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Facebook shuts out NYU academics’ research on political ads
- annadane 5y agoI still seriously doubt we would have another Cambridge Analytica situation if the research was allowed to continue, but maybe FB really is that scared of another 5 billion fine
- willxinc 5y agoDo you mean, we won't have another situation, if FB continues its hard stance towards unauthorized data collection? Cause otherwise, I don't see how they could have another Cambridge Analytica situation if what they're doing is sharing _less information_.
- kfprt 5y agoThe emperor has no clothes. The more the public learns about how FB operates the less likely it is FB is allowed to exist in its current form. The idealistic future is one with much more censorship but of much smaller communities (~150) limiting the blast radius. Of course authorities much prefer having centralized actors which they can exert power and control through.
- letitgo12345 5y agoThe realistic future is Chinese social media companies (and by proxy Chinese govt) ruling the internet instead of Facebook and Twitter :)
- hellgas00 5y ago"The idealistic future is one with much more censorship" Hopefully this can be made into a bumper sticker.
- Barrin92 5y ago>But Facebook said the browser extension was programmed to evade its detection systems and vacuum up user data, creating privacy concerns. The supreme irony of this statement coming from Facebook. That's your business model lol. For context[1], the 'unauthorized data collection' in this case that Facebook claims is happening is the data about the advertisers, not the participants in the study, who actively install an extension that collects information about what political ads are shown to a user, stripped of personally identifying information. This sounds like getting a political campaign ad in the mailbox, reporting that to a local study and then getting terminated by the mail company for violating the campaigns privacy, that's some real bizarro world shit [1]https://www.theverge.com/2021/8/4/22609020/facebook-bans-academic-researchers-ad-transparency-misinformation-nyu-ad-observatory-plug-in https://www.theverge.com/2021/8/4/22609020/facebook-bans-aca...
- TeMPOraL 5y agoI'm just waiting for some clever European company to argue in US court that, since companies are people, the company should be protected by GDPR.
- krageon 5y ago> companies are people They're not
- drunkpotato 5y agoIn U.S. law, corporations exist in a bizarro-world state where they are people for some purposes where it's advantageous (to take advantage of free speech, for example), but not people where it's disadvantageous (for liability and punishment, for example; there is the meme "I'll believe that a corporation is a person when Texas executes one!"). I believe that is what GP is referring to.
- jimktrains2 5y agoIt's not just us law. Most countries have the ability for corporations to act as their own entity under the protection of the law. This is because companies need to sign things, like contracts, that can't be secured by any one person.
- ParanoidShroom 5y agoAll this sensational fb bashing is boring. What company allows scraping? Most of them play this cat and mouse game. Digg might have still been alive if they would manage to block it.
- actually_a_dog 5y agoWhat exactly is sensational about it?
- anothernewdude 5y agoRead the article first. This was logging activity in the browser, not scraping.
- ParanoidShroom 5y agoAt what point does logging thousand of web response not become scraping? I would call collecting a dataset scraping. It's a legit question, I'm not trying to be snarky here.
- Dylan16807 5y agoThe normal meaning of scraping is that you have to be automating bulk access to the site, which isn't happening here. And even under a different definition that would count normal browsing activity, the researchers still aren't doing scraping here. And each user is only collecting a few data points.
- danuker 5y agoYou are right, this is scraping. But I argue it is manual scraping - the data gets transferred even in the case of a regular user, just not saved. As far as I interpret it, only automated scraping is against the ToS: https://www.facebook.com/apps/site_scraping_tos_terms.php https://www.facebook.com/apps/site_scraping_tos_terms.php > You may not access or collect data from our Products using automated means (without our prior permission) or attempt to access data you do not have permission to access. https://www.facebook.com/legal/terms/update https://www.facebook.com/legal/terms/update
- samat 5y agoI think reasonable thing will be for the researchers to “admit responsibility, say they will do better” and keep going as if nothing happened. Like Mark Zuckerberg does.
- ummonk 5y agoLeaving aside the thorny question about whether measures should be taken to block scraping tools, it's deeply concerning to me the extent to which services like Facebook and Google are embedded into the social and economic fabric of our world, yet individuals can be unpersoned by having their personal accounts banned over issues like this.
- danuker 5y agoIt is this kind of "scraping for me but not for thee" that turned me off of social networks. They used to make my account discoverable, which was the point of having a social network. Publicizing my experiences. But now they all hide it behind a loginwall. No thanks. I made my own website.
- quantumsequoia 5y agoFacebook is contractually obligated to ban scrapers as part of their agreement when given the $5bn fine
- rStar 5y agofuture historians are gonna have fun with facebook.
- trident5000 5y agoHow many times is this going to be posted