Close Menu
TechCentralTechCentral

    Subscribe to the newsletter

    Get the best South African technology news and analysis delivered to your e-mail inbox every morning.

    Facebook X (Twitter) YouTube LinkedIn
    WhatsApp Facebook X (Twitter) LinkedIn YouTube
    TechCentralTechCentral
    • News

      Trump tariffs could wreck South Africa’s vehicle manufacturing industry

      14 July 2025

      Legislative overhaul on the cards for South Africa’s ICT sector

      14 July 2025

      The 1940s visionary who imagined the Information Age

      14 July 2025

      Microsoft South Africa to get new MD as Lillian Barnard moves to regional role

      14 July 2025

      Zuckerberg used open source to scale AI – now the lock-in begins

      14 July 2025
    • World

      Grok 4 arrives with bold claims and fresh controversy

      10 July 2025

      Bitcoin pushes higher into record territory

      10 July 2025

      Cupertino vs Brussels: Apple challenges Big Tech crackdown

      7 July 2025

      Grammarly acquires e-mail start-up Superhuman

      1 July 2025

      Apple considers ditching its own AI in Siri overhaul

      1 July 2025
    • In-depth

      Siemens is battling Big Tech for AI supremacy in factories

      24 June 2025

      The algorithm will sing now: why musicians should be worried about AI

      20 June 2025

      Meta bets $72-billion on AI – and investors love it

      17 June 2025

      MultiChoice may unbundle SuperSport from DStv

      12 June 2025

      Grok promised bias-free chat. Then came the edits

      2 June 2025
    • TCS

      TCS+ | MVNX on the opportunities in South Africa’s booming MVNO market

      11 July 2025

      TCS | Connecting Saffas – Renier Lombard on The Lekker Network

      7 July 2025

      TechCentral Nexus S0E4: Takealot’s big Post Office jobs plan

      4 July 2025

      TCS | Tech, townships and tenacity: Spar’s plan to win with Spar2U

      3 July 2025

      TCS+ | First Distribution on the latest and greatest cloud technologies

      27 June 2025
    • Opinion

      In defence of equity alternatives for BEE

      30 June 2025

      E-commerce in ICT distribution: enabler or disruptor?

      30 June 2025

      South Africa pioneered drone laws a decade ago – now it must catch up

      17 June 2025

      AI and the future of ICT distribution

      16 June 2025

      Singapore soared – why can’t we? Lessons South Africa refuses to learn

      13 June 2025
    • Company Hubs
      • Africa Data Centres
      • AfriGIS
      • Altron Digital Business
      • Altron Document Solutions
      • Altron Group
      • Arctic Wolf
      • AvertITD
      • Braintree
      • CallMiner
      • CambriLearn
      • CYBER1 Solutions
      • Digicloud Africa
      • Digimune
      • Domains.co.za
      • ESET
      • Euphoria Telecom
      • Incredible Business
      • iONLINE
      • Iris Network Systems
      • LSD Open
      • NEC XON
      • Network Platforms
      • Next DLP
      • Ovations
      • Paracon
      • Paratus
      • Q-KON
      • SevenC
      • SkyWire
      • Solid8 Technologies
      • Telit Cinterion
      • Tenable
      • Vertiv
      • Videri Digital
      • Wipro
      • Workday
    • Sections
      • AI and machine learning
      • Banking
      • Broadcasting and Media
      • Cloud services
      • Contact centres and CX
      • Cryptocurrencies
      • Education and skills
      • Electronics and hardware
      • Energy and sustainability
      • Enterprise software
      • Fintech
      • Information security
      • Internet and connectivity
      • Internet of Things
      • Investment
      • IT services
      • Lifestyle
      • Motoring
      • Public sector
      • Retail and e-commerce
      • Science
      • SMEs and start-ups
      • Social media
      • Talent and leadership
      • Telecoms
    • Events
    • Advertise
    TechCentralTechCentral
    Home » In-depth » Facebook’s present is as scary as its chequered past

    Facebook’s present is as scary as its chequered past

    By Agency Staff5 April 2018
    Twitter LinkedIn Facebook WhatsApp Email Telegram Copy Link
    News Alerts
    WhatsApp

    The fresh disclosures about the Cambridge Analytica affair are dismaying for Facebook, and they were getting a lot of deserved attention on Wednesday. But what happened at the shadowy political consulting firm is largely about Facebook’s past. The company made other changes on Wednesday that highlighted how lax it is currently being in allowing access to information from the social network’s two billion users.

