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Cambridge Analytica was in the eye of a storm recently for having accessed a lot of user data inappropriately from FaceBook and used it to influence voter opinion during the 2016 Presidential Election. This scandal caused damage to FaceBook's reputation around data privacy and security. Mark Zuckerberg had to testify at the US Senate recently to address public concerns about the way the company handles user data. Cambridge Analytica is currently under investigation by the FBI and the Justice Department
Questions:
1. Do you think that we need much more robust data protection and privacy regulations?
2. Do organizations like FaceBook should also be under scrutiny for having failed to protect user data?
3. Do you think other social media sites have also been exposed to such breaches in the past that have never been disclosed to the public?
19 comments:
I feel like regulations always help as a sort of checks and balances for the elite, but regulations also always seem to fail from being implemented, most likely since the elite class has the most power of the public. For this reason, even though I would say that more robust data protection and regulation would help prevent these issues in the future, these protections and regulations won't actually be implemented until government officials stop becoming too influenced by money and the elite class. But I believe that Facebook should definitely be punished for the failure to protect user data, since permitting these type of lies regarding such an important event in America, like a president election, is never correct, and could even be considered harmful towards the opposing side. Protecting this information should be very easy for a technological stronghold like Facebook, so not doing so should definitely be punished. Lastly, I feel like it is very common to lie, especially when there are very few regulations on doing so. For this reason, other social media networks probably were involved in other cases very similar to this.
I agree with Sahith, and I think that Facebook should get punished for not protecting user data. Especially since people put so much of their personal information into social media, it is extra important that companies like Facebook take extra care into honoring and respecting the privacy of the people that use their platforms. The media and social media has shown to be extremely influential in presidential elections, and this is obviously easier said than done, but it would be so much better if the information that people are putting out onto the internet be used in an honest and responsible way. It says a lot about Facebook and possibly other forms of social media that potentially manipulate their users and use data irresponsibly.
I believe that there certainly need to be stronger regulations in place in order to curtail the breaches of privacy that many tech and internet companies facilitate, that many people don't even realize happen. There needs to be increased transparency and control over personal information, and it needs to be protected by the government. While many companies do need some information in order to attract advertisers and other ways to make money, there should be walls in place to keep the most personal information out of the clutches of big corporations. The psychological data that Cambridge Analytica used to manipulate voters was an invasive, unethical practice, and they definitely need to be punished. Facebook, even though they did not explicitly breach customer's rights, they breached the public's trust, and, as one of the largest media companies, should be made an example of by the government. They need to show to the rest of the world that this behavior is completely unacceptable.
I agree with the comments above, there should be stronger regulation in place to protect the privacy and information of others. What Cambridge Analytica did was wrong, but no unsurprising; I've always had an underlying suspicion that social media sites, especially FB, were using our personal information in some unlawful way. It's good that this breach has been brought to public attention, maybe it will push others to reconsider how much information they put out on social media sites. I hope Facebook is punished for this infringement of secrecy and that it seriously reconsiders it's privacy practice.
I believe that stricter regulations are needed. The people who use these services can not live in constant fear of their personal information being handed out and used. While companies should still be able to use peoples information, they should be limited and the people should have some idea of what information is being used.
I think another problem here is not between Facebook and the government, but between Facebook and its users. With 50 page long EULAs and other similar documents, it is nearly impossible for a user to fully understand and keep track of what exactly they are giving Facebook access to. More comprehensive communication and agreements are needed, although privacy regulations are also needed since users should not be left to understand everything on their own.
Facebook has been exposed in many scandals over time and each time they apologize and have new reasons. The scandals eventually fade, the company stands, and a year later something else happens. When companies establish themselves and have enough funds for lawyers and lobbyists, our system is set up so that they are basically invulnerable. I don't think Facebook can be regulated because of its political and social clout, and I also do not think it is being fully honest as just needs to survive this scandal and deal with further scandals later.
