Facebook is one of the most popular and biggest (if not the most popular and biggest) social media platform in the world. It is estimated that there are more than 2.13 billion monthly active users. Around 50% of them are daily active mobile users. All these daily requests store huge amount data that can be later processed. But what data does exactly Facebook collect and how is this data used?
Some of you may already know about recent Facebook's data privacy scandal involving London-based data mining and analytics firm Cambridge Analytica that misused user data of estimated 50 million Facebook users. As result, Facebook had to suspend from the platform Strategic Communication Laboratories (SCL) along with its political partner Cambridge Analytica. Companies ran data operations for Donald Trump’s 2016 presidential election campaign and are widely credited with helping Trump to influence voters on Facebook. While some details are still not known, Facebook’s disclosure suggests that user data obtained in a violation of Facebook’s terms of service could have given SCL and Cambridge Analityca an unfair advantage in reaching voters.
People have been arguing for a long time now claiming Facebook’s terms and conditions are a giant lie. Even though the company doesn't sell users' personal data, it can be easily obtained by third-party app developers. And the recent incident presents a clear confirmation of this assumption. Of course, Facebook refuses all statements that claim that it was major data breach, quote from facebook newsroom update:
"The claim that this is a data breach is completely false. Aleksandr Kogan requested and gained access to information from users who chose to sign up to his app, and everyone involved gave their consent. People knowingly provided their information, no systems were infiltrated, and no passwords or sensitive pieces of information were stolen or hacked."After such events, many people showed a lot of concern about security of their personal information and started to question their presence on FB. That ended up in a new boycott campaign #DeleteFacebook which has got quite a lot of supporters last few days. Even such an influencer as Elon Musk showed his support:
It's worth mentioning that there are several lawsuits, governmental inquiries and investigations that made Facebook lost its reputation and trust in the eyes of consumers. Some experts say that obtained data was both extremely valuable and possibly worthless. As for now, it's known that The Federal Trade Commission has confirmed that it has started an investigation of Facebook’s privacy practices.
But the question remains open. How can we as users protect ourselves from such incidents? Should we trust Facebook? Maybe we should start from the question: What Facebook already knows about me? To check this, you can log into your Facebook account, head over to the Settings and click a tiny link that says "Download a copy of your Facebook data". After this, you should receive an email with a message that it might take some time to gather all data about your profile. When the process of gathering data about you is completed, you will receive a download link of compressed file containing everything that you told Facebook all the period you have been using it. When you open its archive, you might be a little surprised to find out that Facebook stores all your phone contacts (at least I was). Beside storing history of all your activities, friends that you have deleted Facebook also stores some metadata about your phone calls and SMS messages. Quite creepy, don't you think so?
"So what can we do about this?" you might ask. Well, to start off we need to restrict Facebook app and Messenger from accessing information such as contacts, messages, phone calls and geolocation on our smartphones. After this, we should restrict access to information about our personal preferences to advertisements, you can do this in "Ads" section of your account settings. You also should consider revoking permissions from some of your Facebook apps, or even remove them if you think they might use your profile information too much. I'm also including this link if you're interested more in how Facebook uses your data.
Questions:
1. After the scandal with Cambridge Analytica Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg posted a response to the situation saying: “We have a responsibility to protect your data, and if we can’t then we don’t deserve to serve you". Do you agree with his statement?
2. Do you think that companies like Facebook need to be regulated on how they use customer's personal information?
3. Do you trust Facebook with your personal data and why?
Comments
I don't know what kind of regulations exist at the moment, but I would like to apply some more restrict rules that would forbid mass manipulations. Otherwise I know that using facebook equals to giving up what I do there and everyone should know that. No trust.
No I don't trust them. I never have and never will get the social media hype. My preferences are not to share if there is no need.
I suppose that Facebook and other similar companies are regulated but I don’t know any details. Apart from that, it’s obvious that such companies should have done everything to protect users data and use it as little as it’s possible.
