"...defendants made false or misleading statements and failed to disclose that Facebook violated its own data privacy policies by allowing third parties access to personal data of millions of Facebook users without their consent..."
The "without their consent" part is BS, as is this lawsuit. When you use Facebook platform apps, you have to consent to the disclosure of your information to the developer, and have to agree to allow whatever special permissions the developer is asking for. As for friend data that apps may have access to, when you sign up for and use Facebook, you agree to the terms and conditions, which allow this behavior.
Investors had the opportunity to view both the developer platform policies and Facebook TOS long before they ever bought shares. If they didn't like the possible implications of them, they should not have invested. My guess is that this case will go nowhere.
> agree to allow whatever special permissions the developer is asking for
You can't just write up an arbitrary contract and assume it will hold up in a court of law. For example, if I tried to rent out a unit by signing a lease that allowed the landlord to turn my water off if I posted a negative review about them, their lease would probably be found in violation of the corresponding state's landlord-tenant laws.
Precedents are established all the time. In the case of Facebook, this is something that common law would not have addressed prior to the early 2000s. Never before have we had such an efficient data-mining machine in the hands of anyone. New technologies warrant new laws.
I am a developer of an app that makes use of Facebook friend permissions and have seen the various API changes they have made since 2014.
Applications using Facebook Graph 2.+ (which is the only option since Spring 2015 or so) who access friend data may only access data of friends who have also given consent to your app. So if A and C log into a Facebook app, and A is friends with B and C, the app can only be aware that A and C exist. This is true of legacy and new Facebook applications. It used to be possible to get basically everything about B (name, age, gender, photo, etc), but that all got shut down when Graph API 1.0 was discontinued. If this is somehow not the case for some Facebook apps that got special permission or there is a hack to get at the data, that would be a huge breach of trust.
> When you use Facebook platform apps, you have to consent to the disclosure of your information to the developer, and have to agree to allow whatever special permissions the developer is asking for. As for friend data that apps may have access to, when you sign up for and use Facebook, you agree to the terms and conditions, which allow this behavior.
So it depends on what you mean by consent, and whether you want to specify "informed consent". Lots of EU data protection law talks about "informed consent". If you asked 1,000 facebook users what they had consented to, they probably would not think that they had consented to that. One can make a case that the long legalese with a checkbox at the end isn't (informed) consent.
Correct me where I'm wrong but did it not used to be the case that facebook apps could access almost as much info about your friends as they could about you?
So where is the consent? Fred gives consent to run a personality quiz and its associated data gathering - Fred's 180 friends didn't.
The modern approach to consent in these things arguably immoral, and indisputably awful.
Most adults simply don't have the ability to understand the dense legalese that these contracts are written in, so they don't. Asking people to take an hour or two to properly read and digest it just to sign up for a website is ridiculous, and expecting them to actually do so is like something out of a Terry Gilliam movie.
> The "without their consent" part is BS, as is this lawsuit. When you use Facebook platform apps, you have to consent to the disclosure of your information to the developer, and have to agree to allow whatever special permissions the developer is asking for. As for friend data that apps may have access to, when you sign up for and use Facebook, you agree to the terms and conditions, which allow this behavior.
As far as I am aware, across the whole of Europe, pretty much none of those TOS click-through things hold up as informed contractual consent. They aren't really worth the pixels they are written on in many jurisdictions.
Disagree - your argument makes no legal point. This suit is by institutional investors who have access to the best lawyers in the country. They chose to sue fully aware of the TOC, they obviously know more
I find it remarkable that when Obama did something similar in 2012, it was hailed as a major strength of his campaign and nobody had any problems with FB.
The data & privacy abuse by the Obama campaign was in fact dramatically worse. As an opinion piece at TheHill.com noted today:
> The former Obama director of integration and media analytics stated that, during the 2012 campaign, Facebook allowed the Obama team to “suck out the whole social graph”; Facebook “was surprised we were able to suck out the whole social graph, but they didn’t stop us once they realized that was what we were doing.” She added, “They came to [the] office in the days following election recruiting & were very candid that they allowed us to do things they wouldn’t have allowed someone else to do because they were on our side.”
It's universally understood why the media wasn't interested in turning that story into a scandal. When it's your team, you look the other way for the perceived greater good.
I find it remarkable that people don't understand there's a non-subtle difference between signing up voluntarily on the Obama website using Facebook and consenting to the information collection vs. signing up for a quiz from an unrelated company and having that data used by the Trump campaign.
