Posts Tagged → facebook

Digging Into My Facebook Data

Piles of Books

Facebook has been in the spotlight lately, over a variety of issues related to how they collect and use the data of their “members”. Which means they’re doing a lot of apologizing and tinkering with their system, hoping to avoid more negative publicity and political interference.

But even without the recent problems, Facebook would be making alterations to their data policies, because of new laws in the European Union that go into effect next month. Among other features, the General Data Protection Regulations (GDPR) will give citizens of the EU the right to see the data companies have collected on them.

Which is probably one reason why Facebook is now offering a way to download a copy of the information they have on you. You’ll find a link to make the request under General Account Settings.

If you’re an active Facebook user, be prepared for a large file. They will be sending your entire timeline, all the messages you’ve sent and received, every photo and video you’ve uploaded, and more.

My file, however, was not large at all, a zipped file of 74kb.

Although I registered for a Facebook account ten years ago, I’ve never posted anything in that time1 and very rarely comment on the posts of others. The only reasons I open the app a few times a month are to see the latest photos from friends and relatives, and to read new comics from Bloom County. I’m just not very social I guess.

In fact, the only even slightly interesting part of my Facebook data is in the Ads section, where we find a list of advertisers with my contact info. First advertiser: Cyndi Lauper. Farther down is Rod Stewart. Very odd.

The rest of the list includes a few companies I use regularly or from whom I’ve requested information. And many sites dealing with crowdfunding I’ve never heard of. I’m very sure I did not click on any ads for these firms in Facebook or on articles related to them.

All of which leads to a basic question: why did Facebook send my information to those advertisers? What did their algorithms find in my bland profile and very sparse timeline that lead to those matches? I suspect some of this data came from the harvesting Facebook does on other websites.

Anyway, check out the data Facebook has stored in your account. You may find something even more interesting.

The image is piles of old fashioned data taken by Michael Coghlan, posted to his Flickr account, and used under a Creative Commons license.

1. Ok, maybe not never. I found one post I made in April 2010: “Still on my ongoing effort to figure out the appeal of Facebook and why I would want to spend time on it. At least the iPad makes it easier than than the iPhone app. :-)”. I’m still working on that.

The Problem Is Greater Than Facebook

Following up on the previous post, a few more random thoughts related to the current Facebook data security mess.

First, the problem with the collection and use of personal data extends far beyond Facebook. Google, Twitter, Instagram, WhatsApp1, SnapChat, and many other social media companies all offer services you don’t pay for.

All make money through selling you, their “members”, to advertisers. All have long, legally detailed terms of service, which you agreed to (even if you didn’t read it), that allow them to use your contributions and data in pretty much any way they want. Which brings up copyright issues that are a whole ‘nother rant.

But it’s not just social media collecting your data. Plenty of companies that charge for products and services – Apple, Samsung, Amazon, your phone and cable companies, your supermarket, gas station, and big box stores (remember your loyalty card?) – collect valuable data on your buying habits. And pretty much anything else they can find. Information they can use to make even more profits.

It will be interesting to see whether Europe’s new data security laws, which take affect in May, will impact the behavior of Facebook and the others. One major goal of the legislation is to give users more control over their data, including the ability to have some of it deleted. Facebook and other data-driven companies, on the other hand, are dependent on users willingly giving over their information and not caring what happens next. 

Over here in the US, despite calls for investigation and pending lawsuits, our current laws probably don’t cover this situation. It’s also very unclear what new regulations on Facebook and other social media companies would look like, considering the long tradition of free speech rights in this country. Plus, if actual data breaches of the past are any indication, there isn’t a lot of political will to do anything related to consumer protection.

I’ve seen many calls on Twitter and elsewhere to delete your Facebook accounts. That’ll show them. Except it probably won’t since the people who actually follow through is a very, very small fraction of their overall membership. Plus, Facebook will still have your data and has the infrastructure in place to continue following you around the web.

On top of everything else, Facebook makes it very difficult to actually delete an account. Bill Fitzgerald, my go-to guy for understanding data security and privacy issues, has some recommendations for people who want to try. If you’d rather continue using Facebook, check out Wired’s guide to the complicated world of their privacy and security settings.

Finally, when Mark Zuckerberg’s name comes up in the news, does anyone else picture Jesse Eisenberg in The Social Network? Considering Zuck’s shall we say “relaxed” attitude towards the privacy of his customers, I’m beginning to think the portrayal of him in that film wasn’t all that far from real life. Maybe he needs to hire Eisenberg to front him and get Aaron Sorkin to write the script. Certainly would be more entertaining.

Cartoon is by the wonderful Randall Munroe, posted at his site xkcd and used under a Creative Commons license. Check out his book What If? in which he answers absurd hypothetical questions with real science.

1. Instagram and WhatsApp are both owned by Facebook.

Selling Your Personal Data Is Their Business

Grid

You probably noticed that Facebook was in the headlines again this week.

