4 ms·

Remember that Cambridge Analytica was "research" as well. Laws like these sound good on paper, but it's the company that has to deal with the fallout when the d

by paxys 1y ago

Remember that Cambridge Analytica was "research" as well. Laws like these sound good on paper, but it's the company that has to deal with the fallout when the data is used improperly. Unless the government can also come up with a fool proof framework for data sharing and enforce adequate protections, it's always going to be better for the companies to just say no and eat the fines.

shakna 1y ago
Which is why the EU doesn't use a letter-of-the-law system, and also have an ethics regulation system. So it falls on those misusing the data, unless you knew it would be misused but collected it anyway. Golden rule: Don't need the data? Don't collect it.
verst 1y ago
As I recall it Cambridge Analytica was a ton of OAuth apps (mostly games and quizzes) requesting all or most account permissions and then sharing this account data (the access for which had been expressly (foolishly) granted by the user) with a third-party data aggregator, namely Cambridge Analytica. Only this re-sharing of data with a third party was against Facebook Terms of Service. I would not classify Cambridge Analytica as research. They were a data broker that used the data for political polling.
- paxys 1y ago
  From https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cambridge_Analytica https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cambridge_Analytica > The New York Times and The Observer reported that the company had acquired and used personal data about Facebook users from an external researcher who had told Facebook he was collecting it for academic purposes.
  - tguvot 1y ago
    link from sentence that you copy pasted https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Facebook%E2%80%93Cambridge_Analytica_data_scandal https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Facebook%E2%80%93Cambridge_Ana... The data was collected through an app called "This Is Your Digital Life", developed by data scientist Aleksandr Kogan and his company Global Science Research in 2013.[2] The app consisted of a series of questions to build psychological profiles on users, and collected the personal data of the users' Facebook friends via Facebook's Open Graph platform.[2] The app harvested the data of up to 87 million Facebook profiles
    - pms 1y ago
      This "research" and data access wouldn't be allowed under the DSA, because (i) the researcher didn't provide any data protection safeguards, (ii) his university (and data protection officer) didn't assume legal liability for his research, (iii) his research isn't focused on systemic risks to society.
      - tguvot 1y ago
        not sure what's the point that you are making. but under "common sense comments act of 2054" unclear comments are not allowed.
        brendoelfrendo 1y ago
        The article for this post is about the EU's Digital Services Act (DSA). Since the original comment argues against research access to data by arguing that "Cambridge Analytica was research as well," another poster chimed in to rebut that assertion by arguing that Aleksandr Kogan's research would not have been allowed access to user data under the DSA and thus, that specific legal concern is moot.
        tguvot 1y ago
        kogan "research" harvested data through application and he was outside of eu. so even it was happening today, whatever he did is irrelevant to EU/DSA unless they plan to chase everybody across the globe. somewhat like ofcom going after 4chan
        shakna 1y ago
        That's precisely what the EU is doing with Clearview AI [0]. > Max Schrems: “We even run cross-border criminal procedures for stolen bikes, so we hope that the public prosecutor also takes action when the personal data of billions of people was stolen – as has been confirmed by multiple authorities.” [0] https://noyb.eu/en/criminal-complaint-against-facial-recognition-company-clearview-ai https://noyb.eu/en/criminal-complaint-against-facial-recogni...
_--__--__ 1y ago
I don't think you get it: the EU has a law that says these researchers need to find casus belli to wrestle the norms of online freedom of speech away from American corporations. Therefore they get to request data on every account that has ever interacted with certain political parties on those platforms, as a treat.
- jack_tripper 1y ago
  >EU has a law that says these researchers need to find casus belli Like pepe the frog memes
pms 1y ago
Republicans and Elon Musk have become very skilled at exerting political influence in the US [1] and Europe [2] through social media in ways the public isn't really aware of. Is this really that far from the goal of Cambridge Analytica of influencing elections without people's knowledge? Is it fine for large online platforms to influence election outcomes? Why wouldn't an online platform be used to this end if that's beneficial for it and there is no regulation discouraging it? [1] https://www.techpolicy.press/x-polls-skew-political-realitie https://www.techpolicy.press/x-polls-skew-political-realitie... [2] https://zenodo.org/records/14880275 https://zenodo.org/records/14880275
- santadays 1y ago
  I can’t imagine this is not happening. There exists the will, the means and the motivation, with not a small dose of what pg might call naughtiness.
- terminalshort 1y ago
  I can't stand this "influencing elections" nonsense. It's a term meant to mislead with connotations of manipulating the voting tabulation when what is actually going on is influencing people to vote the way you want them to, which is perfectly legal and must always be legal in a functioning democracy.
  - adamors 1y ago
    It’s so perfectly legal that other nation states can do it for you and you might end up with a winner that people didn’t even hear about before. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2024_Romanian_presidential_election https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2024_Romanian_presidential_ele...
    - terminalshort 1y ago
      Who are these "people" that you claim never heard of him before? Kind of sounds like BS to me because, you know, he won the election...
pms 1y ago
Long story short, this "research" and data access wouldn't be allowed under the DSA, because (i) the researcher didn't provide any data protection safeguards, (ii) his university (and their data protection officer) didn't assume legal liability for his research, (iii) his research isn't focused on systemic risks to society.
- loeg 1y ago
  Platforms (reasonably!) do not trust random academic researchers to be safe custodians of user data. The area of research focus and assumption of liability do not matter. Once a researcher's copy of data is leaked, the damage is done.
  - whatevertrevor 1y ago
    Yup, when the data breach happens the headlines aren't going to be "Random well meaning researchers caught in data breach exposing user data". They're going to be: "5 million Facebook logins hacked in massive data breach", and you'd be hard pressed to find actual information on how the leak happened, just like the gmail story from a few days ago.
    - pms 1y ago
      No researcher will request or get access to "5 million Facebook logins" through the DSA, since such a request wouldn't comply with the DSA requirements, so your point is moot. In fact, we live in a quite different world than you imagine. Currently, researchers don't even have access to the public data, as the article points out. When it comes to private data, researchers won't get access to private messages either, but rather to aggregate-level privacy-preserving data (assuming that the DSA isn't killed before any of this happens by the industry and Republicans, which you seem to advocate for).

