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If we're going with a chain lawsuit, then why skip the step where B sues A for sharing their information with Dr. Kogan? B sues A for sharing their information

by ysavir 6y ago

If we're going with a chain lawsuit, then why skip the step where B sues A for sharing their information with Dr. Kogan? B sues A for sharing their information, then A sues Facebook, then Facebook sues CA. That would be the full cycle, no? If B is allowed to skip suing A in favor of suing Facebook directly, why shouldn't they also skip suing Facebook and sue Dr. Kogan directly? Or maybe it doesn't even get to go that far: B just needs to sue A, Facebook gets to sue Dr. Kogan, and that's all we see.

dragontamer 6y ago
> If we're going with a chain lawsuit, then why skip the step where B sues A for sharing their information with Dr. Kogan? B interacts to A through Facebook, do they not? If Facebook wants to sue A as the next leg in the chain, they're certainly welcome to try. That's the joy about just following the edge of the graph: its Facebook's job to figure out if A is more at fault (and should be sued) or if Cambridge Analytica is more at fault. This "chain" methodology further demonstrates which lawsuits are likely fruitless. The concept of Facebook suing A, or even Cambridge Analytica for suing A (if it goes that far) is clearly improper at face value. Breaking things up one-step at a time allows us to seek justice. IE: the entire point of the justice system.
- ysavir 6y ago
  > B interacts to A through Facebook, do they not? And what impact does that have? > its Facebook's job to figure out if A is more at fault (and should be sued) or if Cambridge Analytica is more at fault. No, it's not Facebook's job to figure that out. If this was an investigation, then it would be the investigating office's job to figure out that. But it's not an investigation, it's a lawsuit, an accusation by one party against another party. The only thing to figure out here is if the accusation is legitimate. This thread started with the GP remarking that the accusation shouldn't be found valid. To say that it should be found valid because the accused can then separately try to sue another party is not a proper evaluation of the accusation, nor is it demonstrative of a productive legal process (at least in my opinion), nor is it "the entire point of the justice system".
tsimionescu 6y ago
You're assuming a lot of information. B shared some data with Facebook. That data has somehow leaked to CA, which B never agreed to. Without doing any investigation of their own, B can pretty easily accuse FB of losing their data. FB can defend itself by saying B shared their data with A, and it is A who misplaced it. Or, it could be ruled that A could not be expected to understand that they are sharing non-public data about B with a 3rd party, so the ball could be back in FB's court. Perhaps FB should not have offered this option to A at all. Or perhaps that was well withing FB's and A's rights, and the problem instead is that A never agreed to share this data with CA, they only shared it with Dr Kogan. In this case again, it could be Dr Kogan alone who is at fault for sharing the data improperly, or it may also be FB's fault for not vetting app developers enough before giving them access to user's data. Of course, there could also be many more nuanced decisions as well. But for B, the chain can only really start with suing FB - the only entity that B shared their data directly with. B can't know whether it got to CA through A or through D or E, or whether FB was hacked and the information was stolen from them etc., and they have no right to demand this information from FB outside of a lawsuit.

by ysavir 6y ago

dragontamer 6y ago

> If we're going with a chain lawsuit, then why skip the step where B sues A for sharing their information with Dr. Kogan? B interacts to A through Facebook, do they not? If Facebook wants to sue A as the next leg in the chain, they're certainly welcome to try. That's the joy about just following the edge of the graph: its Facebook's job to figure out if A is more at fault (and should be sued) or if Cambridge Analytica is more at fault. This "chain" methodology further demonstrates which lawsuits are likely fruitless. The concept of Facebook suing A, or even Cambridge Analytica for suing A (if it goes that far) is clearly improper at face value. Breaking things up one-step at a time allows us to seek justice. IE: the entire point of the justice system.

ysavir 6y ago
> B interacts to A through Facebook, do they not? And what impact does that have? > its Facebook's job to figure out if A is more at fault (and should be sued) or if Cambridge Analytica is more at fault. No, it's not Facebook's job to figure that out. If this was an investigation, then it would be the investigating office's job to figure out that. But it's not an investigation, it's a lawsuit, an accusation by one party against another party. The only thing to figure out here is if the accusation is legitimate. This thread started with the GP remarking that the accusation shouldn't be found valid. To say that it should be found valid because the accused can then separately try to sue another party is not a proper evaluation of the accusation, nor is it demonstrative of a productive legal process (at least in my opinion), nor is it "the entire point of the justice system".

tsimionescu 6y ago

You're assuming a lot of information. B shared some data with Facebook. That data has somehow leaked to CA, which B never agreed to. Without doing any investigation of their own, B can pretty easily accuse FB of losing their data. FB can defend itself by saying B shared their data with A, and it is A who misplaced it. Or, it could be ruled that A could not be expected to understand that they are sharing non-public data about B with a 3rd party, so the ball could be back in FB's court. Perhaps FB should not have offered this option to A at all. Or perhaps that was well withing FB's and A's rights, and the problem instead is that A never agreed to share this data with CA, they only shared it with Dr Kogan. In this case again, it could be Dr Kogan alone who is at fault for sharing the data improperly, or it may also be FB's fault for not vetting app developers enough before giving them access to user's data. Of course, there could also be many more nuanced decisions as well. But for B, the chain can only really start with suing FB - the only entity that B shared their data directly with. B can't know whether it got to CA through A or through D or E, or whether FB was hacked and the information was stolen from them etc., and they have no right to demand this information from FB outside of a lawsuit.