Cambridge Analytica Whistleblower: US Heading In 'Same Direction As China' With Online Privacy (cnbc.com) 44
"The United States is walking in the same direction as China, we're just allowing private companies to monetize left, right and center," Cambridge Analytica whistleblower Christopher Wylie told CNBC on Wednesday. "Just because it's not the state doesn't mean that there isn't harmful impacts that could come if you have one or two large companies monitoring or tracking everything you do," he said. CNBC reports: Wylie, whose memoir came out this week, has become outspoken about the influence of social media companies due to the large amounts of data they collect. In March 2018, he exposed the Cambridge Analytica scandal that brought down his former employer and resulted in the Federal Trade Commission fining Facebook, 15 months later, $5 billion for mishandling. While Cambridge Analytica has since shut down, Wylie said the tactics it used could be deployed elsewhere, and that is why data privacy regulation needs to be dramatically enhanced.
"Even if the company has dissolved, the capabilities of the company haven't," he said. "My real concern is what happens if China becomes the next Cambridge Analytica, what happens if North Korea becomes the next Cambridge Analytica?" Wylie also said he believes that social media companies should, at a minimum, face regulation similar to water utilities or electrical companies -- "certain industries that have become so important because of their vital importance to business and people's lives and the nature of their scale." In those cases, "we put in place rules that put consumers first," he added. "You can still make a profit. You can still make money. But you have to consider the rights and safety of people."
"Even if the company has dissolved, the capabilities of the company haven't," he said. "My real concern is what happens if China becomes the next Cambridge Analytica, what happens if North Korea becomes the next Cambridge Analytica?" Wylie also said he believes that social media companies should, at a minimum, face regulation similar to water utilities or electrical companies -- "certain industries that have become so important because of their vital importance to business and people's lives and the nature of their scale." In those cases, "we put in place rules that put consumers first," he added. "You can still make a profit. You can still make money. But you have to consider the rights and safety of people."
Just "Heading" . . . ? (Score:5, Interesting)
I though we were "Leading".
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No, the U.S. is leading, it's all about Make America White Again.
Re:Just "Heading" . . . ? (Score:4, Insightful)
Again, it's only a start, but I think a meaningful one.
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Companies = state (Score:5, Insightful)
There is no difference between a government violating your privacy or a company.
The government will just make laws that will allow them to access the collected information from these company when they 'need' to.
It's just an extra step to get to the data.
Re: Companies = state (Score:4, Insightful)
Re: Companies = state (Score:2)
A modern Western country has so called separation of powers. This means that the legislative and executive branches get checked by you juridical branch. Supreme courts typically handle this.
It's not umcommon that this happend. For example last month in the UK their supreme court ruled agains Johnson's bullshits.
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At least with the state you have some say, no matter how diluted.
Yep, but the people have voted for somebody who never thinks beyond business deals and making profits.
At no point has the current POTUS ever shown that he cares about the little guys, they're just a source of revenue and/or votes. Period.
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I can't really think of any politician to date, that hasn't considered us all that way when it comes to the bottom line.
For the most part to all of them in the end,we're just votes.
"Death Penalty" for companies (Score:3)
Meanwhile, corporations are "people" that just dissolve and form new corporations with different names when they break the law.
There was an interesting Canadian court case about that this year, in which a window-washing company killed several employees by letting the platform they were on fall. The courts considered if they should levy a fine that would close the business forever, and whether the act of doing so would prevent the owner from ever starting a successor company (etc, etc).
The decision was to shut the company down and effectively prevent the owner from ever working in the trade again. There is a choice for both emplo
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Corporations began in ancient Rome (Score:4, Informative)
> based on decisions from well before 1776.
Ancient Rome, to be specific. The first known corporations were road builders in Rome. Rather than deal individually with each and every person who worked on the road, the government would make a deal with a GROUP of road builders. They paid the road building group (corporation) X number of pieces of gold for getting the road done. So the road-building contract was between the government and the road building group corporately.
By the 1200s, there were lawsuits against corporations. That is, if you find a spider in your cereal, you can sue Kellogg's - you don't have to figure out which individual employee is responsible for letting the spider get into the cereal.
A more recent case re-affirmed the fact that the first amendment freedom of speech and freedom of association mean that and your buddies can GET TOGETHER to poke fun at a politician. You can make a movie mocking a politician like Michael Moore's company does. That was the Citizen's United ruling - exercising your first amendment right to freedom of association doesn't nullify your first amendment right to free speech.
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Off-topic, sorry!
With respect, that is the stated intention and interpretation of Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission, 558 U.S. 310 (2010)
It is the law of the land in the United States, but fails the corresponding tests in Canada, where I live. A relevant decision, partially supporting your argument, is reproduced in "Canada Without Poverty v. Attorney General of Canada", https://www.globalphilanthropy... [globalphilanthropy.ca]
--dave
I used to make my living from case-law (;-))
Lowering the bar (Score:2)
Completely off-topic, but perhaps entertaining to you, is http://loweringthebar.net/ [loweringthebar.net] . It's a legal humor blog. You might like it.
