Serendipity35

Roughly 87 million people had their Facebook data stolen by the political research firm Cambridge Analytica. 

On April 10 and 11 Mark Zuckerberg testified before Congress. The reviews were mixed. Some said he was robotic and evasive. I thought he did a good job in the face of some ignorant questions by people who clearly don't understand Facebook, social media or modern technology - and even mispronounced Zuckerberg's name several different ways.

The day before the hearings Facebook finally notified the people who had their information grabbed by Cambridge Analytica. It is supposed to be about 70 million Americans and other users in the UK, Indonesia, and the Philippines. 

I saw the notification at the top of my Facebook newsfeed when I logged in. There was also a button for changing my privacy settings. Probably everyone, even if your information wasn’t captured and used by Cambridge Analytica, you should check and tighten up those settings.

How can you tell if your data was shared with Cambridge Analytica? Here is the link: https://www.facebook.com/help/1873665312923476 

What did Facebook tell me? 

"Based on our investigation, you don't appear to have logged into "This Is Your Digital Life" with Facebook before we removed it from our platform in 2015. However, a friend of yours did log in. As a result, the following information was likely shared with "This Is Your Digital Life": Your public profile, Page likes, birthday and current city. A small number of people who logged into "This Is Your Digital Life" also shared their own News Feed, timeline, posts and messages which may have included posts and messages from you. They may also have shared your hometown."

One of the questions that Zuckerberg was asked was about the fact that Cambridge Analytica wasn’t the only company that was misusing Facebook data. The company suspended at least two more research companies before the hearings: CubeYou was also misusing data from personality quizzes, along with AggregateIQ. 

After a rash of people saying they were quitting Facebook and the stock taking a hit, during the hearings the stock rebounded and I am seeing less talk about quitting. Though there are plenty of social networks, none has all the features of Facebook and has been able to hold a large user base. One Senator asked if Facebook is a monopoly. Zuckerberg said No, but was unable to really give an example of a major competitor. Yes, they overlap with networks like Twitter and their own Instagram, but no one really does it all.

Zuckerberg made the point repeatedly that Facebook has already made many positive changes since the Cambridge Analytica breach an is still doing them now ahead of any possible regulation by Congress. Are all the issues corrected? No. Are things better with Facebook and privacy? Yes. Will it or some competitor ever be the perfect social network? No way.