Facebook Kills Accounts of NSO Group
October 31, 2019
Yeah, Facebook is putting its ethical flag down. The problem is that the pointy end of the flag staff may go through Facebook’s foot. “Facebook Permanently Deletes the Accounts of NSO Workers” reports:
A day after Facebook-owned WhatsApp sued NSO Group, the social media platform has permanently deleted the accounts of employees who work at the Israel-based spyware maker…
Facebook can do what it wants.
However, DarkCyber wants to make a few observations:
- Some firms offer services and systems designed to create false personas (sock puppets) so that these identities can be used in various ways; for example, obtain and use Facebook services.
- Irritating a company with specialized services may have unanticipated consequences; for example, friction when Facebook attempts to do business with an NSO partner or an NSO friendly government.
- Facebook’s grandstanding may be one way for the company to mute the fact that it paid a fine for its Cambridge Analytica adventure.
Too little, too late, and too childish may be one way to describe Facebook’s Silicon Valley tactical play.
Stephen E Arnold, October 31, 2019
Facebook: What Is a Threat to the Company?
October 29, 2019
I spotted a headline on Techmeme. Rewriting headlines is part of the Techmeme approach to communication. The link to which the headline points is this New York Times article. Here is the NYT headline:
Dissent Erupts at Facebook Over Hands-Off Stance on Political Ads
This is the Techmeme headline:
Sources: over 250 Facebook employees have signed a letter visible on an internal forum that says letting politicians lie in ads is “a threat” to the company
The messages are almost the same: Staff push back is a problem. But isn’t it part of the current high-tech company ethos.
The threat is management’s inability to maintain control. Companies typically work toward a goal; for example, manufacturing video doorbells or selling asbestos free baby powder. (Okay, those a bad examples.)
Perhaps something larger is afoot?
The corrosion of a ethical fabric allows certain aspects of human behavior to move through a weakened judgmental membrane may be more significant. The problem is not Facebook’s alone.
Are there similarities between a company shipping baby powder with questionable ingredients and Facebook?
Interesting question.
Stephen E Arnold, October 29, 2019
What Is Facebook Doing With User Data?
October 21, 2019
We have a message to Facebook, what the heck is going on with how you treat user data?
ITV shares in “Facebook Introduces ‘Clear History’ Tool But Your Data Won’t Be Deleted” that Facebook is rolling out a new feature that will disconnect, but not delete, user browsing history from its servers. The new feature is called the Of-Facebook Activity and provides a summary about third party apps and Web sites that report your activities to Facebook. This allows Facebook to send users targeted ads from desired products to political campaigns. Users can now opt out so Facebook will not access their browsing history.
When users turn on the Off-Facebook Activity, Facebook will still receive data, but personal information will be removed from it. Browsing history will not be used to send users targeted ads. Facebook wants to continue harvesting data, so they carefully selected the term “clear history” to communicate that data will not be deleted, just cleared of personal information. Facebook claims they need the information to share with businesses about their ad campaigns effectiveness. What does this mean for Facebook?
“With this tool, Facebook will no longer be able to target specific ads to their users, and the social media platform admitted in a blog post, the feature “could have some impact” on Facebook’s business. But it added “giving people control over their data is more important.””
Even though Facebook used the term “clear history” it is misleading and most people will not read the fine print about it. It is great that Facebook is giving users a report about how their information is shared with third parties, but why not give it a different name like “anonymous mode” or “privacy mode.”
Whitney Grace, October 21, 2019
Have You Stopped Beating Your Puppy?
October 5, 2019
What’s your answer? If you stop, you were beating your puppy. If you say, “Yes,” you are a puppy beater. Simple.
I read “Mark Zuckerberg Promises Facebook Won’t Be Biased Against Elizabeth Warren.” Does this mean that Facebook has been biased in the past? Does this mean that Facebook will not fiddle with search and auto generated info feeds going forward? Either way, there is a bit of puppy beater in the headline.
I also like the notion of “promises.” For example, a bully tells a teacher, “I promise I won’t hit anyone and threaten their life again.” What’s missing is the word “honest.”
