The headlines of Facebook’s data mining scandal read like something out of an Orwellian dystopian novel, in that most of them gave off a “Big Brother is watching you” vibe. But did the media simply sensationalize what we ought to have known as an obvious truth or do we have a legitimate reason to be outraged?
In March 2018, Facebook was exposed for harvesting the information of up to 87 million Facebook users, and distributing this information to Cambridge Analytica, a political consulting and data analysis firm. Due to the scandal, Cambridge Analytica went out of business.
After all, the concerns over the social media company’s handling of data privacy are nothing new. Given that Facebook and other social media platforms like it are designed in a way that easily facilitates vast data mining, coupled very minimal legislation regulating the protection of internet data, it should be no surprise that this scandal occurred.
Now we know that Facebook allowed its users’ data to be used by third parties, and the public is outraged over the liberties that were taken with that information. What next? Well, I propose that the public should focus its outrage less on what happened, and more on how it happened. We should also consider the fact that unless something is drastically changed, it will happen again.
The greater issue here is not what shady dealings Facebook may have enabled Cambridge Analytica to commit. The greater issue is that Facebook’s online business model encourages the collection of massive amounts of data from its users to sell to advertisers or share with other third parties. This is occurring without the company paying much mind to what the data will be used for, thus ignoring the potential effects this may have on its users.
While Facebook is hardly the only company doing so, the negligence it has shown towards protecting user data and regulating the ways in which that data is used, is shocking.
The company has admitted they knew that the profile information of 50 million users had been harvested in a questionable manner, but chose to keep quiet about it, probably to avoid bad PR. When they finally did ask for the information to be destroyed, they were content with receiving a written confirmation the data was gone and left it at that, without bothering to verify whether this was true or not.
The real life repercussions such negligence can have is no small matter. If Facebook users’ information was mismanaged by Cambridge Analytica, or whichever third parties Facebook sells information to, people’s private data concerning their whereabouts, political, religious affiliation or sexual orientation, could become public.
An exposure like that might create unnecessary strife in people’s professional and personal lives that they may not be ready or able to deal with.
Some may argue that surely we have become inured to the idea of privacy being dead. After all, we live in a time where it only takes a Google search to find information about anyone. However, just because this is the way the world currently is, does not mean this is how it should be.
Allowing social media corporations with flimsy data protection regulations to freely mine user data will lead us down a slippery slope. It can only end in a future where public surveillance and political and social manipulation is the norm, carried out by anyone with the means to buy the data.
This is not to say that everybody should abandon their social media accounts. Social media sites offer us a vast number of benefits and conveniences. What we should focus our efforts on is the creation and implementation of comprehensive data protection regulations.
This should be done alongside these media companies and legislators. Perhaps then, data breach scandals like the Facebook debacle will be a thing of the past.
