Vox - The Cambridge Analytica scandal puts Facebook under scrutinyhttps://cdn.vox-cdn.com/community_logos/52517/voxv.png2018-12-20T12:44:00-05:00http://www.vox.com/rss/stream/169165192018-12-20T12:44:00-05:002018-12-20T12:44:00-05:00A guide to the Cambridge Analytica Facebook scandal
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<p>A Trump campaign–connected firm harvested personal data from tens of millions of Facebook users, bringing up big questions about cybersecurity, big data, and privacy. Catch up on the controversy.</p> <p id="GgZcQX"></p>
https://www.vox.com/2018/4/10/17207394/cambridge-analytica-facebook-zuckerberg-trump-privacy-scandalVox Staff2018-12-20T12:36:40-05:002018-12-20T12:36:40-05:00How Facebook made it impossible to delete Facebook
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<p>We’ve adapted our entire culture around Facebook. That makes “just quitting” easier said than done.</p> <p id="ub6F7R">Amid staggering <a href="https://www.vox.com/2018/12/19/18148136/facebook-privacy-violations-nyt-netflix-spotify-amazon-yahoo">new reports</a> of Facebook both <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2018/dec/19/facebook-users-avoid-location-based-ads-settings-investigation-reveals">intentionally sharing</a> and <a href="https://www.theverge.com/2018/12/14/18140771/facebook-photo-exposure-leak-bug-millions-users-disclosed">unintentionally leaking</a> the private information of its users, questions about how much regulation and oversight Facebook needs are once again surfacing — and many users are feeling the urge to quit the platform altogether.</p>
<p id="aCmZuw">To say Facebook has had a rough time of it lately would be <a href="https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/ryanmac/literally-just-a-big-list-of-facebooks-2018-scandals">putting it mildly</a>. Between its <a href="https://www.vox.com/technology/2018/12/17/18144946/senate-report-russia-facebook-twitter-google">inconclusive efforts</a> to tackle <a href="https://www.vox.com/identities/2018/4/10/17219676/facebook-black-lives-matter-page-fake">Russian bots</a> and other forms of <a href="https://www.vox.com/2018/7/31/17635592/facebook-elections-russia-2018-midterms">political manipulation</a>, its <a href="https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2018/9/12/17848026/facebook-thinkprogress-weekly-standard">ongoing “fake news” woes</a>, its <a href="https://www.vox.com/2018/11/14/18096008/facebook-zuckerberg-data-crisis-denial-antisemitism">controversial politics</a>, its role in <a href="https://www.vox.com/2018/8/27/17786078/un-myanmar-genocide-rohingya-rakhine-state">facilitating hate speech</a> and <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2018/08/21/world/europe/facebook-refugee-attacks-germany.html">exacerbating hate crimes</a>, and its <a href="https://www.vox.com/business-and-finance/2018/12/6/18127980/facebook-uk-documents-emails-mark-zuckerberg">friction</a> with <a href="https://www.vox.com/2018/9/5/17822906/jack-dorsey-sheryl-sandberg-twitter-facebook-capitol-hill">authorities</a> over its many data breaches, the social media giant is caught in a public reckoning that is perhaps long overdue. </p>
<p id="Hs4omK">But Facebook users, in the middle of what seems to be a moment of <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2018/02/20/magazine/the-case-against-google.html">broader</a> <a href="https://medium.com/@jamesbridle/something-is-wrong-on-the-internet-c39c471271d2">cultural</a> <a href="https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2017/09/has-the-smartphone-destroyed-a-generation/534198/">backlash</a> against social media and technology, are also clearly grappling with the ramifications of their use of the platform. </p>
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<p lang="en" dir="ltr">Deleted my <a href="https://twitter.com/facebook?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">@facebook</a> account today. Feels good. A little scary too, which goes to show you how much emotional power the company has. Definitely the right decision though. <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/Facebook?src=hash&ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">#Facebook</a> <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/DeleteFacebook?src=hash&ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">#DeleteFacebook</a></p>— Jacob Dean (@SchadenJake) <a href="https://twitter.com/SchadenJake/status/1074184418317778945?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">December 16, 2018</a>
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<p id="0MypiL">Since 2017’s <a href="https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2017/10/16/15657512/cambridge-analytica-christopher-wylie-facebook-trump-russia">Cambridge Analytica scandal</a> changed the way we talk about Facebook and privacy, several media outlets have <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2018/mar/20/facebook-is-it-time-we-all-deleted-our-accounts">seriously examined the case</a> for <a href="https://www.nydailynews.com/news/national/ny-news-delete-facebook-question-20181219-story.html">users</a> to <a href="https://motherboard.vice.com/en_us/article/a3yz9k/how-to-delete-your-facebook-permanently">delete</a> their <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2017/03/24/technology/delete-facebook-twitter-accounts.html?smid=tw-nytimes&smtyp=cur">Facebook accounts</a>. And while some takes have made policy-focused <a href="https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2018/3/21/17144748/case-against-facebook">arguments against Facebook’s core business model</a>, the emphasis has largely been on <a href="https://slate.com/technology/2018/12/delete-facebook-movement-lessons-on-quitting.html">users making up their minds</a> about how to interact with the platform on an individual level.</p>
<p id="a9BDAm">However, the growing pressure that many people feel to abandon Facebook altogether fails to take into account both Facebook’s position in modern society and the stakes involved for anyone who chooses to leave a network that has spent more than a decade trying to make leaving it impossible. </p>
<p id="m7uv8O">At this point, despite the enduring popularity of the <a href="https://twitter.com/search?q=%23DeleteFacebook&src=tyah">#DeleteFacebook</a> hashtag, “Why don’t you just delete Facebook” is the internet’s equivalent of <a href="https://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/why-people-dont-leave-hurricanes_us_59b04a2ce4b0dfaafcf50619">asking</a>, “Why didn’t they just leave before the hurricane came?” — because it vastly misrepresents how embedded Facebook is at every cultural turn most of us take, and deflects social responsibility away from Facebook onto the users who have been directly impacted by the company’s lack of accountability. </p>
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<p lang="en" dir="ltr">I’ve struggled with this so hard. The other reality, for those of us without huge platforms, FBook and Twitter is also how we engage an audience. Our follows on those platforms are what publishers now use to decide to publish our work or not. <a href="https://t.co/UxWUEBuO0d">https://t.co/UxWUEBuO0d</a></p>— Tesi Klipsch (@Tesiklipsch) <a href="https://twitter.com/Tesiklipsch/status/1075757905847222272?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">December 20, 2018</a>
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<p id="MpceZi">There are three main reasons that most people can’t just up and leave Facebook, and they all serve to illustrate the extent to which Facebook has altered the landscape of our digital lives. Let’s break them down.</p>
<h3 id="AZSmtk">1) Facebook is technologically embedded within a vast web of interconnected third-party apps and social media platforms </h3>
<p id="Fua6XA">You’ve probably heard occasional quips that Twitter humor largely consists of jokes made on Tumblr being shared as screenshots on Facebook, but within this joke is a larger point about how all of our social media platforms interconnect and interact. The web is made up of third-party apps and systems, many of which rely on being fully integrated with your personal Google or Facebook account. </p>
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<p lang="en" dir="ltr">I admire the <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/DeleteFacebook?src=hash&ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">#DeleteFacebook</a> impulse. But it takes so much coordination and scale to work, and most users are not American. And it also owns WhatsApp and Instagram.<br><br>It’s too much to take on as consumers.<br><br>This is why we have governments.</p>— Anand Giridharadas (@AnandWrites) <a href="https://twitter.com/AnandWrites/status/1075375391806754820?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">December 19, 2018</a>
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<p id="58oLxR">In fact, many mobile and web-based apps actually <a href="https://www.quora.com/What-are-the-risks-of-using-only-Facebook-login-for-your-website">require<em> </em>you</a> to have a Facebook account — and will accept only a Facebook account — before you can sign up for the app to begin with. Over the years, consumers and other developers have <a href="https://readwrite.com/2014/05/27/facebook-login-required-apps-lyft-barkbuddy/">pushed</a> <a href="https://www.theverge.com/2017/6/5/15743010/apple-ios-11-wwdc-2017-facebook-twitter-social-accounts-login">back</a> against this trend, but the truth remains that if you delete your Facebook account, you could immediately lose access to some parts of the internet. </p>
<p id="wD2ZL6">For example, up until very recently, <a href="https://www.elitedaily.com/dating/can-you-use-tinder-without-facebook/2057394">you were required to have a Facebook account</a> to use Tinder, so the majority of Tinder’s <a href="https://mobile.nytimes.com/2014/10/30/fashion/tinder-the-fast-growing-dating-app-taps-an-age-old-truth.html?referrer=&_r=0">50 million users</a> are signing in through Facebook. For those users, deleting Facebook would mean losing access to the app completely, along with all of their Tinder connections. And many other dating apps <a href="https://mashable.com/2018/03/21/delete-facebook-dating-apps/#Zf3NhKnwvaqO">still require you to have Facebook</a> in order to create accounts. If you don’t realize that<em> </em>before you delete Facebook, you could be totally cut off from anyone you may have met through these apps.</p>
<p id="ZIN54l">Additionally, you could find yourself having to laboriously create new accounts for any number of apps that you’ve been logging in to all this time using Facebook — anything from Spotify to Airbnb to Patreon, ride-hailing services like Lyft, online retailers, and more. Not only is this obnoxious, but you could also lose access to important content and information saved in your original accounts in the process.</p>
<p id="HsZpb8">And even if you don’t particularly care which apps your Facebook account is linked to, there are <a href="https://www.fastcompany.com/3044280/the-ghosts-of-app-permissions-past">several core problems</a> with this trend — problems that apply equally to Google, which arguably shares much of the internet’s infrastructure with Facebook. The biggest of these problems is that when you create an infrastructure that assumes everyone is relying on only one or two major platforms for their daily internet use, you create an internet where using only those one or two major platforms becomes a tacit requirement.</p>
<p id="di7XgW">And for many, using Facebook is also a literal and direct requirement.</p>
<h3 id="SDM6hN">2) For many people, using Facebook regularly is a required part of their job or education</h3>
<p id="GNm4rU">When I quit Facebook, I assumed it would be for good, but I was wrong. About 18 months after I attempted to leave it, I was ordered back on — by a previous employer in the media who insisted that all of its reporters be on Facebook. </p>
