The Social Dilemma
By: Ben Coburn
Facebook collects a lot of data about you. If you are one of Facebook’s users, and even if you are not, you most likely know this by now. You have probably heard about one of the company’s past data breaches, or have seen its CEO, Mark Zuckerberg, testify before Congress. What you still might not yet be aware of however, is just how pervasive the world’s largest social network’s data mining operation is.
First off, let’s establish why Facebook collects so much of our data. The simplest answer is money. There is a huge demand in the advertising world for personalized consumer data to make targeted ads, and Facebook is sitting on a gold mine of such data. So much so that the company reported advertising revenue totaling $84 billion in the 2020 fiscal year. Facebook’s advertising revenue alone would make it ranked 38th in the world if it were an independent nation, and it shows no sign of slowing down. With the incentive established, let’s take a closer look at how Facebook’s data mining operation works.
Put simply, Facebook collects data regarding everything you do while using the website or app. Your messages, searches, friends, likes, dislikes, posts, IP address, even the pages you view but do not interact with are noted and stored by Facebook. Of course, Facebook’s tentacles are not limited only to itself but reach into every other website and app owned by the Company. Instagram, WhatsApp, and Oculus VR are just a few of Facebook’s acquired assets, and yes their data collection is just as ubiquitous. Perhaps most unsettling is the revelation that Facebook even collects data on people who do not have an account , and uses this data to build “shadow profiles.” A shadow profile is built through collection of browsing history. Sites that use Facebook advertising or other associated social APIs report activity back to the company, enabling it to build a profile using this data and your IP address. Essentially, if you use the internet, Facebook is collecting information about you.
While Facebook’s pop-up ads for the blender you googled last week can be irritating, if not slightly creepy, they are an annoyance that most users are willing to put up with. The reason being Facebook was and continues to be an innovative way to connect the world, particularly during the last eighteen months when we have needed it most. However, users should keep in mind the fine line between their personal data being used for advertisements and the more nefarious purposes it can be used for. As recently as April of 2021 the company admitted that the information of 530 million users had been breached by “malicious actors”, most likely scammers. This after reaching a $5 billion settlement with the FTC in July 2019 over after failing to disclose the risk of user’s data being misused. Of course, one of the most infamous of Facebook’s data breaches involved Cambridge Analytica. The Company, a London based consulting firm, which was caught using proprietary user data to create voter models during the 2016 Presidential Campaign.
The private sector and scammers are not alone in this pursuit. Since 2010 Government requests for Facebook data increased by 364% in the United States. A major factor of this increase being the U.S. government is part of an alliance referred to as the “Fourteen Eyes” alliance. This alliance is essentially a pact made by fourteen western countries that include Canada, the United Kingdom, New Zealand, Australia, France, Denmark, the Netherlands, Norway, Germany, Spain, Belgium, Italy, and Sweden to share intelligence gleaned from social media. Currently, Facebook offers little assurances to users that their data will be handled responsibly by any government who requests it and have only recently introduced a rudimentary “transparency” process when it comes to these requests. Facebook’s apparent willingness to be an accomplice to governments pushing the bounds of privacy has led to some critics going as far as labelling the company Orwellian.
While Facebook continues to downplay data breaches, it does offer some mitigation methods to reduce the risk that user information ends up in the wrong hands. Taking these precautions helps protect user data, but they are far from airtight. Fortunately, there are some prominent voices in the government pushing Facebook to take more responsibility for the protection of its data. Senators Chris Coons (D-Delaware) and Josh Hawley (R-Missouri) sent the company a letter inquiring why it continues to track users’ location after they have turned their location off, and Facebook’s CEO Mark Zuckerberg was excoriated by lawmakers during his 2018 Senate testimony.
Facebook’s ever-growing collection of personal data, and the possibility of it being abused, are an issue for which no clear solution is present. This blog is not intended to give the impression that we are heading towards an Orwellian-like existence in the future, but it is intended to remind readers that we should all be more mindful of what information we share with Big Tech and who has access to that information.
