Crafting your psychological profile
A recent report by The Observer revealed that Facebook had worked with a British political consulting firm, Cambridge Analytica, relinquishing personal information of over 50 million users without their consent. To many, this comes as a huge shock to learn that such a large and well trusted tech company would so easily give away users’ data. Others may not be surprised by the lack of ethics displayed by Facebook.
As many know, social media websites such as Facebook are collecting massive amounts of data on their users. We would like to think that there is an intense vetting process to make sure that the people who have access to users’ personal information are only those who need it., but this is not the case. Facebook is operated and controlled by a man who has once referred to Facebook users as “dumb fucks” simply for trusting him with their information. What’s truly unfortunate is that Mark Zuckerberg probably has a good point in saying this.
Given the massive amount of data Facebook has stockpiled over the years, it’s easy to see why Steve Bannon and the rest of his pals at Cambridge Analytica sought out access to such information. Thanks to Facebook’s “Graph API” platform, which the company describes as “the primary way to get data into and out of the Facebook platform,” Bannon and company had an unfettered path to over 50 million users’ personal information through Facebook. This data was used by Cambridge Analytica to craft a psychological profile of individuals to increase reach and find what makes voters tick. By simply knowing what voters “like” on Facebook, Cambridge Analytica was able to have a pretty good idea of other personality traits.
Though simply “liking” a television show or a band may seem rather benign, it actually could reveal more about you than you realize. In 2013, three researchers at Cambridge University published work showing how Facebook likes reveal other things about each user.
For instance, the study explained that “users who liked the ‘Hello Kitty’ brand tended to be high on ‘openness’ and low on ‘conscientiousness,’ ‘agreeableness,’ and ‘emotional stability. This is merely one facet of understanding how much your online profile could reveal about you. Cambridge Analytica would use several likes, your location, age, etc to have a much more specific idea of who each of the 50 million people they exploited were.
The idea that Facebook is accumulating so much data about its users is unpleasant enough. Knowing how lax they are in sharing this data with third parties is alarming.,
Many people will make a decision to delete their Facebook accounts as a result of these reports, while the vast majority will, as they have before, perhaps feel invaded briefly and knowingly carry on with the hand they’ve been dealt by Facebook.
Facebook’s reach is unlimited and deleting your account won’t change that. What’s more effective is to take a stand by action to help prevent companies like Facebook from giving up such information to those who are seeking it out only for selfish interests.
Rather than dealing with issues like this by dismissing Facebook entirely, it is far more productive to ensure that they are held accountable for their actions.