Social media, TV pundits, and politicians were outraged over high profile investigative reports in the New York Times and the Guardian claiming that personal information on 50 million Facebook users had been harvested by a researcher in 2014 and used to create targeted political ads for the trump campaign.

The details, of course, are far more complicated.1

For one thing, too many reports are calling what happened a “data breach”, often comparing it in some way to the Experian story from last year. But the term breach implies that someone outside of Facebook, in this case a researcher for the UK-based data analysis company Cambridge Analytica, broke in and stole the information.

In fact, the researcher followed Facebook’s rules and only collected information from something like 270,000 users, all of whom consented to the process. Then, thanks to the Facebook terms of service and API2 that applied in 2014, he was also able to harvest data from all of their friends, which brings us to the 50 million number most often quoted.

So, rather than having personal data stolen, Facebook gave it away. Or more likely, sold it.

Because that is their business model. It’s why the company has a market cap of around half a trillion dollars and CEO Zuckerberg has a net worth north of $60 billion.3

Facebook is very successful at collecting data from it’s more than two billion active members and then selling it to advertisers. Cambridge Analytica was one more advertiser and it didn’t matter that their ads were misleading and dishonest (at best). As long as the funds transfer went through.

Whatever you call this particular abuse of member data, it’s only the latest in a long string of arrogant and clueless decision the company has made over it’s short history. And, even with new privacy laws in Europe and Congress critters fighting over the opportunity to hold hearings, it probably won’t be the last.

And this is as good a time as any to again point out two facts about Facebook that anyone with an account should remember (but probably doesn’t):

1. Facebook is a multinational corporation not a community. Communities are built by people and, while it’s possible to create one using an online platform, the company itself is not going to make it happen.

2. Facebook membership is free. Which means you are not the company’s customer; you are the product they sell to advertisers. Monetizing your content and data is their first, maybe their only, concern.

I’m not sure the image has anything to do with this story.

1. In addition to the two articles linked above (the Times piece is probably a little better), Wired has done some of the best analysis of this story. This piece is a good place to begin.

2. API is application programming interface, the rules established by tech companies that allow outside code to communicate with their systems. In most cases, companies like Facebook provide very specific instructions as to what can be done with APIs.

3. Both took a big hit on Monday when Facebook’s stock dropped hard after investors spent the weekend digesting the Times and Guardian reports from Friday.

Bringing Back a More Spirited Web

Web Trend Map

That image above, resembling a subway map, is an imaginative visualization of the World Wide Web in 2007.1 The company that created this graphic, the design firm Information Architects, stopped updating it in 2011.

In a recent blog post, they explain why there won’t be a 2018 edition: “The most important ingredient for a Web Trend Map is missing: The Web.”

The Web has lost its spirit. The Web is no longer a distributed Web. It is, ironically, a couple of big tubes that belong to a handful of companies. Mainly Google (search), Facebook (social) and Amazon (e-commerce). There is an impressive Chinese line and there are some local players in Russia, Japan, here and there. Overall it has become monotonous and dull.

How can we fix that, and bring back at least some of that spirit? The folks at iA suggest we need more bloggers, those who used to write online and those new to the concept.

If you are one of those old or young bloggers, please join in. Drop Facebook, drop Twitter and drop Medium for original thought. Own your traffic. You can use them to engage in discussion. But don’t get lost in there. Write daily. Publish as often as you have something to say. Link to other blogs.

Completely agree. I would especially love to see more teachers online, posting content to their own domains instead of to Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, and the other closed tubes. Creating communities of educators that own and control their message. Instead of producing material for greater advertising sales.

Thanks to Doug Belshaw for the link that triggered this rant. He includes lots of interesting links like that in his free weekly newsletter, Thought Shrapnel.

1. Click the image to see a larger, more readable version.

Your Attention. Now!

A man walks onto the TED stage and introduces himself: “I was a design ethicist at Google, where I studied how do you ethically steer people’s thoughts.”.

My first thought was, how is it possible to “ethically” steer people’s thoughts? However, I think this particular speaker, now billed as a “design thinker”, may be worth listening to.

In his TED talk from last spring, Tristan Harris wants us to know about the “handful of people working at a handful of technology companies” who are working very hard to attract our attention and hang onto it for as long as possible. The better to sell that attention – us – to their advertisers. And they want to leave nothing to chance.

Because it’s not evolving randomly. There’s a hidden goal driving the direction of all of the technology we make, and that goal is the race for our attention. Because every new site — TED, elections, politicians, games, even meditation apps — have to compete for one thing, which is our attention, and there’s only so much of it. And the best way to get people’s attention is to know how someone’s mind works. And there’s a whole bunch of persuasive techniques that I learned in college at a lab called the Persuasive Technology Lab to get people’s attention.

Teachers especially need to understand what he’s talking about since they work with some of the primary targets of these companies looking for attention. If you teach high school students, possibly middle school, maybe even play this in class and follow it with a discussion. We need to help students understand what these adults are doing to them.

Finally, this is a good time to remember that, if you are not paying for a service, chances are you are the product, not the customer. Everything comes with a price and, on the web, that price is very often your information.