Facebook, and How Their Shadow Profiling Scandal is Deeper Than You Think

Mark Zuckerburg, CEO of Facebook, was grilled by lawmakers over Facebook's recent Cambridge Analytica scandal that included collecting millions (Facebook estimated 87 million) Facebook user's data. 

Today, I dusted off my Facebook account and took a look at the new privacy setting and what I found was troubling. I never signed up for this but apparently a marketing company called Inbound was part of the lists of Apps that"Have access to : your friends, your posts, your settings" and more. Suddenly, that number felt closer to home. I knew I had to do something which is why I'm on here to try to break this situation down in a way that is personal and easy to get. Here's a screenshot of the "Inbound Login" app that I found. Disclaimer; I know that I have used things like "Personality Quiz!" in the past on my Facebook account so I knew there were vulnerabilities. However, I did not find any of those apps. My info is probably still out there on those apps OR Inbound Login is where those apps originated from. Regardless, I am putting this out there for whomever reaches far into the internet to find this blog to discover.

The more I looked, the more I noticed the affects of the Cambridge situation in the Facebook settings. For example, the screenshot below shows Facebook boasting about how their "old setting" is no long active. This old setting was the "Apps Others Use" setting that Facebook claims to have removed "because they applied to an older version of our platform that no longer exists." Clearly, they left this auto-disabled setting as a way to showcase how they're "changing" their settings to "give the user more control". 

What I really want control and knowledge over is what the lawmakers wanted the same over too. Shadow profiling. Facebook has denyed any use of Shadow Profiling which, in basic terms, means collecting information about you even if you do not have a Facebook account. According to The Verge, the company still "has a general sense of who you are, gathered through uploaded contact lists, photos, or other sources." When you think about it, this feature is also seen in Instagram. Side note: I feel like Instagram has been kept out of this conversion when in reality, it should be at the center. Facebook is moving towards being predominantly adults while Instagram is more appealing to the younger generations. This is concerning because should this same scenario be playing out there, videos, pictures and messages of under aged kids could be at stake here. And what I'm thinking about is what if a company was to be breached and this information to be collected by someone or people who are not as good willed as marketing companies. Or, like Cambridge, by companies that have no issue with selling it to smaller companies which have much larger security issues due to their smaller size.

The other thing is, although people are starting to wake up about just how severely their data is being collected, Facebook could still come out of this unscathed. When you look at the 3 month stock graph of Facebook as of now, this is what you see.

Although the drop was significant, the price is still rising. And this is clear in the one year graph. Look, I'm no economy expert. But I do know stocks reflect how people feel about a company and are the best way to get the attention of a company about what is agreeable or not about what they are doing and how. Since the below graph shows a slight, almost insignificant dent but a steady rise, it's going to take the younger generation to wake up and get off IG and to promote their parents' attempts to get off Facebook. Also, most companies prefer for people to have Facebook accounts. That pressure to get people to HAVE to have a digital footprint needs to be lessened if we ever want to send a clear, strong messages to these companies. 

I know that this is a bit of a heavy topic for my blog, but I think the more info and opinions are out there, the more the company can see the magnitude of their mistake. I also consider this to be my digital vote for change. If you want to review your privacy settings on Facebook, go to settings and click Apps and Activity to get to this screen. And if you really want to help. Delete your account. You're most likely are more harmed by Social Media than you are helped anyways.