
Facebook suspended the account of whistleblower who exposed Cambridge Analytica - rock57
https://www.yahoo.com/news/facebook-suspended-account-whistleblower-exposed-221429183.html
======
JumpCrisscross
The arrogance of Facebook's response to this breach, quibbling over what to
call it and now this, is mind-blowing. Their "it wasn't a robbery because we
left the front door open" excuse may finally bring about trans-Atlantic
regulation of social media.

~~~
sithadmin
>The arrogance of Facebook's response to this breach

Is it even clear that there was a 'breach' of any kind that Facebook was
responsible for? Correct me if I'm wrong here, but it seems like the chain of
events is:

1.) Third party (Aleksandr Kogan) creates 'personality quiz' app, Facebook
users opt-in to share information from their profile

2.) Aleksandr Kogan hands off data gathered by the app to Cambridge Analytica,
violating Facebook TOS

3.) Whistleblower (Christopher Wylie) lets world know that (2) happened

4.) Media / public gets out pitchforks and blames incident on Facebook

It really seems like Aleksandr Kogan, not Facebook, is the problem here.

~~~
bogomipz
>"Is it even clear that there was a 'breach' of any kind that Facebook was
responsible for?"

How about a breach of basic responsibility to inform users that their data has
been used inappropriately and transferred to a third party. FB knew about this
as far back as 2015[1]. Did they let users know at any point? No.

Further FB's Chief Security Officers's tweets on Friday failed to show any
concern for FB users who were used as pawns. His main concern was to point out
that this wasn't actually a FB problem.

And let's not forget that Mark Zuckerberg dismissed the idea that fake news on
Facebook influenced the US elections as "a pretty crazy idea."[2]

So the "pitchforks" are a culmination of a significantly longer time frame and
not just a reaction to this single news story.

[1] [https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2015/dec/11/senator-
ted-...](https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2015/dec/11/senator-ted-cruz-
president-campaign-facebook-user-data)

[2]
[https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2016/nov/10/facebook-...](https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2016/nov/10/facebook-
fake-news-us-election-mark-zuckerberg-donald-trump)

~~~
felipeerias
"These guys unlawfully got data from a lot of our users. Surely they will
delete it if we ask them to, right?

"Now they want to buy a lot of ads on our platform, great!

"Also their ads are getting a lot of engagement somehow, let's make it cheaper
for them to buy more!"

------
dpwm
I'm still shaken with the magnitude and strength of the revelations that have
been made in the last five hours on Cambridge Analytica (though some of the
things sound more like SCL -- they share the same CEO).

At 7pm GMT we had the Channel 4 News investigation[0] which featured Alexander
Nix, the CEO of Cambridge Analytica, in which he appeared to be bragging to a
fictional Sri Lankan businessman (who was in fact an undercover reporter)
about the things they can do to discredit his opponents involving (with a
delicious dose of irony) hidden cameras. Such tactics sounded a lot like they
may involve trafficking of Ukrainian sex workers. There were also things that
sounded a lot like blackmail and spreading of things that may not be true.

Then, just after that undercover story broke we had the Facebook raid, which
really looked a lot to my untrained eye like heroic efforts to protect data of
the more evidential variety from being unnecessarily breached to the
authorities or the public.

At 10.30pm we got an interview [1], filmed before the undercover reporting
broke, with Alexander Nix. Most memorable to me was Mr Nix seemed to attempt
to confidently assure us that Dr Aleksandr Kogan had merely shared with them
the gradients with which to build additional models upon and had never shared
the data harvested from FB as the whistleblower in this article had alleged.
We were also either told or given the impression that this was a great big
misunderstanding and all part of a spectacularly coordinated attack by
journalists who were upset about Trump.

[0] [https://www.channel4.com/news/cambridge-analytica-
revealed-t...](https://www.channel4.com/news/cambridge-analytica-revealed-
trumps-election-consultants-filmed-saying-they-use-bribes-and-sex-workers-to-
entrap-politicians-investigation)

[1] [https://twitter.com/BBCNewsnight](https://twitter.com/BBCNewsnight)

------
fortythirteen
Just get the f### off Facebook, already.

If you're the kind of person who votes based on targeted advertising, or the
hyperbolic posts of people who vote based on targeted advertising, don't ask
Facebook to change. Get the f### off Facebook.

If you don't like how Facebook is being used as an addictive propaganda tool
_by any and all political actors, including Facebook itself,_ then get the
f### off Facebook.

Ask the Facebook "friends" you care about for an email address, phone number,
or other messaging account and get the f### off Facebook.

You don't need up to the minute information on the playdate of your cousin's
college room mate's toddler. Get the f### off Facebook.

