Who was it who said that bad things never come to an end? I don’t know, but it does appear as if things might be about to change and hopefully for the better. You see the zillionaire owner and founder of Facebook, Mr Mark Zuckerberg is facing an investigation by the U.S Federal Trade Commission, a consumer watchdog into how his company permitted a loophole to exist that essentially failed to protect millions of Facebook users’ personal data.
So what’s all the do? Now I won’t bore you with the details, suffice as to say that the personal data of over 50 million users was extracted from Facebook by a company contracted by Cambridge Analytica. No. I’ve never heard of them either. Anyway, among the many questions Mr Zukerberg will be expected to answer is: what exactly was the purpose for which that information was pulled?
Now, I think I can provide the answer here. It’s because somebody, somewhere wanted to conduct a Phd research project into the average IQ level of your everyday Facebook user and ascertain if it might reach double figures. Ground breaking work was to be conducted into why fifty million no lifes swim around daily in an ocean of banality sharing little more than millions of so-called amazing videos of cute dogs, cute babies and insights that are less interesting than Steve Davis. They were set to investigate the thousands of born again something or others spreading the word in chat rooms across the world with their cyber friends, the personal heartbreak stories of people at deaths door with horrible illnesses and asking for their ‘friends’ prayers, and why it’s possible to find more spam then you can purchase at the nearest delicatessen. In short, the research would seek to prove once and for that FaceBook has become the personification of banality.
Of course I could have answered that little query years ago. Facebook
has long become the equivalent of the person on the upper deck of a double-decker bus who’s only meaningful interaction with his mobile phone is to tell the caller, I’m on the bus’. He shells out sixty quid a month to supply this golden nugget of priceless information! There’s no meaningful engagement anywhere, and is it akin to a darkened room where nobody can see or speak to each other on a personal level, but where everyone is ‘friends’
People exaggerate their lives in an attempt to escape the mundane one they’re leading in reality. In short the place in populated with those people, who once you spot them coming down the street, you instantly cross the road.
Anyway, back to Mr Zuckerberg. It transpires that a third-party company called Global Science Research devised a neat little personality quiz to get people to interact with the app, which then used a loophole which allowed them to get their hands on all of the behind the scenes information of those persons who took part. As the quiz was aimed at Facebook users we can safely state that no personalities would have been detected. Users would have been confronted by such taxing questions as how many hands do you have, what day of the week is it and which letter of the alphabet is used to mark a ballot paper?
However, not only did Global Science Research get their dirty mitts on users data, but also the same data relating to their equally cerebrally challenged friends, and all of their other meaningless interactions they had made via their Facebook account. A spokesperson for Global Research confirmed that if all of the fifty million users put their heads together it would form the world largest ever log cabin!
Now I can already hear said Mr Zuckerberg apologising to the Commission, and agreeing to co-operate with any enquiry blah de blah, not to mention a meeting at the British House of Commons. I mean wouldn’t you? I know I’d agree to anything if my share value was about to go tits up? However none of that will prevent his discomfort when he is questioned about the motivation behind a global franchise that, through its app protocols, permitted an organization to help itself to the personal data of millions of users without any of them being given the opportunity to refuse such pilfering.
But will this lead to the end of Facebook? One can only dream. On the other hand it’s probably a lot safer to keep all the lunatics logged on to the same asylum?
Laters
22nd March 2018.
Another good blog Derek. But it’s another piece of important investigative work. Who is responsible for bringing social media platforms to account? Lets wait and see
I find it annoying that this sort of thing get’s broken at the weekend and forgotten about by Monday when a lot more eyes will see it when procrastinating at the office?
Shouldn’t facebook users take responsibility for their lifes by knowing what they’re getting into when they sign up for a free service. You will always pay something. Recognising this may aid people to make better decisions, such as not inviting social media into your life to monitor you. Your comments on the uses a spot-on by the way
I agree Keith. When you want the basket of goodies such as a directory service to connect with others, storing and backing up your photos and videos, and online chat, and you don’t want to pay money for that, have you stopped to think how all these services are provided? It’s not by magic. You are part of the problem. The game wouldn’t exist unless you chose you play.
An alternative to this model is for Facebook, Twitter, etc. to launch a paid subscription service where they don’t collect your data, don’t sell it to others, etc. Assured privacy. I find it intriguing when I mention this to people almost everyone balks. This tells me the desire for a free service is greater than the desire for privacy. Yet, is me me me and the gimme gimmes a way to live one’s life?
On a more serious point Derek, we are a public that wants free social media services and we want government to sort out the consequences of this for us. Perhaps inviting companies to intrude into our lives and then demanding governments to do further intrude to mitigate the consequences of the former only creates an endless cycle of ever more intrusion by both. Is that what you want? That’s what you’re getting.
No punishment for Zuckerberg I assume for his bare faced lies told to the select committee. Has any corporation been held to account for any of their actions in the last 30 years? I don’t remember it.
Fair point. And when corporations are held to account (ha ha)… how many of their CEOs are actually going to jail for illegal activity? They’re taking a golden parachute and moving on to the next company… Still not a single arrest from the 2008 financial crisis.
Funny stuff Derek but you should have added that those desperate for attention are always at greater risk of exploitation?
Victim blaming. Didn’t take long did it?
Hasn’t the co-owner of facebook suggested it now be deleted?
That’s how bad it is
Just watch now as the all the people in the know play pass the buck and plead ignorance bal de blah. And of course they’ll all get away with it.
I’d love the data protection officers to tell us where they were and what they were doing while all this theft was going on. Nice blog.
