{"id":1245,"date":"2018-12-10T20:12:47","date_gmt":"2018-12-11T00:12:47","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/jparnell.com\/blog\/?p=1245"},"modified":"2018-12-10T20:12:47","modified_gmt":"2018-12-11T00:12:47","slug":"facebooks-dubious-commitment-to-privacy","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/battle4liberty.com\/?p=1245","title":{"rendered":"Facebook’s dubious commitment to privacy"},"content":{"rendered":"

Facebook founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg has received constant criticism for his condescending view of consumer privacy. As reported in the Wall Street Journal<\/em>, the U.K. Parliament last week released a trove of internal Facebook emails that suggested the tech giant provided special access to user data to certain third-party developers. Several years prior, the company even considered charging developers for such access. Such a policy would probably be legal\u2014as long as users accept the terms\u2014but considering one suggests a lack of genuine commitment to Facebook\u2019s longstanding \u201cpolicy\u201d of not selling users\u2019 personal information.<\/p>\n

But there\u2019s more. In an October 2012 email, Zuckerberg questioned, \u201cI think we can leak info to developers, but I just can\u2019t think of any instance where that data has leaked from developer to developer and caused a real issue for us. Do you have examples of this?\u201d Stop and read this quote again. Zuckerberg is downplaying the potential adverse effects that data leaks can have on the company. Where is his concern for the effects data leaks can have on consumers?<\/p>\n

An internal memo from 2014 also suggested that Zuckerberg maintained \u201ca small list of strategic competitors\u201d that could not access some services available to other developers. During a 2013 online chat, Facebook\u2019s Justin Osofsky referenced Vine, a Twitter feature that lets users make six-second videos. Facebook allowed Vine\u2019s users to find their friends via Facebook, but Osofsky objected, stating, \u201cUnless anyone raises objections, we will shut down their friends\u2019 API [application programming interface] access today\u2026We\u2019ve prepared PR [public relations].\u201d Zuckerberg responded, \u201cYup, go for it.\u201d<\/p>\n

I\u2019m not criticizing Facebook for the hard-nosed competitive tactics Osofsky suggested, but it\u2019s just not consistent with Zuckerberg\u2019s public statements. I\u2019m getting tired of Zuckerberg\u2019s posturing about Facebook\u2019s commitment to privacy, access, and openness to others on the Web. The U.K. documents provide strong evidence that contrary to company statements, Facebook\u2019s commitment to privacy has always been negotiable. Zuckerberg\u2019s \u201cdon\u2019t worry about your data\u201d assurance to consumers has attracted them in great numbers over the years. The truth may be out now, but unfortunately, it\u2019s too late for the globe\u2019s 2+ billion users who trusted Facebook from the start and cannot simply retrieve their data and sign off.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Facebook founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg has received constant criticism for his condescending view of consumer privacy. As reported in the Wall Street Journal, the U.K. Parliament last week released a trove of internal Facebook emails that suggested the tech giant provided special access to user data to certain third-party developers. Several years prior, the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/battle4liberty.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1245"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/battle4liberty.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/battle4liberty.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/battle4liberty.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/battle4liberty.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1245"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/battle4liberty.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1245\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/battle4liberty.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1245"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/battle4liberty.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1245"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/battle4liberty.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1245"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}