tl;dr: This isn't over. This isn't the only time. Don't count on Facebook to fix it.
tl;dr (2): This is much bigger than Facebook.
tl;dr (3): Please, for the love of all that's holy, stop taking Facebook quizzes. If not to protect your data, then to protect your contact list.
Facebook to users: "We're sorry. Look kitten pictures!"
Facebook to advertisers and data firms: "Here is how you turn "undecided" into "zealot"! Give us your money!"
Some Background
I work in digital advertising. We see a very different side of Facebook, Twitter, Google etc. than end users do.
Social media services tell their users "We care about you! We care about your privacy and your data!" They tell us, the publishing firms, the ad agencies, the data brokers, a very different pitch. They tell us all the ways they can predict what segments of people will say, do and buy. Then they tell us how we can change those behaviors.
So in general terms, it's more like this:
Social Media to users: Oops, we messed up. We're still learning.
Social Media to Advertisers: We're f*cking omniscient.
They tell us, if you want to reach this group, these are the words you need to use. These are the pictures. This is the best time of day. This is the best medium. (By "reach" I mean how to capture attention and alter opinion about a product, an idea, an ideology.) This is how you change someone from undecided, to a zealot for your "brand".
That is, after all, the point of advertising. When we look at an ad, we know what it is. What we don't, as consumers, always understand is that when we look at our social media feeds, it's not just the ads that are "advertising" to us. It's the algorithms that choose which friends' posts we see, and which ones we don't see.
This isn't some new thing Facebook has been caught doing. It's not an algorithm gone wrong, or just some client breaking the terms of service. This is what Facebook and other social media services are designed to do. And they do it increasingly well, in increasingly opaque ways.
Dishing up ads they think you might click on makes Facebook some money - but it's not the main revenue. Our data - all our likes, our interactions, our check-ins, our profiles, the games we play, the quizzes we take - that's the moneymaker. That profile doesn't just tell companies what kind of group we belong to. It also suggests how our group can be manipulated to act.
So why do we go along with it? Maybe it's because no one wants to wants to believe we can be so easy to manipulate. We all want to believe we know better. That we can spot propaganda - even when studies show we suck at it. (https://www.forbes.com/…/americans-believe-they-can-detec…/…)
And the more we segment ourselves into "tribes," as we are strongly encouraged to do in social media, the easier we are to manipulate. http://pressroom.usc.edu/hardwired-the-brains-circuitry-fo…/ and http://theconversation.com/explainer-how-facebook-has-becom…
Back to Cambridge Analytica:
First, this issue with Cambridge Analytica wasn't a data breach. There were no hackers in dark rooms breaking into secure servers and stealing information. This is how Facebook, and the advertising ecosystem, is designed to work. This is a data policy issue. Of course, it was a breach of policy that no one at Facebook was actually monitoring or auditing anyway. And calling it a data breach suggests that Facebook actually cared about securing your data, which it doesn't. Facebook doesn't care about privacy until the shareholders care about their declining revenue.
When the shareholders start caring, then it's time for a full page ad: https://www.cnn.com/…/facebook-zuckerberg-cambri…/index.html
This isn't going to change until Facebook actually feels some pain - lost revenue, lost trust from its real customers - digital advertisers and data brokers. When enough people stop contributing to the machine, the data becomes less valuable. When the data becomes less valuable, Facebook starts to lose its real, paying customers.
This, as I wrote at the top, isn't even just about Facebook. Your data, preferences, likes, dislikes, viewing habits etc., are being monitored not just by social media platforms, but tracked on news and other websites: http://blogs.harvard.edu/doc/2018/03/23/nothing/
That said, I agree wholeheartedly with what Daniel Miessler wrote:
"I believe the loss of privacy is inevitable, and I’m actually quite optimistic and forward-leaning on the issue. But I still want to avoid giving my data to companies with incentives misaligned to my own." (https://danielmiessler.com/…/the-two-kinds-of-privacy-loss/…)
When there is no transparency on the tracking, or how the data is used, there is no trust. It's a bad business model in the long run as trust is eroded (as Facebook is finding out.) Social media companies would like you to think you have no options in this, but you do. You can choose how you spend your attention, where you share your data, and where you choose not to. It's not easy - they'll never make it easy, but you do have choices.
If you want to stay on Facebook because it's valuable to you, here some guides to help protect you data, and the connections' data:
The Verge: https://www.theverge.com/…/facebook-personal-data-deletion-…
The LA Times: http://www.latimes.com/…/la-fi-tn-delete-facebook-data-2018…
NBC News: https://www.nbcnews.com/…/how-protect-your-personal-data-fa…
For more info on the Cambridge Analytic "breach", I strongly recommend Smashing Security's podcast here: https://www.smashingsecurity.com/70
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