Facebook In Hot Water…AGAIN
Well, back at it again it seems. Facebook just can’t stay out of the spotlight these days, but not in a good way. If we thought that their live streaming and inappropriate(to say the least) content debacles were it, well I have some news for you; that is only the tip of the iceberg. Recent events have brought to our attention that there was a possible data “breach” (the use of the term data “breach” is up for debate it seems) at Facebook.
To summarize the issue, a University of Cambridge professor, Aleksandr Kogan, developed a “research app” that would essentially use facebook login information and collect data on its users. Roughly 50 million users, to be exact, were effected by this data “breach”.
The professor passed on information to Cambridge Analytica, a third party, that used the app to collect personal information of those 50 million users, which was eventually used in an attempt to sway voters during the Presidential election. One that saw Donald Trump becoming the current President of The United States.
Facebook is of course denying that this was any sort of “breach” (hence the quotations and debate surrounding the term that I mentioned earlier), and is insisting that the app required people to sign up for it and therefore had consented to any information provided to the app. According to Facebook, no passwords and/or sensitive pieces of information were stolen, or hacked.
This can obviously spark an interesting debate into why regulatory laws are written as such to provide a navigation of the term “data breach” even though users were unknowingly consenting to something. However, in the eyes of the government they were consenting nonetheless. However, I have no interest in stepping into the political battlefield today.
Feel free to comment down below about your thoughts on why the laws are written the way they are and your opinions going forward on how to, or if we should, change them. Although, I feel asking why the United States government operates in the way it does these days, only leads to disappointment, confusion, and frustration.
I am more interested in how a company like Facebook hasn’t woken up to the reality that they have a gold mine in terms of data. And like any gold mine in the history of our planet, sooner or later, there is going to be a gold rush and people will do whatever it takes to attain it. They have the single largest social media platform on the planet with roughly over 2 billion users, as of last year, and they still are not doing an adequate job at keeping their users’ information safe.
They failed at keeping their live streaming platform from complete, utter embarrassment and horror, as people inevitably used it to stream inappropriate content. Up until this point, they have failed to see the big picture and hopefully this has been somewhat of a wake-up call for them.
The thing that really puzzles me is this: either the biggest social media platform and one of the biggest technology company’s in the world (facebook) had no foresight into any of these incidents coming to fruition (which is a problem in and of itself), or they had the foresight and just didn’t care enough to be proactive about the issue. Either way, I am not impressed.
Facebook is a pillar for technology and data security. They need to be setting an example for the rest of the world to follow in terms of protecting sensitive information of its users. Data security must be taken more seriously going forward and I hope Facebook is at the forefront of that. It seems to me that in light of recent events over the past year, facebook might want to consider adopting the slogan: “Oops I did it again.” Britney would be so proud!
All joking aside, let me know what you think about the Cambridge Analytica situation that Facebook is now facing. Do you think Facebook is eager to fix the issues they have faced and dedicated to protecting its user base, or do you think they are just attempting to save face and get through it, without shaking the ground beneath them too much?
Till next time, read between the lines
