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Facebook itati On Tuesday that it was suspending the accounts of the NYU investigative team, it appeared as if the company’s hands were tied. The group has been researching a number of political issues that follow through browsers, something else Facebook he had repeatedly warned them that they were not allowed to do so.
Mike Clark, Facebook’s chief executive officer, wrote: “For several months, we’ve been working with the University of New York to get their three researchers to find a way to apply for privacy.” in a blog post. “We did this in order to prevent unnecessary vandalism and to protect the privacy of individuals in accordance with our privacy policy under the FTC Order.”
Clark was talking about a valid law forced and Federal Trade Commission in 2019, along with a $ 5 billion fine for privacy violations. You can understand the challenges the company faces. If the investigators want one thing, but the superintendent needs another, the supervisor will win.
Unless Facebook was not in that trouble, because the license law does not prohibit what researchers are doing. The company may have done this to keep it out of public view but because it does not want people to learn one of its secrets: who is shown which ads, and why.
FTC sanctions grew from Cambridge Analytica insulting. In that case, well-known researchers will be able to access Facebook, and their peers’ information, from Facebook. This was achieved in the hands of Cambridge Analytica, which used microtarget instead of Donald Trump’s 2016 campaign.
The work of NYU, Advertising Viewer, it works very differently. It has no access to Facebook. Instead, I am expanding the browser. When a user receives an add-on, they agree to post the ads they see, including the content in “Why do I see this?” widget, for explorers. The researchers then verify which political advertisements are being highlighted by the groups they use — which Facebook does not announce.
Does the system violate the copyright law? Two parts of the system can work. Section 2 requires Facebook to obtain authorization from the user before sharing with others their data. Since Ad Observer relies on users who agree to share data, not Facebook itself, it is not appropriate.
When Facebook shares data with outsiders, “it has other responsibilities in the police relationship to data sharing,” said Jonathan Mayer, a professor of computer science and public affairs at Princeton. “But there is nothing in its schedule if a user wants to go and tell someone what they have seen on Facebook.”
Joe Osborne, a spokesman for Facebook, has admitted that the law did not force Facebook to suspend investigators’ accounts. Instead, he says, Section 7 of the law requires Facebook to use a “privacy program” that “protects the privacy, confidentiality, and integrity” of users. It is a secret Facebook program, not a legitimate license, that prohibits what the Ad Observer group has been doing. Specifically, Osborne says, the researchers repeatedly violated the Facebook section Labor unions which provides, “You may not access or collect data from our Products using automated methods (without our consent).” The blog announcing the account prohibits mentioning removal 10 times.
Laura Edelson, a PhD student at NYU and the co-creator of Ad Observer, rejects the notion that the weapon is urgent chopopera at all.
“Cleaning is when I write a program to navigate through the website and run computers on how the browser works and what downloads,” he says. “This is not the way we work. Our add-ons are up-to-date with the user, and we only take the ad information that is displayed to the user. ”
Bennett Cyphers, an electrical engineer at the Electronic Frontier Foundation, agrees. “There is no good, inconsistent meaning,” he says, but the phrase is absurd when users choose to post and share their experiences on the platform. “This does not seem to be something Facebook can control. . ”
In the end, if the extension is “automatic” it seems to be on the side, because Facebook can change its mind — or, depending on existing data, it may only give permission to the researchers. That’s why the most important question is whether Ad Observer violates everyone’s privacy. Osborne, a Facebook spokesman, says that once the app goes viral, it can reveal more about other users who have not agreed to share information. If I sign up, for example, they can share with my favorite friends or respond to ads.
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