Are we just too hooked on Facebook?

MIGHT this be a turning point — the revelation that Facebook data from 50 million people ended up in the hands of a political data firm to build profiles to help sway voters in the last United States election?

Or might this just be another privacy outrage, just another example of where the world has been heading?

After all, there is no such thing as a free lunch. Facebook use might come without direct monetary costs, but payment is in data provided and data used — and lots of it. Hundreds of millions of people give up data every time they like, share, view, comment and fill in details. Facebook also collects information from its partners and the other services it owns, like Instagram and Whats App.

Supposedly and according to Facebook, the information is to provide, develop and improve services, communicate with the user, show and measure ads and services and promote safety and security.

Yet, information from 270,000 people who filled in an innocuous looking personality survey was in turn extended to the survey takers’ ‘‘friends’’ and to 50 million people.

Then, it is alleged, Cambridge Analytics, a firm founded by Donald Trump supporters, used the information in support of Mr Trump’s presidential campaign.

A former company political strategist said the firm believed it could ‘‘capture every channel of information around a person and then inject content around them.’’ That way ‘‘you can change their perception of what’s actually happening’’. It could be known what sort of messages people were suspectable to, where they would consume that and how many times messages needed to be applied to change what people thought.

Meanwhile, a company general manager was secretly recorded suggesting those targeted by the firm would not even know their online experience was being manipulated.

In other words, it is not just the gullible affected but large swathes, especially because so many receive their news via Facebook.

Facebook says it instructed Cambridge Analytica, when it found out in 2015, to extinguish the harvested data, and that its rules were broken. But who knows whether all copies were deleted, and Facebook appears not to have prevented the data being used.

In other words, despite Facebook assurances, it was all too easy for abuse on a massive scale. Data was deviously obtained for political gain. Who knows what other abuses are out there? Remember, this was not information obtained by hacking but by an easytowalkthrough back door.

In Europe and the United States this is again raising issues about the regulation of the giants of social media and technology world. There needs to be independent oversight and auditing. We cannot take on trust that companies, designed to make ever bigger profits, will look after public interests. Clearly, even if technically against the rules, data can be obtained and used for nefarious ends.

This is not the first and nor will it be the last concern about Face book and how it is used and abused. It is facilitating echochamber worlds where prejudices are reinforced.

That is one part of the story. Another should be end of an age of innocence about social media. It has proved a boon for so many people and an easy way to share, stay in touch and be entertained. But it has high costs. We all face huge privacy dangers when masses of our personal information is caught, stored, analysed and shared with marketers and others.

Nevertheless, it is hard to see a lot changing. Many hundreds of millions of people are hooked on Facebook and Instagram and find it difficult to live without their benefits.

Of course, all sorts of other companies supplying ‘‘free’’ services are also scooping up our data and using it in various ways known and unknown.