Okay, that’s a life moment.
The write up asserts:
Zuckerberg said the company had been surprised by the leak, as it has been the first time in company history that an all-hands meeting had been recorded and shared with the media. (“A blog,” as Zuckerberg called The Verge!) “I think a lot of us internally were pretty shocked by that,” he said. “We want to be able to continue doing these, and have them be open. But then we had the second reaction which is, hey, you know, all the content that’s in there — we stand behind. And maybe I said that in a little bit more unfiltered of a way than I would say it externally, but fundamentally we believe everything we said that was in there.”
Honest.
DarkCyber noted this scintillating bit of reporting:
To the employee who worried about this weekend’s New York Times report about the use of social platforms to spread child exploitation imagery, he explained the steps that the company has taken to address the problem so far and committed to doing much more before Facebook attempts to encrypt Messenger messages by default. Then someone asked him about Sen. Elizabeth Warren, who had gone after Zuckerberg after reading the remarks he made in our earlier report. How would Zuckerberg remain “impartial” given the dust-up? “God,” he said, laughing to himself. “Try not to antagonize her further.”
Honest.
No, honestly. A blog. The Verge is a blog?
Stephen E Arnold, October 5, 2019
A Reason Why Governments Tip Toe around Facebook?
September 6, 2019
Is Facebook a criminal evidence preservation resource?
How important is Facebook to law enforcement, and how important should it be? How broad should efforts be to preserve potential evidence on the platform? These are some questions we pondered when we read the Daily Caller’s article, “Facebook’s New ‘Clear History’ Tool Hits a Legal Roadblock Over Criminal Evidence Concerns.” The tool in question, Off-Facebook Activity, addresses privacy concerns by giving users control over what data other apps and websites share with Facebook. (It does not, however, completely “clear” user’s browsing history, as some had hoped.)
The Texas civil case at hand is one of human trafficking facilitated, alleges the plaintiff, through Facebook’s platform. The victim’s attorney, Annie McAdams, filed a temporary restraining order to block Off-Facebook Activity altogether, reasoning the tool would obscure data relevant to her case. In doing so, she cited the federal Fight Online Sex Trafficking Act and the Stop enabling Sex Traffickers Act, both enacted in 2018. This would seem reasonable but for a couple of factors, reporter Audrey Conklin argues. For one thing, U.S. Code Section 230 protects social media companies from being held responsible for content published by others on their platforms. Furthermore, Facebook has other mechanisms for preserving data relevant to legal cases. Citing tech lawyer Brad Shear, Conklin writes:
“Shear explained that law enforcement can still access information behind Off-Facebook Activity under proper legal procedures because ‘Facebook still has that information on the back end because they don’t delete any information on their platform.’”
Interesting. The article continues:
“Facebook is used regularly as a resource to catch both active and potential criminals, including mass shooters and drug traffickers, so long as law enforcement subpoenas the information needed to identify them. …
We note:
“Facebook also works with Polaris and the National Human Trafficking Hotline ‘to provide resources and assist victims of human trafficking,’ according to a page on its site dedicated to human trafficking information, which also includes a list of human trafficking hotlines in various countries. The social media giant complied with 88% of 41,336 U.S. government requests for information in 2018, according to Facebook Transparency. There were 23,801 search warrant requests made for 36,652 accounts, 90% of which were produced. Of 8,360 subpoena requests for 13,728 accounts, data was produced for 83%. Hundreds of requests related to national security threats were also requested.”
So, according to Conklin, McAdams is approaching the issue all wrong. Instead of filing a broad restraining order against the Off-Facebook Activity tool, she could have asked Facebook nicely. However, the Transparency page states it will preserve information upon request from government law-enforcement, not private attorneys. Perhaps the issue is more complicated than the write-up suggests, and McAdams is not simply tech-ignorant, as Conklin charges.
Whatever the case here, there is no denying Facebook data has been playing an increasingly important role in law-enforcement efforts. Is that why punishments are mostly hand waving?
Cynthia Murrell, September 06, 2019
Facebook: One Must Respect Different Views of Reality
August 28, 2019
I wonder if the works of the Argentinean writer Borges are required reading at Facebook.