<p id="7KzVXh">The question of whether journalists are able to do their jobs without Facebook notwithstanding, in a fully digital society, there is a vast and increasing number of jobs that this stipulation applies to: marketers, web developers, social media managers, publicists, anyone wishing to effectively promote personal or professional projects, and so on. I can’t count the number of times I’ve sat in panels on writing or other artistic pursuits and heard panelists dictate that anyone wanting to be taken seriously or promote their work <em>must</em> be on Facebook.</p>
<p id="bZOgGQ">The <a href="https://www.pcworld.com/article/240258/how_to_make_a_facebook_page_for_your_small_business.html">pressure</a> to <a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/jaysondemers/2015/06/26/top-10-reasons-your-brand-needs-to-be-on-facebook/#9ffb3d453109">be on or use</a> <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2016/oct/10/workplace-by-facebook-office-communication-slack">Facebook</a> in order to <a href="https://www.socialmediatoday.com/social-networks/2015-04-08/13-ways-use-facebook-personal-branding">self-promote</a>, <a href="https://getmxt.com/facebook-reach">distribute information</a>, and <a href="https://www.digitalmusicnews.com/2018/02/15/facebook-dramatically-increase/">do one’s job effectively</a> is so pervasive that most of us probably don’t even really think of it as pressure to conform. Of course businesses and anyone with a personal brand has to be on Facebook. Don’t they? </p>
<p id="fd4YIn">We’re used to the idea of businesses, self-promoters, and “branded” individuals needing and using Facebook, but this pressure <a href="https://www.enrollmentcatalyst.com/2011/02/16/you-your-school-and-facebook/">also applies to schools</a>. In 2012, Facebook <a href="https://newsroom.fb.com/news/2012/04/introducing-groups-for-schools/">launched</a> Facebook Groups specifically tailored to schools — creating a “<a href="https://gizmodo.com/5901221/groups-for-schools-brings">walled garden</a>” that students frequently use to promote school spirit and <a href="http://college.usatoday.com/2017/06/06/its-not-just-harvard-heres-a-look-inside-college-meme-culture/">create next-level internet memes</a>. </p>
<p id="ew6G2N">Collective use of the platform by schools and other educational groups means that, just as with third-party app developers, some organizations still <a href="https://www.freeforestschool.org/free-forest-school-find/">require you</a> to have a Facebook account in order to access their information and services. Facebook itself has <a href="https://www.the74million.org/article/how-arkansas-is-teaming-up-with-teachers-facebook-other-tech-titans-to-rethink-computer-science-education/">made</a> <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2016/08/10/technology/facebook-helps-develop-software-that-puts-students-in-charge-of-their-lesson-plans.html">inroads</a> into developing technology specifically for school use. Students prepping for college are warned that universities <a href="https://www.usnews.com/education/best-colleges/articles/2017-02-10/colleges-really-are-looking-at-your-social-media-accounts">will be watching their social media accounts</a> in order to spot excellent community behavior and social media usage, as well as to pinpoint any red flags. </p>
<p id="5kKmXi">All of this reliance on Facebook once again strengthens the assumption that everyone is already on Facebook — which in turn marginalizes anyone who’s <em>not</em> on Facebook, making it harder for anyone not using the platform to access the same degree of communication and information sharing. That’s vital for any job or education system where Facebook is involved. But it’s also vital where social communities are concerned.</p>
<h3 id="mLzJQu">3) Facebook is, for better and worse, a tangible tie that connects many people to their communities</h3>
<p id="weyRT4">This final issue with deleting Facebook is the hardest to quantify, but one that’s fundamentally true for most of us: If you delete you Facebook account, you lose touch in ways that have subtle but tangible emotional repercussions. Your aging Great-Aunt Sally will fret because she has one less way to keep track of you, your high school English teacher will be mad because you never write on his Facebook wall anymore, and your friend will be annoyed because you can no longer see the drama happening with his girlfriend’s ex. You’ll be annoyed because your other friend issued a general Facebook invite to her birthday party and you missed it. </p>
<p id="5EKDJB">And while the infuriating barrage of polarizing opinions that make Facebook so difficult for many of us to deal with will disappear, so will connections to people you didn’t realize you wanted to keep in touch with until you moved on.</p>
<p id="ceYfOH">For many, this complicated web of emotional stakes only exists on Facebook, because Facebook is the only social platform on the web where who we are now, in adulthood, converges with the past life we had as a teen or a college student. </p>
<p id="mGGvrZ">On Facebook, the many friend networks we’ve made along our paths through life converge, creating a unique kind of emotional infrastructure that’s impossible for some people to fully separate from, because it means cutting off their only remaining ties to parts of their pasts, or to previous places they have lived, or even to some family members and friends. To many of the Facebook users you leave behind, walking away from Facebook will send a message that you don’t want to cultivate ties with them — because for many people, Facebook is the only place those ties can be cultivated. </p>
<p id="hh0gPr">It’s true that the majority of Americans still rely on phone calls as the first method of staying in touch with friends and family. But <a href="http://www.pewsocialtrends.org/2015/05/21/6-keeping-in-touch-across-generations/">more than 20 percent of US adults</a> told Pew researchers in a 2015 survey that they also rely heavily on Facebook and other social media platforms, a number that’s probably only grown in the years since. Facebook makes it increasingly easy to substitute virtual communication for physical interaction, and we have adapted to this switch as a culture. </p>
<p id="s4Hqmn">That means there’s cultural and social pressure to stay active on the platforms that people are most likely to use to find you — for example, when, disaster strikes and you can use Facebook to <a href="https://www.facebook.com/help/516656825135759?helpref=faq_content">mark yourself safe</a>. Then there’s the use of Facebook as a kind of digital scrapbook, to preserve life events, shared moments, and memories. Sure, it’s a cliché — but it’s also real, and it is yet one more tie binding people to the site.</p>
<p id="jxIMFc">These are real reasons not to walk away from Facebook, and they’re also telling ones: They reflect the uncomfortable truth that while the internet may have expanded our virtual communities, it has also created fragmented echoes of our physical communities. Facebook has changed how we interact with our pasts, and how we interact with the places and people we call home.</p>
<p id="4HnBiy">So despite the increased calls to quit Facebook, it’s okay if you don’t feel like you can afford to do so — whether it’s for personal or professional reasons, or just because you don’t want to have to create a whole new Spotify account because <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/spotify-requires-users-to-have-facebook-accounts-2011-9">in 2011 you could only sign up for Spotify using Facebook</a> and now you have 800 playlists memorializing your last breakup that you can’t bear to lose. All of those feelings are valid, and they illustrate why<strong> </strong>the onus should never have been on individual consumers to walk away from a platform that has monopolized so much of their internet infrastructure while giving them so little in return. </p>
<p id="v06tSd">Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg has <a href="https://www.facebook.com/zuck/posts/10104712037900071">acknowledged this much</a> in public statements regarding the Cambridge Analytica data breach — but what needs far more acknowledgment is that Facebook has far outstripped the moniker of “social media.” If we think about the internet as a global system, then Facebook is a global world power, and it’s high time we acknowledge that with global power comes monumental social responsibility.</p>
<p id="FhlzNd">A positive and productive response to Facebook’s problems should include major global leadership and oversight, and direct government regulation — as well as increased self-scrutiny and <a href="https://www.vox.com/technology/2018/11/19/18099011/mark-zuckerberg-facebook-stock-nyt-wsj">accountability</a> from Facebook itself. </p>
<p id="2E9H4d">It should not, however, require you to delete Facebook.</p>
https://www.vox.com/culture/2018/3/22/17146776/delete-facebook-how-to-quit-difficultAja Romano2018-12-17T08:10:05-05:002018-12-17T08:10:05-05:00How Facebook’s scandals are hurting Sheryl Sandberg’s Lean In brand
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<p>Facebook helped make Sheryl Sandberg a women’s empowerment icon. Now it’s damaging her credibility.</p> <p id="LpvEbC">Even before her book <em>Lean In</em> was published in 2013, Sheryl Sandberg had become synonymous with a particular brand of female empowerment. </p>
<p id="OIP7l0">Sandberg’s message, set forth in a <a href="https://barnard.edu/headlines/transcript-and-video-speech-sheryl-sandberg-chief-operating-officer-facebook">commencement speech at Barnard College in 2011</a> and fleshed out more fully in<em> Lean In,</em> was simple but ambitious: Women should pursue their professional goals without hesitation or apology. By overcoming internalized sexism and a lack of confidence, they could rise to the top of their fields, and they could bring other women up with them. If enough women leaned in, they might be able to forge not just better careers for themselves but a more just society.</p>
<p id="c2Gsbw">“True equality is long overdue and will be achieved only when more women rise to the top of every government and every industry,” wrote Sandberg, who has been the chief operating officer of Facebook since 2008.</p>
<p id="ftNXMk">Sandberg had a public profile before Facebook, having served as an executive at Google and as chief of staff to Treasury Secretary Larry Summers. But her role at Facebook was crucial to the book’s message — she presents taking the job as CEO Mark Zuckerberg’s second in command as the kind of risk that women should embrace as they move their careers forward. And <em>Lean In</em> would not have gotten the kind of coverage it received had it not been written by the female COO of one of the most powerful tech companies in the world.</p>
<p id="dROASd">But if Facebook was crucial to Sandberg’s ascension as an advocate for women’s empowerment, today her role in the company has significantly tarnished her brand. Questions are swirling about <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2018/11/22/business/on-thanksgiving-eve-facebook-acknowledges-details-of-times-investigation.html?module=inline">how much Sandberg knew</a>, or should have known, about Facebook’s efforts to counteract criticism over <a href="https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2018/3/23/17151916/facebook-cambridge-analytica-trump-diagram">political propaganda</a> on its platform, especially amid revelations that an opposition research firm that<strong> </strong><a href="https://www.vox.com/2018/11/16/18098728/facebook-anti-semitism-george-soros-definers-nyt">promulgated anti-Semitic conspiracy theories</a> was hired on her watch. All this comes on the heels of news of <a href="https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2018/3/23/17151916/facebook-cambridge-analytica-trump-diagram">Facebook’s privacy failures</a>, the role of propaganda posts in <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2018/10/15/technology/myanmar-facebook-genocide.html">inciting genocide in Myanmar</a>, and the possibility that Russian troll activity on the platform helped <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/politics/wp/2018/03/22/all-the-ways-trumps-campaign-was-aided-by-facebook-ranked-by-importance/?utm_term=.6a3165b37c7c">influence the 2016 election</a>. </p>
