DC Attorney General Sues Facebook Over Alleged Privacy Violations From Cambridge Analytica Scandal (washingtonpost.com) 70
The attorney general for the District of Columbia filed a lawsuit on Wednesday against Facebook for allowing Cambridge Analytica, a political consultancy, to gain access to the names, "likes" and other personal data about tens of millions of the social site's users without their permission. From a report: The lawsuit filed by Karl Racine [PDF], confirmed Wednesday by two people familiar with the matter but not authorized to speak on record, marks the first major effort by regulators in the United States to penalize the tech giant for its entanglement with the firm. It could presage even tougher fines and other punishments still to come for Facebook as additional state and federal investigations continue.
The lawsuit comes as Facebook continues to face criticism around the world for mismanaging its users' personal information. On Friday, for example, the company admitted that some users' photos may have been improperly accessed by third-party apps. On Tuesday, new details emerged about Facebook's extensive data-sharing arrangements with corporate partners including Amazon and Spotify. The report from The New York Times quickly triggered another round of calls from Capitol Hill for the tech giant to be penalized. To that end, a person familiar with the new D.C. lawsuit said it is likely to be amended in the future to include more recent allegations of improper data collection and use.
The lawsuit comes as Facebook continues to face criticism around the world for mismanaging its users' personal information. On Friday, for example, the company admitted that some users' photos may have been improperly accessed by third-party apps. On Tuesday, new details emerged about Facebook's extensive data-sharing arrangements with corporate partners including Amazon and Spotify. The report from The New York Times quickly triggered another round of calls from Capitol Hill for the tech giant to be penalized. To that end, a person familiar with the new D.C. lawsuit said it is likely to be amended in the future to include more recent allegations of improper data collection and use.
What could be gained there? (Score:3)
Cannot disagree at all. (Score:3, Insightful)
The very reason why facebook exists is to sell the personal information of its users. Cambridge Analytica wasn't a failure of the system but rather the system working exactly as designed. What could the AG have to gain by winning a lawsuit against a company that was doing exactly what they were telling their users - and customers - they were going to do?
There's all this focus on facebook and Cambridge Analytica and the Russian influence etc ..... I've seen some of the Russian ads. It was pretty lame. And the rhetoric was just eye-rolling pathetic - but I have to tell ya, as someone who lost his job because of off-shoring and H1-bs, it did sound good - I'm not gonna lie!
IF it actually worked (I'm not so sure all that fb and CA bullshit was THAT effective ), it says more about our electorate than it does about facebook and CA.
I mean, it did feel good. An
Re:What could be gained there? (Score:4, Interesting)
Cambridge Analytica wasn't a failure of the system but rather the system working exactly as designed.
Exactly. I suspect FB has/had similar relationships with thousands of other businesses. It is, after all, their very business model.
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IN the US, we really don't have any by the book laws passed really on privacy.
I believe there has been rulings in the Supreme Court that privacy is somewhat protected (I think that was actually a major part of the Roe v Wade case surprisingly enough).....but really what protections do we US citizens have in law? Has FB actually broken any laws?
We don
Lying to Congress? (Score:1)
Is lying to Congress a crime?
Clapper [thehill.com] lied to congress and wasn't charged.
Eric Holder [investors.com] lied to congress and wasn't charged.
Hillary Clinton [usatoday.com] lied to congress and wasn't charged.
However...
Michael Cohen [washingtonpost.com] did get charged for lying to Congress.
With selective prosecution like this, I think being an associate to Trump is a crime but lying to Congress is not. This is what tinpot dictators do. Pass laws that make everyone a criminal and only prosecute those you don't like. Its called a dictatorship, and is run by the
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Hillary
Nope. The article says Chaffetz and Goodlatte want to investigate to see if Clinton lied.
Ok so with the precedent set by Mueller, shouldn't there be a special prosecutor assigned to investigate any and all lies from the Hillary team? Or does that only happen with Trump associates?
