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Tiffany C. Li @tiffanycli
, 13 tweets, 7 min read Read on Twitter
This is a big deal. Cambridge Analytica accessed Facebook user data w/o authorization, using that data for the tailored voter analysis that decided the 2016 election.
Why was this released 9:30 PM Friday on St. Patrick’s Day weekend? Because the implications are that none of your data was/is safe on Facebook and, yes, FB data directly helped swing the election.
To be fair, the privacy violations stem from a 3rd party app. Arguably, the problem is Facebook app review. But allowing 3rd party apps to access/transfer this much personal data is a failure in Privacy by Design (@AnnCavoukian).
Whether this qualifies as a data breach (thus triggering data breach notification laws) is a good Q. One factor = if the unauthorized transfer of data collected w/consent qualifies as unauthorized acquisition by Cambridge Analytica.
Facebook also released this statement conveniently on the same day that @profcarroll's lawsuit against Cambridge Analytica was officially filed. slate.com/blogs/future_t… (Link is an @aprilaser explainer from Oct 2017.)
Legal issues:
-Could qualify as a data breach from Facebook (state law)
-Could be criminal or civil fraud - by Cambridge Analytica & co, not FB
-Could be a CFAA violation - also by CA, not FB (HT @markpmckenna)
-Almost definitely open for FTC action - all parties
...And there it is. Facebook statement was a last minute bid to get ahead of breaking news re: Cambridge Analytica whistleblower.

theguardian.com/news/2018/mar/… via @carolecadwalla @guardian
More bad news on Facebook & Cambridge Analytica, via @nytimes. This will have lasting effects on data privacy, internet regulation, & our understanding of how social media, the Internet, & the attention economy affect our world.

nytimes.com/2018/03/17/us/…
Facebook CSO @alexstamos speaks out re: Cambridge Analytica. Thread:

FB may have a valid claim that this isn't a technical/legal "data breach." It's certainly what I would claim if I was counsel for FB. Still other legal & ethical issues at play though.
Massachusetts AG @massAGO is now investigating Facebook & Cambridge Analytica. Not surprising. MA is one of the strictest states re: privacy & cybersecurity. (U.S. doesn't have nat'l privacy/cybersec laws; state laws are key.) HT @clancynewyork
Cambridge Analytica has now responded to the Facebook news. I’ll just leave these screenshots here w/o comment.

Full thread:
looks at some ways the Facebook Cambridge Analytica scandal might impact society, quoting me on Facebook’s two-sided legal strategy (breach vs. no breach). theguardian.com/news/2018/mar/…
Facebook critics in government want regulation, investigation after data misuse reuters.com/article/us-fac… via @Reuters
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I came across a mention of this think tank report in an old Joan Didion essay, and of course I had to find it immediately. The title alone is amazing, and there are some real gems in there.

“Cybernation: The Shadow Conquest” (1962) stacks.stanford.edu/file/druid:rr2…
This 1962 report from the (now defunct) Center for the Study of Democratic Institutions includes many very familiar themes: automated workforce, AI, IoT, networked communications, supply chain dynamics, decline of the middle class, etc. stacks.stanford.edu/file/druid:rr2…
“Cybernated systems perform with a precision and a rapidity unmatched in humans.” (By the way, should we bring back the term “cybernated” - Y/N?)
Read 11 tweets
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Everything Sundar Pinchai says here is disappointing. It’s sad to see a formerly mission-driven company lose its moral compass. Goodbye freedom of information, hello censored search engines. wired.com/story/wired-25… via @WIRED
Pinchai uses a very weak excuse to defend Project Drafonfly: “We are compelled by our mission [to] provide information to everyone, and [China is] 20 percent of the world's population.”

