Twitter also sold data access to Cambridge Analytica researcher

https://techcrunch.com/2018/04/30/twitter-also-sold-data-access-to-cambridge-analytica-researcher/

by aestetix • 8 years ago

365 114 8 years ago

Twitter also gives away their data to anyone that wants it for free. You can be streaming millions of tweets per day within minutes of creating an account.

xevb3k2• 8 years ago

So what did they pay for? I’m confused, do Twitter rate limit free accounts?

testplzignore2• 8 years ago

The free API is not a full firehose. It's been many years since the full firehose was publicly available.

existencebox• 8 years ago

Yes.

(less one-wordily, 3500 posts or 30 days history per user, if I'm remembering right. (or something to that extent) There are a bunch of ratelimits. And if you really get into it, the "firehose", the full stream of all tweets, certainly isn't available to a normal user.

dumbfounder8• 8 years ago

Yes, there are limits that are easily worked around to gather data en masse.

mindcrash• 8 years ago

That used to be the case, sure. But AFAIK these days you won't get access to the firehose without full authorization from Twitter (and there's a price tag involved).

rco8786• 8 years ago

The firehouse has been under lock and key (except to those with enough $$) for a really long time now, like maybe more than a decade.

chimeracoder3• 8 years ago

Twitter also gives away their data to anyone that wants it for free. You can be streaming millions of tweets per day within minutes of creating an account.

That's news to me. I maintain the Twitter client library for Go[0], and I still haven't been able to get through the process for getting access to the new streaming API (for testing the library). It requires an application stating your intended purpose and usage. I applied explaining the situation and was rejected (with a request to provide more information - I still have to resubmit that, but it's time and I just haven't gotten around to that yet).

It's possible to stream millions of tweets per day, but good luck trying to do it "within minutes of creating an account". And it's definitely not free.

For full context: I'm already a verified user on Twitter (ie, "blue check mark") and was clear in my application that I was requesting access so I could develop and test the library that other users of the Twitter API develop with. I'm not exactly complaining that they didn't approve the request initially, but if that's not sufficient to get access, it's pretty clear that they're not "giving away their data to anyone that wants it for free".

[0] https://github.com/ChimeraCoder/anaconda

dumbfounder8• 8 years ago

Maybe you are referring to their paid service, Gnip? Yes, you need to pay for that one, but they have a free version that you can indeed access within minutes. Try Twitter4J.

https://developer.twitter.com/en/docs/tweets/filter-realtime...

ryanmccullagh• 8 years ago

Firehouse data is not the complete stream. It states this in their docs. It's curated.

Talyen42• 8 years ago

Public tweets. You know, the ones everyone can see, all the time. Big difference.

mickael-kerjean• 8 years ago

For how much time? When you consider youporn sends ping to twitter throught a weird domain (with a cookie on https://syndication.twitter.com/), it makes me wondering how much time it will takes before the porn life of everyone on twitter will be reveal.

I don't want to be the alarmist but it's not like twitter has a good track record when it comes to database leak and god knows how many influent politics are using it ...

crunchlibrarian• 8 years ago

Seems like every web page pings all the social networks nowadays. The app world is worse, much more difficult to see who is phoning whom.

You need to install three extensions just to battle all this abuse. Getting a browser ready to surf the web in 2018 is like preparing to invade Normandy, and quite absurd.

zamber2• 8 years ago

That's why when I setup a browser for anyone that's not too technical I select pretty much all social blocking lists (among other).

No one yet complained that they can't Tweet while watching porn.

imglorp• 8 years ago

More than that. They're also selling engagement and audience on their API.

This means they keep track of who you follow and what you click on.

m1el• 8 years ago

The follow list is public as well.

Eridrus• 8 years ago

It's interesting how we call Facebook's data either public or private depending on how we want to regulate it. If we're worried about user data privacy, it's private data that CA stole. If we're worried about racial tensions in Sri Lanka its a public forum that needs to be moderated.

Not that it's wrong, but Facebook seems to exist in this grey zone of semi-private content which gives it both sorts of challenges and none of the usual defences.

wil4212• 8 years ago

Facebook users expected a certain level of privacy. They didn’t realize quiz apps would harvest a huge amount of data about their profiles. There is also the question of what kind of data they gleaned based on being friends with people who installed said apps.