Eric Holder [investors.com] lies are far from an opinion piece
Clapper [realclearpolitics.com]
That’s what James Clapper did on March 12, 2013, while testifying before the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence.
That day, Sen. Ron Wyden, an Oregon Democrat, asked Clapper for a yes or no answer to the following question: “Does the NSA collect any type of data at all on millions or hundreds of millions of Americans?”
“No, sir,” Clapper replied.
Wyden, who appeared taken aback by the answer, tried again: “It does not?”
“Not wittingly,” Clapper responded. “There are cases where they could inadvertently, perhaps, collect, but not wittingly.”
Three months later, on June 5, 2013, The Guardian newspaper began publishing a series of reports about the NSA based on documents stolen from the agency by Edward Snowden that proved Clapper had perjured himself.
Days after The Guardian’s bombshell report, Clapper told NBC’s Andrea Mitchell that he had responded in “what I thought was the most truthful, or least untruthful, manner.”
Three weeks later, under increasing pressure, Clapper wrote a letter to the senators on the committee, apologizing for providing a “clearly erroneous” answer. He also changed his story, jettisoning the excuse he had tried to answer in the “least untruthful” manner, and instead claimed the reason he had misled Congress is that he had “forgotten” about Section 215 of the Patriot Act, which covered the NSA’s bulk collection of metadata.
So Clapper's lie is excused because he "forgot" about the law, but the same option is never given to a Trump associate?
Search and seizure (yeah its a stretch) (Score:1)
> I believe there has been rulings in the Supreme Court that privacy is somewhat protected (I think that was actually a major part of the Roe v Wade case surprisingly enough).....but really what protections do we US citizens have in law?
Yeah that's related to the government invading privacy, Constitutional rights. The Constitution says what the federal government is allowed to do and what it is not allowed to do. It doesn't say anything about Facebook.
The reasoning in Roe vs Wade is that because the fou
Re:Search and seizure (yeah its a stretch) (Score:5, Insightful)
The court jumped head first into a purely political issue rather than allowing voters and legislatures decide it through the political process.
Well, if you think requiring someone to carry a pregnancy to term because some people's religions insist that a fertilized egg is deserving of personhood is a 'purely political issue', then I guess you have a point. You're wrong, but in your warped universe, you're at least consistent. If you don't think that, then you're just wrong.
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Well, if you think requiring someone to carry a pregnancy to term because some people's religions insist that a fertilized egg is deserving of personhood is a 'purely political issue', then I guess you have a point. You're wrong, but in your warped universe, you're at least consistent. If you don't think that, then you're just wrong.
You must be an awesome guest at dinner parties...
Host: Can you believe that ref at the ball game last night?
You: Yeah, he must be one of those idiots who believes that abortions is only a women's health issue!
Do you want to introduce any other highly contentious issues into this discussion about data privacy? Maybe about how vaccines cause autism or about how we all need to lead clean vegan lifestyles?
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Do you want to introduce any other highly contentious issues into this discussion about data privacy?
I prefer vi.
9th amendment (Score:1)
Roe Vs Wade wasn't a 4th amendment case; it was a 9th amendment case. The right to privacy is fundamental, and one that stretches back to the common law the underlies the Constitution. Reproductive and medical decisions are fundamental to human beings, and the state has no business inserting itself in the process. The Roe vs Wade decision protects a lot more than a woman's right to make reproductive choices; it also protects our rights to make other family and medical decisions.
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No it does not such thing. It creates a stupidly reasoned legal loophole that allows a select group of people to commit murders of convenience.
Use condoms, take the pill whatever; but once you make a life its not yours to take. The bill of rights is very explicit and privacy was NOT an unknown idea at the time. If the framers had intended to create a absolute privacy right they would have done so!