Yes, I think there should be stronger regulations in place regarding internet privacy. Companies like Facebook do face scrutiny from the media fairly frequently when they fail to protect their users data. As far as I know there has never been been punishment from government and I don't think anything like that is going to happen soon. However, as we pave the road for the future with cyber policy it's incredibly interesting to see how the public and the government responds to scandals like Facebook's. If we were to make an example of Facebook's failure to protect user information we would likely set a precedent for many years to come regarding cyber law.
Yes, we definitely need more data protection and privacy regulations because there are multiple ways that companies can get personal data especially because much of the population relies on technology. Implementing ways such as more privacy agreements when signing up for accounts that require access to things like Facebook or Instagram can possibly limit the access that other third party companies have to private information. Moreover, Facebook should get punished for failing to protect user data because this makes it hard for the public to trust the company. Social media has definitely been exposed to breaches in the past that haven’t been disclosed to the public because the issues could have been very catastrophic to both the people and the companies if individuals knew, which would lead to a possible downfall of a company.
I´m not really sure that we should have more privacy regulation. Companies like Facebook are making money by selling user data to companies. They track what ads you look at the longest to better shift ad topics toward the consumer. Then they sell this data. By having stricter privacy regulation and data protection laws, we may put these companies in jeopardy. This would be bad for the US economy.
I think that stricter regulations are ideal for protecting users’ information, but because of how established and significant Facebook is already, it’s unlikely that regulations will have a major impact on the company. However, this scandal did stir controversy in Facebook, its name and the discussion of online privacy as a whole and though there aren’t any new regulations or policies being enforced, I think that there will be a stronger effort by both Facebook and other social media platforms to improve the protection of user data.
People know that the internet is not the safest place to store anything on but, people continue to store in the internet anyway. I don't think that face book should be under scrutiny for something that they didn't know was happening. However I believe that people should have the option to have a more private server so, that something like this doesn't happen. Breeches like this has happen before this not anything new.
I agree with Winston in that we should be careful about placing more regulations. By selling our data, the economy is stimulated. Additionally, Facebook doesn't really do anything too bad with our personal data. The most affected thing is what ads we see based on our interests. I think that people need to understand that the internet isn't a safe place and should know to be careful as to what they upload.
I definitely think that our privacy is important and should be protected, but realistically, I'm sure many social media have a very weak protection of our privacy. I think it is their job to do better at protecting our privacy and make sure that things like that can't happen especially because it impacts very important things that affects our everyday life. I'm sure Facebook is not the only social media where these kinds of things could happen. Our privacy however should be protected and social media need to do a better job at protecting it.
I think that the government needs to step up their game and pass some laws to protect our information. These security breaches are getting out of hand.
I think that privacy being so important needs to be protected. People will always prefer to store their information in their computers rather than writing them down because they could lose it. I think if people know valuable information is being stored in the internet it should be protected.
I believe that the companies are not themselves exposing and taking advantage of peoples' private and secure data, but they are dangerous because that information could be accessed by the wrong people. More regulations and security on these social media sites could definitely help benefit the safety of the users. However, as Sahith said, these regulations will likely take an extremely long time to be implemented due to the gridlock in Congress.
As everyone has said, I think that there should be way higher measures of security on our privacy. We store so much online nowadays, that this security can protect all our sensitive personal data from getting into the hands of the wrong people. I think that organizations should take partial blame for having failed to protect user data, but the blame should also be with individuals. Putting sensitive information online is almost always a bad idea, as a hacker could easily get to it. Other social media sites could have a similar security breach, but in general, social media users should be more careful with what they choose to put online.
I think we need to establish high measures of security although I don't think that social media is doing particularly a bad job of doing that. The main thing like Arthur said is that this valuable information, when accessible to the wrong people, could be dangerous because it could be distributed across a web of networks that is public. The safety of users should be made the priority for social media. If you're afraid that some information is too private, how about just don't post it online. That seems like a good option too.
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