Only the roving hoards of mindless cabbages will be surprised by this. The age of narcissism, algorithms and ever decreasing privacy have positioned those void of perceptive as organic modules for greater control, manipulation and fundamentally submission than ever before. At least chaos does not pertain to act for a greater good. The greater good that is that continually weakens the hands of those born to be controlled as those produced to control find greater ease and depth of fulfillment for their perverse and soulless natures.
So what happens when we leave the EU? There will be a data free-for-all, including our NHS data after the government has changed the data protection laws to suit the multinationals.
Lip service is paid to data privacy.Business is done with data.Stay away from Facebook and Google wherever practical
Funny blog. I’m certainly glad there’s a Russian angle. Russians are scary. Algorithms are scary. (Databases, too.) Russian algorithms are very scary. Something must be done!!!
This is why I only use facebook for instant messaging my son at college. No picture, no profile, nothing of a personal nature.
Hahahahahahahaha…anyone who didn’t see this coming is as perceptive as a rock.
I have a Facebook account that I use very infrequently. I don’t post status updates or photos or ‘like’ things or read the news there. I have almost no personal information on there. So, one would expect that I would have nothing to worry about with this data breach?????
But,that’s not the case. Facebook has the ability to track your activity online EVEN AFTER YOU’VE LOGGED OUT OF YOUR ACCOUNT. And, so potentially everything else you do online is being tracked by Facebook’s servers and then being sold to companies.
It’s an outrage and the only solution I can now see is to completely delete my Facebook account
The answer is simple. VPN. Adblock. Ghostery or similar (tracking blocker). Never go online without these things in place. It’s like never going outside naked.
It is quite wrong to believe that we cannot be manipulated. It is a comforting conceit. Better we learn to understand our vulnerability as best we can and acknowledge this new evil and try to understand what can be done
Why do I suspect news of this outrageous breach won’t see the light of day on F-book? Prove me wrong everyone: Share it!
The Internet is a mirror and when we look into it, we see the archetypes of the collective unconsciousness of our culture recorded through fiber optics and light onto silicon which is made from sand…
LOL!!! That’s very funny. I’m sure Derek will approve?
The internet is a powerful tool that can be used for good just as it can be used for evil. That it is being used for evil suggests the problem was already here not that it has spawned evil itself. This is another, we live in a capitalistic society ruled by an oligarchy things. In a rush to capitalize the internet bad shit happens just like the planet in regards to oil
what is easy to make money from, is intrensically bad. We’ve all known the cats secretly want to take over the world and now they are one kitten video at a time!!! On top of that we live in an oligarchy where the few control the majority so of course the internet will be used to sustain control by the oligarchs. It however gives rise to the ability to self govern and could be used to wrestle the control from said oligarchs.
On behalf of all proud anti-Facebook ‘Luddites’, to all Facebook users: Suckers!!!
Makes me feel justified in having ceased wasting my time on Facebook — and regrets that I ever succumbed to peer pressure to have established an account in the first place. You’re right Derek low lifes in a sea of banality. I couldn’t have put it better
They have far far far more info on you than you think. If you use FB and don’t sign out then it can track you across the web, see what you’re seeing, view what you’re viewing and bit by bit it forms a profile. You, and I, regardless of how clever we are, have given away most things to these new corporates.
Facebook is the greatest tool for mind control and surveillance ever invented. It’s full-on dystopian. You are basically giving your private life away for free to companies who have no compunction in profiting from it.
And people think nothing about sending off their DNA to ancestry.co.uk and paying for the privilege! Yeah, of course your info is safe, don’t you worry about it…!!!!
Is there anyone facing prosecution for using unauthorised data, surely that’s the issue here?
I’d like to say “Ditch social media people. Make a habit of talking to people and lose the habit of tapping on phones” if I though it were any use. It’s easy for me to say, I’m one of the significant number who never got in to it.
This is the downside of social media, by using profiling to sell for commercial gain users details manipulation of the gullible becomes child’s play for the conman.
FB has gone further than Orwell’s big brother ever imagined, in today’s world people sign up to mass surveillance feeding the beast information and the beast makes a profit
Facebook is a security joke there are no privacy settings that can prevent access abuse of this type via ‘friend’ accounts etc…The Cambridge Analytics tactics are reminiscent of Peter Cook polling every voter in The Rise and Rise of Michael Rimmer.
I’m hoping when the new EU data protection law comes live i a few weeks we can organise a mass demand for the data held by Facebook, and others, which they have harvested with minimal attempts at requiring meaningful consent
Facebook have been anything but responsible or honest in this whole business … rather, they have lied, denied and obfuscated at every stage only to be subsequently forced to admit their active involvement.
Agreed. Personally I think anyone going near it is crazy myself – it is nothing more than a means of herding unwitting consumers into a personalised ad stream – for shoes, music or hateful political manipulation … all the same as far as Mark Zuckerberg is concerned. Nasty and manipulative right at the core in fact
Facebook must pay compensations to all people affected and all people at Cambrige Analytica must be sent to jail.
This circus must stop.
Have you seen the quality of some comments that appear on Facebook from some people?I would really beg to differ. In a world where social media plays such a huge role, it would seem a lot of individuals can be easily conditioned online.
Cue brexiters lining up to claim tweets don’t affect pensioners, failing to realise that FB Twitter etc live inside a very febrile agenda setting nexus that dominates us all. Both FB and Twitter should stand up and self-ban political advertising forthwith.
Facebook’s terms of service were loose and loosely enforced. Facebook is morally – and I hope legally – at fault.
Who else has been harvesting highly personal data from Facebook in this way, and what for?
Data protection legislation looks great on paper, but it seems that information bandits are mostly not even noticed, let alone punished.
Hi Derek
Just curious if you are the author of ‘The Inner Force’ ? If so, what year was it written?
Many thanks.
Ellie
Yes, one and the same
written in 1996
laters
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