DAILY OPINIONS

Cambridge Analytica: How did our data turn into a gun that is pointed at us?

Cambridge Analytica is not the first scandal of Facebook. What do we know about this scandal and how can we save our data?

Cambridge Analytica: How did our data turn into a gun that is pointed at us?

Zuck: Yeah so if you ever need info about anyone at Harvard
Zuck: Just ask.
Zuck: I have over 4,000 emails, pictures, addresses, SNS
X:  What? How’d you manage that one?
Zuck: people just submitted it.
Zuck: I don’t know why.
Zuck: They “trust me”
Zuck: Dumb f--ks.

When this alleged correspondence emerged in 2010 between 19 years old Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg and his friend, Facebook did not refute it, but it expressed that Zuckerberg’s and Facebook’s opinions about the privacy of personal information are not like this. Facebook became the main topic of conversation due to many scandals which ended up with apologies of Zuckerberg since its foundation. Before talking about Cambridge Analytica scandal, we should have a look at its previous scandals.

CAMBRIDGE ANALYTICA IS NOT THE FIRST SCANDAL OF FACEBOOK

In 2007, transferring the shopping data of customers without receiving approval of the users by Beacon, which is one of the Facebook’s advertisement site, was proved. However, in an interview given to The New York Times during those days, the former vice president of product marketing and operations at Facebook Mr Chamath Palihapitiya claimed that all was black propaganda.
In 2010, Facebook did more detailing in the users’ privacy settings and in the process, they override the user's settings with new defaults. But, the social networking service Facebook was obliged to settle Federal Trade Commission’s charges and agreed to take several steps to make sure it lives up to its promises in the future, including giving consumers clear and prominent notice and obtaining consumers' express consent before their information is shared beyond the privacy settings they have established. Zuckerberg apologized both for this and he Beacon scandal.

In 2012, under the name of “academic research” around 700 thousand Facebook users’ timelines were secretly manipulated to be more positive or negative in order to measure their reactions by looking their status updates.  After the study was publishedFacebook admitted that they made a mistake.
If you find these three examples insufficient to see Facebook’s reflexes, you may easily find other scandals on Facebook with a short search on the web.  In every case, the scene will start with “There is nothing of the sort. Don't trust us?”. Then it’ll continue with “They are exaggerating”. And in the end, they’ll say “Sorry, we have made a mistake”. Cambridge Analytica scandal is also not different from others.

CONFIRMATION OF KNOWN

Cambridge Analytica scandal is not new. The articles which are published in 2015 in The Guardian and in 2017 in The Intercept, revealed the rough size of the scandal.  The main reason behind this becoming the main topic of conversation today is a whistle blower, who revealed some files and information thereby confirming and detailing the known facts.

WHAT DO WE KNOW?

In 2014, Global Science Research (GSR) announced in Mechanical Turk that Amazon will pay around 1 dollar per online survey.  This was a high payment compared to the Turk’s workers 15ct per online survey.  But, the researchers had some conditions: Being an American and set up a Facebook application which collects information about you and people around of you. In those years, Facebook allowed apps to collect information from your friends’ account.  Amazon noticed this and cancelled the contract with GSR in 2015, but it was too late. The information of 270 thousand people and they're friends’s were collected and combined with data from the survey. This data was transferred to Cambridge Analytica. In 2015, Facebook asked the firm to delete the data. They declared that the data was deleted by clicking a checkbox, and Facebook dropped the subject. We know certainly from the articles, which are published by The New York Times and The Observer last weekend that the firm did not delete the data. We also know this data played an important role in the firms operation for Trump in 2016 U.S. Election.

U.S. PRESIDENTAL ELECTION

In 2016 U.S Presidental Election, although Donald Trump had 2.9 million votes less than Hilary Clinton across the country, he won the election by winning critical states (Michigan, Wisconsin, Pennsylvania, Ohio, Florida and Iowa) and get 306 electors of 538  available. Did Cambridge Analytica really influenced the election?In the beginning, the firm claimed that they had a critical role for the victory of Trump, but after the scandal, they declared that they had no much effect on the victory of Trump.  Either way, we have enough data to discuss Facebook and our privacy of information:
- Facebook keep the lid on collecting the data of 50 million people by trusting the firm’s declaration.
- After the publication of articles, Facebook announced that they suspended Cambridge Analytica.
- Facebook threatened to sue the Observer and its sister company The Guardian .
- Paul Grewal, Vice President and Deputy General Counsel at Facebook, alleged that these are not related with data security and secrecy, the users shared the information voluntarily, there is no infiltration to the system or stealing of data.  
- Mark Zuckerberg declared that they made a mistake. He said that the data access of the applications will be examined thoroughly. 

REST OF THE ICEBERG

Facebook’s main income source is from profiling people and giving advertisers the means to target specific profiles.  More and detailed information imply more customer and more profit.  To provide the privacy of personal information men's extra costs for Facebook. Obfuscating privacy settings and hiding important information in the ununderstandable legal language of the “Terms of Service” agreements is a default for Facebook. Even if you understand the settings and the terms of service, it may not be possible to imagine how your data can be used and how your different data sets can be connected to each other.
Cambridge Analytica and hundreds of companies collect data on millions of people. The services like Google, Twitter, Facebook, are producing new ways to collect more detailed data every day.
The question of how we can defend the privacy of our personal information had widespread media coverage. We can mention about two types of suggestions: regulations and digital self-defence.
We can not let the companies go unregulated but the governments are not much different from companies. So, just the regulations will not be enough. On the other hand, digital self-defence will only save a handful of very determined people. May be this problem can be solved by regulatory and supervisory authorities and public supervision over those authorities. But the companies and governments across the world will not accept these regulations easily since they are gaining money and power from our data.


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