2018-05-27 Facebook

I need a new link collection, I think. It all started with a Mastodon thread by @paul talking about Facebook.

@paul

Facebook accused of conducting mass surveillance through its apps. «The lawsuit claims the ability to read text messages on Android phones was also partially disclosed, presented to users as a way to make logging in easier, but Facebook deployed it to collect a range of other messages and the associated metadata. [...] Facebook has not fully disclosed the manner in which it pre-processes photos on the iOS camera roll, meaning if a user has any Facebook app installed on their iPhone, then Facebook accesses and analyses the photos the user takes and/or stores on the iPhone, the complainant alleges.»

Facebook accused of conducting mass surveillance through its apps

Zuckerberg set up fraudulent scheme to 'weaponise' data, court case alleges. «A company suing Facebook in a California court claims the social network’s chief executive “weaponised” the ability to access data from any user’s network of friends – the feature at the heart of the Cambridge Analytica scandal. A legal motion filed last week in the superior court of San Mateo draws upon extensive confidential emails and messages between Facebook senior executives including Mark Zuckerberg.»

Zuckerberg set up fraudulent scheme to 'weaponise' data, court case alleges

These links concern the same case: «The company that has filed the case, a former startup called Six4Three, is now trying to stop Facebook from having the case thrown out and has submitted legal arguments that draw on thousands of emails, the details of which are currently redacted.» (ibid) This company does seem rather shady and I think it needs to be reiterated that all of this is *alleged* and not proven. «Six4Three lodged its original case in 2015 shortly after Facebook removed developers’ access to friends’ data. The company said it had invested $250,000 in developing an app called Pikinis that filtered users’ friends photos to find any of them in swimwear.��

Comment by @switchingsocial: «If this week’s allegations are true, FB’s income depends mostly on selling personal data to companies. Apparently FB technically avoid “selling it” by giving it away, but only give it away to companies that buy lots of ads. If it is true, then in effect they are exchanging personal data for ad revenue, and the ads themselves are irrelevant except as a payment method for data sales.»

@switchingsocial

Facebook Has Many Sins To Atone For, But 'Selling Data' To Cambridge Analytica Is Not One Of Them. «The real problem was in how all of this was hidden. It comes back to transparency. Facebook could argue that this information was all “public” – which, uh, okay, it was, but it was not public in a way that the average Facebook user (or even most “expert” Facebook users) truly understood. So if we’re going to bash Facebook here, it should be for the fact that none of this was clear to users.» I’d argue that transparency is not the goal. Ethical behavior is. Thus, we want to use transparency to enforce ethical behavior. That is why there is some extra bashing due after the bashing for a lack of transparency.

Facebook Has Many Sins To Atone For, But 'Selling Data' To Cambridge Analytica Is Not One Of Them

Facebook Knows How to Track You Using the Dust on Your Camera Lens. Summary by @switchingsocial: “They even patented a method for analysing dust/scratches on camera lenses, to identify the person taking the picture.”

Facebook Knows How to Track You Using the Dust on Your Camera Lens

@switchingsocial

​#Facebook ​#Privacy

Comments

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Thanks for gathering this all together!

(test commenting too)

– At PresGas at freeradical dot zone 2018-05-27 15:30 UTC

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You’re welcome. 😀

– Alex Schroeder 2018-05-27 15:47 UTC