Oh and by the way the same "reasoning" that was ultimately used in Roe could logically be applied to almost A
That's better than Blackmun's reasoning (Score:3)
I'm impressed. Your reasoning is better than the reasoning SCOTUS uses. It makes more sense, IMHO. I'm not being facetious, I think your ninth amendment argument is better than the fourth amendment reasoning (with either being applied to the states via the 14th).
However, the ninth begins "the enumeration of certain rights may not". One cannot Constitutionally say "because the Constitution affirms this right, it takes away this other right". The ninth would shoot down that argument. Nobody is making that
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There's a continuum from human germ cells (sperm and ovum), to a baby who can survive outside the womb. A blastocyst is different from an embryo is different from a fetus. Where do you want to draw the line? Some people want to draw it back at the level of sperm, and say that male masturbation is essentially murder. Others draw it at birth itself.
If you want to criminalize the removal of a blastocyst or an embryo, then you might as well criminalize all non-reproductive uses of semen. Biologically, blastocys
Thanks for that (Score:3)
Thanks for sharing your thoughts. I really appreciate it. It sounds like you've thought about and you have good reasons you'd vote to allow abortion, though of course others may come to a different conclusion about when exactly human life begins.
I note with your latest post, we've switched to a different topic. You've very effectively expressed why you would vote for liberal abortion laws in your state, which is a very different question of whether the text of the US Constitution says you're not allowed to
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So who gives a shit, it should still be an individuals choice of whether to carry to term or not, this whole abortion debate has way too much religion involved, I don't see you complaining about America killing - or terminating - fully grown people in Syria. I know lots of people who had children way too early in life, when they were clearly not in a good financial position to take on the extra burden of raising a child.
Also lots of people copulate *on purpose* after having a
Murder isn't a religious thing (Score:3)
I'm not sure why you're bringing up religion. Murder isn't a religious issue.
On abortion, there are three groups of people:
People who think it's murder (and therefore very much should be illegal).
People who think it's not exactly murder. ("Not quite murder is still pretty bad, a heck of a lot worse than jaywalking, which is illegal).
People who think it's perfectly fine, because it's not quite murder. They can't explain why "almost murder" is okay, while slapping someone should be illegal).
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Facebook? Transparent? Somone huffing glue today?
Teach them who to help (Score:1)
If this were truly an issue, it would have been done in 2012 when Obama took advantage of this info. No one cared them because the "correct" people were using it. The AG is attempting to make it clear to all companies that if you help the GOP/Trump you will be punished.
Story [investors.com]
Other examples:
Cohen lies to Congress is a felony/ Comey, McCabe, Clapper, Brenen, Lynch, Yeats, Clinton lie to Congress no problem.
Enquirer buries story is illegal campaign contribution to Trump/ CNN, MSNBC, ABC, CBS, NYT, WaPo don't
Re:What could be gained there? (Score:5, Informative)
As we understand it now, the data mining and analytics company, based out of London, gained access to data on as many as 50 million Facebook profiles thanks to generous data-sharing policies Facebook app developers enjoyed back in 2014. This data, which was sold to Cambridge Analytica against Facebook’s terms of service, reportedly informed the firm’s election ad targeting toolset used by the campaign of President Donald Trump and others.
Force them to do better disclosure (Score:4, Interesting)
Finally, the GOP and CA had a major voter suppression campaign run through Facebook where they run attack pieces on Hilary targeted to specific users to suppress the black vote. A variety of civil rights laws make this practice of dubious legality (though IANAL so it might get past a jury). But the bad press from it coming out would be enough to stop the practice.
And it's definitely something worth stopping. Whether you like Hilary or not targeted voter suppression drives do not add to our nation's political discourse, they subtract from it. I'd like to say "That goes for both sides" but as far as I can tell this was a uniquely GOP/CA thing. And I know it's not popular to call one side out, but I calls it like it is.
Rsilvergun is an idiot (Score:1)
Yet you calling people a bigot if they plan to vote for Trump isn't an attempt at voter suppression?
