There is a lot of talk swarming around Facebook’s latest crisis that is leaving them with their biggest share loss in about three years. With so much going on, here is a comprehensive look at the 5 W’s on Facebook.
WHO:
The two biggest players in this scandal are Cambridge Analytica and Facebook. Cambridge Analytica is a data analysis firm. They were hired by the Trump election campaign to help target voters and win Trump the election.
Facebook, as we all know, is the social media platform. It’s been a tough time for them since the 2016 election as this is not their first political scandal. This issue follows Facebook’s admission that the Russians created fake accounts and ads that were in support of Trump.
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WHAT:
So what exactly happened that led to Facebook’s shares dropping? It was revealed that the private information of a total of 50 million Facebook users was harvested without their consent. The information of these Facebook users was then sold to Cambridge Analytica who then used it to better target users with pro-Trump propaganda.
WHEN:
This information is only coming to light to us now, but Facebook knew that Cambridge Analytica had all this information since 2015. Facebook had been led to believe that all the data was destroyed prior to the presidential election.
WHY:
Where did all this user data come from? It came from Aleksandr Kogan. He is a researcher who created a quiz on Facebook for users to take for educational purposes. In total, 270,000 people took the quiz and gave their information, but because it was for educational purposes, the user information taken was in agreement with Facebook’s policies.
It became illegal once Kogan took that information and gave it to Cambridge Analytica for their own use and most importantly, without the consent of the 270,000 who took the quiz and the other millions of people’s data collected from that 270,000.
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HOW:
Now with all this going on how can you protect yourself? The easiest (depending) can just be deleting your Facebook account as a whole, butt if that isn’t’ realistic there are other options available to best protect yourself.
Privacy Settings: Double check or update your privacy settings. You might be allowing pages, people and apps to access into information that you otherwise would not have allowed.
Third Party Apps: Just like your privacy settings on Facebook, look at what access you have or have not given third-party apps.
Track Blocker: Many websites are tracking what you are doing all the time. Wonder why that one thing you googled is suddenly popping up on every other website you’ve visited? It’s because you’ve been tracked. To avoid things like your browsing habits being tracked, try installing a tracking browser (and an ad blocker to further secure yourself) to your browser.
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