I was on the phone to a friend of mine the other day, and I was talking about how much I was craving Vegemite. A few hours later, when I opened up Facebook, the first thing I saw was an ad for Vegemite!! How weird!! Has Facebook been listening to my phone calls? Does this sound familiar?...Well it could actually be true!
Earlier today I came across a tweet from Dylan McKay claiming that he'd downloaded his Facebook data as a zip file and it bizarrely included his entire call and sms history. See for yourself.
Earlier today I came across a tweet from Dylan McKay claiming that he'd downloaded his Facebook data as a zip file and it bizarrely included his entire call and sms history. See for yourself.
Downloaded my facebook data as a ZIP file
— Dylan McKay (@dylanmckaynz) March 21, 2018
Somehow it has my entire call history with my partner's mum pic.twitter.com/CIRUguf4vD
@dylanmckaynz #DeleteFacebook #facebookshit I just downloaded my facebook ZIP and ran your script ., the length of contact info page itself scares me.
— pcm mushthaq (@mushthaqpc) March 25, 2018
It contains all my SMS,MMS,call logs and contacts from Sep 2015 to Dec 2017 pic.twitter.com/rMp3SCc8eK
So I decided to do some digging into my own Facebook data. After downloading my personal data directly from Facebook I realised the immense amount of data they have available on me i.e. my posts, messenger activity, timeline, friends, places I have been, ads I have interacted with, instagram specific interactions and strangely my entire phone contact list. I admit, I was aware of most of this data being available however not my phone contact list.
Access your own Facebook data by going to settings and clicking on the "Download a copy" link. Example below.
Access your own Facebook data by going to settings and clicking on the "Download a copy" link. Example below.
Companies regardless of them being a fashion retailer or technology giant need to give control back to their customers. Allow your customers access to control the information you have, the information you collect and more importantly the information you use. This should also be designed in a way that is clear and simple to understand - not designed in a way that is strategically complicated so users abandon the process.
It seems Facebook has worked tirelessly over the years to gather as much data on users as it can – and to profit from it. As of the fourth quarter of 2017, Facebook had 2.2 billion monthly active users. Facebook's revenue grew from 7.87 billion in 2013 to 40.7 billion US dollars in 2017, it accumulated a net income of 15.9 billion US dollars and majority of that revenue was generated via advertising.
It seems Facebook has worked tirelessly over the years to gather as much data on users as it can – and to profit from it. As of the fourth quarter of 2017, Facebook had 2.2 billion monthly active users. Facebook's revenue grew from 7.87 billion in 2013 to 40.7 billion US dollars in 2017, it accumulated a net income of 15.9 billion US dollars and majority of that revenue was generated via advertising.
Why am I not surprised?
In 2004 Zuckerburg used the term “Dumb fucks” when he described the users of Facebook for trusting him with their personal data. Zuckerberg also talked about what Facebook insiders called radical transparency, an idea that partly amounted to an insistence that old ideas about privacy were becoming outdated. “To get people to the point where there’s more openness – that’s a big challenge,” Zuckerberg said. “But I think we’ll do it. I just think it will take time. The concept that the world will be better if you share more is something that’s pretty foreign to a lot of people, and it runs into all these privacy concerns.”
Facebook has gone to great lengths to convince members of the public that it’s all about “connecting people” and “building a global community”. In 2016 this became the tale of Facebook & Cambridge Analytica, a saga that highlights the awful mess that the biggest player in billions of online lives has enabled. If you aren’t familiar with the story Cambridge Analytica spent more than $1 million dollars harvesting personal data through Facebook so they could micro-target you with advertising. Advertising which Christopher Wylie (ex Director of Research at Cambridge Analytica) claims is grossly unethical and uses new constructs of psychology to target you based on personality. He say’s they used apps such as games that have special behaviours that harvest your data and pull all your friends data while they are at it. Once they have this data they know how to talk to you, via what medium and how often they have to show you a message in order to change your behaviour. This strategy is what most claim was used in the 2016 US presidential election which led to Donald Trumps success and in the same year Brexit. Chris says they are responsible for creating the worlds largest psychological warfare tool and full service propaganda machine who can influence how people behave and react. They did this by whispering in the ear of each and every voter using Facebook. In my opinion this is one of the worlds biggest data breaches.
To dig more into the revelations surrounding the Cambridge Analytica scandal click here.
Facebook has gone to great lengths to convince members of the public that it’s all about “connecting people” and “building a global community”. In 2016 this became the tale of Facebook & Cambridge Analytica, a saga that highlights the awful mess that the biggest player in billions of online lives has enabled. If you aren’t familiar with the story Cambridge Analytica spent more than $1 million dollars harvesting personal data through Facebook so they could micro-target you with advertising. Advertising which Christopher Wylie (ex Director of Research at Cambridge Analytica) claims is grossly unethical and uses new constructs of psychology to target you based on personality. He say’s they used apps such as games that have special behaviours that harvest your data and pull all your friends data while they are at it. Once they have this data they know how to talk to you, via what medium and how often they have to show you a message in order to change your behaviour. This strategy is what most claim was used in the 2016 US presidential election which led to Donald Trumps success and in the same year Brexit. Chris says they are responsible for creating the worlds largest psychological warfare tool and full service propaganda machine who can influence how people behave and react. They did this by whispering in the ear of each and every voter using Facebook. In my opinion this is one of the worlds biggest data breaches.
To dig more into the revelations surrounding the Cambridge Analytica scandal click here.
"People change culture and if you change the people, in theory, you can change the culture. If you want to win a war in this example a political war you need to start by building cultural weapons. Once you destroy the existing culture, you can rebuild it however you want!” - Christopher Wylie explaining the psychological warfare tools they created.
WHAT DO I PLAN TO DO ABOUT IT?
Well I’m not Elon Musk and won’t make headlines about joining the #DeleteFacebook movement, but I plan on taking a stance. Data should be treated like a precious gift and until Facebook start to take peoples data more seriously I will be deleting my personal account.
“We have a responsibility to protect your data, and if we can’t then we don’t deserve to serve you,” - Mark Zuckerburg
Actions speak louder then words Mark. Make it happen!