The Facebook news thread

[Rewind]

Trump will probably claim he didn't know his digital media director was using data collected by Cambridge Analytica. Of course no one will believe him.

US professor sues Cambridge Analytica over its use of Facebook profiles
CBS News, Mar 17 2018

Facebook has suspended a data firm that worked with President Trump's campaign team over a violation of the site's privacy policies. Cambridge Analytica used personal information from Facebook profiles of millions of US voters without permission. Trump's 2016 data guru Brad Parscale, who has been named campaign manager of the president's 2020 re-election bid, hired Cambridge Analytica during the campaign. Cambridge Analytica has said it was key to Trump's victory.

David Carroll, an associate professor at Parsons School of Design, filed a lawsuit against Cambridge Analytica when he found out it collected data on him. Carroll said he followed the practices of all the presidential campaigns in 2016 and requested data from the London-based company last year. "It had information about my voter registration, information about results in my district and a political model about my beliefs and a prediction of my participation," Carroll said. "The legal experts working with us believe this is not a complete disclosure." Carroll worked with a legal team in London to file a lawsuit against Cambridge Analytica under Britain's data protection act.

https://www.cbsnews.com/news/faceboo...rivacy-rights/

[Rewind]

Now that we know data on 50,000,000 Facebook users was illegally obtained by a UK firm, will millions of Facebook users close their accounts.......or will they just shrug and say, "Eh, there's no such thing as privacy anymore"?

Mark Zuckerberg and Facebook under fire from UK, US politicians over Cambridge Analytica data controversy

http://www.money.cnn.com/2018/03/18/...ata/index.html

[Rewind]

Zuckerberg is still worth $69.5 billion so I'm not about to feel sorry for him.

After latest PR nightmare, Mark Zuckerberg's net worth drops $5.1 billion in hours
Forbes, Mar 19 2018 2:00 PM

After another public relations debacle for Facebook -- in which a Trump-affiliated data firm was accused of improperly gleaning information on more than 50 million users -- the company’s stock plummeted nearly 7% through 1 pm Eastern Time today, erasing $37 billion of market value. The decline had the biggest impact on Mark Zuckerberg, Facebook’s co-founder and CEO, whose net worth fell $5.1 billion.

Zuckerberg, who owns about 16% of Facebook's shares, is now worth an estimated $69.5 billion, according to Forbes' real-time rankings of the world’s billionaires. He is currently the seventh-richest person on the planet, down from fifth, after falling behind Zara co-founder Amancio Ortega and Carlos Slim Helú, Mexico’s richest person.

https://www.forbes.com/sites/noahkir.../#4a1c408e3f2e

[Rewind]

Not surprisingly, Donald Trump says he knew nothing about Cambridge Analytica and the stolen Facebook data. Yeah, just like he knew nothing about Vladimir Putin.......or David Duke.......or his attorney's hush-money payment to Stormy Daniels.......or his son's meeting with Russians at Trump Tower.......or the 13 women who accused him of sexual molestation and abuse.......or.......

Christopher Wylie, Cambridge Analytica whistle-blower, speaks out on Facebook controversy
Wylie calls the data a "political gold mine," adding, "If you're trying to influence an American election, that's a one-stop shop."

https://www.cbsnews.com/news/christo...sy-2018-03-19/

[Rewind]

Stamos wanted Facebook to be transparent about all the fake accounts and misinformation spread by Russian trolls during the 2016 Presidential campaign. The other executives disagreed with him. They value Facebook's image more than they value openness, truth and honesty.

Alex Stamos, Facebook's head of security, plans to leave the company in August

http://www.businessinsider.com/alex-...acebook-2018-3

[Rewind]

Mark Zuckerberg has been strangely silent for the past few days. He has not spoken to reporters about the Cambridge Analytica controversy, he has not issued a public statement and he has not discussed the issue with his employees. Facebook shareholders aren't silent, though. With the stock price dropping, they've filed a lawsuit accusing the company of failing "to disclose that Facebook violated its own data privacy policies by allowing third parties access to personal data of millions of Facebook users without their consent."

