Course Research Project part 3

An investigation on Facebook privacy issues

Trevor Henry

Liberty University

09/20/20

PART I – TOPIC SELECTION AND INTRODUCTION

An investigation on Facebook privacy issues

Facebook is an online social media platform and social networking service that has faced many privacy issues. Data privacy issues at Facebook culminated, especially in 2018, following revelations that some organizations had harvested user data and information which was used for targeted advertisements. Cambridge Analytica Limited is a British strategic communication and political consulting organization that was involved in Facebook’s data privacy issues. Cambridge Analytica was behind Donald Trump’s 2016 presidential campaign and pro-Brexit Leave EU campaign. The company harvested and used data from Facebook users to execute the campaigns while targeting a specific population. Apart from Cambridge Analytica, other organizations also used the same techniques to gather personal data and information from Facebook users.

Generally, Facebook data privacy issues are centered around the gathering of personally identifiable data and information of more than 87 million Facebook users (Duarte, 2020). The prominent firm involved in the scandal is Cambridge Analytica. This firm and other organizations gained access to users’ data. A combination of various factors contributed to this problem. The main issue that contributed to the problem was the lack of adequate safeguards to ensure other organizations did not engage in data harvesting. Other factors that contributed to the problem are users agreeing to uncertain terms and conditions, developer abuse of Facebook Application Programming Interface, and Facebook failed to adequately oversee developers.

Cambridge Analytica used a personality quiz application known as thisisyourdigitiallife app to collect personally identifiable data and information. The data and information collected using the application were used to create the users’ psychographic profile (Sanders, & Patterson, 2018). Facebook users who added the application to their accounts and collected the quiz gave the developer of the app the ability to access their profile information and user history. Moreover, the creator of the app was able to access the user’s friends list and information. An example of information that was gathered was items that Facebook users and their friends like. From a Biblical viewpoint, Christians need to honor the need for privacy, but Facebook failed to do this. Researchers found out that the thisisyourdigitiallife app has the capability to accurately and automatically predict different sets of sensitive personal attributes such as political views, intelligence, sexual orientation, etc. This can be achieved if the app is used with a model that uses logistic regression and dimensionality reduction. The predictions of personal attributes are based on what users have liked and how frequently they like certain things.

Facebook has faced many privacy-related incidences for more than a decade, and this has mainly been attributed to insufficient and inadequate data privacy protection measures. The severity of the data privacy cases at an individual level varied; however, the sequence of the cases is an indication of systematic problems (Arora, & Zinolabedini, 2019). In 2007, Facebook was involved in a case that involved the violation of the Video Privacy Protection Act, whereby Beacon illegally used titles on Facebook News Feed. As a result, Facebook was forced to pay $9.9 million as compensation (Sanders, & Patterson, 2018). In 2011, Facebook promised to address data privacy issues. Facebook disclosed that the personal details of more than 6 million users had been exposed in 2013. In this scandal, users who downloaded their Facebook account history were able to obtain the details of their friends’ email addresses and phone numbers. In 2018, a scandal involving the collection of data from more than 50 million Facebook users by Cambridge Analytica came to the limelight. An investigation was opened in March 2018 to examine if terms had been violated by Facebook (Sanders, & Patterson, 2018).

In February 2019, Facebook added a feature that allowed users to have the capability of deleting messages up to 10 minutes after sending a message. However, it was reported that Facebook’s CEO Mark Zuckerberg had deleted messages months after sending them, which was controversial. In June 2018, a report showed that Facebook did not honor its privacy policy because the data-sharing partnerships with mobile device providers such as Samsung and Apple were maintained. However, Facebook repudiated the claims indicating that device users were responsible for making their own decisions on the kind of information they share. The Federal Bureau of Investigation and Federal Trade Commission joined in 2018 to investigate the issue involving the Cambridge Analytica Facebook data scandal. A privacy loophole was reported in July 2018 whereby a Google Chrome plug-in known as Grouply.io enabled users to gain access to private Facebook group members’ lists. More than 800 pages and Facebook accounts were deleted by Facebook in October 2018 for violating rules (Sanders, & Patterson, 2018).

In March 2019, Facebook made an announcement on its plan to improve its services around encryption and privacy. However, in the same month, there was a lapse in security whereby millions of passwords were stored in plain text. From a Biblical point of view, this is considered hypocritical. In Matthew 6, people should do good deeds covered rather than proclaiming them and failing to do so. Acts 5:41 also encourages people to do good deeds without fear. Facebook claimed that they would improve privacy for users, but they failed to do so. In July 2020, around 5,000 third-party developers were able to access user data without the users’ consent. From a Biblical point of view, sharing users’ data to third-party developers is wrong and unlawful because it failed to obey the data privacy policy and laws. According to Romans 13:3, people should fear authority and do what is right. The key organizations that are involved in the Facebook data privacy issues are Cambridge Analytica, SCL Group, Global Science Research, Emerdata, Onavo, Cubeyou, and Internet Research Agency. In conclusion, the case of Facebook privacy issues is a lesson for Christians to know the need to be responsible for their own and friends’ information. Christians have a responsibility to protect the privacy of other people and take care of their own privacy. From a Biblical viewpoint, truthfulness is significantly connected to privacy. Ephesians 4:25 emphasizes on the need to speak the truth.

References

Arora, N., & Zinolabedini, D. (2019). The Ethical Implications of the 2018 Facebook-Cambridge Analytica Data Scandal. Student Works.

Duarte, R. P. G. M. (2020). Case study: Facebook in face of crisis (Doctoral dissertation).

Sanders, J., & Patterson, D. (2018). Facebook Data Privacy Scandal: A Cheat Sheet. TechRepublic. Retrived from: https://www.techrepublic.com/article/facebook-dataprivacy-scandal-a-cheat-sheet/ .