Facebook Faces Fire
Are you a Facebook user? The company has already been in hot water for months now due to its role in the Russian tampering in the 2016 presidential election. But now, Facebook faces an even more serious accusation: allowing the personal data of 50 million customers to be harvested and used by the Trump campaign. Here, btw takes a look at what happened, and how you can protect yourself from having your online information harvested.
How Did This Happen?
In 2014, a researcher at Cambridge University invited Facebook users to take a personality quiz called thisisyourdigitallife, saying that the information gained by the app would be used only for academic purposes. About 27,000 people responded to the quiz. Unfortunately, in the app’s fine print, it said that by taking the quiz, you were also agreeing to let the app harvest data from your friends list as well. That’s how 50 million people wound up affected.
That information was then purchased by Cambridge Analytica, a voter profiling company (funded by Steven Bannon, Trump’s former chief adviser) that worked directly with the Trump campaign. The campaign was then able to use the personal, private data that was harvested–including personal profiles, friend lists, and “likes”–in order to influence the votes of 50 million Americans.
What Does Facebook Say About This?
Facebook is quick to point out that no passwords or other sensitive information was harvested. Also, the social media company points out that it isn’t accurate to say that Facebook was “hacked,” because when you open an account, you agree to give researchers access to your information for academic purposes. The problem here is that the information was then sold to a private company, which is against the law.
Currently, Facebook is under investigation by the Federal Trade Commission. The Senate Commerce Commission has sent a letter to Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg, asking for answers. The Massachusetts Attorney General’s office has opened its own investigation. Meanwhile, Zuckerberg has refused an invitation to speak before the British Parliament to answer questions about the breach. According to his Facebook page, the company is exploring the issue and taking necessary steps to make sure that a security breakdown like this doesn’t happen again.
What Can You Do?
So, short of deleting your Facebook account altogether, what can you do to protect yourself from having your data harvested in the future? Not a lot. Start by checking your Facebook privacy settings to make sure that only your friends can see what you post. Then, you can install software–such as “Disconnect” or “Privacy Badger”–that will block companies from being able to track your Internet habits. You should also be very careful of which apps you use on Facebook. Installing an ad blocker and regularly clearing your browser history are also easy steps to take to preserve your internet privacy.