Facebook’s reality check
The social network shows its seamy side
Those quizzes and games on Facebook seemed like harmless fun until last week.
Facebook executives have some explaining to do, both in Washington and with the social network’s nearly 2 billion users, after it was revealed that a data firm connected to political campaigns used information gleaned initially from an innocuous-seeming personality test to mine Facebook profiles for data used to manipulate political messaging.
Cambridge Analytica, a firm that provided voter analysis to the 2016 Trump campaign, was able to work with information from about 50 million compromised Facebook profiles. The company obtained the data from a researcher who developed the personality-test app and got about 270,000 Facebook users to take the quiz. From there, data miners were able to get information not only on the people who took the quiz, but also all of the Facebook users in their networks.
Among the aspects of this case that most outrage defenders of privacy is that this violates the terms of a 2011 consent decree Facebook signed, agreeing not to share users’ data with third parties without explicit consent of those users.
Users were understandably furious. The hashtag #deletefacebook trended and the company’s stock price plummeted in the days after the data compromise was revealed. Former Facebook executives took to news shows to say they had warned of such a catastrophe, and Congress called for CEO Mark Zuckerberg to appear in Washington for questioning.
Among the only people keeping quiet, initially, was Mr. Zuckerberg himself, who made a brief public statement about the data-release scandal, saying he took personal responsibility.
Revelations that Facebook has for years allowed third-party users access to volumes of personal information is, and should be, a scandal. This is particularly so when it is apparent that the company had been alerted to this problem years ago and made legally binding promises to address it.
To suggest Facebook users should just stop using Facebook is naive. Facebook is not just for vacation selfies and silly memes. It has become a ubiquitous platform for information and debate.
But what Facebook must not be allowed to become is the de facto surveillance mechanism for ne’er-dowells.
First, Mr. Zuckerberg needs to accept calls to testify before Congress and submit to the grilling he will surely receive there. And second, Facebook must become a much more transparent and accountable operation. Someone, or some entity, must perform oversight. Otherwise, what is left of privacy in America will be obliterated.