Facebook investors sue the social media giant over voter-profile harvesting

http://www.latimes.com/business/tech...320-story.html

[Rewind]

Mark Zuckerberg finally broke his silence -- before the investors' lawsuit and Robert Mueller's investigation broke him.

Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg breaks silence, admits 'breach of trust'
CBS News, Mar 21 2018 3:56 PM

Mark Zuckerberg, CEO of social media giant Facebook, released a statement today breaking his silence about startling reports that the company mishandled the personal data of millions of users. He wrote in a post on Facebook, "We have a responsibility to protect your data and if we can't then we don't deserve to serve you. I've been working to understand exactly what happened and how to make sure this doesn't happen again."

Referring to the app developer who shared Facebook data with the political consulting firm Cambridge Analytica, he acknowledged, "This was a breach of trust between Aleksandr Kogan, Cambridge Analytica and Facebook. But it was also a breach of trust between Facebook and the people who share their data with us and expect us to protect it. We need to fix that."

Zuckerberg and Facebook chief operating officer Sheryl Sandberg have been under pressure to address the issue since headlines broke over the weekend about Cambridge Analytica and its harvesting of some 50 million Facebook users' data. Cambridge Analytica, a political consulting firm financed by billionaire conservative activist Robert Mercer, was used by the Trump campaign in the 2016 race for the White House. Facebook is facing a growing backlash on Capitol Hill as more lawmakers demand that Zuckerberg testify. Some are calling for increased regulations on big tech companies.

https://www.cbsnews.com/news/mark-zu...ay-2018-03-21/

[Rewind]

I have never had a Facebook page but I almost wish I had one now, just so I could have the pleasure of deleting it.

Elon Musk joins #DeleteFacebook movement, erases Tesla and SpaceX pages

http://www.thewrap.com/elon-musk-joi...-spacex-pages/

[Rewind]

The ads begin with: "We have a responsibility to protect your data." Yes, indeed -- and Zuckerberg should have been protecting data every day since February 4, 2004, when he co-founded Facebook. Now he's struggling to do damage control.

Mark Zuckerberg takes out full-page newspaper ads to apologize for Cambridge Analytica scandal

http://www.businessinsider.com/mark-...scandal-2018-3

[Rewind]

Okay, this is downright scary. And creepy. And alarming.

I downloaded 14 years of my Facebook data and here's what happened
Sara Ashley O'Brien, CNN, Mar 25, 2018 1:31 PM ET

After the news broke last week that data firm Cambridge Analytica accessed information from 50 million Facebook users without their knowledge, I wanted to know more about what information Facebook has on me. By visiting the Settings page, I clicked an option to download a copy of my data at the bottom of the general account section. After downloading my stored data — I've been a member since 2004 — I was presented with an enormous amount of personal details that have been collected about me over the years.

It had the phone number of my late grandmother who never had a Facebook account or even an email address. It preserved the conversations I had with an ex, someone with whom I thought I had deleted my digital ties. It even recalled times I was "poked," a feature I had forgotten about. I also learned that Kate Spade New York and MetLife have me on their advertiser lists.

Staring at the data was not only creepy but it drudged up painful memories. I can view the dates I became friends with my contacts on Facebook. Facebook also preserved conversations I had with people I've tried to forget, including the guy I dated on and off for several years. I hadn't actively deleted our Messenger conversations. (Messenger is the chat app also owned by Facebook). I needed to delete the history of our conversations in order to erase it from Facebook's digital memory. Simply "Unfriending" wasn't enough. The "contact info" section read like a Rolodex of all the contacts I've ever stored in my phone. I discovered that I can purge my Facebook data at https://www.facebook.com/invite_history.php

http://money.cnn.com/2018/03/24/tech...ata/index.html