If you don't understand the difference, it is the same difference between having consensual sex with your girlfriend and raping your neighbor girlfriend because she consented to have sex with him...
Now, this metaphor is imperfect, but from what we could see the Obama campaign was within the boundary allowed by Facebook TOS and what disclosed to the user. Did they push this to the limit? Yes. To the point that FB didn't think it was feasible. But legit according to the rule. Maybe having consensual extreme BSDM sex with your girlfriend vs. raping your neighbor's GF? Quiz, which one is legal and which one is not?
If you're talking about how much data siphoned through Facebook and how much help they got from Facebook. Yes I agree pretty much the same thing (although I guess CA hid it somehow(?) and Facebook just refused to block them even after discovering it)
The differences I see between CA and the Obama's own campaign.
CA was accused of, "Setting up proxy organisations to feed untraceable messages onto social media"
There's also the issue of whether they went around campaign finance laws.
"So, campaigns are normally subject to limits about how much money they can raise. Whereas outside groups can raise an unlimited amount. So the campaign will use their finite resources for things like persuasion and mobilisation and then they leave the ‘air war’ they call it, like the negative attack ads to other affiliated groups"
Your comment points out something very interesting about modern marketing. I think it is still ethically questionable even if you voluntarily hand over your data and not in a sketchy let-me-mine-your-friends-data-through-this-quiz way.
I feel like you used to be able to avoid getting swindled by ignoring the swindler, ex. close the door to the saleman, or ignore the gypsy pear salesmen at the market.
Today, marketing is engineered at such a level that it is difficult to awknowledge it's influence. That, and you are constantly bombarded by ads, either explicitly or implicitly.
I don't think I am saying anything novel. I guess I am curious what this mean about society and our political systems. People with power and wealth could still be toppled when you exposed them to the truth. How in the fuck does that even come close to happening today? How do you overcome marketing that is engineered to exploit the psychological vulnerabilities you are not even aware of? How do we patch our society and governing systems from being pwned?
This isn't meant as a rant. I am curious, because to the best i can tell we don't live in a society where voting matters and we have a say in our governance.
This happens any time a public company's stock goes down because of unexpected news. Investors sue for breach of fiduciary duty in an attempt to recover losses in the share price as a result of alleged negative, material information being withheld from the public by the company's management.
That being said - this should be particularly interesting given the topic. Securities fraud cases are usually boring, but this lawsuit may bring to light more details on exactly what FB didn't disclose.
It's part of the startup mythos: lone wolf (nerdy dev in a hoodie no less), builds a CRUD app, becomes stupidly rich via nothing but the hustle. Attacks on that weaken the foundation of belief.
For some perspective: I’m ex-Facebook. I wouldn’t claim that Facebook are completely benign, but I think they’re getting a raw deal in this situation.
The argument that they shared too much information with third parties is a fair one. I don’t know if it was caused by naivety or apathy. But they never hid what they were doing from users. And, unlike some are claiming, they definitely didn’t sell that information.
It was Cambridge Analytica who chose to “weaponise” (their word) that data. The engineer who acted as a whistleblower is currently playing the victim but chose to participate in a morally bankrupt project.
I've already ran across at least one user who was obviously astroturfing trying to play down FB's involvement in this crap, it's actually kind of horrifying to see on here.
On the one side, you have Facebook. On the other, you have lawyers trying to bring a questionable suit and wealthy investors upset that their portfolio's value went down slightly short term.
This is not the thread to get sanctimonious about people defending Facebook.
The stock price went up by any measure, from Feb 3, 2017 to Mar 19, 2018, so it can't be compensation for that. Unless they are willing to give those gains back?
Facebook has lost almost $60 billion in value since the CA story broke. If you’re an investor, and this information wasn’t publicly available to you, you might feel aggrieved and want to seek compensation.
I have read the lawsuit, and it accuses Facebook of making false and misleading statements in their data privacy policy. It takes issue with this section of Facebook's privacy policy:
While you are allowing us to use the information we receive about you, you always own all of your information. Your trust is important to us, which is why we don't share information we receive about you with others unless we have:
• received your permission;
• given you notice, such as by telling you about it in this policy; or
• removed your name and any other personally identifying information from it.
The lawsuit claims Facebook violated bullet points 1 and 2, citing the CA news. The lawsuit uses this point to argue Facebook lied to their investors, did not provide more information on this in their SEC filings, and that investors suffering financial loss when the stock price fell after CA news.
IANAL, but I think the key phrase from the article is this:
"The suit would represent people who bought shares of Facebook from Feb. 3, 2017, when Facebook filed its annual report and cited security breaches and improper access to user data, through March 19.
