So, the hot topic right now is Facebook after the Cambridge Analytic story broke.
To put this into perspective, Facebook accumulated a net income of 15.9 billion US dollars in 2017 from 2.2 billion monthly active users. Most of this income was from advertising alone, which just goes to show that they must be able to profile someone pretty accurately to make their information that valuable to third parties. Personally i was very aware that Facebook, being one of many a free social media services, would utilise any data i added to help drive up their advertising revenue (Social Media Data) But what with the current public outcry, it would seem that many were not. So, what is Social Media Data? Social media data is information that’s collected from social media platforms. It shows how users view, share and engage with your content. On Facebook, social media data includes numbers of likes, increases in followers, or number of shares. On Twitter, results include numbers of impressions or retweets. On Instagram, hashtag usage and engagement rates are included in the raw data. Once this information is mined, organisations can begin marking trends, measuring engagement and drawing insights that further influence their business strategies. The biggest issue with Cambridge Analytic is the method they used to collate such a vast quantity of data. Though technically they didn't break any rules as the data they collected was in fact all Public knowledge anyway. They didn't have to hack, or steal information, it was present as part of the Facebook platform. Don't believe me.... well, this is a quick list of data collection tools for just Facebook and Twitter links, but bare in mind Instagram is the biggest source of Social Media information and I've not covered that here: Facebook data collection tools (applications):
Social data vendors (these sell data for analysis within their own platforms or independently):
Yup, with all those tools, you really don't need to be a big organisation to exploit this Public data. So what can you do about it? Well, you could delete your accounts! but for me thats a bit extreme. Id suggest you check and re-check your security settings, restrict the data Social Media services can collect on you. Read their terms and conditions and educate yourself as to what product you are providing Social Media companies. Here's a great website that walks changing your Privacy and Security settings on Facebook, Snapchat and Twitter: https://www.europol.europa.eu/how-to-set-your-privacy-settings-social-media Remember, nothing is really ever truly free, If you are not paying for it, you're the product.
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