I think you might be right, and should be prosecuted for voter suppression. Give me your contact details so I can report you to the FEC for prosecution.
If you think my comment is stupid, it is, it was an attempt to point out how stupid rsilvergun is ONCE AGAIN.
Not exactly (Score:1)
She's since apologized for it, but I don't see a lot to apologize for from a rac
Rsilvergun doubles down on stupid (Score:1)
Yep, playing unedited videos of your political opponent is voter suppression.
This is what he just claimed.
Congratulations, you have surpassed creimer as the /. village idiot. Just when I think progressives can't get dumber, one of them proves me wrong.
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You are right A/C. I had not even spotted that angle of it. Wish I could up mod you insightful but I am commenting on this story.
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And that is the difference: in one case you're making an argument about why you shouldn't vote for Trump and should in fact for for Hilary. In other case you're just focusing on getting the Blacks to not vote. It's a subtle difference but it's real. There's no attempt at discussing policy even as a background. CA was just trying to say "Don't Vote". Not, "Vote this way" but "Don't vote".
That's voter suppression. That's the difference and the genius of CA's approach. It's a whole new type of politicking. You're no longer making arguments, your just trying to game the system. It's an "end justifies the means" form of politics, and it's why everything CA did makes us so uneasy. Again, the genius is that it's hard to put your finger on why what they did was so bad because at first glance it looks like politics as usual. It's not.
No it is absolutely politics as usual. Literally as long as there have been campaigns attempts have been made to convince one group their issue/candidate has no chance they might as well just stay home. Its been done news paper editorials, carefully timed polling, carefully worded polling and then reworded reporting of the results, calling elections before all the votes are cast and a host of other methods..
The only thing different is CA did it slightly better and "with a computer"
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Come on speech can't be voter suppression; unless perhaps its clearly intimidating / threading.
If I ran an advertisement on billboard near a majority black university making an argument that statistics say you might as well not bother voting - would you also call that voter suppression?
The fact is the people upset about the electoral angle of this are just sad sack losers. Look at it this way if a voter is so ill informed that they can be manipulated into voting a certain way or forfeiting their franchise
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The very reason why facebook exists is to sell the personal information of its users.
If this is all they did, it would be only half sleazy (still sleazy, because they would rely on obscuring the privacy disclosures and knowing people just click through the pages of legalese). But Facebook is going full sleazy, by also tracking and selling the personal information of people who don't use [theverge.com] their sites, via shadow profiles. People have no way to know they're being tracked, and no way to opt out.
What could the AG have to gain by winning a lawsuit against a company that was doing exactly what they were telling their users - and customers - they were going to do?
At the very minimum, I hope to see a decision (or, even better, a law) that forbids companies to trac
Facebook doesn't sell user's data... (Score:3)
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You parked your car in my garage, where posted signs clearly say that all car parts become the property of the garage owner and can be disposed of as I see fit. By parking here, you agreed to my business practices and to foot the bill for any hauling services required to get the bits I don't want off my property.
Clear as day, right there in 2-point font in a poorly lit supply closet behind the ducts. You owe me $1249.73 for hauling away the unusable portions of your Tesla.
Facebook presented themselves as an
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Of course you didn't. But the same people that wouldn't fall for that car dealer shit, will fall for this Facebook shit. Why? I don't know.
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Alternative? (Score:2)
Everyone and their parents, and even grandparents now knows that Facebook is awful. But are there a real alternative?
I am not going to join Facebook again.
Does anyone here remember BIX? (Score:2)
Byte (magazine) Information Exchange
That was "Social Media"
That was fun.
That was informative.
And it cost - money - to belong. Not a lot of money, but the members paid for the service.
We were the users, clients - Byte was the service provider, Bix was the service.
Clear as a bell.
Also there was Delphi and several others.
(even AOL?)
Then there were 'hidden cost' services like a college account and USNET.
Why put up with Farce Book?