Investors may be able to sue Facebook successfully if they can show the company induced them to invest based in part on false, misleading or incomplete information regarding practices that might have averted the user privacy issues, Robbins said."
The fact is, Facebook knew about the voter-profile harvesting. The question is, were they legally supposed to disclose it publicly and did anyone invest in Facebook under the false pretenses created by Facebook choosing not to disclose it.
It's kinda narrow and it is very hard to prove why someone chooses to invest in a company. I doubt this get much traction. I also think it sets a scary precedent, unless the plaintiffs can prove Facebook covered this up with an intention to lure potential investors (like a memo from Zuck stating as such).
Dunno. I just deleted mine, was sort of annoying not being able to find mobile phone numbers or emails for people I'd like to stay in touch with. I think that it'd be good to have a script that scrapes facebook id's, names, mobile numbers etc from your friends list, or some automation to prepare for deleting your account.
Does anyone know the percentage of Zuck's total FB stock that he has sold in the past year? It looks like a lot but have not been able to find a precise percentage change.
There should be also the class action lawsuit filled by owners of harvested profiles. Hope to see that soon and celebrate the beginning of the end of Facebook.
The media discusses voter-profile harvesting mostly in a past context of Brexit and US elections. These countries are politically stable. A far more dangerous picture paints itself in emerging and poor economies.
For example FB recently announced it would roll out job-posts[1] for low-income workers.
In poor parts of Europe like Croatia, Serbia, BiH & Balkans (where I chose to live and work as a foreigner), many people use Facebook to find work and network w/ colleagues. In these locations facebook is the Internet. Often you usually accept a friend request before you are able to discuss a job.
FB job market will lock in users from those regions even further. These economies don't stand a chance and are already bled dry thanks to facebook & Co not paying their taxes. These locations already suffering a huge braindrain of local talent.
Their local society / governments are becoming increasingly corrupt[2] because and honest work opportunities are so scarce some people (like nurses or occupational therapists helping the elderly and disabled) even work for free[3] (I know several people who have the choice of working for free or not be able to graduate).
So many people just leave to the North where they find themselves in slave-labor like conditions in Germany[4]. (sorry for switching focus to Germany for a second I'm trying to show some causality). It's not limited to healthcare. Literally any industry has setups where shady middle-man benefit from Germanys "Arbeitnehmerüberlassungsgesetz" (yes that's a word) which is Germany's outsourcing law (a law criticized for creating a dual class workforce) and they are making a killing thanks to the many loopholes present to exploit foreigners/minorities.
When facebook rolls out it's job postings for low-skilled and low-paid jobs it's targeting the most vulnerable minorities in politically volatile regions.
One takeaway from the facebook/CA election meddling is that because majority of people in Balkans are already depending on facebook, it's even easier to spread disinformation and rig elections. And it's giving powers to local crime gangs which usually influence 100% of the electorate[5]. Ask yourself what data harvesting means in these regions, who benefits and what effects this might have 3-5 years from now.
[+] [-] downandout|8 years ago|reply
The "without their consent" part is BS, as is this lawsuit. When you use Facebook platform apps, you have to consent to the disclosure of your information to the developer, and have to agree to allow whatever special permissions the developer is asking for. As for friend data that apps may have access to, when you sign up for and use Facebook, you agree to the terms and conditions, which allow this behavior.
Investors had the opportunity to view both the developer platform policies and Facebook TOS long before they ever bought shares. If they didn't like the possible implications of them, they should not have invested. My guess is that this case will go nowhere.
[+] [-] anonytrary|8 years ago|reply
You can't just write up an arbitrary contract and assume it will hold up in a court of law. For example, if I tried to rent out a unit by signing a lease that allowed the landlord to turn my water off if I posted a negative review about them, their lease would probably be found in violation of the corresponding state's landlord-tenant laws.
Precedents are established all the time. In the case of Facebook, this is something that common law would not have addressed prior to the early 2000s. Never before have we had such an efficient data-mining machine in the hands of anyone. New technologies warrant new laws.
Edit: One example of such a landlord, by the way, is Anne Kihagi who neglected many such tenants. I'm not sure if she did so through a faulty lease, however. It's late... https://www.modernluxury.com/san-francisco/story/home-invade...