Here’s why we shouldn’t accept this from Google: ‪“We are compelled by our mission [to] provide information to everyone, and [China is] 20 percent of the world's population.”‬
First, many orgs have to balance cultural values w/int’l markets. This isn’t a new problem & certainly not a new problem for Google. “Balancing cultural values” doesn’t obligate compliance w/every restrictive regime. Google knows this, and it’s disingenuous to claim otherwise.
Read 8 tweets
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Gov made legal requests, got warrants. Facebook defended its users against overbroad demands. Civil society spoke out for free speech and assembly. This is the rule of law in action. cnn.com/2017/09/28/pol…
Gov has always had an interest in monitoring social agitators. In America, we balance that interest against the *far more important* interests of free speech, free assembly, and fair political process.
Anything that threatens the fairness and legitimacy of the legal system is a threat to democracy. The rule of law is one of the last tools we have for saving democratic values in the face of un-democratic leaders, in any branch of gov.
Read 3 tweets

Related threads

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🔥ZUCKERBERG IS IN THE BARREL‼️

Live tweeting the #ZuckerRoast right now.😎

#Zuckerberg
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#Zuckerberg literally looks like he's going to PUKE‼️🤢🤮

#ZuckerbergTestimony
GOP Sen Thune is reading a prepared statement👉🏼basically says that #Facebook's proposed changes are TOTAL BUNKUM. They will only serve to INCREASE PROFITS for Facebook.

Says that social media companies CANNOT self-regulate. DUH!🙄
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Tweet storm on how India has built a worse manipulation engine for elections than Cambridge Analytica
When #Facebook allowed third parties to colonise your relationship with them, they corrupted the purpose for which you and Facebook came together medium.com/@anupamsaraph/…
One such third party, Cambridge Analytica, corrupted your relationship with your government by destroying your right to free choice motherjones.com/politics/2017/…
Read 15 tweets
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Joseph Chancellor, founding co-director (with Aleksandr Kogan) of GSR, the company which harvested information from 50 million Facebook users and sold it to Cambridge Analytica, was hired as in-house psychologist by Facebook 2 months after leaving GSR theguardian.com/news/2018/mar/…
Facebook investigating links between employee Joseph Chancellor, former co-director of Aleksandr Kogan's GSR, and #CambridgeAnalytica
(h/t @RVAwonk via @AdamParkhomenko) cnnmon.ie/2HIFWMW
In a case that could shed light on how millions of American voters were targeted online in the run-up to the 2016 election, NY professor @profcarroll sues #CambridgeAnalytica in a British court
cnn.it/2pjOySH
Read 55 tweets
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50 million Facebook profiles harvested for Cambridge Analytica. Psych prof/developer Aleksandr Kogan accessed 270k FB users' data w his app, then collected their friends' data…& sold it all to Trump's data firm which used it to target ads in 2016 election theguardian.com/news/2018/mar/…
FB 2018: "We learned a psychology professor at the University of Cambridge named Dr. Aleksandr Kogan lied to us…by passing data from an app…using Facebook Login to SCL/Cambridge Analytica, a firm that does political, government… military work around the globe." FB knew in 2015
"purpose of Kogan’s work was to develop an algorithm for the 'national profiling capacity of American citizens' as part of SCL’s work on U.S. elections, according to an internal document signed by an SCL employee describing the research"– 3/2017 report theintercept.com/2017/03/30/fac…
Read 45 tweets
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Revealed: 50 million Facebook profiles harvested for Cambridge Analytica in major data breach
Whistleblower describes how firm linked to former Trump adviser Steve Bannon compiled user data to target American voters  theguardian.com/news/2018/mar/…
Cambridge Analytica who worked with Trump’s team and the winning Brexit campaign harvested millions of FB profiles of US voters, in the tech giant’s biggest ever data breach, and used them to build a powerful software program to predict and influence choices at the ballot box.
They used personal information taken without authorization in early 2014 to build a system that could profile individual US voters, in order to target them with personalised political advertisements.
Read 89 tweets
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🙌

Facebook bans Trump campaign’s data analytics firm, Cambridge Analytica, for stealing user data wapo.st/2phRGOQ
"it failed to delete data that it had taken inappropriately from users of the social network"
Facebook said that Kogan had requested and gained access to information from 270,000 Facebook members after they chose to download his app. The app, “thisisyourdigitallife,” offered a personality prediction, and billed itself on Facebook as “a research app used by psychologists.”
Read 39 tweets

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