Some time ago I’ve heard the interesting sentence: ‘If there is any security system that was developed by a human, there will be another human that will crack it’ That’s why I don’t trust and have a fake account on fb and try to avoid sharing unnecessary stuff to stay anonymous.
I think that such companies shouldn't be regulated. I am pessimistic about companies respecting our privacy and I predict that data collection and analysis will increase but I prefer that my data is accessible to a private company with a high focus on their internal security that Donald Trump's administration.
As I stated before - I don't believe it's possible to protect our privacy anymore since every app and program is collecting data about us. I am deeply upset about such situation but I am afraid that there is no other way than to learn to live in such world.
2. I don't think it is needed, just because you will never find the truth. Even if they show you that your personal information is used, how you want to check it?
3. I don't trust any social media, but have an experience how to protect my personal data.
I do not think so, because it gives more and more people access to this data. We ourselves have to watch over what we send to the Internet, because nothing is safe on the Internet.
As I wrote above, nothing is safe on the internet, so I have limited confidence in Facebook and always think twice before you send anything.
But still, I agree that you need think before type and send.
I don't think that my relationship with Facebook is about trust. I simple don't have a data that I don't really want to show somewhere(in my opinion, it is logical that if you don't want anybody to see some part of your personal information on the Internet you simply don't post it there and don't mention it anywhere). Thus I just use Facebook and Messenger because these 2 apps are good, in my opinion, and I don't really care about a leak of personal information
I completely agree that mishandling the personal data by sites such as Facebook, which has a great deal of people's personal information (and very private pieces of it) should be punished with all severity. Especially seeing that Facebook has a lot of money (I think that they might calculate the cost of potential scandal into cost and risk analysis, and if they still do what they do, it means that even after compensation it might turn out profitable for them).
I am a lazy person when it comes to personalizing my accounts on various Internet platforms, but I always tell myself to activate all the necessary restrictions on pages like Facebook - out of the very reason that you hear them stealing data every once in a while.
Of course. I believe that all companies that store a given person should be regulated in the use customers of personal information.
Yes. Facebook stores a lot of personal data, probably also about those that we did not provide. Unfortunately, I can not say more because I can not be sure how it is
Just think what you do and you will never be surprised if something will go wrong that didn't depend on you.
Most likely there are some regulations for companies like Facebook.But existence of such regulations doesn’t mean that this restrictions are being followed by.To my mind it’s literally impossible to ensure that such huge companies will follow it because the amount of source code of such apps are constantly growing and it is already big enough.You need to spent really impressive amount of time in order to analyze it.
I trusted Facebook and every other web site my name, surname and date of birth but now I should definitely reconsider it because I don’t want my personal data to be used against myself.
2. I think that nowdays companies like Facebook are very dangerous because they have a power to model a world to achieve their own goals. Even the Zuckerberg admitted that most of his employees have left-wing politicial orientations and they are cenzoring people who have other set of beliefs than Facebook's administrators. They should be regulate and even I think that it would be better if the Facebook wasn't exists. It was made to connect people but now it is use to play us against each other.
3. I don't trust the Facebook at all. They have already my data but over the last few years have been avoiding to share anything. I am using the Messenger but I am consious that they store my conversations on their server.
2. They already have regulations, user gave their data by themselves.
3. Yes I do, but I give it as much data, as I can publicly share. No more.
1. That is a meaningless statement written by his public relations
crew. Remember that for every statement an action needs to be taken.
Its quite similiar to some lefties politics who instruct other people
to give away their goods, when at the same time they earn loads of cash
from the private sector.
Its even funnier when those kind of people who have nothing in common with religion
instruct you to be a better christian i.e. they force you to accept hordes of black illegal economic immigrants from the africa.
2. Do you think that companies like Facebook
need to be regulated on how they use customer's personal information?
Thats rather hard to change people way of thinking.
