Facebook in trouble over data practices

Delete Facebook? Why some people are starting to lose patience with the social media giant

Welcome to Plain English for Thursday, April 5, 2018. Today is episode 35 and a transcript of today’s show can be found on the web site at PlainEnglish.com/35. Coming up today, the social media giant finds itself on the defensive after a major privacy scandal. Some people are pledging to delete Facebook. In the second half of the program, we’ll talk about the English idiom “to gather steam.”

Before we get started, I wanted to remind you of some additional resources that are available for the listeners who are on our e-mail list. Every time we release an episode, we send an e-mail with links to English-language articles that I use to prepare the show. So you can read some more about any topics that particularly interest you. I also include an explanation of one more word or phrase for each episode. If you want to get these e-mails, just go to PlainEnglish.com/mail to sign up.

Let’s get going on today’s topic.

Facebook in trouble after privacy scandals

Facebook is in hot water with users, investors, and the US government after another embarrassing scandal about how it uses its members’ data.

The latest scandal broke out on March 17, when Facebook revealed it had suspended a group called Cambridge Analytica from its platform. The group was suspended for having sold user data to political campaigns, including the campaign of US president Donald Trump, without the users’ consent.

Here’s what happened. Back in 2016, a group of researchers created a personality quiz via a Facebook app. The researchers then used the data for their own purpose, which was allowed under Facebook’s terms of service. But the researchers then sold this data to a company called Cambridge Analytica. This was the part that was not legal—the users consented to a personality quiz, not to having their data sold to whomever. Cambridge Analytica then analyzed the data and sold their findings to political campaigns. The campaigns then used the data to target advertising and articles to users, hoping to influence their votes.

Facebook wasn’t directly at fault here, since the researchers who collected the data through the personality quiz were not allowed to sell the data to anyone else. But some people have criticized Facebook for not taking any proactive measures to prevent people from misusing data—measures that are common in the technology industry.

The whole scandal has shined an uncomfortable light on Facebook’s use of user data. For one thing, the use of personal data to target political ads was permitted in previous elections and had been used by a variety of politicians in different ways over the years. In an effort to be transparent, Facebook showed users how they can see exactly what data is kept on them—and some users have been horrified to find out it includes all their old search terms, contacts that they deleted from their phone years ago, the location of all their logins over the years, and an estimate of their political views or religious affiliation.

Facebook is trying to control the damage—but it’s not doing a great job. CEO Mark Zuckerberg was silent for days over the matter, then made some statements trying to downplay the situation, then had a series of unconvincing television appearances, and finally he seems to have agreed to testify before the US Congress. Meanwhile, the hashtag #DeleteFacebook is gathering steam, with a lot of individuals breaking up with the social network, including public figures like actor Will Ferrell and entrepreneur Elon Musk. If you search “delete Facebook”, you see dozens of how-to articles inspired by the recent controversy.

This new scandal came at an unfortunate time for the social media giant. It had already been under fire for its use of personal data to drive engagement and advertising revenue. For example, America’s Federal Trade Commission confirmed it is investigating Facebook for deceptive practices regarding members’ privacy. Analysts think Facebook could have to pay a fine of over a billion dollars for violating regulations.

The more serious problem for the tech giant is the possibility that the US government would regulate how Facebook and other internet companies can use data to target advertising—and if they do so, it could seriously hurt Facebook’s advertising business.

So, it probably doesn’t help that the web site BuzzFeed revealed an internal Facebook memo that appeared to say that Facebook wants to increase user engagement “at all costs”—even if those costs include more bullying by classmates or even terrorist attacks. Needless to say, Zuckerberg had to publicly say he disagreed with the content of that memo.

I think most people accept that targeted ads can actually be helpful to users. All else equal, it’s generally useful to see ads that correspond with our interests rather than general things like television ads. And most people appreciate all the free stuff they get from firms like Google and Facebook that use personal data. But it seems like some technology companies are taking things a little too far, and we’re starting to see that the big technology companies won’t get a free pass forever, and will have to start answering to the public, investors, and governments regarding how they use all the data they collect. Facebook’s stock is down 17 percent in the two weeks since the Cambridge Analytica scandal broke.

Remember back in episode 32, we talked about eSports, or competitive video-gaming. I’ve never watched professional video game players on television or live before, so I wasn’t quite sure why anyone would want to do that. I asked listeners why they watch those—what they like about it. I got a really interesting answer from Samuel from Brazil. He said that watching video games is like watching a suspense movie, since you never know what’s going to happen. That’s an interesting perspective that I hadn’t thought of before. Samuel’s pumped because ESL One, a video-gaming competition, is coming to Brazil for the first time in 2018. It will be in Belo Horizonte in June. So, thanks for the note Samuel—I’ll check out a live stream of video-gaming sometime soon and I’ll let you know how I like it.