SoylentNews is people
SoylentNews
from the these-are-not-the-data-you're-looking-for dept.
Submitted via IRC for SoyCow0245
A data set of more than 3 million Facebook users and a variety of their personal details collected by Cambridge researchers was available for anyone to download for some four years, New Scientist reports. It's likely only one of many places where such huge sets of personal data collected during a period of permissive Facebook access terms have been obtainable.
The data were collected as part of a personality test, myPersonality, which, according to its own wiki (now taken down), was operational from 2007 to 2012, but new data was added as late as August of 2016. It started as a side project by the Cambridge Psychometrics Centre's David Stillwell (now deputy director there), but graduated to a more organized research effort later. The project "has close academic links," the site explains, "however, it is a standalone business." (Presumably for liability purposes; the group never charged for access to the data.)
Though "Cambridge" is in the name, there's no real connection to Cambridge Analytica, just a very tenuous one through Aleksandr Kogan, which is explained below.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by Snotnose on Saturday May 19 2018, @02:07AM
I don't have a FB account. In the beginning it was, as the illustrious Ms White said, "a waste of time". Then it morphed into this huge privacy violator. Don't have a FB account? Doesn't matter, they hoover up all the info from your friends and acquaintances.
Now I find out my personal info, which I carefully guard, may have been used without my knowledge. Quite frankly, this is one of the few cases where I care that the lawyers get millions and I get a coupon for 1 year of FB for free.
When the dust settled America realized it was saved by a porn star.