You cannot regulate people's behaviour. Its up to them what they upload on the
internet
3. Do you trust Facebook with your personal data and why?
No and you shouldn't too. Every piece of information that you
upload on some unknown servers are vulnerable to beeing stolen,
and/or use it in a manner that is morally doubt
Companies like Facebook don't have any moral or legitimate grounds for using someone's private data. It doesn't matter for what purposes they want to use them political or experimental.No, I don't trust any social network.
If I decide to register on Facebook or any other site I’m fully prepared that my data will be stored and used for example serving me ads. It is a bit frightening that everything we share on the internet is used by big corporations and we have to be aware of that fact. But in my opinion actually for an ordinary man it’s not dangerous.
2. Do you think that companies like Facebook need to be regulated on how they use customer's personal information?
I think there are some regulations of it and companies like Facebook are able to easily circumvent them. I think that the real problem is in the education of community. People don’t know how it works and they are unconsciously sharing a lot of their personal data.
3. Do you trust Facebook with your personal data and why?
I don’t trust any website with my personal data and i’m not fun of sharing my life publicly, but if i do that i’m aware of consequences
2. It’s hard to do and enforce. I don’t believe that government would be able to keep up the regulations with progressing technology. Ultimately, I would much prefer if there were more strict regulations on how much information can be gathered, given specified needs, in the first place. Facebook gathered data that was in no way required to provide their services.
3. I do not. However, the data they gathered weren’t of very important significance to me.
There are no free things in the world, ppl just fail to realize that, and with how many more ways of exploiting naive ppl, evolution of internet and online services had brought ,sometimes u cant blame them for being naive/ignorant.
By whom ? By government? the most corrupted part of our world, which would kill just to peek into data that facebook stores on their server. Hell no.
I dont trust any site with my personal data, period. I do sometimes give it in exchange for their services, and in order to be able to use site as intended. Could i have Fake Facebook info ? sure, but it would only make it harder to use facebook in a way i intend to use it.
2. Yes. I'm tired of seeing things like personalized ads, based on my search history. When I type "fridge" in Google I do not want to see amazing offers on new fridges...
3. No. They're earning money on that data. People can do a lot of things for money.
Of course they should be regulated (and I hope they are to some extent) on users’ data collection policies. However, policies and regulations are often one step behind and it’s always possible for such companies to bypass those regulations.
Since the day I joined Facebook I knew that as any other online service it will be collecting user’s data for different purposes. I have never had full trust in Facebook privacy mechanisms as we have no means to verify how our Facebook activity is gathered, processed and shared. As a result I have never put any sensitive information consciously, however I don’t how much data has been actually collected without my knowledge.
I always thought that people in general exposes too much data online. I think this case it’s a perfect example that people are not aware of what they share online, they also do not read the privacy terms and without any though clicks on the links “Login via Facebook” in all online applications. I agree that it can be improved because now with all data we have to process each day it’s hard to note that some apps required an access to all our fiends list and what we liked in the last ten years but without exception we ALL SHOUD READ THAT. I’m pretty sure that new regulations won’t solve this problem. We should make more campaigns saying we should care about what we share that add even more lines to already so long terms and conditions.
I don’t have enough knowledge to answer second question, but from what I know many experienced and well educated people work on this, so there is nothin that we - casual users should care about.
I trust myself. I trust they won’t use it in a wrong way, but still I have a thought behind my head that all my personal data from Facebook might be leaked some day.
I think that it wouldn't make any harm to anyone if they would only use the resources which are necessary for their apps to work properly and be more open about how their services work. It's our duty though, to stop us from flooding people with unnecessary informations about ourselves.
I actually don't trust them as much as it may seem what I've written up to this point. The reason behind it is purely that their apps want access to almost everything we have on our smartphones. Facebook doesn't have any voice commands, and it still wants us to give it access to the microphone. There is a theory that the AI tries to guess what we are talking about in order to make the ads more suited to our needs. I think that this may be true.