~~~
maxerickson
Enough with the #. If you want to swear, swear. If you don't want to swear,
don't.

For fuck's sake.

~~~
fancyfish
Hell yeah, as a New Yorker I wholeheartedly agree.

~~~
DogPawHat
As a fecking Irishman, I also agree

~~~
BrandoElFollito
Moi aussi, crotte.

------
medyadaily
I have a personal story from inside facebook to share. and when I shared this
story on my facebook my personal facebook was suspended too.

5 years ago Facebook recruiter reached out to me and invited me to the W hotel
in Chicago. I was very excited -not for the job- but for the opportunity to
meet with senior Facebook managers and tell them about an evil thing Facebook
does. Here is the background story:

I am Kurdish from Iran. And Iran has many provinces. one of them is called
Kurdistan. In Facebook profile section for Hometown you could pick all of the
Iranian provinces except Kurdistan.

And at first I thought it was a bug. For years and years we submitted bug
reports and collected petitions for Facebook they never responded why the
Kurdistan province cannot be picked while other provinces could be picked.

Till one day, An internal document -guidance- leaked out of Facebook. That
explained it all ! One of the pages was talking about Kurdistan. In which they
had explained any reference to Kurdistan is considered terrorism. That was on
the request of Turkish government.

In "Turkey", the word Kurdistan is forbidden. and many people in Turkey been
prisoned for speaking Kurdish. however in "Iran" we officially have a province
called "Kurdistan Province). and Iranian government recognizes the name
Kurdistan for my homeland.
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Provinces_of_Iran](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Provinces_of_Iran)

But Facebook decided to enforce the Turkish government racist rule on other
countries that have Kurdistan (Iran, Iraq, Syria...)

Also in that leaked guidance memo. Kurdistan flag was considered illegal. And
hundreds of Kurdish pages and accounts got banned for having Kurdistan flag.

While Kurdish flag is illegal in Turkey. Kurdish flag is officially recognized
in the Constitution of Iraq for Kurdistan regional government.

So when they invited me to W Hotel to recruit me. I was like yes finally I can
meet the people in person. Because as a Kurd I have no importance and they
will never respond to me but a software engineer I am pretty attractive on the
market.

So I asked the question from one of the managers. And told them my story this
for years and years I send them emails and nobody got back to me and we made
petitions about this so-called bug.

He said these things are decided by higher management.

I told him how often do you show this disagreement to higher managers or Mark
Zuckerburg's policies if you have a different opinion. He responded if I
disagree with them I wouldn't work there.

I left the W Hotel in Chicago 5 years ago refusing to proceed with a job on
FB. I knew Facebook is on the wrong path. And today I see that prediction
coming true.

Even today when Turkey committed a massacre in Kurdish city of Afrin, Facebook
blocked many voices inside the city who were showing massacres by Turkish
government.

10 years ago FB came after kurds and you said not my problem. Today they are
coming after all of u

~~~
scoggs
I just find it disgusting that, as a company, they feel they have the right to
act in such a way. At the end of the day I guess it's safe to assume that
somebody inside or outside of Facebook has an agenda to proceed with actions
like these and I'm sure there are many other cases of things like this around
the world but the entire thing just leaves the worst taste in my mouth.

~~~
manfredo
My disgust lies with the regime that's suppressing that regional identity.
Unless we have reason to believe that Facebook would still disallow the
Kurdistan option even if governments didn't criminalize recognition of
Kurdistan, then this blame rests on Turkey.

I can't find a reason to fault Facebook's response to this harmful government
policy. Would it be better to allow people to select the "Kurdistan" option,
knowing full well that this could cause people to be imprisoned, or killed?
"Facebook disallows selecting of contested regional identities" is bad, but
not nearly as bad as "Facebook helps oppressive governments hunt down
disenfranchised people".