Twitter is 100% public like a website and the expectation isn’t the same. When you friend or unfriend someone on FB you are somewhat implying who you give access to your feed.

samstave3• 8 years ago

Stupid but obvious "what-if-question": How can two private citizens attain the equivelant of "attorney-client privilege" -- What is the reason that such privacy 'rights' are exclusive to conversations between an attorney and a person/entity.

Sounds like 'honor among thieves' when talking simply about attorney-client privilege is only honored between and in only those in the legal field?

I'm not being obtuse - serious question.

groby_b• 8 years ago

It's weird, but the world in general consists of grey zones. There are no clear black-and-white distinctions.

Facebook clearly is a public forum. It clearly has shared private data with CA. Both of these issues deserve to be discussed, and both will have different, possibly even conflicting outcomes.

And really, that same thing could be true for, say, cable companies as well - they provide a public service, and they are regulated by a local franchising authority. We don't currently see content regulation, but if your local cable provider started, say, providing a channel dedicated to cannibalism, you might see changes in that. At the same time, the subscriber lists are considered private, and sale of them is regulated.

The main reason you don't see much of a mix here is that pre-Internet communication is mostly of the broadcasting type, which has only very few areas where private data actually exists.

testplzignore2• 8 years ago

If anyone is interested in how to buy public Twitter data, here are the available APIs:

http://support.gnip.com/apis/

https://developer.twitter.com/en/docs/tweets/batch-historica... (new doc for Gnip API)

https://developer.twitter.com/en/docs/tweets/search/overview... (new doc for Gnip API)

stingraycharles2• 8 years ago

Yes I’m surprised all this is shocking people. Guess people knew about this, but only now are suddenly realising the implications ?

superkuh• 8 years ago

https://xkcd.com/743/

TAForObvReasons3• 8 years ago

Facebook's public response destroyed every social media company's presumption of good faith.

“In 2015, GSR did have one-time API access to a random sample of public tweets from a five-month period from December 2014 to April 2015,” Twitter said in a statement to Bloomberg. “Based on the recent reports, we conducted our own internal review and did not find any access to private data about people who use Twitter.”

Facebook kept changing their message regarding the affected accounts, from nothing to 87M and now possibly way more.

There's a possibility that Twitter might have sold DM information as well. Under any other circumstance they would have some presumption of good faith, but given what happened with Facebook there's a good chance we will hear more.

gutnor• 8 years ago

And, that folk, is how regulations are born, when companies abuse the people.

In a few decades, "future HN"-reader will talk about how those regulation are stifling innovation by rising the bar of entry to any business managing user data, leaving the big players with an unfair advantage. Surely the world would be a better place if information was free to share ?

smsm425• 8 years ago

I'm not sure what un-obvious implications are there? That if you write something on the Internet in public service, people could read it? Isn't that the whole point of publishing it?

smsm425• 8 years ago

Wait so Twitter allows corporations to access and search public tweets, which are published by people so that they can be seen publicly? Oh the humanity!

Next thing we'll learn some company is indexing public websites and allows people to search in those too!

powerapple2• 8 years ago

And yet Facebook leaks are also public profiles on Facebook, but yeah, it is Mark Zuckerberg, a filthy rich guy

viyu4• 8 years ago

It's looking a lot like a (crumbling) house of cards...

viyu4• 8 years ago

Sorry I don't understand the severe downvote? I was referring to all the "under the table" things that happened with Cambridge Analytica and similar stories, that will surface in the next few weeks/months. Hence the crumbing house of cards...

JumpCrisscross• 8 years ago

I don't understand the severe downvote?

The analogy adds nothing new nor interesting to the discussion. It's a content-free observation.

reitanqild• 8 years ago

Furthermore complaining about being downvoted is against the guidelines.

Not saying you complained but some people seems to use that as an excuse for downvoting every metaquestion that touches into these stupid markers of approval/appreciation or whatever it signals : )

listentojohan• 8 years ago

I find that the whole premise of Twitter, is that the data is public.