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<p id="SxjRcH">In response to a request for comment on the most recent criticisms, Facebook pointed Vox to previous statements. “It was never anyone’s intention to play into an anti-Semitic narrative against Mr. [George] Soros or anyone else,” Sandberg <a href="https://newsroom.fb.com/news/2018/11/elliot-schrage-on-definers/">said in a Facebook post</a> in November. In a statement to the press later that month, a Facebook spokesperson said that Sandberg “takes full responsibility for any activity that happened on her watch.” </p>
<p id="b1xXxV">And Rachel Thomas, the president of <a href="http://LeanIn.org">LeanIn.org</a>, the nonprofit Sandberg founded in 2013, told Vox in a statement that “Sheryl is a core part of everything Lean In does. With her guidance and support, we push hard for gender equality.”</p>
<p id="o0kwDZ">But in 2013, some critics cautioned that more women following Sandberg’s example might not be a good thing for the country or the world. Now it’s becoming increasingly clear that by leaning in and doing her job at Facebook, Sandberg helped build and protect a company that enabled anti-Semitism, disinformation campaigns, and ethnic cleansing. And while the social media giant<strong> </strong>once provided a platform for Sandberg to launch what she thought of as a social movement, today it’s cast her legitimacy as a leader of women into doubt.</p>
<p id="hOU3X9">Sandberg wrote that <em>Lean In</em> was “sort of a feminist manifesto.” But as sociologist and author Tressie McMillan Cottom put it to Vox, Sandberg’s job at Facebook means “she can’t actually be a feminist. Her role won’t allow her to be a feminist.” Facebook helped create Sandberg’s career as a women’s empowerment guru — and now Facebook might help to destroy it.</p>
<h3 id="0WMXr7">With <em>Lean In</em>, Sandberg positioned herself not just as a career expert but as a social reformer</h3>
<p id="8ZipOO">In <em>Lean In</em>, Sandberg argued that women face both external and internal barriers to success at work. The external barriers included discrimination, sexual harassment, and lack of paid leave and affordable child care. But in addition to facing those obstacles, she wrote, “we hold ourselves back in ways both big and small, by lacking self-confidence, by not raising our hands, and by pulling back when we should be leaning in.” </p>
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<cite>Angelika Warmuth/Picture Alliance via Getty Images</cite>
<figcaption>Sheryl Sandberg’s book <em>Lean In: Women, Work, and the Will to Lead </em>sits on a table at the Zeit Conference in Hamburg, Germany, on April 18, 2013.</figcaption>
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<p id="W47Eln">Sandberg acknowledged the importance of the external obstacles, but she argued that by focusing on the internal ones — the ones they could control — women could gain significant power in the workplace. She advised readers to “sit at the table,” placing themselves front and center at big meetings rather than gravitating to the sidelines; to negotiate for raises (and to “justify their requests” to combat the sexist backlash they might face); and not to “leave before they leave,” bowing out of demanding roles because they planned to have children one day.</p>
<p id="RSi44Y"><em>Lean In</em> was meant as more than a career advice book — Sandberg argued that by leaning in, women could make widespread social change. In the book’s introduction, she mentioned a party at her home for Liberian women’s rights activist and Nobel Peace Prize winner Leymah Gbowee. A guest asked Gbowee how American women could help Liberians, Sandberg said. Gbowee’s answer: “More women in power.”</p>
<p id="7EiiIf">“Leymah and I could not have come from more different backgrounds, and yet we have both arrived at the same conclusion,” Sandberg wrote. “Conditions for all women will improve when there are more women in leadership roles giving strong and powerful voice to their needs and concerns.”</p>
<p id="rEZ2fg">Timed with its release, Sandberg launched a <a href="https://leanin.org/about">nonprofit organization</a>, also called Lean In, aimed in part at helping women around the world start “Lean In circles,” discussion groups where they would support each other’s career goals. </p>
<p id="0uElCE">“Our mission is to create a global community dedicated to encouraging women to lean in to their ambitions,” <a href="https://archive.nytimes.com/www.nytimes.com/interactive/2013/02/22/us/22sandberg-lean-in-documents.html?_r=0">Lean In documents</a> obtained by the New York Times in 2013 read. “The shift to a more equal world will happen with each woman who leans in.”</p>
<h3 id="leBCos">
<em>Lean In</em> was always controversial</h3>
<p id="uNIK2s">From the day it was published,<strong> </strong><em>Lean In</em> was controversial, with many critics arguing that its core message was only applicable to women who were already a lot like Sandberg: white, educated, professional women who would be rewarded for leaning in — and had the resources to weather the fallout if they weren’t. </p>
<p id="wDGpCz">Sandberg’s argument “not only ignores poor and working class women but it also ignores how navigating class constructs is different for black women, even high achieving black women,” wrote <a href="https://tressiemc.wordpress.com/2013/04/01/lean-in-litmus-test-is-this-for-women-who-can-cry-at-work/">Cottom in 2013</a>. “I dare say that Michelle Obama and Oprah Winfrey have a great deal in common with Sandberg but that they also experienced very different kinds of obstacles in attaining elite corporate positions.”</p>
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<cite>Matt McClain for The Washington Post via Getty Images</cite>
<figcaption>Sheryl Sandberg speaks at the Willard InterContinental Washington on March 14, 2013, in Washington, DC.</figcaption>
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<p id="CwFvlY">Meanwhile, some questioned whether more women at the top of corporate America would lead to better conditions for all. “As long as feminists are lauding the ascension of women to boardrooms for equality’s sake and not questioning what happens in those boardrooms, true liberation is a long way off,” <a href="https://www.dissentmagazine.org/article/trickle-down-feminism">Sarah Jaffe wrote in Dissent</a> in 2013.</p>
<p id="bY0eVo">Kate Losse, a former speechwriter for Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg and the author of <a href="https://www.simonandschuster.com/books/The-Boy-Kings/Katherine-Losse/9781451668261">a book about her experiences</a> working at the company, also took issue with the idea that the advice in <em>Lean In</em> was necessarily beneficial for women as a whole. The book “teaches women more about how to serve their companies than it teaches companies about how to be fairer places for women to work,” she <a href="https://www.dissentmagazine.org/online_articles/feminisms-tipping-point-who-wins-from-leaning-in">wrote in Dissent</a>.</p>
<p id="e2z5Ko">Nonetheless, <em>Lean In</em> was popular. It became a <a href="https://www.publishersweekly.com/pw/by-topic/industry-news/publisher-news/article/56475-sandberg-s-lean-in-tops-bestseller-chart.html">best-seller</a>, and Lean In circles sprouted up around the world — today, the organization counts <a href="https://leanin.org/about">40,000 circles in 170 countries</a>. And many women around the country found Sandberg’s tips helpful. </p>
<p id="4Y7IyY">Anna Dapelo-Garcia, a health care administrator in Palo Alto, California, and the founder of Lean In Latinas, told Vox that reading Sandberg’s book gave her confidence and taught her not to be afraid of her own voice.</p>
<p id="ngEHdA">“Can I compare myself to the author? Absolutely not,” Dapelo-Garcia said. “But there were pieces of it that I felt that I could get my head around.” </p>
<p id="y5x2Sg">Meanwhile, many feminists argued that Sandberg’s book had its place, even if it didn’t offer solutions for all the problems facing women in the workplace. “<a href="https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/women">Women</a> face very real barriers, men are given very real unearned benefits, and these are collective social problems,” wrote <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2013/mar/01/sheryl-sandberg-lean-in-has-feminist-ideals">Jill Filipovic at the Guardian</a> in response to criticisms of <em>Lean In</em>. “But on an individual level, we can take steps that both better our own lives and help pave the way for institutional changes.”</p>
<p id="tfdCz7">Controversy notwithstanding, Sandberg became, if not precisely a feminist icon, then certainly an influential figure in debates about women’s empowerment. As <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2018/12/07/technology/lean-in-sheryl-sandberg-problem.html">Nellie Bowles writes at the New York Times</a>, <em>Lean In</em> “took her out of simply being Facebook’s No. 2 and reframed her as a thought leader and, many fans thought, a potential candidate for president.”</p>
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<cite>Drew Angerer/Getty Images</cite>
<figcaption>Sheryl Sandberg (center) listens with Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos (left) and Alphabet Inc. CEO Larry Page (second to left) and then-Vice President-elect Mike Pence as President-elect Donald Trump speaks during a meeting of technology executives at Trump Tower on December 14, 2016, in New York City.</figcaption>
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<p id="VnuvOw">Sandberg’s political future seemed especially bright in the runup to the 2016 election. If Clinton won, as Bowles notes, Sandberg was “widely expected” to join her administration, perhaps as Treasury secretary. Of course, things didn’t turn out that way. </p>
<h3 id="2UGJk7">Facebook’s troubles have called Sandberg’s credibility into question</h3>
<p id="G3HkqC">Soon after President Trump won the 2016 election, <a href="https://www.vox.com/2016/11/16/13626318/viral-fake-news-on-facebook">Facebook was criticized</a> for enabling<strong> </strong>the spread of fake news and misinformation on its platform, which many believed helped Trump’s campaign. It became clear, as <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/politics/wp/2018/03/22/all-the-ways-trumps-campaign-was-aided-by-facebook-ranked-by-importance/?utm_term=.6a3165b37c7c">Philip Bump noted at the Washington Post</a>, that Russian trolls had used Facebook to post memes and comments and organize real-world events, all “aimed at bolstering Trump and sowing dissent.” Then came the revelation that the company had exposed data from as many as 87 million users to <a href="https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2018/3/23/17151916/facebook-cambridge-analytica-trump-diagram">a researcher at the firm Cambridge Analytica</a>, which worked for the Trump campaign. </p>
