heard about a quiz app built by a university researcher that leaked Facebook data of millions of people in 2014. This was a breach of trust, and I’m sorry we didn’t do more at the time. We’re now taking steps to make sure this doesn’t happen again.
We’ve already stopped apps like this from getting so much information. Now we’re limiting the data apps get when you sign in using Facebook.
We’re also investigating every single app that had access to large amounts of data before we fixed this. We expect there are others. And when we find them, we will ban them and tell everyone affected.
Finally, we’ll remind you of which apps you’ve given access to your information — so you can shut off the ones you don’t want anymore.
Thank you for believing in this community. I promise to do better for you.
Protecting your privacy on Facebook
Before 2016, apps one subscribes to get information of both users and friends. For instance, if 200,000 persons subscribe for a quiz test, the data of all takers, as well as friends’ data becomes accessible to the app developers.
While some may opine that deleting one’s Facebook account is too radical, it would be wise for one to ensure one’s privacy while still enjoying the frenzy that comes with social media.
Moreover deleting one’s account is not as easy as it may seem, as ‘deactivating’ only means that the account is not accessible but one’s data is still on Facebook’s database, in case one wishes to reactivate it.
The 90-day process of deleting one’s data from Facebook database begins two weeks after notification of one’s intention to delete the account
Steps to protecting your privacy
- Go to the app setting page on Facebook to manage apps one has given permission to access one’s data.
- If there is an app that isn’t recognizable, one is advised to click the ‘X’ by the side to deactivate it, or any app one feels like deauthorising.
- It is advisable to click on the ‘pen’ sign close to the ‘X’ to edit permission given to apps one subscribes to.
- Consider un-checking the boxes, even though Facebook claims leaving the boxes checked will make your friends’ “experience better and moral social”.
- Keep private issues out of the internet.