DarkCyber noted this article in Gizmodo: Alex Stamos, Ex-Facebook Security Chief, Blames Journalists for Cambridge Analytica Fallout. This passage warranted a tick mark:
According to Facebook’s former chief security officer, reporters who covered the company’s Cambridge Analytica scandal are at least partly to blame.
Alex Stamos, who oversaw security at Facebook when news first broke about the scandal last year, criticized BuzzFeed and “other outlets” over what he called “unbalanced reporting on privacy,” saying the media coverage of Facebook’s numerous privacy violations has been geared all along toward hampering its ability to share data for legitimate research.
DarkCyber spotted this write up as well: “Facebook Staff Had Concerns About ‘Sketchy’ Cambridge Analytica Year Before 2016 Election.” We circled this statement:
Facebook employees discussed for months how they would look into Cambridge Analytica’s practices. A document published by the company containing the emails appears to show the company only learned that Aleksandr Kogan, a developer working for the political data firm, had improperly gathered information on tens of millions of Americans in December of 2015, after the Guardian published a report.
Yep, interesting company. Too bad Borges is not around to explain the two views using Facebook’s duality.
Stephen E Arnold, August 28, 2019
What Does Facebook Know?
August 19, 2019
We noted “Why I Printed My Facebook.” The hook for the story was a single person’s interest in what Facebook knew. The write up has a number of useful factoids. Here is one:
All told, my Facebook archive was 10,057 pages long. I decided to discard the 4,612-page document of disembodied “likes,” which brought the total down to a more manageable 5,445 pages.
What a discovery DarkCyber found interesting from this individual’s research:
“A document called “Friend Peer Group,” for example, listed, in one laughably short line, the “Life stage description” that Facebook had assigned to me and my friend network, presumably based on our ages and other data points. According to Facebook, my millennial peers and I are well into “Established Adult Life,” a designation that many of us would find hilarious.”
Another one:
Other files were less amusing. “Advertisers Who Uploaded a Contact List With Your Information” was a 116-page roster of companies, most of which I had never heard of, that have used my data to try to sell me things. The document called “Facial Recognition Code” was disturbingly brief and indecipherable, translating my face into a solid block of jumbled text—a code that only Facebook’s proprietary technology can unlock—about 15 rows deep. Some documents held secrets, too. “Search History” revealed an embarrassingly detailed record of my personal obsessions and preoccupations over the years. Crushes, phobias, people I have argued with and envied?this was the information I never wanted to post on Facebook, but instead had asked Facebook to help me find. This information, along with the facial recognition codes of my children (which were not included in the .zip file, but which I assume Facebook owns), is the data I most wish I could scrub from the servers of the world.
DarkCyber is not into Facebook. We are confident that Facebook knows about BeyondSearch and maybe Tess Arnold. But other members of the team? Not much. We live in a fantasy world, right?
Stephen E Arnold, August 19, 2019
Are the British Tossing Facebook?
August 16, 2019
The British are abandoning Facebook in droves and the question is why? Zero Hedge has the answer in the article, “Exodus: Brits Abandon Facebook As Usage Plummets.” For the past twelve months, British use of Facebook own the mobile app has dropped 38%. The drop in usage is directly tied to the Cambridge Analytical scandal. The scandal took place in summer 2018, when Facebook failed to disclose that Cambridge Analytical abused Facebook user data.
Users have also decreased the number of web links and ads they clink on in Facebook on average of 2.6% per month. Zuckerberg claims the opposite and that Europe’s Facebook usage continues to grow. Facebook investors used to view user metrics as a reliable way to determine the platform’s health, but there are large amounts of fake accounts. Facebook also lost $120 billon in July 2018 with slow European growth.
One expert thinks differently:
“Matti Littunen, a social media expert at Enders Analysis, questioned the alternative data – didn’t believe the figures represented an accurate view of Facebook users’ activity across the UK, due to his belief that Facebook’s usage data showed an uptick. Instead, Mixpanel’s data could reflect changes in advertising tactics, he said. Littunen said if usage does begin to fall – advertising prices will start to rise as firms compete for smaller audiences, leading advertisers to shift ad money elsewhere.”