<p id="vql71j">Facebook, and Sandberg personally, also supported anti-sex trafficking legislation that was almost universally criticized by sex workers, who said it would make “both consensual and nonconsensual sex workers <a href="http://swopbehindbars.org/amnesty-international-policy-to-decriminalize-sex-work/the-difference-between-sex-work-and-sex-trafficking/">less safe</a>,” as <a href="https://www.vox.com/culture/2018/4/13/17172762/fosta-sesta-backpage-230-internet-freedom">Vox’s Aja Romano</a> wrote. Facebook backed the bill in an effort to repair its relationships with members of Congress, sources <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2018/11/14/technology/facebook-data-russia-election-racism.html">told the New York Times</a>.</p>
<p id="H0pLBl">Facebook supported the bill “because the groups and experts that dedicate their lives to fighting trafficking believed this legislation was necessary to prevent this scourge,” a Facebook spokesperson told Vox. </p>
<p id="iFwgDG">The company came under fire for its role elsewhere in the world as well — <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2018/10/15/technology/myanmar-facebook-genocide.html">Paul Mozur reported at the New York Times in October</a> on evidence that members of the military in Myanmar had turned Facebook “into a tool for ethnic cleansing,” posting false stories and hateful comments about the country’s Rohingya minority that may have helped incite “<a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2018/08/25/world/asia/rohingya-myanmar-ethnic-cleansing-anniversary.html?module=inline">murders</a>, <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2018/07/07/world/asia/myanmar-rohingya-rape-refugees-childbirth.html?module=inline">rapes</a> and the largest forced human migration in recent history.”</p>
<p id="eq0C4Q">“As Mark and Sheryl have said, for many years we were too focused on the good our products were designed to do and not focused enough on the ways they could be abused,” a Facebook spokesperson told Vox. “In Myanmar specifically, we didn’t have enough Burmese speakers reviewing content, so we’ve doubled the number of local reviewers there. Our work here is ongoing and will be a major focus for us in 2019.”</p>
<p id="CdJ7jt">Then in November, <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2018/11/14/technology/facebook-data-russia-election-racism.html?action=click&module=Top%20Stories&pgtype=Homepage">the New York Times reported</a> that Facebook had hired the Republican-aligned PR firm Definers Public Affairs, which had promulgated the message that anti-Facebook protests were being backed by billionaire George Soros. </p>
<p id="KG2ZaR">As <a href="https://www.vox.com/2018/11/16/18098728/facebook-anti-semitism-george-soros-definers-nyt">Vox’s Tara Isabella Burton</a> noted, “the idea that activists, and leftist activists in particular, are being bankrolled by Soros, or by Jewish interest groups more widely, is a ubiquitous form of political propaganda.” Zuckerberg and Sandberg are both Jewish, and there’s no suggestion that they personally spread anti-Semitic messages. But by paying a firm that blamed Soros for protest activities, Facebook was essentially supporting a popular anti-Semitic conspiracy theory.</p>
<p id="Ca202b">Sandberg herself was closely implicated in this new scandal. “As evidence accumulated that Facebook’s power could also be exploited to disrupt elections, broadcast viral propaganda and inspire deadly campaigns of hate around the globe, Mr. Zuckerberg and Ms. Sandberg stumbled,” <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2018/11/14/technology/facebook-data-russia-election-racism.html?action=click&module=Top%20Stories&pgtype=Homepage">Sheera Frenkel and a team of other Times reporters</a> wrote. “Bent on growth, the pair ignored warning signs and then sought to conceal them from public view.”</p>
<p id="L1eukE">Sandberg initially said she didn’t know Facebook had hired Definers, but she <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2018/11/22/business/on-thanksgiving-eve-facebook-acknowledges-details-of-times-investigation.html?module=inline">admitted in a Facebook post the day before Thanksgiving</a> that “some of their work was incorporated into materials presented to me,” and that she had “received a small number of emails where Definers was referenced.” </p>
<p id="3GepjL">“I also want to emphasize that it was never anyone’s intention to play into an anti-Semitic narrative against Mr. Soros or anyone else,” Sandberg said in the Facebook post. “Being Jewish is a core part of who I am and our company stands firmly against hate.”</p>
<p id="9Zuldg">Meanwhile, criticism of her role intensified when the <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2018/11/29/technology/george-soros-facebook-sheryl-sandberg.html">Times</a> and <a href="https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/ryanmac/emails-show-sheryl-sandberg-aware-facebooks-definers-george">BuzzFeed News</a> reported that she had asked Facebook’s communications team to look into Soros’s financial interests after he criticized the company publicly in January. Her request — specifically, she was curious about whether Soros was shorting Facebook’s stock — wasn’t necessarily unusual, <a href="https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2018/11/30/18119616/sheryl-sandberg-soros-freedom-from-facebook">Vox’s Emily Stewart</a> notes: “it’s not uncommon for big-name investors to try to talk down or attack companies they’ve shorted.”</p>
<p id="KYv8y1">“Mr. Soros is a prominent investor and we looked into his investments and trading activity related to Facebook,” Facebook said in a statement to press on November 29. “That research was already underway when Sheryl sent an email asking if Mr. Soros had shorted Facebook’s stock.”</p>
<p id="YTuQ78">Still, the news was more bad press for Sandberg at a time when many were already seeing her and Facebook in a negative light. </p>
<p id="UEgCbg">In 2013, Facebook was a powerful perch from which Sandberg could spread her message of women’s empowerment. In 2018, however, her role at Facebook appears to have compromised her status. </p>
<p id="1C7VUP">Criticisms of Sandberg in the press have intensified. “Those feminists who were so quick to embrace Sandberg should now publicly condemn her,” <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2018/nov/17/facebook-sheryl-sandberg-feminism">Jessa Crispin wrote at the Guardian</a> after the Definers news broke. “If feminism wants to claim any interest in the safety and quality of life of women — a demographic that includes those who have become victims in the rise of rightwing terrorists, many of whom organized and were radicalized online — the most visible spokespeople for the movement must distance themselves from a woman who prioritized profits over ethics and her job over countless lives.”</p>
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<cite>Noah Berger/AFP/Getty Images</cite>
<figcaption>A Facebook employee leaves the company’s War Room, the center for handling misinformation and foreign influence on US elections, located at the headquarters in Menlo Park, California, on October 17, 2018.</figcaption>
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<p id="8KYs8a">And, <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2018/12/07/technology/lean-in-sheryl-sandberg-problem.html">Bowles reports at the Times</a>, even some within the Lean In organization seem to be dissociating themselves from Sandberg. “We only ever even mention who Sheryl is to explain why her experience is relevant to women,” one of the leaders of Lean In Atlanta told Bowles. “That’s where it ends to us in terms of the mention of Sheryl.”</p>
<p id="M13PYw">Not everyone feels this way. When I reached out to the Lean In organization for comment on this story, they put me in touch with Kathy Andersen, the executive director of the Women’s Fund Miami-Dade, which helps coordinate Lean In circles in the Miami area. </p>
<p id="bsriP7">Sandberg “is the heart and the soul and the face and the spirit of Lean In,” Andersen said. “She was the seed that started it and she continues to grow it through her presence.”</p>
<p id="f0xYmC">Critical coverage of Facebook only strengthens the work of Lean In, she said, because “it highlights how complex leadership is.”</p>
<p id="v2N9jR">“We don’t seek leadership perfection, we seek leaders who pursue a more perfect world, and that’s what Sheryl has done,” Andersen said. “She pursues social progress and corporate profit and that’s good for everyone.”</p>
<h3 id="Mc2gou">Sandberg tried to start a social movement from inside Facebook. The past five years shows the limits of that approach.</h3>
<p id="FcZayX">From the beginning, Sandberg’s critics questioned whether it was possible for feminist progress and Facebook profits to go hand in hand. In the past few months, revelations about Facebook have thrown those questions into high relief. </p>
<p id="72hMLC">For some, what’s happening at Facebook doesn’t detract from Sandberg’s work with Lean In. “Sheryl never represented herself as the COO of Facebook in any environment that I was in,” said Dapelo-Garcia, the Lean In Latinas founder. “Her interactions with us have been solely on Lean In.”</p>
<p id="e2SDf4">But for others, the two roles are inextricable.</p>
<p id="hyouU3">“Sheryl Sandberg can’t actually be a feminist with the role that she has,” Cottom said, “because her organization is fundamentally going to have to be anti-feminist if it’s going to make money the way it makes money.”</p>
<p id="DKHVDG">To some degree, Sandberg’s role as the author of <em>Lean In</em> and leader of the movement surrounding it has always depended on her role at Facebook. Throughout the book, she uses her career at Facebook as an example of how women can realize their ambitions and become successful.</p>
<p id="klIrS0">In 2008, “other companies were willing to hire me as CEO, but I joined Facebook as COO,” she writes at one point. “I prioritized potential for fast growth and the mission of the company above title.”</p>
<p id="skDZX7">She recounts the episode as a way of showing that “women need to be more open to taking risks in their careers.” </p>
<p id="nemM3D">As an author, Sandberg is chatty and, at times, funny. She has a knack for presenting social science concepts in an accessible way, and as <a href="https://www.vox.com/first-person/2018/12/6/18128838/michelle-obama-lean-in-sheryl-sandberg">Katherine Goldstein noted at Vox</a>, her book is responsible for bringing ideas like “impostor syndrome” into the mainstream of American discourse. But ultimately, her success at Facebook was one of the main selling points of <em>Lean In</em>. If women followed in her footsteps, she argued, they too could be more successful at work, and thereby help change the world for the better.</p>
<p id="hY7Tfn">Five years later, it’s increasingly hard to argue that you can make the world a better place as the COO of Facebook. And while Sandberg is certainly more than her current job, her job has also been at the core of her women’s empowerment message from the beginning.</p>
<p id="8DhRC7">“I believe that if more women lean in, we can change the power structure of our world and expand opportunities for all,” Sandberg wrote in <em>Lean In</em>.</p>
<p id="zLUVF1">In fact, by leaning into her job at Facebook, she became part of the power structure of the world. It may be up to others to change it.</p>
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<figcaption>Sheryl Sandberg speaks during a Safer Internet Day event at Facebook headquarters on February 10, 2015, in Menlo Park, California.</figcaption>
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https://www.vox.com/2018/12/17/18119631/facebook-sheryl-sandberg-lean-in-feminismAnna North2018-11-29T16:00:05-05:002018-11-29T16:00:05-05:00Cambridge Analytica used fashion preferences to target people on Facebook
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<figcaption>An ad for Wrangler, one of the brands Cambridge Analytica used to develop algorithms targeting Facebook users. | Wrangler/Facebook</figcaption>
