Facebook Changes to Better Protect your Personal Data

Facebook Outlines Plans to Restrict Data Mining Through Facebook

Facebook is Making Changes in an Attempt
to Restrict Data Mining through their Platform

Bonus: How to Tell if Cambridge Analytica Has Your Information

By now, everyone has heard about  the Facebook Data Mining Scandal.  Third-party apps have been mining our Facebook data for years now, and Facebook made it very easy for them to do so.  When the extent of what was being shared became public, users were incensed and started leaving the platform in droves. #DeleteFacebook began trending on Twitter.  To prevent becoming the next "MySpace," Facebook promised to make changes to prevent apps from mining your data so freely.  These changes will start rolling out today.

What Types of Data were Apps Collecting Before?

Part of what makes Facebook so popular is the amount of third-party content and the ease of sharing. Anyone can create a "Facebook Page," invite followers, embed apps, and invite users to like and share.  When a user interacts with page content in any way, that page can access personal data related to that user.  In addition, anyone can create a Facebook App, independent of any Facebook Page.  Popular apps include quizzes, profile picture frames, games, and sweepstakes.  

To help developers create content and apps, Facebook provides many developer APIs.  API stands for Application Programming Interface, and it is basically a set of tools that make it easier for third-parties to develop apps and content that work with Facebook.  Facebook provides several APIs, including ones for groups, pages, events, search, and games.  They also offer the Facebook Login API, which makes it easy for users to create accounts on third-party sites without having another username and password to remember.  

The Facebook Kerfuffle and What it Means For You

The Facebook Data Scandal and What it Means for You and Your Personal Information

How to Protect Your Facebook Information,
and How To Download Your Facebook Data

For the last week or so, Facebook and its data-sharing tendencies have been in the news.  "Delete Facebook" campaigns are proliferating the Web, and a lot of folks are wondering what really happened and how worried they need to be.  Today, we're going to look at the Facebook controversy, discuss how users were actually complicit in this breech, and talk a little about the ramifications. We'll also look at how to protect yourself in the future, as well as explain how you can download a copy of your Facebook profile so you can understand what the data miners really obtained.

What Happened with Facebook and My Personal Information?

In a nutshell, an individual created a rogue quiz app.  This particular quiz was a Personality Test, and of course, it encouraged you to both share your results and to invite friends to take the quiz.  Almost immediately after launching, over 10,000 Facebook users had taken the test.  After it went viral, over 270,000 people downloaded the quiz app, and even more used the web-based version.  Folks ignored the app's permission requirements, and willingly gave the app permission to access their information, as well as that of their friends.  Soon, the quiz had harvested the Facebook data of over half a million users.  Many of these folks had never accessed the quiz personally, but rather had their data mined through a "friend" giving the app permission to basically take what it wanted.

The Quiz Creator then sold all the information he had collected to a data mining firm. That firm repackaged the data and sold it to Cambridge Analytics.  Cambridge Analytics then used the data to profile people politically, and to "reach out" to folks in order to manipulate their thoughts during the last election.