~~~
medyadaily
I can confirm iranian government not only does not have any problem with word
Kurdistan, Iran has an official Province called Kurdistan, and it is
constitutional. (same with Iraq) and I am form Iran living in USA, I should be
allowed to enter my hometown's province, just like every other iranian
proviince( Tehran, Isfahan, Shiraz, ...) but Facebook enforces Turkey's
disgusting rules on Iran too.

------
darawk
Why are people calling this a data breach? As I understand it, CA just scraped
the data from users who authorized their app to do so. Am I missing something
here?

~~~
IAmEveryone
Facebook did not authorize data retention. CA’s actions were therefore
unauthorized use of data, which is the textbook definition of a data breach.

~~~
darawk
...you mean facebook said "don't keep this" and then they kept it? And people
are calling that a breach?

~~~
dragonwriter
Well, no, the breach happened when the data was acquired under false (bogus
“academic use”) pretenses and then transferred to CA, thus taking personal
data contrary to both the will of the subjects and the policy of the entity
through which it was taken; the “dont keep this” was a (pitiful) post-breach
mitigation effort by Facebook.

------
donarb
This has bigger implications than just data breaches, it goes to campaign
finance violations of the Trump campaign. Cambridge Analytica shared an
address in Beverley Hills with Trump campaign manager Steve Bannon's political
consulting company called Glittering Steel. The implication is that GS used
Cambridge's data to target users on Facebook with political ads for Trump all
while being paid by a PAC called Make America 1 that was believed to be funded
by Robert Mercer and his family.

This Twitter user has numerous posts about this. Not sure exactly who they
are, but they have multiple sources of information about this story.
[https://twitter.com/emlas/status/975138624911151104](https://twitter.com/emlas/status/975138624911151104)

------
tango12
I was so terrified about how India was almost serious about letting Facebook
Zero / free basics or whatever happen.

I feel extremely concerned also that new generations are growing up without
knowing how the web was intended to be de-centralised and "free" and self-
correcting.

Maybe that doesn't work at scale and things need regulation, but I feel like
there was a chance to set culture and tone so that even when a large number of
people would come on to the Internet, it would be more with a Wikipedia like
attitude perhaps.

Now imagine if the first introduction to the Internet for a billion-ish people
in India (current penetration is 460mil) would have been through Facebook's
internet.org. Imagine if that happened in a country as large as India set that
precedent for other countries with low internet penetration.

I used to scoff in university at a batchmate who told me over lunch that he
doesn't use gmail because Google is too large and could become evil. I'm not
scoffing anymore I guess.

------
jhayward
Reporting that I read said they suspended him because he wouldn't sign what I
inferred was an NDA to advise them on how to understand and mitigate the
problem.

------
mlamat
In about 20 minutes, an explosive documentary about this will be airing on
Channel 4 BBC.

~~~
garblegarble
>Channel 4 BBC

Just a side-note, Channel 4 is an entirely separate wholly commercial public-
service broadcaster, whereas the BBC is publicly funded via a license that's
required to watch live TV

~~~
bodyfour
Yes, the fact that "BBC4" and "Channel 4" are completely different things is
(understandably) missed by nearly everyone outside the UK.

~~~
mlamat
Sorry, my mistake. You learn something new every day.

------
mcguire
Yahoo just delivered a full-screen, "Your computer has been infected with
digital ebola" page when I visited that link.

------
thrillgore
Guys, you suspended the wrong account.

------
Overtonwindow
Damage Control.

------
mtgx
Watch how they say it was an error, if this blows up. Just watch.

~~~
jackhack
Somewhere at Facebook is a poor Winston Smith, throwing scraps of paper down
the memory hole and editing yesterday's headlines. (edit: And at google, and
reddit, and youtube, and ...)

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artemisyna
Given how the guy took data then refused to cooperate when asked, I think his
account being suspended makes sense...

[https://www.facebook.com/boz/posts/10104702799873151](https://www.facebook.com/boz/posts/10104702799873151)

------
matt4077
This is arguably correct. While it may be more pragmatic to practice lenience
with wistleblowers, there is no moral principle to shield them from all
consequences of their actions.

This guy was not just an observer of unethical practices. He was the technical
lead for this behavior.

Whistleblower protections usually shield you from retribution by your
employer. What people argue for when they criticize Facebook over this is more
akin to immunity.

