[smsm42]

So, Cambridge Analytica. Facebook has been used as a source of electioneering data for years before that. See for example Eitan Hersh's testimony. In fact, I've read articles bragging about how inventive the political technology using social networking profiles is, for a couple of electoral cycles before that - they may still be somewhere in HN archives even. And of course, selling the very same data to advertisers, maybe repackaged a bit differently but the same source and same data set, is the whole business model of Facebook. And it somehow never bothered anyone until Cambridge Analytica. Why is that?

[artificial]

Most don't have a problem uploading address books and contacts into these platforms. I think it depends which team it is. Companies? Cool! Political Party you agree with, sure! They mined the social graph and Zuck reached out to them and said they're on the same team and didn't restrict access while they mined 50 million people. Don't forget Zygna!

[treeman79]

Bigger concern is Facebook actively blocking stories the government doesn’t like.

[smsm42]

Yet bigger concern is the government blatantly violating the constitution by instructing Facebook to do that, and nobody stopping them. At least Facebook's bad behavior is within the law. The supreme law of the land explicitly prohibits the government from restricting the speech based on their politics. They do it anyway, and no consequences whatsoever. I think it's concerning.