Mark Zuckerberg’s op-ed in the Wall Street Journal today (paywalled, but summarized here) relies on all-too-familiar refrains to explain the dubious principles and so-called “facts” behind Facebook’s business model. It’s the same old song we’ve heard before. And, as usual,… Read More ›
Tag Archive for ‘Social Networks’
A Guided Tour of the Data Facebook Uses to Target Ads
Last week, Pew released the results of a survey investigating how users understand Facebook’s data collection practices and how they react when shown what the platform thinks it knows about them. The upshot is that 74% of users weren’t aware… Read More ›
Facebook Has A Consent Problem—And The Solution Starts With Transparency
Last week, the New York Times and others reported that Facebook allowed hardware companies, including some in China, access to a broad range of Facebook users’ information, possibly without the users’ knowledge or consent. This included not only a given… Read More ›
A Constitutional Conundrum That’s Not Going Away—Unequal Access to Social Media Posts
Among the many privacy challenges posed by social media, one has flown largely under the radar: balancing defendants’ due process rights to access exculpatory information against the crucial privacy protections of the Stored Communications Act (SCA). Here’s the problem: prosecutors… Read More ›
Privacy Badger Rolls Out New Ways to Fight Facebook Tracking
On Thursday, EFF released a new version of Privacy Badger featuring a new, experimental way to protect your privacy on—and crucially, off—Facebook. It specifically targets link tracking, Facebook’s practice of following you whenever you click on a link to leave… Read More ›
We’re in the Uncanny Valley of Targeted Advertising
Mark Zuckerberg, Facebook’s founder and CEO, thinks people want targeted advertising. The “overwhelming feedback,” he said multiple times during his congressional testimony, was that people want to see “good and relevant” ads. Why then are so many Facebook users, including… Read More ›
Congress Held 10 Hours of Hearings on Facebook. What’s Next?
After grilling Mark Zuckerberg for ten hours this past week, the big question facing Congress is, “What’s next?” The wide-ranging hearings covered everything from “fake news” to election integrity to the Cambridge Analytica scandal that spurred the hearings in the… Read More ›
Despite What Zuckerberg’s Testimony May Imply, AI Cannot Save Us
Yesterday and today, Mark Zuckerberg finally testified before the Senate and House, facing Congress for the first time to discuss data privacy in the wake of the Cambridge Analytica scandal. As we predicted, Congress didn’t stick to Cambridge Analytica. Congress also… Read More ›
Facebook, This Is Not What “Complete User Control” Looks Like
If you watched even a bit of Mark Zuckerberg’s ten hours of congressional testimony over the past two days, then you probably heard him proudly explain how users have “complete control” via “inline” privacy controls over everything they share on… Read More ›
Too Big to Let Others Fail Us: How Mark Zuckerberg Blamed Facebook’s Problems On Openness
Facebook’s first reactions to the Cambridge Analytical headlines looked very different from the now contrite promises Mark Zuckerberg made to the U.S. Congress this week. Look closer, though, and you’ll see a theme running through it all. The message coming… Read More ›