Facebook, like most of the unprotected Internet, takes advantage of user data and sells it to the highest bidder. Also Facebook is an old school platform and younger users do not want to be on it. Facebook might have had its time in the sun and privacy violations are could be driving it into the history books.
Whitney Grace, August 16, 2019
Libra Scams Get Ahead of the Facebook Cryptocurrency Launch
August 2, 2019
A digital currency from Facebook—what could go wrong? Rampant fraud, for starters, and that’s before cryptocurrency Libra has even been put into circulation. The Verge reports, “Libra Scams Are Already Proliferating on Facebook.” Writer Jon Porter reports:
“An investigation by The Washington Post has uncovered a dozen accounts, pages, and groups across Facebook and Instagram which misleadingly claim to be official hubs for Libra, Facebook’s proposed digital currency. In some cases these pages, which were only removed after WaPo reported them to Facebook, offered to sell Libra at a discount through third-party websites. Given the proliferation of cryptocurrency scams seen in recent years, it’s not surprising that scammers have descended on Libra given its widespread attention. However, it’s far more surprising that Facebook doesn’t seem to have been prepared for the influx of tricksters on its own service, especially as it struggles to assure regulators that it’s equipped to handle a global currency.”
Yes, the irony has been noted. Cryptocurrency scams have plagued Facebook’s platform before, so it is puzzling they did not take stronger measures to prevent this before even announcing Libra. The company employee in charge of Calibra, the Libra-associated digital wallet, has already been hauled into a Senate hearing. In The Next Web’s article, “Facebook Forced to Take Action Against Fraudsters Peddling Fake Libra,” writer Matthew Beedham tells us:
“Earlier this month, Facebook‘s head of Calibra, David Marcus, faced questions at a senate hearing. Marcus received numerous questions that interrogated many of Facebook‘s claims about its digital currency. Indeed, trust was a common theme and cropped up 69 times during the questioning.”
One representative went so far as to state she thinks Libra is so risky it should be ended before it even begins. Perhaps that would be wise, but what are the chances Facebook will embrace such wisdom?
Cynthia Murrell, August 2, 2019
Facebook: Running Out of Users? No, Just Nibbling on Its Foot
July 25, 2019
About that Facebook growth? The US may be saturated, and FBF or Facebook fatigue may be kicking. Rumors about “phantom” Facebookers in far flung countries won’t die. The regulators are flocking with legal eagles, and some countries see Facebook as a piggy bank filled with easy money.
What else could go wrong?
According to Information (no, that’s the name of an online publication), quite a bit. “Facebook Secret Research Warned of ‘Tipping Point’ Threat to Core App” discloses allegedly confidential information that doom approaches with a Like icon. (We will take a look at secrets let loose in our August 6, 2019, “DarkCyber” video program.)
What’s the Facebook secret?
…if enough users started posting on Instagram or WhatsApp instead of Facebook, the blue app could enter a self-sustaining decline in usage that would be difficult to undo. Although such “tipping points” are difficult to predict…
Here’s a Venn diagram (remember those you algebra lovers?) to prove this “secret”:
These could be Facebook’s five circles of social hell. Source: Information (that’s a great name when searching!)
To simplify, Facebook is cannibalizing itself. Without a flow of “real,” honest to goodness users of “old” Facebook, it’s possible for the core service to shrink and maybe die.
No, no, no, howls one group of FB Likers. Yes, yes, yes, shout another group which collectively dislikes Facebook.
Several observations:
- Monopolies do what they do, steered by the invisible hand of digital leprosy
- Reversing the cannibalism is going to take more than high school science club management methods, apologies, and writing checks to assorted nation states
- A weakened Facebook can fall prey to the MySpace disease, the digital pneumonia which thrives in poorly managed social spaces.
Net net: Worth watching. Get your popcorn, kick back, and think how certain government agencies will obtain high value information from a weakened Facebook.
Stephen E Arnold, July 25, 2019
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