by paxys 1y ago

shakna 1y ago

Which is why the EU doesn't use a letter-of-the-law system, and also have an ethics regulation system. So it falls on those misusing the data, unless you knew it would be misused but collected it anyway. Golden rule: Don't need the data? Don't collect it.

verst 1y ago

As I recall it Cambridge Analytica was a ton of OAuth apps (mostly games and quizzes) requesting all or most account permissions and then sharing this account data (the access for which had been expressly (foolishly) granted by the user) with a third-party data aggregator, namely Cambridge Analytica. Only this re-sharing of data with a third party was against Facebook Terms of Service. I would not classify Cambridge Analytica as research. They were a data broker that used the data for political polling.

paxys 1y ago
From https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cambridge_Analytica https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cambridge_Analytica > The New York Times and The Observer reported that the company had acquired and used personal data about Facebook users from an external researcher who had told Facebook he was collecting it for academic purposes.
- tguvot 1y ago
  link from sentence that you copy pasted https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Facebook%E2%80%93Cambridge_Analytica_data_scandal https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Facebook%E2%80%93Cambridge_Ana... The data was collected through an app called "This Is Your Digital Life", developed by data scientist Aleksandr Kogan and his company Global Science Research in 2013.[2] The app consisted of a series of questions to build psychological profiles on users, and collected the personal data of the users' Facebook friends via Facebook's Open Graph platform.[2] The app harvested the data of up to 87 million Facebook profiles
  - pms 1y ago
    This "research" and data access wouldn't be allowed under the DSA, because (i) the researcher didn't provide any data protection safeguards, (ii) his university (and data protection officer) didn't assume legal liability for his research, (iii) his research isn't focused on systemic risks to society.
    - tguvot 1y ago
      not sure what's the point that you are making. but under "common sense comments act of 2054" unclear comments are not allowed.
      - brendoelfrendo 1y ago
        The article for this post is about the EU's Digital Services Act (DSA). Since the original comment argues against research access to data by arguing that "Cambridge Analytica was research as well," another poster chimed in to rebut that assertion by arguing that Aleksandr Kogan's research would not have been allowed access to user data under the DSA and thus, that specific legal concern is moot.
        tguvot 1y ago
        kogan "research" harvested data through application and he was outside of eu. so even it was happening today, whatever he did is irrelevant to EU/DSA unless they plan to chase everybody across the globe. somewhat like ofcom going after 4chan
        shakna 1y ago
        That's precisely what the EU is doing with Clearview AI [0]. > Max Schrems: “We even run cross-border criminal procedures for stolen bikes, so we hope that the public prosecutor also takes action when the personal data of billions of people was stolen – as has been confirmed by multiple authorities.” [0] https://noyb.eu/en/criminal-complaint-against-facial-recognition-company-clearview-ai https://noyb.eu/en/criminal-complaint-against-facial-recogni...