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Re:Companies = state (Score:4, Informative)
There is no difference between a government violating your privacy or a company.
The government will just make laws that will allow them to access the collected information from these company when they 'need' to.
It's just an extra step to get to the data.
There is a big difference. A government has the authority to use force against people that don't conform to the law. A company can micro target you to know exactly how to sell you cars, pancakes or mobile apps.
However, you are right. If private companies are collecting surveillance data and especially if they are selling that data to third parties then the government doesn't even need a law to allow them to force it from companies. They do enough business with these companies that getting all our information is just a drop in the bucket on a government contract.
This. One has swat teams, the other has ads (Score:2)
A thousand times this. If you don't want there to be an entry in a database somewhere saying that cookie #847384739367 views articles about Raspberry Pi and Arduino, I can absolutely understand that. If it feels creepy to you that you see an ad for a small LCD display, the day after you shipped for small displays, I get that. Totally understand.
An ad for an LCD display is fundamentally different than a swat team or a prison sentence. Facebook has "likes", the government has FBI agents. They aren't remot
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An ad for an LCD display is fundamentally different than a swat team or a prison sentence. Facebook has "likes", the government has FBI agents. They aren't remotely similar.
If Facebook's data (including private messages) will be used as a form of social credit (not necessarily for the government, can also be a private corporate one), it may be possible for Facebook to make sure you'll never be able to have a job again, eventually leading to starvation and homelessness. While this is still not as dangerous as FBI agents, I wouldn't take that too lightly.
If I were a wizard, it would be possible for me to (Score:2)
> Facebook's data (including private messages) will be used as a form of social credit (not necessarily for the government, can also be a private corporate one), it may be possible for Facebook to make sure you'll never be able to have a job again, eventually leading to starvation
If I were a wizard, it might be possible for me to cast a spell turning you into a lava lamp. Alas, neither of these things are real.
What *is* real is that that employers DO run a criminal background check, which can include *ar
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What *is* real is that that employers DO run a criminal background check
If you really believe that these checks are only for criminal records and not for whatever data you or other people gave facebook about you, then either I'm paranoid (this is quite possible, I'm a bit on the pessimist side) or you're naive.
That would be a feature worth paying for (Score:2)
I've seen the reports and indeed the background check companies don't provide their clients with far more than they advertised. Actually by random chance I was looking at one yesterday.
When they advertise "criminal background check", they provide a crappy criminal background check, a summarized version of what the state provides for free via the state web site. They do not put themselves at great legal risk by unlawfully digging up your private messages. That would be a huge waste of their time and
Re: This. One has swat teams, the other has ads (Score:2)
Facebook can't do anything like that unless the government let's them. Current laws would allow a person to go to court and get damages if a company violates the law and causes harm.
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I can say "no" to Facebook or Starbucks.
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it's getting harder and harder, i don't want to use it, but the school of my kids uses it, their sport clubs etc. so i use it too, out of need.
then there is the issue that facebook is on every site, and tracking you even if you are not using facebook.
They have stolen my dreams (Score:3, Funny)
And my childhood.
How dare they.
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You monster you,
Chinese government doing exactly what Wylie wants (Score:1)
World War 3 (Score:4, Insightful)
Internet regulation NEEDED (Score:2)
We know that freedom on the internet finds ways... but some of the right kind of regulation IS REQUIRED:
1) require 3rd party open free integration for ALL multi-service providers online.
Example, a chat service:
If it is on the web, then it's already accessible to browsers. The protocol to send chats must be published and freely accessible to 3rd parties.
If it's a lazy idiot portal like Facebook, it tries to recreate AOL -- so they must make it so any 3rd party webchat can be plugged in and selected by the us
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The next big war will not be between countries, but between governments and people who are not taking this shit anymore. Like what's happening in Hong Kong right now, but then world wide.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]
No mention of Australia and UK? (Score:5, Informative)
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I am probably wrong, but I thought that those 2 nations had more government intrusive policies toward privacy. Camera's monitoring your every move, encryption back doors, monitoring of data/?
If they don't back-door you - they'll DDOS you to death instead.
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No arguments about those two countries, but I think that's a different topic than the one Wylie is trying to address - namely, private companies controlling vast amounts of data without any strong regulations on how that data is treated. The companies I've heard him reference are Facebook and Google - both multinationals with headquarters in the US.
From the horse's mouth (Score:2)
"Cambridge Analytica Whistleblower: US Heading In 'Same Direction As China' With Online Privacy"
And they should certainly know, seeing as how these are the same fuckers who've been helping various countries spy on their citizens.
It's like Corp Drug Testing (Score:3)
The gov't would love to have you pee in a cup and check you for illegal drugs - all in the name of War on Drugs. But they can't due to this document called The Constitution.
But they can somehow convince companies that "good employees can pass a drug test" and then all companies are like "yeah - that's a good idea" and pass around a big cup.
So now we have gov't control without the gov't doing it. It's okay because "we" did it to ourselves.
the right direction (Score:2)