[+] [-] kaeawc|8 years ago|reply
Applications using Facebook Graph 2.+ (which is the only option since Spring 2015 or so) who access friend data may only access data of friends who have also given consent to your app. So if A and C log into a Facebook app, and A is friends with B and C, the app can only be aware that A and C exist. This is true of legacy and new Facebook applications. It used to be possible to get basically everything about B (name, age, gender, photo, etc), but that all got shut down when Graph API 1.0 was discontinued. If this is somehow not the case for some Facebook apps that got special permission or there is a hack to get at the data, that would be a huge breach of trust.
[+] [-] rmc|8 years ago|reply
So it depends on what you mean by consent, and whether you want to specify "informed consent". Lots of EU data protection law talks about "informed consent". If you asked 1,000 facebook users what they had consented to, they probably would not think that they had consented to that. One can make a case that the long legalese with a checkbox at the end isn't (informed) consent.
[+] [-] oldcynic|8 years ago|reply
So where is the consent? Fred gives consent to run a personality quiz and its associated data gathering - Fred's 180 friends didn't.
[+] [-] bunderbunder|8 years ago|reply
Most adults simply don't have the ability to understand the dense legalese that these contracts are written in, so they don't. Asking people to take an hour or two to properly read and digest it just to sign up for a website is ridiculous, and expecting them to actually do so is like something out of a Terry Gilliam movie.
[+] [-] OrganicMSG|8 years ago|reply
As far as I am aware, across the whole of Europe, pretty much none of those TOS click-through things hold up as informed contractual consent. They aren't really worth the pixels they are written on in many jurisdictions.
[+] [-] mankash666|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] hashkb|8 years ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] throwaway84742|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] adventured|8 years ago|reply
> The former Obama director of integration and media analytics stated that, during the 2012 campaign, Facebook allowed the Obama team to “suck out the whole social graph”; Facebook “was surprised we were able to suck out the whole social graph, but they didn’t stop us once they realized that was what we were doing.” She added, “They came to [the] office in the days following election recruiting & were very candid that they allowed us to do things they wouldn’t have allowed someone else to do because they were on our side.”
It's universally understood why the media wasn't interested in turning that story into a scandal. When it's your team, you look the other way for the perceived greater good.
[+] [-] LukaAl|8 years ago|reply
If you don't understand the difference, it is the same difference between having consensual sex with your girlfriend and raping your neighbor girlfriend because she consented to have sex with him...
Now, this metaphor is imperfect, but from what we could see the Obama campaign was within the boundary allowed by Facebook TOS and what disclosed to the user. Did they push this to the limit? Yes. To the point that FB didn't think it was feasible. But legit according to the rule. Maybe having consensual extreme BSDM sex with your girlfriend vs. raping your neighbor's GF? Quiz, which one is legal and which one is not?
[+] [-] swang|8 years ago|reply
The differences I see between CA and the Obama's own campaign.
CA was accused of, "Setting up proxy organisations to feed untraceable messages onto social media"
There's also the issue of whether they went around campaign finance laws.
"So, campaigns are normally subject to limits about how much money they can raise. Whereas outside groups can raise an unlimited amount. So the campaign will use their finite resources for things like persuasion and mobilisation and then they leave the ‘air war’ they call it, like the negative attack ads to other affiliated groups"
https://www.channel4.com/news/exposed-undercover-secrets-of-...
[+] [-] cjsawyer|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] oldsklgdfth|8 years ago|reply
I feel like you used to be able to avoid getting swindled by ignoring the swindler, ex. close the door to the saleman, or ignore the gypsy pear salesmen at the market.
Today, marketing is engineered at such a level that it is difficult to awknowledge it's influence. That, and you are constantly bombarded by ads, either explicitly or implicitly.
I don't think I am saying anything novel. I guess I am curious what this mean about society and our political systems. People with power and wealth could still be toppled when you exposed them to the truth. How in the fuck does that even come close to happening today? How do you overcome marketing that is engineered to exploit the psychological vulnerabilities you are not even aware of? How do we patch our society and governing systems from being pwned?
This isn't meant as a rant. I am curious, because to the best i can tell we don't live in a society where voting matters and we have a say in our governance.
[+] [-] Gatsky|8 years ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] krapp|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] jriley|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] jjxw|8 years ago|reply
That being said - this should be particularly interesting given the topic. Securities fraud cases are usually boring, but this lawsuit may bring to light more details on exactly what FB didn't disclose.
[+] [-] null000|8 years ago|reply
Probably wouldn't be seeing this headline if it weren't the investors that were upset.
[+] [-] beedogs|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] bdcravens|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] underwater|8 years ago|reply
The argument that they shared too much information with third parties is a fair one. I don’t know if it was caused by naivety or apathy. But they never hid what they were doing from users. And, unlike some are claiming, they definitely didn’t sell that information.
