The IT Nerd

Patterns has published a peer-reviewed study on data from digital tools related to health being tracked and used on Facebook for ad purposes. The following digital health tools used third-party ad trackers to follow patients online and market to them based on their activity:

• Color Genomics
• Myriad Genetics
• Invitae
• Health Union
• Ciitizen

Yaric Shivek, VP of Product for Neosec had this comment:

     “There is always a balance between the requirement to market a product to prospects and the security of personal data. And in certain industries, like finance and healthcare this balance is governed by compliance and the requirement to protect personal data is paramount. Ad tracking is where this balance is problematic. Most of us wouldn’t install a piece of adware on our laptop, and yet it seems that ad trackers are installed on sensitive healthcare websites, giving advertisers visibility into our transactions on these websites. This seems to circumvent HIPAA compliance. You’d hope that security permissions are more orderly in the world of APIs, but while electronic health records (EHR) companies take protecting your sensitive healthcare data seriously, this data is often being insecurely disseminated by 3rd-party aggregators and apps, whose vulnerable APIs can be easily exploited. This connected world of APIs and apps is only as strong as the weakest link. What good is a bank safe, if your courier gets robbed the minute they walk out of the bank with your cash?”

Chris Olson, CEO of The Media Trust adds this comment:

     “Data privacy violations are one of many risks associated with unsupervised third-party code like ad trackers, content recommendation algorithms, shopping cart plugins, and more. Today, up to 90% of the code across consumer-facing websites is provided by third parties – even privacy-conscious companies are often unaware of their activities which can lead to data breaches, phishing attacks and worse.

Complacency is no longer an option – in the face of emerging data privacy legislation and rising cyber risk, organizations need to commit to the digital safety of their customers by taking control of their online domains and carefully vetting third-party vendors for risky activity. This is especially true for companies that collect sensitive and personally identifiable information (PII) like health data.”

Somehow I am not shocked that Facebook is in the middle of this as you are the product when you use Facebook. And it proves that more needs to be done to rein in Facebook’s activities so that everyone’s privacy is protected.

Facebook continues to hit new lows with their behaviour. And today’s new low is this paywalled Washington Post story (Non paywalled source here) that details how Facebook used the services of a firm linked to the Republican Party to trash TikTok:

Employees with the firm, Targeted Victory, worked to undermine TikTok through a nationwide media and lobbying campaign portraying the fast-growing app, owned by the Beijing-based company ByteDance, as a danger to American children and society, according to internal emails shared with The Washington Post.

Targeted Victory needs to “get the message out that while Meta is the current punching bag, TikTok is the real threat especially as a foreign owned app that is #1 in sharing data that young teens are using,” a director for the firm wrote in a February email.

Campaign operatives were also encouraged to use TikTok’s prominence as a way to deflect from Meta’s own privacy and antitrust concerns.

“Bonus point if we can fit this into a broader message that the current bills/proposals aren’t where [state attorneys general] or members of Congress should be focused,” a Targeted Victory staffer wrote.

The emails, which have not been previously reported, show the extent to which Meta and its partners will use opposition-research tactics on the Chinese-owned, multibillion-dollar rival that has become one of the most downloaded apps in the world, often outranking even Meta’s popular Facebook and Instagram apps. In an internal report last year leaked by the whistleblower Frances Haugen, Facebook researchers said teens were spending “2-3X more time” on TikTok than Instagram, and that Facebook’s popularity among young people had plummeted.

So, because Facebook was losing teens to TikTok, Facebook decided to use very underhanded tactics to fight back rather than improve their product so that it would be more appealing to teens. That illustrates what sort of company Facebook is. It also underlines why people should #DeleteFacebook. Clearly they are not any sort of company that has ethics, decency, or any sort of moral compass. Though at this point, everyone should know that.

I have to admit that I am baffled by this one. Sky News is reporting this:

Facebook and Instagram posts calling for Vladimir Putin’s death – and violence against Russian soldiers – are going to be temporarily allowed in some countries, according to Reuters.

Meta, which owns both social networks, has reportedly sent emails to moderators that explain the company is making “allowances for forms of political expression that would normally violate our rules”.

The encouragement of violence against Russian civilians will continue to be prohibited – and posts calling for the president’s death will be deleted if they contain other targets or discuss a location or method.

