alt Hacker NewsWhen I interviewed at Facebook in 2019, one interviewer was on an integrity team. I'm not sure if it was his take or what the org settled on, but it's that Cambridge Analytica wasn't Facebook's fault (users willingly granted access), but it was their problem. Not surprising some of the same techniques got used by others.
Replies
> but it's that Cambridge Analytica wasn't Facebook's fault (users willingly granted access), but it was their problem.
In Careless People, they mentioned that this was a strategy they wanted to employ:
They wanted facebook to become a tool for winning elections so that they would have more leverage over the politicians in power.
For example, they were trying to fight the Indian government over internet.org initiative (essentially shipping out a stripped down version of the internet to impoverished areas where they could only use facebook and a couple other apps, subsidized by telecoms). They used facebook features to incite backlash against the Indian government.
to me it feels like the entire email exchange is scripted. Would Zuck really ask a question that would end up in a lawsuit over __email__ of all mediums?
Man, if I'd interviewed with FB and even heard the word "integrity" I'd have started laughing my ass off till I was covered in a puddle of my own piss. Not a single person at facebook has integrity, it's been that way since day one.
I'm pretty sure that is a mis-characterization of what actually happened: a 3rd party app collected user profile data from FB _through somebody's friend connection_ [1].
The Zuck then apologized for this undocumented API access leak and FB subsequently patched it out of their platform. It had nothing to do with running ads. We shouldn't let time paper over the details here.
[1] "It also gathered data from their Facebook friends, which reportedly resulted in Kogan having access to the data of millions of Facebook profiles". https://www.cnbc.com/2018/04/10/facebook-cambridge-analytica...