Gransnet on facebook

Nobody would be on Facebook if I had my way.

Meh. Don't think many people are signing up for FB these days any way, are they? It's a bit passe`. The younger people are dropping it and moving on to much more interesting media. FB is old hat.

We are probably all 'victims' in one way or another of behavioural science.
Whether or not this is moral is the question.

If people do not realise they are being manipulated either by business or by political parties then that is wrong and in fact quite sinister.
Social networking sites can appear to be friendly places to meet 'friends' and 'chat' online but this is proof that they are far from that.

Gransnet itself is on facebook. Any of these threads could be on facebook.

The thread about memorial benches is on facebook.
That could be why my security would not let me look at the link to the Giant's seat, because it would link back to facebook.

That could be why my security would not let me look at the link to the Giant's seat, because it would link back to facebook.
That's a bit odd, because it was a link to The Forest of Dean Sculpture Trust, nothing to do with FB - however I just checked and site does not have that little padlock next to https, so if your security settings are very high that's probably why.

As for GN on FB - the whole thread doesn't appear there, just a link to it, with a headline, a 'posed by models' type picture and then people can post on there - presumably using their real or FB names, not their GN names.

Being able to access it via the link is possibly no different to being able to access any of GN's threads. It is worrying, but I wonder how many FB users are interested in what they may think is a Grannies' site?

It's not whether facebook users, are; it's what information facebook itself can usefully gain from trawling gransnet.
Cambridge Analytica has been found to have broken the laws on use of information gleaned from facebook.
It has interfered in elections.

It's the DM and it doesn't have a padlock but some information on Cambridge Analytica
www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-5514535/The-secretive-billionaire-Trump-donor-Cambridge-Analytica.html

"In a somewhat late response, Facebook banned Cambridge Analytica from advertising on its platform. The Guardian has further reported that Facebook had known about this security breach for two years, but did nothing to protect its millions of users.

It is well-known that Cambridge Analytica (CA) collects data on voters using sources such as demographics, consumer activity and internet activity, among other public and private sources. It has been reported that the company is using psychological data derived from millions of Facebook users, largely without users’ permission or knowledge. In short, the company operates using political voter surveillance and strategies of psychological manipulation.

The data analytics firm is a private company that offers services to businesses and political parties who want to “change audience behaviour”. CA combines data mining and data analysis with ‘strategic communication’ for the electoral process. It was created in 2013 as an offshoot of its British parent company, Strategic Communication Laboratories Group, to participate in US politics. "

From the link in the op.
The rest of it is worth reading, too.

Facebook does not 'trawl' Gransnet Jen. This is not a spy movie and there's no data on Gransnet that would be useful to them. I think that's scaremongering.

The way the data was collected was by people downloading a Facebook app (I think it was a 'personality test' app) that said it would "download some information about you and your network … basic demographics and likes of categories, places, famous people, etc. from you and your friends"

If you don't want to share your data with companies, don't download apps that say you will share your data!

It's difficult to quantify exactly how effective Cambridge Analytica actually are. Or any other company who uses behavioural science for political or business marketing really - they are not the only people doing this.

I would just use a bit of common sense. If an app wants to access your personal data, know who is asking before you say yes - just as you would if a random person in the street came up and asked you.

How do you know, primrose?
Please read the op link.

"Working with a whistleblower and ex-employee of Cambridge Analytica, the Observer and Guardian have seen documents and gathered eyewitness reports that lift the lid on the data analytics company that helped Donald Trump to victory. The company is currently being investigated on both sides of the Atlantic.

It is a key subject in two inquiries in the UK – by the Electoral Commission, into the company’s possible role in the EU referendum and the Information Commissioner’s Office, into data analytics for political purposes – and one in the US, as part of special counsel Robert Mueller’s probe into Trump-Russia collusion."

They don't ask to access personal data. They trawl websites using algorythms.

Sorry, algorithms. Knew it didn't look right.

From what I've read (Carol Cadwallader's Guardian article) it was the app what done it, dj. It harvested some 5 million sets of personal data from considerably fewer respondees.

I don’t see how Cambridge Analytica can glean any information about individual GNers as a result of GN posting links to threads on FB.
If CA wanted to, they could just come on Gransnet anyway, but as the majority of members post pseudonymously it wouldn’t help them, would it?
I agree with Primrose that your data is only vulnerable on FB if you do those silly quizzes. It states clearly that the app is going to retrieve data about you, so there’s no excuse for not realising.

If they are trawling Facebook then they are probably also trawling GN direcly, and all other social media where people list their profiles. The answer is not to have a profile, or to have one with such minimal information that it tells nosy parkers nothing.

Another answer is not to post your private life, income and expenditure, buying history, family additions and losses, health and relationship problems, political leanings, racist and sexist views, and tastes in food, clothes, books, films, music and soft furnishings on ANY online site. If you broadcast any or all of this on a public medium, then a firm which deals in analysing such things and selling the resulting statistics and/or mailing lists is going to collect them for commercial use.

Harvesting - It makes it sound as innocent as harvesting apples or grains of wheat like the Little Red Hen.

The test of whether to post something, either on a forum or in a profile, is to imagine that is it being announced as a TV news item. If that thought fills you with horror - think twice before pressing Post.

It harvested some 5 million sets of personal data from considerably fewer respondees.

If they have collected 5 millions sets of personal data from considerably fewer respondees than that is very little compared to the 1 billion people who are on FB.

I have done a couple of silly quizzes janea - some were linked on to here by other posters. However, as I did them two or three times and gave different answers each time I expect I confused the algorithm.

Oop, too late Elegran!

Doing the quizzes several times with completely diferent answers and having completely different profiles on several social media sites sounds like is a good way to confuse them! They want profiles - give them profiles, in bulk! After all, we could be claiming to be male half the time and female the other half, so why not have multiple personalities online?

We could change our GN profiles weekly (even daily). If they stored them all it would tie the algorhythm up analysing them so that it had no time to use the real ones.

Forgot the . I don't want anyone taking me too seriously.

As they used to say on Stars in Their Eyes:

"Tonight, Matthew, I'm going to be ....."

This is nothing to do with algorithms.

It's to do with people sharing data.

Facebook has a few technology tools that developers use. The most common one is Facebook Login - where you log into a site using your Facebook credentials. Lots of people find it easier to do this than remember lots of passwords. When you use this, you share your Facebook data with other people - that is the whole point of it.

This is not necessarily bad - you just need to think about who you are sharing with.

However, back in 2015, Facebook allowed people to share their friend's data too. This is not the case anymore.

There was an app called "thisisyourdigitallife" and this used the Facebook login. It was downloaded by 250,000 people and they agreed to share their data but also the data of their friends. The data was collected through this app and the developers ended up selling the data to Cambridge Analytica.

This is how they got the data. Not through trawling, spying or anything else. The issue was that people shared their Facebook friends data when they used the app. You can't do this anymore.