Facebook: The Data King

Many of us are aware of Facebook's prevalence and authority nowadays. They have 1.47 billion daily active users on average and 2.23 billion monthly active users, and that's not counting everyone that has a Facebook account. Part of what has made their growth so successful is their appeal to multiple different demographics, which consequently has made them the big guy on campus in the social media world.

But as the famous Spiderman (and probably so many others) once said: "With great power, comes great responsibility."

If you know anything about big data or Mark Zuckerberg than you probably understand Facebook is in a tad bit of trouble. As a result, their trust from others is being seriously questioned and undermined. Here's what you need to know about what information Facebook has, where they went wrong and why I feel the way I do about this topic.

What dirt does Facebook have on you?

Firstly, it's important to note that Facebook receives a lot of information voluntarily from you - age, employer, relationship status, likes, location, education, interests, etc. But that's not it. In addition to the much more personal information, Facebook also tracks both its users and nonusers on other sites and apps.

According to this NYT article, Facebook creates several target audiences and offers advertisers millions of people “whose activity on Facebook suggests that they’re more likely to engage with/distribute liberal political content” and users who “prefer high-value goods in Mexico.” That's super specific.

“Facebook can learn almost anything about you by using artificial intelligence to analyze your behavior,” said Peter Eckersley, the chief computer scientist.

What went wrong?

In short, a voter-profiling company, Cambridge Analytica, obtained detailed personal information of over 80 million Facebook users. Sounds bad, right? That's because it was bad, very bad.

His apology (which was printed in ad form in the NYT, WSJ, Washington Post and several UK papers) was sincere, but it didn't give Facebook full trust back.

It explained that the information leakage was due to a quiz app built by a university researcher which leaked the private information. Here's the issue: that happened in 2014, and they are just now taking action. Although they have stopped many other similar things from happening since and are taking serious precautions now, they still waited years to get this under control. In my opinion, aside from the sheer amount of data released, that was their biggest mistake: waiting.

Is this even acceptable?

In ProPublica's article series on Facebook, prices, machine learning and artificial intelligence, light was shed on on some pretty scary examples of what data is being collected from us. Sometimes such data collection can actually have a negative impact on us through no fault of our own. For example, in ProPublica’s article on prices, they explained how some companies increase the price they charge you because you use a certain type of computer or live in a certain ZIP code. They also noted how machine learning uses our data in apps like Spotify to predict which song we will listen to next, which is not scary at all but still takes a decent amount of data to get there. So, is it all acceptable? Well, it depends who you're asking, but it mostly comes down to how you value big data.

I have a very strong opinion on the matter (that many probably disagree with), but my opinion comes from two different viewpoints. The first viewpoint is that of a digital marketer; the information Facebook provides is extremely valuable in the marketing world and not just for marketers but those being marketed to as well. Think about it this way: you're going to be targeted by company's ads no matter what, but wouldn't you rather be targeted by organizations and products that are at least semi-relevant to you?

Let's play out a scenario: you're a female 19-year-old college student studying finance and very eager to study abroad this summer before you start internships and jobs. Your targeted ads could go one of two ways: A) Facebook doesn't collect data because people don't trust them, and you're getting ads for Rogaine, which become very irritating very quickly, or B) Facebook understands your situation and starts showing you alternative study abroad programs in different countries with multiple opportunities based on your needs and wants. The second (whether or not you use that information and/or take action) is a lot more tailored and inevitably more beneficial. Whether you want to admit it or not, marketing is important and affects us all more than we understand. We should want it to happen the right way.

The second viewpoint comes from that of a big data enthusiast. For those of you who aren't entirely aware of what this is, big data is essentially any generous set of data that could be analyzed and/or interpreted computationally to show patterns, trends, associations and so much more. This becomes increasingly important for determining human behavior and interactions. Yes, big data is helpful in highlighting potential customer decision journeys, but there is so much more to it. Big data has quite literally changed the way we live - through science, marketing, policing and so much more. I could go on and on about big data and how it's shaping our world for the better, but I think the most important take-away from all of this is that you understand that the information being gathered on us is simply a modern-day tradeoff for all of the wonderful and amazing things we are increasingly able to accomplish.

What do you think about big data and Facebook's use of it?