“I'm sorry but this is bullshit! Because your friend took this dumb ass quiz, this company you never heard of got access to your account?
It's like your friend boned someone and you got the STD” ― Trevor Noah
“A Hurricane Flattens Facebook” wrote Wired Magazine, The Guardian went with a more poignant headline: “A Grand Illusion: Seven Days that Shattered Facebook’s Facade”.
Rivers of digital ink have been spilled in the last few of days to cover the epic blowback that social media giant - or personal-data collecting company - has received as their stocks fell 14% and losing billions in a matter of days. Oh and the tag #deletefacebook started trending worldwide.
Who could’ve seen that day coming?
Before we dive into our story, let’s rewind a little bit to get more context.
Back in 2014, a data company called Cambridge Analytica paid a group of users to take a personality test on Facebook.
Thousands of unsuspecting users volunteered to take the test, but never had they imagined the sheer magnitude of the very trap they’re about to step in.
Landmine Goes Click
The biggest mistake they've probably done is to assume that Facebook was protecting them. After all, it's just a social media site where you connect with your grandma and old friends. Isn't that what they tell you?
And so they clicked, and with a simple click they fell right into the trap.
The problem however is that they took fifty million of their friends down with them, and they did it without even realizing it.
But at the end of the day, you can’t really blame them.
Putting ourselves into their shoes, the first question that comes to mind is probably this one:
So... I play “What type of Pizza are you?” and then I get some cash to buy an actual pizza?
It’s hard to argue with the logic, I know. But then again, this is precisely the classic case of: If something sounds too good to be true…
Hello Trojan, Come on in!
As it turns out, the “social engineers” were less interested in knowing what kind of Pizza you supposedly are, and more interested into sneaking their Trojan horse right into your Facebook account.
This way, they can slip in behind the curtains and so collect all your personal data, as well as all the personal data of the people in your friends’ list.
Trevor Noah was right, it’s like your friend has sex but it’s you who gets the STD.
At this stage, you would think that stealing your info and tracking your behavior is creepy enough, but it gets much darker than that.
Exploiting the personal data - taken without permission - was just the first step. Soon after came the psychological profiling as they began to create all sorts of psychographic profiles for the users based by the “likes” and the comments history as well as a host of other factors.
Then they started organizing people by 5 factors: Openness, Conscientiousness, Extroversion, Agreeableness, and Neuroticism.
And finally, they started to inject different pieces of news to each specific type of personality, and lock them into a feedback loop they can’t escape from. The Feedback loop from hell.
And believe it or not, it’s divided by classes.
I don’t know about you, but I think that neurotic people are prime targets for politicians.
News Feed Manipulation: The True Nature of the Beast
“Cambridge Analytica was founded on misappropriated data of at least fifty million Facebook users.
This Data was used to create profiling algorithms that allowed us to explore mental vulnerabilities of people, and then map out ways to inject information into different streams and channels of content online.
What Cambridge analytica does is that it works on creating a web of disinformation online so that people start going through the rabbit hole of clicking on blogs and websites etcetera that make them think that certain things are happening that may not be”.
― Christopher Wiley, Cambridge Analytica Whistle Blower
Now let’s take a moment to fully digest this: “A web of disinformation that makes people think that certain things are happening that may not be.”
If this isn’t propaganda I don’t know what this is. And if you don’t believe me, look at what Cambridge Analytica managing director has to say about the use of fake news:
“You didn’t know that there was a fear until you saw something that just evoked that reaction from you.
… It’s no good fighting an election campaign on the facts because actually it’s all about emotion.” ― Mark Turnbull, Managing Director of CA Political Global.
The Merchants of Fear
The crazy part about this whole story is that all of this illegal data harvesting, this injection of fake stories, exploiting of people’s fears for voter manipulation.. All of these factors combined, that’s just is the vanilla part.
Stay tuned for tomorrow’s post where we dive a little deeper into the rabbit hole, as well as explore Facebook’s part which is truly mind-blowing.
Image Sources: 1 - 2 - 3 - 4 - 5 - 6
It is not the first time when this kind of stuff happened. We have got so involved in the social media that now it is very difficult for millennials to get out of it.
This will keep happening, we will have to see how we make Facebook officials to handle it and make sure that it never happens again.
