Mark Zuckerberg, CEO and co-founder of Facebook, met with individual lawmakers yesterday on Capitol Hill (April 9). Today, Zuckerberg is scheduled to go before a joint hearing of the Senate Judiciary and Commerce Committees and then the House Energy and Commerce Committee tomorrow (Wednesday, April 11). These meetings are in response to the discovery that Facebook user data was obtained by third parties and possibly used to influence the 2016 U.S. elections.

Most of the users involved in this “mined” data, 50-87 million people, are U.S. users. Facebook, founded in 2004, has over 2 billion users worldwide.

Here is my understanding of the situation.

Getting the Data

In 2013 Aleksandr Kogan, a lecturer at the University of Cambridge, created an app called “This is Your Digital Life” that offered personality predictions to users while calling itself a research tool for psychologists. The app asked users to log in using their Facebook accounts. As part of the login process, it asked for access to users’ Facebook profiles, locations, what they liked on the service, and importantly, their friends’ data as well. This was allowed by Facebook at the time and users unwittingly gave Kogan access to the data. So technically there was no breach of the platform.

“In 2014, to prevent abusive apps, we [Facebook] announced that we were changing the entire platform to dramatically limit the data apps could access. Most importantly, apps like Kogan’s could no longer ask for data about a person’s friends unless their friends had also authorized the app. We also required developers to get approval from us before they could request any sensitive data from people. These actions would prevent any app like Kogan’s from being able to access so much data today.” Mark Zuckerberg

In 2015 Facebook found out that Kogan had violated Facebook policies and given the data to Cambridge Analytica (CA). Facebook blocked CA and Kogan from access to Facebook and required them to delete all the data received. They both certified that they had complied, but Facebook did not take the additional step of a forensic audit to confirm compliance.

Who is CA?

Cambridge Analytica (CA) is a British political consulting firm which combines data mining, data brokerage, and data analysis with strategic communication for the electoral process. It was started in 2013 as an offshoot of the SCL Group. The company is partly owned by the family of Robert Mercer, an American hedge-fund manager who supports many politically conservative causes. The firm maintains offices in London, New York City, and Washington, D.C.

…CA worked for Donald Trump’s presidential campaign as well as the Leave.EU-campaign for the United Kingdom’s withdrawal from the European Union. CA’s role in those campaigns has been controversial and is the subject of ongoing criminal investigations in both countries. Political scientists question CA’s claims about the effectiveness of its methods of targeting voters. From Wikipedia

Facebook’s failures are that their controls were too lax in protecting data and they were not being transparent with users as to who was using their data and how. It is possible that other apps have obtained and used data from Facebook in similar ways. Facebook is investigating this and is committed to taking action and keeping users informed. There are also issues with groups, foreign governments, using Facebook to spread misinformation during elections or trying to influence people without revealing that they are making political statements.

Next week, I will write about Facebook’s remedies for this situation. After that I will write about the users’ responsibilities in this era of social media.

Sources:

Facebook-Cambridge Analytica Timeline

Facebook, Cambridge Analytica and data mining: What you need to know