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<p>The political consulting company determined that Wrangler fans supported Trump while Abercrombie shoppers did not.</p> <p id="PAPVQM">On Thursday, at a <a href="https://www.businessoffashion.com/articles/news-analysis/cambridge-analytica-weaponised-fashion-brands-to-elect-trump-says-christopher-wylie">fashion conference</a> in the UK, Christopher Wylie — the former Cambridge Analytica employee who revealed earlier this year that the political consulting company had <a href="https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2018/3/23/17151916/facebook-cambridge-analytica-trump-diagram">harvested information</a> from 87 million Facebook profiles to influence people on behalf of Donald Trump’s presidential campaign — explained a perhaps surprising area of focus for the company’s data mining effort: fashion choices. </p>
<p id="SkhWj8">When creating the different types of psychographic profiles on social media to determine where to spread pro-Trump messaging, Wylie told audiences at the <a href="https://www.businessoffashion.com/articles/news-analysis/cambridge-analytica-weaponised-fashion-brands-to-elect-trump-says-christopher-wylie">Business of Fashion Voices</a> conference that the consulting firm looked for fashion brands whose history and style seemed to appeal to people who would be susceptive to populist and nationalist messaging, with the belief that style choices had direct correlations to political opinions. </p>
<p id="ayqGfA">”One of the things Cambridge Analytica noticed when pulling the Facebook data was fashion brands were really useful in producing algorithms about how people think and feel,” Wylie said. “Fashion data was used to build AI models to help Steve Bannon build his insurgency and build the alt-right.”</p>
<h3 id="u8oHZU">How Cambridge Analytica used fashion as a weapon</h3>
<p id="9Lxixp">In March, it was revealed that Cambridge Analytica, the firm started by former Trump adviser Steve Bannon and funded by conservative donors Robert and Rebekah Mercer, <a href="https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2018/3/23/17151916/facebook-cambridge-analytica-trump-diagram">harvested massive amounts of data</a> from tens of millions of Facebook users leading up to the 2016 presidential election. That information was then used to target voters with pro-Trump messaging and fake news stories, a tactic that’s <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2018/mar/23/leaked-cambridge-analyticas-blueprint-for-trump-victory">widely been cited</a> as helping Trump win. Facebook claimed that Cambridge Analytica misused its information, but the fact that the firm accessed and distributed Facebook data in such a manipulative and predatory way has contributed to the deep erosion of public trust in Facebook. (Cambridge Analytica announced in March that it was <a href="https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2018/5/2/17312228/cambridge-analytica-facebook-mark-zuckerberg-christopher-wylie-data-breach-privacy-trump-mercers">shutting down</a>.) </p>
<p id="vfEEKF">Cambridge Analytica collected the data via a personality quiz called “thisisyourdigitallife,” created by <a href="https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2018/3/23/17151916/facebook-cambridge-analytica-trump-diagram">Russian researcher Aleksandr Kogan</a>. The quiz exploited <a href="https://www.vox.com/2018/3/20/17138756/facebook-data-breach-cambridge-analytica-explained">a loophole in Facebook’s API that</a> allowed Kogan to harvest the data of the user, as well as that of their Facebook friends. The data included information like people’s birthdays, relationships, religions, locations, work history, subscriptions, and check-ins. The firm also had access to user “likes,” and it analyzed which fashion brands users were interested in.</p>
<p id="a8gYv5">Cambridge Analytica decided to study five personality attributes: openness, conscientiousness, extroversion, agreeableness, and neuroticism, according to Wylie. It then studied how those attributes correlated with preferences for different fashion brands. Cambridge Analytica determined, for example, that a Facebook user who liked typical American heritage brands like Wrangler or LL Bean also often scored low on the “open” metric, and would therefore respond to Trump’s populist anti-immigration and “America First” campaigns.</p>
<p id="VWDFTc">On the flip side, it determined that a European brand like Kenzo would not appeal to a Trump supporter, ideologically. </p>
<p id="s4r7ai">As Wylie points out, user data from Facebook created an entirely new field of targeted messaging — one that was used with dangerous intentions. Cambridge Analytica learned from Facebook data, for example, that not all American brands equal conservative views. Users who liked Abercrombie & Fitch or Macy’s, for example, were actually determined to be liberal, as were readers of <a href="https://www.racked.com/2018/5/2/17307494/vogue-anna-wintour-met-gala">Vogue</a>. Wylie describes the ability to obtain such nitty-gritty results from fashion preferences and use them to drive people’s actions and political views as the tech industry’s ability to “colonize” people. </p>
<p id="gwFkaB">“We are creating informational ghettos,” he said. “We are cognitively segregating our society.”</p>
<h3 id="7SR7yZ">Fashion is an opportune way to understand a social media user — and target them</h3>
<p id="symIiF">As BoF points out, Cambridge Analytica wasn’t investigating fashion brands because of a user’s style. Consumer choice is also linked to political views.</p>
<p id="zlzDhZ">Since Trump began running for office, everything from <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2016/09/21/us/politics/donald-trump-jr-faces-backlash-after-comparing-syrian-refugees-to-skittles-that-can-kill.html">Skittles</a> to <a href="https://www.vox.com/science-and-health/2017/4/20/15272642/trump-drill-oil-gas-national-parks-map">national parks</a> has become politicized, and fashion has been thrown into the mix too. Nordstrom faced mass boycotts for <a href="https://www.racked.com/2016/11/14/13623970/grabyourwallet-trump-boycott">stocking Ivanka Trump’s fashion brand</a>, and then weathered additional boycotts when it decided to <a href="https://www.racked.com/2017/2/2/14485342/nordstrom-ivanka-trump-boycott">drop the troubled label</a> in February 2017 (the first daughter’s label <a href="https://www.vox.com/2018/7/24/17608426/ivanka-trump-fashion-brand-closing">shut down for good earlier</a> this year). When Under Armour CEO <a href="https://www.racked.com/2017/2/7/14540572/under-armour-trump-asset">Kevin Plank praised Trump</a> for being “pro-business,” he faced serious backlash from shoppers as well as UA ambassadors like <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2017/02/08/sports/basketball/stephen-curry-under-armour-donald-trump-warriors.html">Steph Curry</a> and <a href="https://www.racked.com/2017/2/9/14563592/misty-copeland-under-armour-ceo-trump-comments">Misty Copeland</a>. </p>
<p id="i5NpGx">Sometimes brands explicitly send political messages. Nike’s ad campaign with Colin Kaepernick, for example, meant the sporting goods giant was taking a stand in the debate over NFL players’ right to kneel during the national anthem. (While it faced <a href="https://www.vox.com/2018/9/13/17856058/nike-ban-kaepernick-kenner-louisiana-tennessee-state-schools-christian-colleges">some backlash</a>, the campaign was overall a <a href="https://www.vox.com/2018/9/4/17818222/nike-colin-kaepernick-ad">huge win for Nike</a>.) Patagonia, too, is one of fashion’s most activism-friendly labels and has made fighting Trump <a href="https://www.outsideonline.com/2201581/big-business-resist">a huge part of its branding</a>. </p>
<p id="tPNK2Q">But fashion brands’ implicit messaging is also important. Wrangler is an American manufacturer of denim that also makes Western apparel. While its parent company VF Corp also owns North Face, which was one of the outdoor brands to <a href="https://www.adweek.com/brand-marketing/patagonia-is-suing-the-white-house-as-companies-like-north-face-and-rei-take-a-stand-for-public-land/">speak out against Trump</a> after the president’s declaration to decrease the size of the Bears Ears and Grand Staircase national monuments, Cambridge Analytica found that Wrangler wearers skewed conservative and liked “orderliness,” labeling them as susceptible to pro-Trump propaganda. </p>
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<cite>Shay Horse/Getty Images</cite>
<figcaption>Alt-right demonstrators encircle counter-protestors at the base of a statue of Thomas Jefferson in Charlottesville on August 11, 2017.</figcaption>
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<p id="gd6tzR">Clothing also helps wearers determine self-expression, and specific brands and images become important to the alt-right. Last summer, for example, the mob of demonstrators at the “Unite the Right” rally in Charlottesville chose the prep look of <a href="https://www.racked.com/2017/8/16/16157838/charlottesville-white-supremacists-polo-shirts-jews">white polo shirts and khaki pants</a> — a look that was chosen deliberately to represent polished normalcy, even though it co-opted a <a href="https://www.racked.com/2017/8/16/16157838/charlottesville-white-supremacists-polo-shirts-jews">look created by Jews</a>. <a href="https://theoutline.com/post/1760/fred-perry-polo-skinheads?zd=1&zi=bovurzur">Fred Perry</a> polos and <a href="https://www.telegraph.co.uk/men/fashion-and-style/11034834/Being-a-skinhead-was-about-sharing-a-sense-of-style.html">Ben Sherman</a> “Bennies” button-downs have also both been historical fashion choices of white supremacists because of their <a href="https://theoutline.com/post/1760/fred-perry-polo-skinheads?zd=1&zi=bovurzur">associations with the British upper class</a>.</p>
<p id="to78bi">Cambridge Analytica’s targeting of people based on fashion choices is yet another example of how tech companies can use the enormous amounts of data they collect about us to their own ends — and perhaps to our disadvantage. It also presents another potential problem, Wylie suggested, in that fashion companies could use their branding identities to steer opinions in a certain political direction.</p>
<p id="5rrwCQ">We’ve seen this in how Facebook ad-targeting delivers the <a href="https://www.vox.com/the-goods/2018/9/25/17887796/facebook-ad-targeted-algorithm">precise type of products</a> you’d buy, or <a href="https://www.racked.com/2017/5/31/15666062/online-ad-repeats">have already bought</a>. This type of data usage is expected in advertising; it’s what credit card data mining companies have been doing for decades. But when it comes to privacy, democracy, and national sovereignty, it’s an example of how something as seemingly anodyne as fashion data can be used in ugly ways. </p>
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https://www.vox.com/the-goods/2018/11/29/18118330/cambridge-analytica-facebook-data-scandal-fashionChavie Lieber2018-09-05T14:30:43-04:002018-09-05T14:30:43-04:00Watch: Alex Jones and Marco Rubio nearly come to blows in the Senate hallway
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<img alt="Alex Jones of InfoWars live streams on his phone during a Senate Intelligence Committee hearing concerning foreign influence operations’ use of social media platforms, on Capitol Hill, September 5, 2018 in Washington, DC.&nbsp;" src="https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/JnhnQew2CuDGuyJZsSF55_cphk4=/283x0:4796x3385/1310x983/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_image/image/61149965/1027071068.jpg.0.jpg" />
<figcaption>Alex Jones of Infowars at a Senate Intelligence Committee hearing concerning foreign influence operations’ use of social media platforms, on Capitol Hill, September 5, 2018, in Washington, DC. | Drew Angerer/Getty Images</figcaption>
