Talk:Facebook–Cambridge Analytica data scandal

This article is or was the subject of a Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment. Further details are available on the course page. Student editor(s): Jasonyangchen (article contribs).

Wishes for this article's development

• Did Cambridge Analytica use any software from GitHub or any other public repository?
• Does anyone have a sample entry from the dataset which we can anonymize and use as an illustration?
• Does anyone have a source which characterizes the dataset?
• There are so many names of individuals and companies in this story. How can anyone sort this?
• There seems to be an international response to this. Searching "Cambridge Analytica" and various countries could return regional responses.
• Check out Category:Data breaches for what exists. Anyone who searches the news can find other data breaches which meet WP:N but for which wiki does not have an article.
• We need a Wikidata data model for items on data breaches. I did not make one for this article.

Blue Rasberry (talk) 04:35, 26 March 2018 (UTC)

Requested move 26 March 2018

The following is a closed discussion of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. Editors desiring to contest the closing decision should consider a move review. No further edits should be made to this section.

The result of the move request was: moved. See general agreement to sub "scandal" for "breach" in this debate, even though we see good args for both cases. Have a Great Day and Happy Publishing! (closed by page mover)  Paine Ellsworth  ^put'r there  03:26, 9 April 2018 (UTC)

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Facebook and Cambridge Analytica data breach → Facebook–Cambridge Analytica data scandal – Whether or not this amounts to a "data breach" is debatable, according to Time.com. The article title should try to avoid this debate, according to WP:POVTITLE. ^Falling_Gravity 14:59, 26 March 2018 (UTC)--Relisting. Dekimasuよ! 18:32, 2 April 2018 (UTC)

Not sure what is actually the more objective phrasing. Depends on the definitions of breach and scandal I suppose. From the article about data breach: "A data breach is the intentional or unintentional release of secure or private/confidential information to an untrusted environment." The term scandal may also be value laden, I think. But I'm not a native English speaker, so I shall refrain from having an actual opinion about this question. - Soulkeeper (talk) 15:50, 26 March 2018 (UTC)

If both phrases are equally objective then it would be the more common one that we should use. --Emir of Wikipedia (talk) 19:06, 26 March 2018 (UTC)

"Controversy" is generally considered to be less objective or value laden, though "scandal" is technically a specific type of controversy. "Data breach" might have legal ramifications, so it's understandable that Facebook wants to avoid it. ^Falling_Gravity 19:40, 26 March 2018 (UTC)

• use data breach I just added sources below which use the term "breach". I acknowledge that Facebook's own lawyer in a Facebook press release says, "The claim that this is a data breach is completely false", but also, Facebook is telling many different stories as compared to what the news media reports. I appreciate FallingGravity presenting the controversy, because yes obviously, Facebook really cares about this term for some reason. In reading that Time article I do not believe that that publication feels strongly about the matter. I recognize also that security professionals have a different concept of "breach" than layman audiences. To security professionals, a breach is a process, and if someone steals or misuses data without attacking the vault, then they say there was no breach. From the consumer perspective, a breach is an outcome, and if someone steals or misuses their data by attacking, sneaking, leaking, or any other way that harms them, then it is all the same because they expected protection which the vault failed to provide. Reliable sources call this a data breach, the situation matches what Wikipedia calls data breach, and the consumers suffered a data breach. Blue Rasberry (talk) 01:21, 3 April 2018 (UTC)

Sources say "breach"

• The Guardian, "one of the tech giant’s biggest ever data breaches"
• The New York Times, "...one of the largest data leaks in the social network’s history. The breach allowed the company to exploit the private social media activity..."
• Vox Media
  • Vox, "The Facebook data breach wasn’t a hack. "
  • The Verge, "The suit claims that the executives and board of directors failed to stop the data breach or tell users about it when it happened"
• The Dallas Morning News, "How GDPR Could Have Prevented the Facebook-Cambridge Analytica Data Breach"
• The Times of Israel, "Israel to probe Facebook over Cambridge Analytica data breach"
• The Times of India, "Facebook data breach case: Government issues notice to Cambridge Analytica"
• Reuters, "India queries Cambridge Analytica over alleged Facebook data breach"
• Deutsche Welle, "Germany demands answers from Facebook over data breach"

References

Blue Rasberry (talk) 01:10, 3 April 2018 (UTC)

Some sources say "breach", but some sources avoid the terminology in favor of "scandal":

• Wall Street Journal: "Facebook Data Scandal Raises Another Question: Can There Be Too Much Privacy?"
• Bloomberg: "What Facebook’s Data Scandal Really Means for Regulators"
• NBC News: "After the Cambridge Analytica Facebook scandal, here's what Mark Zuckerberg must do to save his company"
• HuffPost: "The Facebook/Cambridge Analytica Scandal, According To My Mom"
• Recode: "The FTC is officially investigating Facebook following the Cambridge Analytica privacy scandal"
• The Telegraph: "Elon Musk deletes Facebook following Cambridge Analytica scandal"
• TechCrunch: "Zuck apologizes for Cambridge Analytica scandal with full-page print ad"
• CNET: "Amid Facebook data scandal, Apple CEO Cook talks up regulation"
• AP: "Facebook scandal affected more users than thought: up to 87M"

Anyway, we should definitely go by the WP:COMMONNAME. ^Falling_Gravity 07:10, 3 April 2018 (UTC)

• Support for "Facebook–Cambridge Analytica data scandal". This whole article seems to have some major POV issues, the title being one of them. In addition to the many links others have posted above, here's a few reliable secondary sources talking about whether or not this was a "breach", with several of them taking the opinion that it is not:
  • Vice (magazine): [1]
  • TechCrunch: [2]
  • Time (magazine): [3]
  • CBS News: [4]

There is clearly enough dispute about this that it would not be neutral for Wikipedia to retain this article title per WP:POVTITLE. I didn't like "Facebook–Cambridge Analytica data scandal" when I first read it, but after reading the definition of scandal in the intro of its article, I think it's appropriate here and strikes a good WP:BALANCE. –IagoQnsi (talk) 07:10, 5 April 2018 (UTC)

• Support as proposed - it's unquestionably the latter, and only arguably the former. Red Slash 09:27, 5 April 2018 (UTC)

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The above discussion is preserved as an archive of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on this talk page or in a move review. No further edits should be made to this section.

This Is Your Digital Life

https://www.facebook.com/help/1873665312923476 is the Facebook page that can tell person if Cambridge Analytica likely had their data. For me, the results are:

Based on our available records, neither you nor your friends logged into This Is Your Digital Life."

As a result, it doesn't appear your Facebook information was shared with Cambridge Analytica by "This Is Your Digital Life."

I wanted to learn about the history of the "This Is Your Digital Life" app but was very surprised there are zero mentions of that phrase on Wikipedia per site:wikipedia.org "This Is Your Digital Life" other than sv:Cambridge Analytica on the Swedish Language Wikipedia which mentions ... ett personlighetstest vid namn "this is your digital life" på Facebook för att få tillgång till drygt 50 miljoner användares data or in English ... a personality test called "this is your digital life" on Facebook accessed over 50 million users' data.--Marc Kupper|talk 17:53, 10 April 2018 (UTC)

References

declaration of COI

So I just changed the wording on something in this article and then I remembered to declare that I have a COI. I have done work with this project and the professor as a freelancer. I will probably try to avoid future editing this topic but there is a ref that I would like to add when I find it again.TeeVeeed (talk) 14:19, 13 April 2018 (UTC)

NPOV

How about mentioning that Google CEO Eric Schmidt proposed in emails to the Clinton Campaign doing exactly the same thing that Cambridge Analytica did, and more?