    The big news, of course, was that Facebook gave its first estimate of the number of accounts that may have fallen into the hands of Cambridge Analytica, a firm that worked on Donald Trump’s presidential campaign. Facebook said that number was as high as 87m people, mostly in the US, which was larger than previous media reports that suggested the firm had harvested private information from Facebook profiles of more than 50m people. (Even the 87m figure is just an estimate. Cambridge Analytica denied on Wednesday that it had received data on that many people.)

    Many more improperly obtained troves of Facebook user information could be floating out in the world from the era of lax Facebook policies

    Remember that all this started because an academic obtained permission to access the Facebook accounts of a few hundred thousand people in 2014, leveraged that to harness account information from tens of millions more people and shared the information improperly with Cambridge Analytica. Facebook changed its data collection policies a few years ago, and in theory a Cambridge Analytica-type situation couldn’t happen again. However, many more improperly obtained troves of Facebook user information could be floating out in the world from the era of lax Facebook policies. Facebook has said it will do a full analysis to root out other outsiders that harvested large volumes of Facebook user data as Cambridge Analytica did.

    The fresh revelation escalates Facebook’s nearly three-week-long crisis, which has cost the company about US$90bn in lost market capitalisation. There’s a broader revelation, however, from Facebook’s amendments to its policies disclosed on Wednesday. It shows how much account information Facebook still allows outsiders to harness, and it makes one wonder why Facebook is just now closing some of its endless series of data barn doors.

    For example, Facebook said in a post that it was ending a feature that had permitted someone to enter another person’s phone number or e-mail address into a Facebook search to find a friend or colleague. The company said it found people abused that feature to hoover the public profile information by submitting e-mails or phone numbers they already had.

    Shady data collectors

    You can imagine farms of shady data collection firms typing in your mother’s phone number, finding her Facebook profile and sucking into its databases more information about her favourite TV shows, home town and political affiliations. Needless to say, few Facebook users have ever thought about this particular misuse of information. And like many things about Facebook, this misuse may have been extremely widespread. “We believe most people on Facebook could have had their public profile scraped in this way,” Facebook’s chief technology officer wrote in his post. How is it possible that Facebook didn’t close this data loophole before now?

    And the same perplexed attitude applies to Facebook’s actions to tighten access to information for third parties, like what private events people have indicated on Facebook that they plan to attend and access to Facebook user information from apps or websites that allow people to log in using their Facebook user names and passwords. Developers will howl about these changes, and the many outside companies that rely on Facebook to reach their customers or users will be justifiably upset. But the real question is why hasn’t Facebook made these changes before now?

    Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg

    The more disturbing fact is that in some cases Facebook itself will decide whether to approve third parties’ ability to harness this social network data. Already there are questions about whether Facebook can manage these approvals case by case. And Facebook users need to ask whether the company should even make those decisions on its own.

    The result of the last 18 months of repeated Facebook scandals, including the Cambridge Analytica fracas, is that Facebook has more power than ever. Mark Zuckerberg (understandably) has made his company responsible for securing elections in the US and many other countries from improper interference. Zuckerberg has said Facebook was responsible for preventing potential ethnic violence in Myanmar. And Facebook will now be responsible for reviewing requests from third parties that want access to troves of information on two billion users.

    That’s a lot of responsibility for a company that has repeatedly behaved irresponsibly and consistently reacted with arrogance when it has been questioned.  — Reported by Shira Ovide, (c) 2018 Bloomberg LP



    Facebook Mark Zuckerberg top
    Subscribe to TechCentral Subscribe to TechCentral
    Share. Facebook Twitter LinkedIn WhatsApp Telegram Email Copy Link
    Previous ArticleListen: Zuckerberg on Facebook’s ‘major mistake’
    Next Article Outlawing fake news will chill the real news

    Related Posts

    Zuckerberg used open source to scale AI – now the lock-in begins

    14 July 2025

    What Steve Jobs feared is now the tech industry’s reality

    9 July 2025

    Meta bets $72-billion on AI – and investors love it

    17 June 2025
    Company News

    Banking on LEO: Q-KON transforms financial services connectivity

    14 July 2025

    The future of business calling: Voys brings your landline to the cloud

    14 July 2025

    How digital twins and AI are shaping the future of security

    14 July 2025
    Opinion

    In defence of equity alternatives for BEE

    30 June 2025

    E-commerce in ICT distribution: enabler or disruptor?

    30 June 2025

    South Africa pioneered drone laws a decade ago – now it must catch up

    17 June 2025

    Subscribe to Updates

    Get the best South African technology news and analysis delivered to your e-mail inbox every morning.

    © 2009 - 2025 NewsCentral Media

    Type above and press Enter to search. Press Esc to cancel.