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<p>Jones called Rubio a “frat boy” and a “snake.” Rubio told him, “I’ll take care of you myself.”</p> <p id="eXUCsp">Florida Republican Sen. Marco Rubio and conspiracy theorist <a href="https://www.vox.com/2018/9/5/17822802/alex-jones-loomer-johnson-alt-right-twitter-facebook">Alex Jones</a> had a tense exchange in the Senate hallway during a break of the Senate Intelligence Committee’s hearing with Facebook and Twitter leaders on Wednesday. Jones, who sat in on the hearing, crashed a scrum Rubio was holding with reporters, and the pair nearly came to blows. </p>
<p id="ZA6QbK">Jones, an alt-right figure with a broad reach online, has complained that social media sites have censored him after multiple platforms, including <a href="https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2018/8/6/17655516/infowars-ban-apple-youtube-facebook-spotify">Facebook, YouTube</a>, and <a href="https://www.vox.com/culture/2018/8/15/17692428/twitter-suspends-alex-jones-infowars">Twitter</a>, banned or removed his content. He attended Wednesday’s hearing, he said, to “<a href="https://www.infowars.com/alex-jones-in-dc-to-face-his-accusers-at-social-media-censorship-hearings/">face his accusers</a>,” and during the break he approached Rubio while the senator was addressing reporters and broke into Rubio’s comments repeatedly. </p>
<p id="5qL7aP">Jones <a href="https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2018/8/18/17749450/trump-twitter-bias-alex-jones-infowars">pushed</a> the senator to address concerns that conservative and far-right voices are being silenced online. At first, Rubio tried to ignore Jones and talked over him. Jones called him a “frat boy” and a “snake.” Jones also plugged his website, Infowars.com.</p>
<p id="HrjsIC">Rubio laughed him off, saying he didn’t know who Jones was — until Jones made physical contact, apparently touching him on the shoulder.</p>
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<blockquote class="twitter-tweet">
<p lang="en" dir="ltr">Heated exchange between Rubio and Alex Jones in the Senate hallway — Jones crashes a Rubio interview and touches Rubio's shoulder. Rubio tells Jones not touch him again, says he'll "take care of you myself" rather than calling the police.</p>— Will Sommer (@willsommer) <a href="https://twitter.com/willsommer/status/1037357761716264960?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">September 5, 2018</a>
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<p id="e7QLBU">“Don’t touch me again, man. I’m asking you not to touch me,” Rubio said. </p>
<p id="Dzp45I">“Well, sure, I just patted you nicely,” Jones said.</p>
<p id="oNIIOv">“I know, but I don’t want to be touched,” Rubio said. “I don’t know who you are.”</p>
<p id="wNE9kp">Jones talked over him, saying he wanted him to be arrested, and Rubio said he didn’t know who Jones was.</p>
<p id="HUGkeZ">“You’re not going to get arrested, man. You’re not going to get arrested; I’ll take care of you myself,” Rubio said. </p>
<p id="lex657">Jones, surprised, looked at reporters and said, “Oh, he’ll beat me up.” He told Rubio he wasn’t “going to silence me” and called him “a little gangster thug.”</p>
<p id="xzkeUM">Cassandra Fairbanks, another far-right personality, captured the exchange on Periscope, the streaming service Twitter owns.</p>
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<p lang="en" dir="ltr">Wow, this video. Alex JONES calls RUBIO a "frat boy" and touches Rubio on the shoulder. Rubio tells Jones not to touch him and that he won't be arrested because I'll "take care of you myself."<a href="https://t.co/AGRMrDBMGa">https://t.co/AGRMrDBMGa</a></p>— Kyle Cheney (@kyledcheney) <a href="https://twitter.com/kyledcheney/status/1037360938595311616?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">September 5, 2018</a>
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<p id="wYOOOY">It was a bizarre moment, but also a symbolic one: Rubio is a “reform conservative” who’s perpetually trying to change the subject from President Donald Trump to talk about policy. Jones is a far-right conspiracy theorist whose show hosted Trump during his campaign for the Republican nomination. But the contrast between the two styles on the right usually doesn’t almost come to blows.</p>
<p id="5vbrZb">Jones, fellow far-right activist Laura Loomer, and internet troll Chuck Johnson <a href="https://www.vox.com/2018/9/5/17822802/alex-jones-loomer-johnson-alt-right-twitter-facebook">all attended the hearing</a>, which featured Facebook COO Sheryl Sandberg and Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey, apparently in an attempt to draw attention to themselves and the fact that they’ve been banned from social media platforms for violating their rules. (Vox’s Jane Coaston has a complete explainer on <a href="https://www.vox.com/2018/8/6/17655658/alex-jones-facebook-youtube-conspiracy-theories">Jones being banned from tech platforms</a>.)</p>
<p id="7WreZJ">Inside the hearing, their behavior was tame; outside, as Jones’s exchange with Rubio shows, not so much.</p>
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<p lang="en" dir="ltr">Today is historic. I am inside the Senate building on Capitol Hill with <a href="https://twitter.com/RealAlexJones?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">@RealAlexJones</a> for the Social media hearings. Together we stand against big tech censorship. Today we stand for the Silent Majority! You can’t bully us <a href="https://twitter.com/jack?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">@jack</a> <a href="https://twitter.com/facebook?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">@facebook</a>! <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/StopTheBias?src=hash&ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">#StopTheBias</a> <a href="https://t.co/uga6IdHmZe">pic.twitter.com/uga6IdHmZe</a></p>— Laura Loomer (@LauraLoomer) <a href="https://twitter.com/LauraLoomer/status/1037361984021385218?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">September 5, 2018</a>
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<p id="1AgccE">Rubio later <a href="https://twitter.com/alexanderbolton/status/1037397814530265088">described the experience</a>, saying he saw “some scrubby guy walk up to me” and start “acting all crazy.” He said he knew of Jones, just not what he looked like.</p>
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<blockquote class="twitter-tweet">
<p lang="en" dir="ltr">Sen. Marco Rubio describes being heckled by Alex Jones outside Senate hearing room this morning: "I see some scrubby guy walk up to me, step to me, acting all crazy. I didn't know who he was. I know the name, I know all the crazy stuff, I just don't know what he looks like."</p>— Alex Bolton (@alexanderbolton) <a href="https://twitter.com/alexanderbolton/status/1037397814530265088?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">September 5, 2018</a>
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<p id="aqBlPJ">He also questioned the amount of press coverage Jones and others on the far right get. “I know you’ve got to cover them, but you give these guys way too much attention,” <a href="https://twitter.com/Phil_Mattingly/status/1037396049973915654">he said</a>. “We’re making crazy people superstars. So, we [are] going to get crazier people.”</p>
https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2018/9/5/17823322/alex-jones-info-wars-senate-intelligence-committeeEmily Stewart2018-07-31T14:20:02-04:002018-07-31T14:20:02-04:00Facebook has already detected suspicious activity trying to influence the 2018 elections
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<img alt="Image of “Resisters” Facebook page" src="https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/sNrg7KZAD4Ok7s2FyTaIblxvXAU=/0x313:449x650/1310x983/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_image/image/60680569/1.0.png" />
<figcaption>Facebook removed more than two dozen pages and accounts from its platform because they were involved in “coordinated inauthentic behavior” ahead of the 2018 midterms, including a page called “Resisters.” | Facebook</figcaption>
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<p>Facebook isn’t sure if it’s Russia, but it looks a lot like what Russia did in 2016.</p> <p id="Mh8v0Q">Someone is trying to influence the <a href="https://www.vox.com/midterm-elections">midterm elections</a> by sowing divisions among Americans on social media, according to <a href="https://www.vox.com/business-and-finance/2018/7/28/17625218/facebook-stock-price-twitter-earnings">Facebook</a> — though the company won’t say it’s necessarily <a href="https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2018/7/16/17575940/russian-election-hack-democrats-trump-putin-diagram">Russia</a> that’s to blame. </p>
<p id="X15agA">On Tuesday, Facebook <a href="https://newsroom.fb.com/news/2018/07/removing-bad-actors-on-facebook/">announced</a> that it had removed more than two dozen pages and accounts from its platform because they were involved in “coordinated inauthentic behavior” in the lead-up to the midterm elections. While it could not explicitly link the suspicious activity to Russia, Facebook said it is “consistent with” what it saw from the Russian troll farm the <a href="https://www.vox.com/2018/2/16/17020974/mueller-indictment-internet-research-agency">Internet Research Agency</a> before and after the 2016 presidential election.</p>
<p id="nzJvtL">The accounts masked themselves as groups dedicated to specific causes and appeared to have been designed to appeal to progressives. One page sought out women who consider themselves part of the “resistance,” and another looked to appeal to individuals interested in mindfulness. According to the <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2018/07/31/us/politics/facebook-political-campaign-midterms.html?action=Click&contentCollection=BreakingNews&contentID=67415548&pgtype=Homepage">New York Times</a>, some accounts created content around the “Abolish ICE” movement.</p>
<p id="PXP5x0">Soon after the Times reported on Tuesday about the forthcoming announcement, <a href="https://newsroom.fb.com/news/2018/07/removing-bad-actors-on-facebook/">Facebook</a> said it had removed 32 pages and accounts from Facebook and Instagram after determining they were involved in “inauthentic behavior” that’s not allowed on Facebook.</p>
<p id="zdMwDc">Facebook detected the first of eight pages, 17 profiles, and seven Instagram accounts about two weeks ago and removed them on Tuesday morning. In total, nearly 300,000 accounts followed at least one of the pages, which were created between March 2017 and May 2018.</p>
<p id="ub0cBQ">Some of the pages and accounts had no followers or next to none, while others had many. The most followed pages were given names such as “Black Elevation,” “Aztlan Warriors,” “Mindful Being,” and “Resisters.” The accounts created some 9,500 organic posts and ran 150 ads for about $11,000.</p>
<h3 id="HrNqc4">The accounts pushed content on divisive social issues — just like they did in 2016</h3>
<p id="t3PDP3">Facebook released <a href="https://newsroom.fb.com/news/2018/07/removing-bad-actors-on-facebook/">examples</a> of the content the accounts created. </p>
<p id="suSowP">For example, the Resisters page created a Facebook event scheduled for August to protest a planned second act to the “<a href="https://www.vox.com/2018/3/8/17071832/alt-right-racists-charlottesville">Unite the Right</a>” rally in Charlottesville, Virginia. It also created a job posting for a part-time event coordinator and posted memes promoting women’s rights and criticizing President Donald Trump. Resisters’ Unite the Right event duped legitimate pages, which signed on to co-host the event.</p>
