Is Your Data Safe?
Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg garnered a lot of attention for his testimony in front of congressional committees in the wake of the Cambridge Analytica scandal that brought to light the fact that 87 million users had their personal data misused in an attempt to sway the 2016 elections. Amidst the furore over the particulars of Cambridge Analytica’s misdeeds and how Facebook failed to stop it, there are questions relevant to every Facebook user that are worth considering before posting that next video or photo.
What is Facebook learning about us from our content?
The crux of the scandal is that Cambridge Analytica was able to obtain information on Facebook users who had never agreed to have any of their information collected by exploiting a weakness in Facebook’s policy that allowed them to collect the information of the friends of those who had consented to their user agreement. Beyond the breach of trust and ethics in how Cambridge Analytica acquired the information, the controversy served as a wake up call to many Americans that what they’re posting online and what that information is actually being used for.
In his testimony, Zuckerberg was evasive when answering questions on how much data Facebook collects and stores about users and even non-users. While we’re aware of what information and content we’re sharing on Facebook, the site is collecting metadata on not just likes and clicks, but what we’re viewing on sites across the web and when,how, and where we’re accessing these sites and Facebook. While Zuckerberg claims that any information collected on users is benign and aimed at improving the user experience for targeted ads, the sheer volume of information that a private company is collecting on individuals is at best disconcerting, and at worse unethical.
How is Facebook using the information it collects?
What is left unsaid in most of the discussion on Facebook is how the company is trying to learn as much about us as they can in order to generate as much ad revenue as they can. That means selling advertising that they can target to specific users, and the better the targeting, the more they can market the efficacy of their ads. Facebook is making $40 billion in ad revenue because the are able to collect personal information on who people are, what they like, and what they’re viewing on the platform, and they’re able to create such a large audience because Facebook became the place to go to connect with others and share the photos and videos and art we create, along with the events of our lives.
What rights are we giving away without reading?
A point repeatedly referenced during the Senate hearing was that the Facebook’s terms of service are long, complex, and likely only read by those who want to say that they’ve done their due diligence before ultimately signing away their rights anyway. The unfortunate truth is that most of us don’t read the user agreements we sign up for a new app or service because we don’t want to spend the additional fifteen minutes on something that we ultimately don’t understand anyway.
As part of Facebook’s Terms of Service, we are granting them the rights to use our photos and videos as part of a “non-exclusive, transferable, sub-licensable, royalty-free, worldwide license”. What this means, or what we’ve come to understand about this, is that the photos and videos we share can be used to identify us and link us to the personal data that we’ve provided to Facebook or that has been collected. This becomes more pervasive as we grant third party apps permission to access our content.
What can we do about it?
The notion of removing yourself from social media entirely is tempting, but likely unrealistic; Facebook and the myriad of other platforms we use are how we stay connected with the world. But we can take back control of the privacy of our content using RightsLedger to upload and store our content. Having your pictures and videos stored on the blockchain with RightsLedger allows you to control and share your content as you choose, without the concerns about privacy and security that are inherent on Facebook and other social media platforms.
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