_--__--__ 1y ago

I don't think you get it: the EU has a law that says these researchers need to find casus belli to wrestle the norms of online freedom of speech away from American corporations. Therefore they get to request data on every account that has ever interacted with certain political parties on those platforms, as a treat.

jack_tripper 1y ago
>EU has a law that says these researchers need to find casus belli Like pepe the frog memes

pms 1y ago

Republicans and Elon Musk have become very skilled at exerting political influence in the US [1] and Europe [2] through social media in ways the public isn't really aware of. Is this really that far from the goal of Cambridge Analytica of influencing elections without people's knowledge? Is it fine for large online platforms to influence election outcomes? Why wouldn't an online platform be used to this end if that's beneficial for it and there is no regulation discouraging it? [1] https://www.techpolicy.press/x-polls-skew-political-realitie https://www.techpolicy.press/x-polls-skew-political-realitie... [2] https://zenodo.org/records/14880275 https://zenodo.org/records/14880275

santadays 1y ago
I can’t imagine this is not happening. There exists the will, the means and the motivation, with not a small dose of what pg might call naughtiness.
terminalshort 1y ago
I can't stand this "influencing elections" nonsense. It's a term meant to mislead with connotations of manipulating the voting tabulation when what is actually going on is influencing people to vote the way you want them to, which is perfectly legal and must always be legal in a functioning democracy.
- adamors 1y ago
  It’s so perfectly legal that other nation states can do it for you and you might end up with a winner that people didn’t even hear about before. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2024_Romanian_presidential_election https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2024_Romanian_presidential_ele...
  - terminalshort 1y ago
    Who are these "people" that you claim never heard of him before? Kind of sounds like BS to me because, you know, he won the election...

pms 1y ago

Long story short, this "research" and data access wouldn't be allowed under the DSA, because (i) the researcher didn't provide any data protection safeguards, (ii) his university (and their data protection officer) didn't assume legal liability for his research, (iii) his research isn't focused on systemic risks to society.

loeg 1y ago
Platforms (reasonably!) do not trust random academic researchers to be safe custodians of user data. The area of research focus and assumption of liability do not matter. Once a researcher's copy of data is leaked, the damage is done.
- whatevertrevor 1y ago
  Yup, when the data breach happens the headlines aren't going to be "Random well meaning researchers caught in data breach exposing user data". They're going to be: "5 million Facebook logins hacked in massive data breach", and you'd be hard pressed to find actual information on how the leak happened, just like the gmail story from a few days ago.
  - pms 1y ago
    No researcher will request or get access to "5 million Facebook logins" through the DSA, since such a request wouldn't comply with the DSA requirements, so your point is moot. In fact, we live in a quite different world than you imagine. Currently, researchers don't even have access to the public data, as the article points out. When it comes to private data, researchers won't get access to private messages either, but rather to aggregate-level privacy-preserving data (assuming that the DSA isn't killed before any of this happens by the industry and Republicans, which you seem to advocate for).