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<p id="htMFOT">The Black Elevation page also posted job ads for an event coordinator and created event announcements. The Times reported that content around the “<a href="https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2018/3/19/17116980/ice-abolish-immigration-arrest-deport">Abolish ICE</a>” movement was also detected.</p>
<p id="mubPpJ"><a href="https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2018/3/19/17116980/ice-abolish-immigration-arrest-deport">The fake accounts and pages homing in on divisive social issues</a> is what happened in the Russian disinformation campaign in the 2016 election, but Facebook says it hasn’t been able to link the activity this time around directly to Russia. “These bad actors have been more careful to cover their tracks, in part due to the actions we’ve taken to prevent abuse over the past year,” Nathaniel Gleicher, the head of cybersecurity policy at Facebook, wrote in a <a href="https://newsroom.fb.com/news/2018/07/removing-bad-actors-on-facebook/#what-weve-found">post</a> on Tuesday.</p>
<p id="rORsfR">Facebook said it’s working with law enforcement and others to gather all the facts and figure out who’s behind the activity, though the company acknowledged that’s no easy task. Chief security officer Alex Stamos in a separate <a href="https://newsroom.fb.com/news/2018/07/removing-bad-actors-on-facebook/#whos-behind-cyber-threats">post</a> on Tuesday talked about the difficulties of figuring out who’s behind cyberthreats. He emphasized that doesn’t mean that Facebook, which has come under <a href="https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2018/4/10/17208322/facebook-mark-zuckerberg-congress-testimony-regulation">fierce scrutiny</a> for its handling of misinformation and fake news, isn’t taking action.</p>
<p id="f7DEKY">“The lack of firm attribution in this case or others does not suggest a lack of action,” Stamos wrote. “We have invested heavily in people and technology to detect inauthentic attempts to influence political discourse, and enforcing our policies doesn’t require us to confidently attribute the identity of those who violate them or their potential links to foreign actors.”</p>
<p id="fAuLvN">Facebook isn’t the only party raising a red flag about potential hacking and meddling ahead of the 2018 midterms. </p>
<p id="uVELjs">Director of National Intelligence Dan Coats said earlier this month that the “<a href="https://www.vox.com/2018/7/13/17570472/russian-hacks-cyberattacks-dan-coats-muller-indictments-trump-putin">warning signs are there</a>” for cyberattacks from Russia and other foreign governments. And a Microsoft executive at the Aspen Security Forum <a href="https://www.vox.com/2018/7/13/17570472/russian-hacks-cyberattacks-dan-coats-muller-indictments-trump-putin">said in a panel</a> that the company had detected phishing attacks targeting three US congressional candidates, though he didn’t say which party they were from. <a href="https://www.thedailybeast.com/russian-hackers-new-target-a-vulnerable-democratic-senator">The Daily Beast</a> last week reported that Sen. Claire McCaskill, a <a href="https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2018/7/26/17619818/russia-claire-mccaskill-2018-midterm-hack">vulnerable Missouri Democrat</a>, had been targeted by Russian hackers in her reelection bid. </p>
https://www.vox.com/2018/7/31/17635592/facebook-elections-russia-2018-midtermsEmily Stewart2018-06-06T11:20:02-04:002018-06-06T11:20:02-04:00Facebook gave user data to a Chinese company considered a national security threat
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<img alt="China Development Forum" src="https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/CUtRrVCasvSC3Ha-O3cK-TeTPFM=/0x0:3061x2296/1310x983/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_image/image/59973319/516804646.jpg.0.jpg" />
<figcaption>Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg and Chinese Premier Li Keqiang at a gathering of top business executives in China in 2016. | Kenzaburo Fukuhara - Pool/Getty Images</figcaption>
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<p>Facebook has data-sharing partnerships with four Chinese device makers, including Huawei.</p> <p id="owvSu5">It wasn’t just <a href="https://www.vox.com/2017/12/22/16807056/apple-slow-iphone-batteries">Apple</a>, Amazon, and BlackBerry that <a href="https://www.vox.com/technology/2018/6/4/17425194/facebook-data-privacy-apple-phone-device">Facebook</a> gave access to its user data. The social media company also has data-sharing partnerships with at least four <a href="https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2018/5/15/17355202/trump-zte-indonesia-lido-city">Chinese electronics companies</a>, including <a href="https://www.vox.com/new-money/2016/11/4/13498504/shenzhen-smartphone-innovation-capital">Huawei</a>, which has close ties to the Chinese government and has been flagged by intelligence officials as a national security risk.</p>
<p id="shWKrI">The <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2018/06/05/technology/facebook-device-partnerships-china.html">New York Times</a>’s Michael LaForgia and Gabriel J.X. Dance<strong> </strong>reported on Tuesday that Facebook said it has agreements dating back to at least 2010 with Huawei, Lenovo, Oppo, and TCL. </p>
<p id="W0Ad4a">The deals are similar to those revealed by the <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2018/06/03/technology/facebook-device-partners-users-friends-data.html">Times</a> over the weekend with some 60 device makers that allowed those companies to get access to a broad range of information users were likely unaware of and might not have agreed to. Facebook let device companies get data on users’ relationship status, religion, political leanings, and events. According to the Times, Facebook gave access to information about users’ friends as well, even in some cases when people believed they had barred any sharing at all.</p>
<p id="G4D7bd">Facebook decided to start winding such partnerships down in April. It has already ended more than 30 of them, including its deal with Huawei. A Facebook spokesperson said such agreements with manufacturers were common at the time they were developed in 2007 and 2008 and pointed out that they’re not specific to Facebook. <a href="https://www.blog.google/topics/rcs/huawei-integrate-android-messages-across-their-android-smartphone-portfolio/">Google earlier this year</a> announced a new integration with Huawei and Android messages.</p>
<p id="hnLfB9">Still, the latest report is yet another reminder that there’s a lot we don’t know about how Facebook uses and shares data from its 2 billion users — and the company hasn’t exactly been forthcoming about it of its own accord.</p>
<h3 id="Kl6ss1">Huawei has close ties to the Chinese government</h3>
<p id="VvSpJq">The data access deals are part of an effort starting in 2007 to get more mobile users onto Facebook. (It’s easy to forget that Facebook in its early years actually <a href="http://fortune.com/2016/01/28/what-media-companies-can-learn-from-facebooks-incredible-mobile-turnaround/">struggled on mobile</a>, so much so that it <a href="https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1326801/000119312512222368/d287954ds1a.htm">warned investors</a> about the issue when it went public in 2012.) So before standalone Facebook apps worked well on phones, the company struck deals with device companies to help users access features such as messaging and “like” buttons on their phones, tablets, and other gadgets.</p>
<p id="ARFrQG">Facebook officials told the Times that Huawei used its Facebook access to feed a social phone app that lets users see messages and social media accounts in one place, and they said the data shared stayed on phones and didn’t go to its servers.</p>
<p id="b4FoAS">What makes Huawei concerning is its ties to the Chinese government and concerns that it could pose a threat to national security. A <a href="https://intelligence.house.gov/sites/intelligence.house.gov/files/documents/huawei-zte%20investigative%20report%20(final).pdf">2012 congressional report</a> flagged close ties between Huawei and the Chinese Communist Party and “credible evidence” that Huawei “fails to comply with US laws.”</p>
<p id="4CLyzu">The worry is that data accessed by Huawei on American users could find its way into the hands of the Chinese government. The Pentagon this year <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-switch/wp/2018/05/02/pentagon-tells-u-s-military-bases-to-stop-selling-zte-huawei-phones/?utm_term=.5b499b78cc6e">banned sales of Huawei phones on US military bases</a>. </p>
<p id="bH1vh9">“Huawei is the third largest mobile manufacturer globally and its devices are used by people all around the world, including in the United States. Facebook along with many other US tech companies have worked with them and other Chinese manufacturers to integrate their services onto these phones,” Francisco Varela, vice president of mobile partnerships at Facebook, said in an emailed statement to Vox. </p>
<p id="nQP9iT">“Facebook’s integrations with Huawei, Lenovo, OPPO and TCL were controlled from the get go — and we approved the Facebook experiences these companies built. Given the interest from Congress, we wanted to make clear that all the information from these integrations with Huawei was stored on the device, not on Huawei’s servers.” </p>
<p id="yZhLu0">A Huawei spokesperson told CNNMoney that Huawei has “<a href="http://money.cnn.com/2018/06/05/technology/facebook-huawei-china-data-sharing/index.html">never collected or stored any Facebook user data</a>” and that the data access was simply an effort to “make Facebook’s services more convenient for users.”</p>
<p id="GkLwFp">Facebook has been banned in China since 2009 and has tried to make overtures to the government there to gain access to what could potentially be a major market. CEO Mark Zuckerberg has <a href="https://www.wsj.com/articles/facebooks-mark-zuckerberg-makes-another-appearance-in-china-1509360341">made multiple trips to China</a>, including in 2015, when he delivered a <a href="https://qz.com/532834/mark-zuckerbergs-20-minute-speech-in-clumsy-mandarin-is-his-latest-attempt-to-woo-china/">20-minute speech in Mandarin</a>. </p>
<h3 id="QAvPiC">At this point, we should probably just assume there’s still a lot we don’t know about Facebook’s practices, and we might never find it all out</h3>
<p id="TWGyJK">If it seems like there are constantly more revelations about Facebook’s business practices and handling of user data, it’s because there are. This latest round of questions was ignited by the <a href="https://www.vox.com/2018/4/10/17207394/cambridge-analytica-facebook-zuckerberg-trump-privacy-scandal">Cambridge Analytica scandal</a> and data privacy concerns stemming from it, but it’s hardly the first incident — Facebook and Zuckerberg have essentially <a href="https://www.vox.com/2018/4/10/17220290/mark-zuckerberg-facemash-testimony">been apologizing for missteps</a> since the company’s inception. </p>
<p id="es6pCh">The Times’s reports this week over Facebook’s data sharing with device makers, including Chinese ones, has spurred more outcry from the public and from lawmakers. Sen. Marco Rubio (R-FL) reacted to the Huawei news on Twitter, asking why Facebook hadn’t previously revealed the deal.</p>
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<p lang="en" dir="ltr">Why didn’t <a href="https://twitter.com/facebook?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">@facebook</a> just reveal this data sharing deal with <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/Huawei?src=hash&ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">#Huawei</a> months ago? And don’t compare this to deals with other telecomms. S.Korea govt doesnt control or use <a href="https://twitter.com/Samsung?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">@Samsung</a> the way China controls & uses Huawei <a href="https://t.co/EEyIQfs6b7">https://t.co/EEyIQfs6b7</a></p>— Marco Rubio (@marcorubio) <a href="https://twitter.com/marcorubio/status/1004342937247993857?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">June 6, 2018</a>