Rules have also been relaxed surrounding posts about Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

The temporary policy only applies to users in Armenia, Azerbaijan, Estonia, Georgia, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, Romania, Russia, Slovakia and Ukraine, according to the news agency’s report.

And to further go down the rabbit hole, there’s this:

An email seen by Reuters told moderators: “We are issuing a spirit-of-the-policy allowance to allow T1 violent speech that would otherwise be removed under the Hate Speech policy when: (a) targeting Russian soldiers, EXCEPT prisoners of war, or (b) targeting Russians where it’s clear that the context is the Russian invasion of Ukraine (e.g., content mentions the invasion, self-defence, etc.)”

Not that I want to defend Putin. But if I put up a post on this blog calling for the death of US President Joe Biden, I am certain that some US law enforcement agency would be on my doorstep looking for me by the end of the day. In other words, while rules cannot be absolute, this doesn’t seem right to me. Even if its application is limited in scope as is the case here. And I have to wonder if this policy will do more harm than good. Because everything that Facebook does does more harm than good.

I guess we’ll see.

Facebook appears to be in trouble again. It appears that Pro Russia rebels are using Facebook to spread propaganda and recruit people. And what makes this worse is the fact that one of the main people behind this is on the US sanctions list:

In the days after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, Aleksandr Zaldostanov, the leader of a pro-Putin biker club gang, the Night Wolves, turned to Facebook to disparage the Ukrainian president and push falsehoods about the war. 

“Ukraine is a torn off piece of Russia, which is shrinking in pain and bleeding still,” he posted on March 1 to more than 18,000 followers. “Russia did not start a war now!!!! Those who divided us started it!” 

A former physician known by his nickname, “the Surgeon,” Zaldostanov has been on the U.S. government sanctions list since 2014, amid allegations he helped Russian troops confiscate weapons during the country’s invasion of Crimea. 

The sanctions block Zaldostanov’s assets and generally prohibit U.S. citizens from “dealing” with him, but on Facebook he maintains a very active account, posting frequent support of Russia since the invasion.

That’s bad enough. But it gets worse if you’re Facebook:

The host of sanctioned entities and individuals who, like Zaldostanov, maintain a robust Facebook and Instagram presence is the subject of a pair of new whistleblower complaints, filed in December and February, arguing that Facebook parent company Meta engaged in “reckless or willful” violations of U.S. sanctions law by permitting the accounts, according to redacted copies reviewed exclusively by The Washington Post.

The existence of these accounts, the filings allege, allowed the users to cultivate global legitimacy and spread Russian propaganda. The complaints identify other posts appearing to recruit fighters and solicit funds to back pro-Russian separatists, which some legal experts suggest could violate U.S. sanctions laws, as well as Facebook’s rules. One post from a pro-Russian rebel called for volunteers with experience “in combat and armed conflicts.” Another video sought donations for separatist forces to pay for “equipment for soldiers on the front.” (The Post independently viewed this content on Facebook Tuesday.) 

Facebook really has some explaining to do here as this is really, really bad. And I hope it explains everything in front of a Congressional hearing. Or better yet in court. Because it’s beyond time that Facebook gets punished for all the trouble that it causes in places like Myanmar and now in the Russia/Ukraine conflict. Or you can just hand out your own punishment to Facebook by deleting them out of your lives.

Facebook, Meta, or whatever they’re called these days has hit a new low. It now seems that the company is yet again all but helping groups to commit genocide by doing nothing to stop groups from inciting ethnic massacres in Ethiopia’s escalating war:

Analysis by the Bureau of Investigative Journalism (TBIJ) and the Observer found Facebook is still letting users post content inciting violence through hate and misinformation. This is despite being aware it helps directly fuel tensions, prompting claims of inaction and indifference against the social media giant. The investigation tracked down relatives who have linked Facebook posts to the killings of loved ones. One senior member of Ethiopia’s media accused the firm of “standing by and watching the country fall apart.” The accusations arrive amid intensifying focus on Facebook’s content moderation decisions, with it previously being accused of playing a role in the ethnic persecution of the Rohingya in Myanmar.

If this isn’t a reason to #DeleteFacebook, I don’t know what is. The fact is that this shows that Facebook puts profit above all else and clearly doesn’t care if their platform is used to kill people. And the fact that this is the second time that this has come to light (with Myanmar being the first) is highly problematic. At this point this company seriously needs to be put out of business as clearly they have no positive value to society.