2. Yes, they should. But a person should also understand what information he provides about himself, and if the user doesn’t want to put this information on public display - this is his right and it regulates himself.
3. I trust the Messengers and social networks with some information about myself, but this information has no value for political or social manipulation, so if my information is used somewhere, the worst thing that will happen is that I will lose confidence.
Yes, of course. Every service should store people data in secure way. In other way we could choose to not put data on that service.
Do you think that companies like Facebook need to be regulated on how they use customer's personal information?
Yes, In my opinion that is more common problem for entire internet world.
Do you trust Facebook with your personal data and why?
No, I do not. I try to put there as less data as possible.
For the second question absolute YES. Ofcourse there are already regulations but it should be more restrictive for me.
Last question is a bit tricky for me. Because everyone who register on facebook need to approve that data would be use in a certain ways. For me it's ok. I now that in our times it is essential for buisness to work properly. Everybody who uses social networks should be carefull what they are posting and what activities they are performing.
In my opinion people should be more careful and publish less data.
Hopefully RODO increase our data privacy...
Well, in wrong hands, your data can be used against you (social engineering, for example, to gather information about your end exploit you). So I don't think that you will be happy about it.
So it's always good idea to keep as little information about you as possible to make sure that nothing important will be leaked .
I am not sure if any regulations exist, but it would be nice to have ones.
I do not trust any website, Facebook is not an exception. I would love to delete my account, but I need it for using Messenger and be up to date with the university group.
All the information that you can get about you from Facebook itself is just a tip of an iceberg. They for sure store much more about you, things you even don't know.
Everybody wish it was true, but every system has its flaw.
In my opinion, such large companies should be regulated by law when it comes to our data. However, I am not sure how exactly the law could help us protect our data. Regarding the transfer of information, I think that we should know for who and why exactly they are shared.
According to the last question... I really not sure what i should to think about it. I don't have my mind right now about trusting Facebook about my data.
It's hard to imagine internet without FB. But even if FB did not exist there surely could be another social platform which would have the same scandal.
Companies like Facebook have more and more power and for sure have to be regulated.
I don't share much my personal data with Facebook, so I am not thinking about it this way.
In my opinion regulations and lows(rules) is a good idea, for now it's the only way we could feel safe and secure with the data we put online.
Yeah, why not. I'm fully aware of content I put on them - You can't find any ID data or Credit Card numbere there - only places and event I attended to - for me bigger threats could be google maps and my GPS localisator(and history of my walks and places)
I would say most people don't bother at all with security of their personal data. And as you mentioned education, we indeed should start learning more about have our data is used online and how it can be misused.
You know, I think that companies like Facebook should be regulated on how they use customer’s personal information, but on the other hand people need to deal with one thing - things posted once in the Internet won’t disappear.
No, I don’t trust it. The only thing that keeps me with Facebook is the Messenger.
Well, that's why company started to use AI to solve this problem.
As someone mentioned before people not aware of how internet works. And this is a problem when it comes to security and privacy.
Yes, I am agree.
they are using our data to improve their Artificial intelligence , in other hand,they are our personal data and privacy.
I cannot trust Facebook, because There are certain attributes of users that Facebook knows with certainty. Like, patterns of usage, time of last connection, contents of posts - all the activity on Facebook. They also know location of last connection, so they have pretty good geographic info.
The next level of certainty is information provided by advertisers. Let’s suppose I’m a retailer and I want to send an ad to people who have my loyalty card, well, if I upload the list of emails to Facebook, they can do just that. I can probably slice that list to only keep people who've bought things from one of my stores on a given day. Facebook can also show ads to only these people.
Facebook also keeps track of the persons which are most important to you and. The algorithms for that are constantly tweaked, but mostly driven by Facebook activity.
the algorithms can predict what you will like or what you will do for specific action.