Agreed, but I don't see a way to make it never happen again. We are constantly evolving, repeating similar circumstances from history in the present but tweaking things a little each time. Throughout history, many measures to manipulate and control the masses have been tried starting with violence through to psychological warfare, each time the methods are tweaked, violence may achieve the desired results momentarily but leaders die and leadership (d)evolves. Making people bend to your will by changing their thoughts is much easier from a logistical point of view and less costly as well as having a greater effect when it can be pulled off like Nazism and Communism. The free market capitalist society in the West is finished in sense of fundamental management of Western society, freedom survives in underground type movements like cryptocurrency and decentralization. Governments are resorting to some kind of merger of neo-communist ultra leftism without the physical genocide and neo-feudalism where corporations are our new master kings conducting thought genocide on anyone getting sucked into the social media tapeworm that feeds on human souls.
As Facebook and co die off, as they are beginning to, decentralized platforms like steemit and dtube will do battle with the next reincarnations that the crooks in government and wall street colluding with big corps cook up for the masses. As the big guns die off some cool new hyped up pile of fecal matter will be ready and waiting with open arms to feed the masses need for likes and recognition. Funded by wall street, approved by governments and backed with the best and latest tech that most can't shovel down their throats fast enough.
1975 - Rollerball -
Wow, I must see this movie!
Yeah you're right, we need to shed more light on what's happening so that it doesn't get worse. :P
Do it NOW!
I agree with you, no point in having one.
Apparently, if you ever download the app on your phone, you can never really delete it as they will continue to spy on you regardless.
I heard that the best thing to do is to get a new phone and never download the app to begin with.
I heard all apple product are designed to spy , best to use different software or devices .
Actually, all smartphones are designed to spy; not just Apple or their products. Never use any smartphone! I'm one of the lucky ones that never bought one. To this day, I still don't see the need for one. People always tell me "but you can do this or that" and I just look at people who (constantly) use them as addicts, zombified individuals looking for their next dopamine hit. The 'convenience' angle has never sold me on the idea of buying one. However, I realize most people now can't go back and have become reliant on them, to their own detriment.
This is only what they got caught doing. Imagine all the other stuff that's still a secret. There's a reason Mark covers his mic and camera on his computer.
Oh yeah, you nailed it! That's only what they were caught doing.
Plus, this is so true about Zucks covering his mic and computer, in fact I read a few days ago how FB was planning on listening to people through the phone at all times.
Super creepy!
Everybody is talking about FB, but forgetting that other large tech firms were involved in this as well, Apple, Google, Twitter, the list goes on.
Worse still, governments are squawking about this abuse of personal information, yet, they themselves have profited from this via their security organisations, CIA, NSA, MI5, Bundes Sicherheit Dienst, ect. This is hypocrisy at its highest.
However, we should not be surprised, because they want voters to be angry with the scapegoat and not scrutinise their own actions.
The likes of Assange and Snowden did and have for long warned us of this, but we ignored them.
Worried About What Facebook Knows About You? Check Out Google
https://www.nbcnews.com/tech/social-media/worried-about-what-facebook-knows-about-you-check-out-google-n860781
Oh yeah, Google as well. Windows as well... And the list goes on.
Thanks for the link btw, that's super-creepy actually. And I appreciate you sharing it :)
The information needs to be shared.
Thanks for sharing, great content to read. Very helpful. I wait for the next interesting content ..
Thank you @nurmidirman! I'll try to keep it interesting :)
wow.. wonderful story...i appreciate this blog..
thanks for sharing....
Thank you very much! I'm glad you liked it!
Love the way you write the tale of the bookface demise, Zark Muckerberg and his gang are deserving of a dose of some good medicine and bad karma.
Haha that's for sure! I think they're still going to get exposed more.
Oh!
The more technology grows and billions of individual personal data is just within reach, then one would expect these kind of happenings. Its already happening, it has happened and will continue to, this recent case of facebook is just one out of many that maybe had gone unnoticed but had mind boggling results.
Anyway, Mark is going to testify before the Senate Judiciary Committee about Facebook's role in using data (personal data at that) from about 50million Americans for political advertising and manipulation of voters.
So lets see how it goes. The battle for our privacy is far from over though.
Oh is he? He didn't want to testify before, and refuse the British Parliament when they asked him to testify about a similar campaign that ran in Britain.
I'm glad they forced him to testify, though I doubt there will be any consequences.. At least this backlash is making down step down a little.
There were planning to start recording via the phone microphones compile that data, and probably sell it.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-5553171/Facebook-decides-not-unveil-smart-speakers-amid-data-privacy-scandals.html
You're very right though, the battle for our privacy is far from over.
Well, lets see what comes out of it.
But atleast more people know now that some game is always up with their data.
That's true, at least now we know :)
https://steemit.com/photography/@hamidi103/buying-and-selling-geckos-for-failing-to-contest
Quitting facebook a few months back was the best decision I ever made.