It was Cambridge Analytica who chose to “weaponise” (their word) that data. The engineer who acted as a whistleblower is currently playing the victim but chose to participate in a morally bankrupt project.
[+] [-] urda|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] dfxm12|8 years ago|reply
This is not the thread to get sanctimonious about people defending Facebook.
[+] [-] cryoshon|8 years ago|reply
or perhaps they need to believe facebook is innocent to justify what they're working on.
[+] [-] discordance|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] an4rchy|8 years ago|reply
What do these investors want exactly, more money?
The stock price went up by any measure, from Feb 3, 2017 to Mar 19, 2018, so it can't be compensation for that. Unless they are willing to give those gains back?
[+] [-] toomuchtodo|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] Pilfer|8 years ago|reply
While you are allowing us to use the information we receive about you, you always own all of your information. Your trust is important to us, which is why we don't share information we receive about you with others unless we have:
• received your permission;
• given you notice, such as by telling you about it in this policy; or
• removed your name and any other personally identifying information from it.
The lawsuit claims Facebook violated bullet points 1 and 2, citing the CA news. The lawsuit uses this point to argue Facebook lied to their investors, did not provide more information on this in their SEC filings, and that investors suffering financial loss when the stock price fell after CA news.
[+] [-] dfxm12|8 years ago|reply
"The suit would represent people who bought shares of Facebook from Feb. 3, 2017, when Facebook filed its annual report and cited security breaches and improper access to user data, through March 19.
Investors may be able to sue Facebook successfully if they can show the company induced them to invest based in part on false, misleading or incomplete information regarding practices that might have averted the user privacy issues, Robbins said."
The fact is, Facebook knew about the voter-profile harvesting. The question is, were they legally supposed to disclose it publicly and did anyone invest in Facebook under the false pretenses created by Facebook choosing not to disclose it.
It's kinda narrow and it is very hard to prove why someone chooses to invest in a company. I doubt this get much traction. I also think it sets a scary precedent, unless the plaintiffs can prove Facebook covered this up with an intention to lure potential investors (like a memo from Zuck stating as such).
[+] [-] unknown|8 years ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] jayess|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] toomuchtodo|8 years ago|reply
Enthusiastic about what the discovery process uncovers.
[+] [-] ppbutt|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] _xczx|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] wu-ikkyu|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] sAbakumoff|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] DyslexicAtheist|8 years ago|reply
For example FB recently announced it would roll out job-posts[1] for low-income workers.
In poor parts of Europe like Croatia, Serbia, BiH & Balkans (where I chose to live and work as a foreigner), many people use Facebook to find work and network w/ colleagues. In these locations facebook is the Internet. Often you usually accept a friend request before you are able to discuss a job.
FB job market will lock in users from those regions even further. These economies don't stand a chance and are already bled dry thanks to facebook & Co not paying their taxes. These locations already suffering a huge braindrain of local talent.
Their local society / governments are becoming increasingly corrupt[2] because and honest work opportunities are so scarce some people (like nurses or occupational therapists helping the elderly and disabled) even work for free[3] (I know several people who have the choice of working for free or not be able to graduate).
So many people just leave to the North where they find themselves in slave-labor like conditions in Germany[4]. (sorry for switching focus to Germany for a second I'm trying to show some causality). It's not limited to healthcare. Literally any industry has setups where shady middle-man benefit from Germanys "Arbeitnehmerüberlassungsgesetz" (yes that's a word) which is Germany's outsourcing law (a law criticized for creating a dual class workforce) and they are making a killing thanks to the many loopholes present to exploit foreigners/minorities.
When facebook rolls out it's job postings for low-skilled and low-paid jobs it's targeting the most vulnerable minorities in politically volatile regions.
One takeaway from the facebook/CA election meddling is that because majority of people in Balkans are already depending on facebook, it's even easier to spread disinformation and rig elections. And it's giving powers to local crime gangs which usually influence 100% of the electorate[5]. Ask yourself what data harvesting means in these regions, who benefits and what effects this might have 3-5 years from now.
[1] https://techcrunch.com/2018/02/28/facebook-job-posts/
[2] https://euobserver.com/political/136664
[3] http://www.etf.europa.eu/pubmgmt.nsf/%28getAttachment%29/760...
[4] http://www.dw.com/en/foreign-nurses-exploited-by-unfair-priv...
[5] https://www.amazon.com/McMafia-Journey-Through-Criminal-Unde...
[+] [-] colony|8 years ago|reply