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<p id="DGDNaP">Sen. Mark Warner (D-VA) said in a statement to the Times that he looks forward to “learning more about how Facebook ensured that information about their users was not sent to Chinese servers.” </p>
<p id="jryl7J">The Federal Trade Commission is already investigating whether Facebook violated a <a href="https://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2011/11/29/142898301/facebook-settles-with-ftc-on-charges-it-deceived-users-on-privacy">2011 consent order</a> over charges that it deceived consumers about their privacy, and these reports raise new questions along those fronts.</p>
<p id="b8FSxb">“Part of what this raises for me is a continuing question about information services companies: Are you explaining enough to users about what you’re doing?” former FTC Commissioner Bill Kovacic <a href="https://www.vox.com/technology/2018/6/4/17425194/facebook-data-privacy-apple-phone-device">told me earlier this week</a>. “What’s jarring, if you are a regulator and you’re following these news developments, is the sense that, ‘Oh, here’s something else you didn’t know about.’ It’s the element of being surprised.”</p>
https://www.vox.com/technology/2018/6/6/17433802/facebook-data-privacy-huawei-chinaEmily Stewart2018-06-04T13:10:01-04:002018-06-04T13:10:01-04:00Report: Facebook was letting device makers access your data too
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<img alt="Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg testifies before the House Energy and Commerce Committee in April 2018. A New York Times report about Facebook’s data sharing with device makers calls into question some of the claims Zuckerberg made during his testimony." src="https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/OpZTdBPccEA-O0yw2hw4r97WQO4=/167x0:2834x2000/1310x983/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_image/image/59946679/944831964.jpg.0.jpg" />
<figcaption>Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg testifies before the House Energy and Commerce Committee in April 2018. A New York Times report about Facebook’s data sharing with device makers calls into question some of the claims Zuckerberg made during his testimony. | Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images</figcaption>
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<p>According to a report from the New York Times, Facebook struck an agreement with some 60 device makers that allowed them to access data on Facebook users and their friends.</p> <p id="qajfwf">“Every time that a person chooses to share something on Facebook, they’re proactively going to the service and choosing that they want to share a photo, write a message to someone,” <a href="https://www.vox.com/technology/2018/4/18/17251480/facebook-privacy-scandal-changes-europe-gdpr">Facebook</a> CEO <a href="https://www.vox.com/2018/4/2/17185052/mark-zuckerberg-facebook-interview-fake-news-bots-cambridge">Mark Zuckerberg</a> <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-switch/wp/2018/04/11/transcript-of-zuckerbergs-appearance-before-house-committee/?utm_term=.98716902067d">said</a> in an appearance before <a href="https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2018/4/11/17225518/mark-zuckerberg-testimony-facebook-privacy-settings-sharing">Congress</a> in April. “And every time, there is a control right there — not buried in settings somewhere, but right there — when they’re … posting about who they want to share it with.”</p>
<p id="STuD8Q">But according to a report from <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2018/06/03/technology/facebook-device-partners-users-friends-data.html">the New York Times</a> over the weekend, that isn’t exactly the case when it comes to companies like Apple, Amazon, BlackBerry, Microsoft, and Samsung. Facebook reached data-sharing agreements with at least 60 device companies that allowed them to get at a broad range of information users were likely unaware of and might not have agreed to. </p>
<p id="lfqg7R">The report is the latest to sound alarms about Facebook’s handling of private data, and it again raises questions about how honest the company has been about what it’s collecting on users and why.</p>
<p id="1MWKSj">Facebook let some device companies get information on its users’ relationship status, religion, political leaning, and events, according to the Times. It gave access to information about those users’ friends as well, even in some cases when those people believed they had barred any sharing at all. </p>
<p id="EvThEK">Facebook <a href="https://developers.facebook.com/blog/post/2018/04/24/new-facebook-platform-product-changes-policy-updates/">said</a> it was winding down such partnerships in April. In a <a href="https://newsroom.fb.com/news/2018/06/why-we-disagree-with-the-nyt/">rebuttal</a> to the Times report on Sunday, Ime Archibong, its vice president of product partnerships, said it had been “necessary” for Facebook to work with operating systems and device manufacturers to get its products into people’s hands. Archibong said that its partners were limited to using the data only to recreate “Facebook-like experiences” on their devices and that Facebook is not aware of any abuse by those companies.</p>
<p id="OfPWBj">The Times report also raises new questions about whether Facebook violated a <a href="https://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2011/11/29/142898301/facebook-settles-with-ftc-on-charges-it-deceived-users-on-privacy">2011 consent decree</a> with the <a href="https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2018/4/10/17208322/facebook-mark-zuckerberg-congress-testimony-regulation">Federal Trade Commission</a> over charges it deceived consumers about their privacy. The FTC began an investigation into the matter after the <a href="https://www.vox.com/2018/4/10/17207394/cambridge-analytica-facebook-zuckerberg-trump-privacy-scandal">Cambridge Analytica scandal</a>, and the data maker sharing may give it even more to look at. The decree prevented Facebook from overriding users’ privacy settings without getting their consent.</p>
<p id="gUgQxs">“It’s going to intensify the FTC’s efforts to scrutinize the company’s behavior and its fulfillment of the 2011 to 2012 settlement,” former FTC Commissioner Bill Kovacic told me. “This adds additional impetus to that existing commitment to study their behavior, to see if there was compliance.” </p>
<h3 id="839QgP">Facebook says it can trust device companies, but can users trust Facebook?</h3>
<p id="SwGNzh">Facebook says it provided data access to help users get the full “Facebook experience” — features such as messaging and “like” buttons — on their phones, tablets, and other gadgets and that its partners were subject to tight controls. The companies signed agreements barring them from using data for anything beyond its intended purposes, and the company disputes that it was overriding privacy settings and consent.</p>
<p id="yySGlb">Several former Facebook software engineers and security experts told the Times they were surprised at the ability to override security restrictions and warned of the risks of Facebook’s data-sharing practices with device makers. Ashkan Soltani, a former chief technologist at the FTC, likened Facebook’s behavior to “having door locks installed, only to find out that the locksmith also gave keys to all of his friends so they can come in and rifle through your stuff without having to ask you for permission,” to the Times.</p>
<p id="DnApfs">“Part of what this raises for me is a continuing question about information services companies: Are you explaining enough to users about what you’re doing?” Kovacic, who is now a professor at George Washington University, said. “What’s jarring, if you are a regulator and you’re following these news developments, is the sense that, ‘Oh, here’s something else you didn’t know about.’ It’s the element of being surprised.”</p>
<h3 id="tKazKC">Zuckerberg dodged questions in April about third-party data-sharing</h3>
<p id="wPWQ8D">Zuckerberg has made <a href="https://www.vox.com/2018/4/10/17220290/mark-zuckerberg-facemash-testimony">several public apologies</a> since founding the social media company, and Facebook has been caught multiple times being less than forthcoming about its technologies and practices.</p>
<p id="WMjyDw">In testimony before the House Energy and Commerce Committee and the <a href="https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2018/4/10/17222062/mark-zuckerberg-testimony-graham-facebook-regulations">Senate and Commerce Committees</a> in April, Zuckerberg <a href="https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2018/4/11/17225518/mark-zuckerberg-testimony-facebook-privacy-settings-sharing">repeatedly dodged questions</a> about whether users could control how their data was shared with and used by third parties, instead going back to explain how users can decide what their fellow Facebook users can see.</p>
<p id="2Y6xab">“Every piece of content that you share on Facebook you own, and you have complete control over who sees it and — and how you share it, and you can remove it at any time,” Zuckerberg told Sen. Orrin Hatch (R-UT). “That’s why every day, about 100 billion times a day, people come to one of our services and either post a photo or send a message to someone, because they know that they have that control and that who they say it’s going to go to is going to be who sees the content.”</p>
<p id="kQWiCC">But according to the Times’s reporting, that is not the case — not just for users but also for their friends. The publication tested Facebook’s data privacy channels using a 2013 BlackBerry device owned by one of its reporters. The BlackBerry retrieved identifying information for almost 295,000 Facebook users; the reporter has about 550 Facebook friends. The Times found Facebook let the phone access more than 50 types of information about the user and his friends.</p>
<p id="nbIqX0">Rep. David Cicilline (D-RI), ranking member of the House Judiciary antitrust subcommittee, <a href="https://twitter.com/davidcicilline/status/1003469710216892416">tweeted</a> about the report late Sunday evening. “Sure looks like Zuckerberg lied to Congress about whether users have ‘complete control’ over who sees our data on Facebook,” he wrote. He called for an investigation into the matter.</p>
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<p lang="en" dir="ltr">Sure looks like Zuckerberg lied to Congress about whether users have “complete control” over who sees our data on Facebook. This needs to be investigated and the people responsible need to be held accountable. <a href="https://t.co/rshBsxy32G">https://t.co/rshBsxy32G</a></p>— David Cicilline (@davidcicilline) <a href="https://twitter.com/davidcicilline/status/1003469710216892416?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">June 4, 2018</a>
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<p id="RDIAoX">In an appearance before the <a href="https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2018/5/22/17381776/mark-zuckerberg-facebook-europe-privacy-gdpr">European Parliament</a> in May, Claude Moraes of the British Labour Party asked whether the data privacy questions stemming from Cambridge Analytica were the end of it, or if there was more. Is it “actually the tip of the iceberg, or is there a bigger iceberg?” he asked. Given the Times’s reporting — and Facebook’s history — there’s likely more. </p>
<p id="UvnGET">“It’s a recurring theme,” Kovacic said, “which is: What exactly are you doing here?”</p>
https://www.vox.com/technology/2018/6/4/17425194/facebook-data-privacy-apple-phone-deviceEmily Stewart