Who needs it when we have Steemit? :D
Haha right? When I first joined steemit, I was less and less in Facebook until I'm almost never there.
Yeah the whole making people feel bad on purpose should get more attention....
That's an excellent point @viraldrome! That's no small subject.
Sweet...Nice article.
Waiting for the next one.
Thank you! :)
This is really interesting, thanks for putting all this together!
In the meantime i am using facebook every day, just like before, to exchange photos, and comment here and there. I know nothing about manipulations or account stealing... the only thing i have noticed, that now i would have to pay if i wanted my content to be seen by more than 20 people. And i see people quitting , but i am not sure why exactly. So what have i missed out on ?! Please someone turn the light on for me! JUST BRIEFLY !
thank You !
To give a brief over view, back in 2012 FB ran a lab-rat experiment on users to keep them in an "echochamber" (without notifying the users) doing so while reducing the posts that you see.
So if you're a conservative, you only see conservative posts..etc. So that you're stuck in a feeback loop and don't see different opinions, so that people become more extreme and more divided.
Later on, in 2014 some company took advantage of Facebook's new "brain manipulation" algorithm and took advantage of those feedback loops to keep infuse "fake news" to a targeted audience.
That's basically a short overview, but there's a lot of stuff in between.
Hope that helps :)
Yes, nice of you. :-) Thank You !
More people are going to discover Steemit because of Facebook's failure.
I hope so man! I really hope so :)
privacy and internet don't go hand in hand this is just now that many big things are we knowing today don't know where they are using it for so long mark is doomed
It's crazy isn't it? Even Google, Windows 10..etc. Everyone just want to spy on people :P
Excellent post. I will be watching for your next post on this subject. Resteemed.
Thanks a lot @team101! I appreciate it :)
I have always been aghast at the little quiz games on f-c-book.
Not only did they ask weird questions (like narrowing down what kind of person you really where) but they always asked for way to many permissions.
And when you give an app permission in the f-c-book land, you continuously give them permission.
If a company has several apps, and you gave each one a separate permission, that company has ALL the permissions.
To turn off these, you had to go deep into the control panel of f-c-book and unselect them, and then confirm you are unselecting them. Making it far easier to opt in then ever opt out.
An this was just the stuff they told you about.
All of the data has always been routed to the owners of f-c-book.
That's an excellent advice @builderofcastles!
In fact, I'll go check my account now and make sure no creepy apps have my permissions haha.
Maybe a post about this from you may help other users?
Thanks again!
Yea this is pretty bad. Good that people are deleting FB and that their stock lost billions. This is the result of dishonest business practices. The free market it speaking...people are straying from FB. Perfect opportunity to start spreading the word of Steemit. Screw centralized platforms. If you want to do some additional research...check out Search Engine Manipulation Effect....
Absolutely, people should shed more light on what's going on so that everyone is aware of all these shady operations.
And yeah, screw centralized platforms! Hope many people find steemit while at it :)
let's face it, gathering data is Facebook's entire business model and the basis for the very targeted Facebook Ads. Data is how they make their money even though apparently many thought it was from all those great cat pictures. :)
Haha exactly, I couldn't have said it any better :)
getting me to join steemit must have been like pulling teeth for my friend who got me on here (finally). My whole experience with fb, twitter left a very bad taste in my mouth due to the intellectual property theft that I experienced there. I also found it very unsettling to find my picture and facebook connection on almost every site I would visit (blogs, stores, etc). It was like a huge spider web attaching itself to everyone. I left fb in 2012 and left twitter earlier this year (had really good friends on twitter). Learned a lot of tough lessons there and am glad to have steemit as an alternative. From my perspective though social media can never replace real time face to face contact and relationships business or otherwise but is a good support system...
First of all, I'm glad you found your way here! But you're right, nothing replaces real face to face contact. The good thing is that through this technology we can meet awesome friends that otherwise we wouldn't have met before.
I hope your steemit experience would be much better than the other social media ones.
I wish you a great weekend!
check the tweets by journalist Carole Cadwalladr - there is a lot of info about this:
https://twitter.com/carolecadwalla
Haha "The Facebook saga meets Black Mirror" she nailed it.
Thanks for sharing @thermoplastic :)
This is why I stoped using Gmail back in 2009, and then I deleted my facebook account on May 2017. Lost 9 years (since 2008) of my communications with all kind of contacts. I also uninstalled whatsapp and instagram. And I'm about to uninstall telegram for the same reason. Now I use my private encrypted email, even for realtime mobile chat, through Delta Chat