Facebook created a platform which allows users to access information about others users who have agreed to be "friends". A third party then came along and asked users for the information which their friends gave them access to. The users gave the third party the data.
I'm not missing anything here, right?
If the third party should not have access to the data, then neither should the friends who gave it to them. Facebook is responsible for allowing the users access to the data.
If users should have access to the data, then it's the friends' fault for agreeing to be Facebook friends with those users in the first place. Alternatively, it's Facebooks fault for not making it clear what data is made available to friends.
Either way, I don't see how this is a problem with thr research group.
I guess you could argue that the data was still technically owned by the friends and therefore the users had no right to give it away. In which case the fault belongs to the users.
>Either way, I don't see how this is a problem with thr research group.
Which is a valid take, not trying to say that your logic doesn't make sense. It does. But it is literally no difference in terms of what happened during the CA scandal, so all the same rules apply here. If you are ok with this group of researches and think they did nothing wrong, and that FB should have let them have the data, then the CA situation was a perfect happy road scenario for you. Because in that case, CA just got that data, and FB didn't stop them. Win-win, right?
Also, regardless of how valid this take is, FB was ordered by FTC to prevent third party sharing of friend data like that from happening. So FB's hands are kinda tied on this one.
Exactly, the FTC order asks FB to prevent data about someone from leaving FB's servers and go into a third party's database unless that person explicitly allows it.
I'm not missing anything here, right?
If the third party should not have access to the data, then neither should the friends who gave it to them. Facebook is responsible for allowing the users access to the data.
If users should have access to the data, then it's the friends' fault for agreeing to be Facebook friends with those users in the first place. Alternatively, it's Facebooks fault for not making it clear what data is made available to friends.
Either way, I don't see how this is a problem with thr research group.
I guess you could argue that the data was still technically owned by the friends and therefore the users had no right to give it away. In which case the fault belongs to the users.