How the Facebook Data Scandal involving Cambridge Analytica is a Storm in a Teacup

“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”

Excerpt from Facebook's full-page apology ad has appeared in many US and British Sunday newspapers

Facebook is hot water....or a storm in a teacup, depending on how you look at the situation.

Facebook has been apologizing for the leak of their consumer data via the Cambridge Analytica psychological profile quiz app back in 2014 as noted in the article “Facebook Ads Apologise For Cambridge Analytica Scandal”, Published Monday March 26, 2018, The Jamaica Gleaner.

Their full-page apology ad has appeared in many notable US and British Sunday newspapers including:

1.      The New York Times

2.      The Washington Post

3.      The Sunday Times

4.      The Sunday Telegraph in the United Kingdom

Apparently, the 270,000 Facebook users who did the quiz and were paid by the researcher to do the psychological profile quiz back in 2014, probably gave more information that they wanted.

The Cambridge Analytica psychological profile quiz app also went on to collect the data from some 50 to 86 million friends connected to those people. What seems to be creating the problem is that Cambridge Analytica, a political consulting firm affiliated with President Donald Trump's 2016 election campaign, created psychological profiles that were used to:

1.      Influence how people vote

2.      Influence how people think about politics and society

US$6 million was paid by the during the 2016 election by President Donald Trump's 2016 election campaign. However, now that he's in power, he has since denied any connection to the data collection practices of Cambridge Analytica, being as they are a contractor.

So why is there so much fuss about the collection of personal data by Cambridge Analytica?

Cambridge Analytica  and Facebook - How Facebook makes money from your Profile

It's good to note that the ads have allowed voters to stop collecting so much data from users smartphones when the login, quote: “We expect there are others. And when we find them, we will ban them and tell everyone affected”.

This is nothing new really.

The Facebook app already has been known to take up a lot of space on most smartphones as note in my Geezam blog article entitled “How to stop Facebook and Messenger from draining your battery”.

The Facebook app causes the following problems in most smartphones:

1.      20% reduction in the battery life for Google Android

2.      15% reduction in the battery life for Apple iPhone

3.      500GB Internal Storage when installed (Facebook)

Despite this, users and advertises benefit! Facebook uses this access to your smartphones to collect a vast amount of information on your smartphone usage including:

1.      Email address

2.      Strength of your phone’s battery

3.      Type of smartphone you are using

4.      News Feed you read

5.      Types of Ads you enjoy clicking on

6.      Websites that you visit outside of Facebook

Most of the data collection is done by AI (Artificial Intelligence) algorithms as explained in my blog article entitled “How Facebook Ads is using AI to build their version of Google Adwords and Adsense”. 

To be clear, Facebook doesn't sell your data but access to your presence on their Social Network as pointed out by their Data Policy, which was recently updated in light of the scandal. This information is sold to Third Party advertisers and analytics companies such as Cambridge Analytica, in order to generate more targeted ad campaigns.

The result is more ads in your Facebook feed as well as when you visit and login to certain website that are tailored more to your Facebook profile. Facebook’s business is valuable because it has so much personal data about its users.

Hence, selling that data to advertisers would significantly decrease Facebook’s value, as that what makes them valuable to advertisers and analytics companies in the first place.

Facebook and Instagram – Security Settings allow you to control Facebook Ads

Facebook also taps into information shared on Instagram, which is also owned by Facebook as noted in the article “Most Americans don't know Instagram is owned by Facebook ― and that's no accident”, published  April 12, 2018, CBS News.

Instagram also taps into Facebook data, so anything you do on their Social Network influences what types of ads you see. To see exactly what information Facebook has about you, do the following:

1.      Visit Settings on Facebook

2.      Click on Download a copy of your Facebook data under the General Tab

This will give you all of the data Facebook has collected about you, from private messages to photos to your search history.

You can also control what ads Facebook can share with you as follows:

1.      Click on Settings 

2.      Click Ads 

3.      View Ad Preferences

This show the interests Facebook thinks you have and advertisers use to target you. They also show other information they might use to target you with, which you can remove if you don’t want Facebook using the information to target you with advertising.

Still, you can stop Facebook from tracking you altogether by following these simple hand instructions as noted in my blog article entitled “How to stop Facebook from tracking you on your smartphone and the Real World”.

Good to note, your Security settings allow anyone, even casual advertisers with the right software to scrape profile and collect data on as many people who have left their Facebook Profiles as searchable by Google.

Most Third-party apps such as Uber or Spotify are granted permission to tap into your personal data via Facebook's Graph, in order to produce a better experience more tailored to your personality.

To be fair, advertisers and analytics companies that used access to your Facebook metrics do not know that you clicked on their ads. Advertisers and analytics companies can see demographic details about who sees their ads e.g. the number of males or females in a particular part of Jamaica that clicked on an ad but not the names and addresses of those persons.

This is how Cambridge Analytica got access to so many users data via their psychological profile quiz app: bulk data with no names. So they merely created political campaigns to target certain people in certain part of the country with certain ads that were tailored to their likes and dislikes, making to easy to sway them to vote for Donald Trump.

So if they have that level of access to your phone, is it possible that they may also be spying on you.

Facebook is not spying on you – If you opt in, your Data is for sale

Facebook may be selling access to advertising products tailored to your profile, but they do not know you.

According to their Data Policy, Facebook does not collect your private messages, call history or off-Facebook text message data, even your microphone as noted in the article “This is how Facebook uses your data for ad targeting”, published Apr 11, 2018 by Kurt Wagner, Recode.

 They might monitor your private messages, call history or off-Facebook text message data to determine if they violate the company’s policies, but they do not sell that information to advertisers. However, if you did opt in to letting Facebook uses that data when you signed up for an app, they can use this as indication to go ahead to sell that data.

This was indeed the case with Cambridge Analytica psychological profile quiz app, as the persons who took the quiz back in 2014 may have unwittingly given the app full access to their phone in exchange to be paid for the data that was being collected on them.

In fact, many apps actually pay you via Paypal, Skrill, PerfectMoney or even Bitcoin just to do surveys and quizzes as explained in my MICO Wars Blog article entitled “How Jamaicans with 5″ smartphone can make money using Apps”. 

Facebook and Cambridge Analytica - Media will soon stop swirling this teacup storm

So to summarize, the main problem here is not that Facebook was selling its access to your customer data to Cambridge Analytica, but rather that it was being used by the Donald Trump Political campaign to influence people to vote in an election.

Cambridge Analytica has committed no wrong, as all the 270,000 Facebook users were paid, as is currently the case with most apps that pay you for your information.

Facebook need not worry, for as soon as the media stop swirling this teacup storm, it’ll be back to business as usual, as many, including these very same newspapers, benefit from their targeted advertising services.