ComodoHacker• 8 years ago

So we may assume he found a way to correlate users between Twitter and Facebook.

anoncoward778• 8 years ago

Of course they did. Jack been a bad boy.

kyleblarson• 8 years ago

Newsflash: a for-profit company takes actions that maximize profits.

fusiongyro• 8 years ago

Almost more like "McDonalds sells hamburger to Cambridge Analytica researcher."

stochastic_monk3• 8 years ago

Cancer cells maximize growth. That doesn’t mean we should leave them unregulated and let them metastasize and kill the host.

zamber2• 8 years ago

Makes you think someone should setup some rules for handling, gathering and processing user information.

These companies are too big to fail. You can't fight with cancer by slapping it on the tendrils with fines.

If you can't cut the cancer out then cut yourself from it. The effect is comparable (if we forget about or actively fight shadow profiles).

FB, Twitter and other social/media companies are for-profit and your persona is the currency they're after.

But hey, at least we'll get the perfect brand of socks/bed sheets/mattresses in the ads we're served.

downandout5• 8 years ago

This title is misleading. By saying “Twitter also sold data access...” it implies that Facebook sold him data access. This of course is not the case. Facebook didn’t sell him anything, he produced an app and abused the platform.

TheForumTroll• 8 years ago

He produced an app and used the platform.

zaroth• 8 years ago

If they violated the ToS — which as I understand it they did — that would mean it’s more accurate to say “abused” here.

dwild• 8 years ago

Didn't they get more than what was expected from the API? The user accepted his profile information but they also got his friends information.

Based on Wikipedia: > Abuse is the improper usage or treatment of an entity, often to unfairly or improperly gain benefit.

That seems like they used the API improperly to access his friends information and got the friends information.

For sure Facebook shouldn't have given that information, but it was also clear that information wasn't supposed to be there, that Cambridge Analytica were aware of it and abused it.

AzzieElbab• 8 years ago

What!? Did Cambridge Analytics buy that bridge in Brooklyn too?

Yizahi• 8 years ago

Now is the moment. The moment where you eat your tie/ hat/whatever. Yes, you, who blindly defended Twitter that "did no harm" and "Twitter is not like FB".

Come on people, company that hosts insanely large free webservice 24/7 for years doesn't sell user data to the highest bidder? Do you even believe it?

jimnotgym2• 8 years ago

A bot of a tangent, but a year ago I loved Twitter and found it engaging. I tweeted mildly interesting comments and sometimes mildly amusing anecdotes.

Then the algorithms took hold. Now most of what I tweet goes totally unnoticed. Now perhaps I am more boring now (even though I have a lot more folowers), but it doesn't seem to be the case, I think I was just as inane before.

On the other hand, if I get maybe four or five friends to retweet me, all of a sudden I have exposure and I get read, liked and retweeted a lot. This has just pushed Twitter more into the hands of bots. If I had a bot army of maybe 10 bots I would get a fair bit of exposure.

There is also a momentum thing, if I take a couple of weeks off Twitter it doesn't love me any more when I come back.

This has ruined Twitter for me.

munchor• 8 years ago

I am pretty sure you can disable the algorithmic feed in the settings. It's under "Show the best Tweets first" checkbox in the "Account" page of the Settings.

jimnotgym2• 8 years ago

That won't fix my experience, unless you can get everyone else to turn it off too

rainbowmverse• 8 years ago

This is only available on older accounts and doesn't seem to work anyway.

weka• 8 years ago

You know what ruined Twitter for me?

Having them clog up my twitter timeline of people I don't _even_ follow with their tweets or the LIKES of people I do.

They distorted what a timeline was and thus the follow button essentially became ruined.

arca_vorago• 8 years ago

What really pisses me off is that now I get message notifications for "you might have missed what X said"...

Twitter, thats not a fucking message!

alxmdev• 8 years ago

It's really too bad, up until a few months ago the Twitter timeline was an ok place to see what other people whose work I admire were up to, but now it's a torrent of irrelevant spam so why bother using it. So frustrating to see something good be ruined, goes to show how little control over your experience, and indeed everything else, you have with these services.

dawnerd• 8 years ago

Thats why I just use apps like tweetbot. Going to the actual twitter site is always a surprise.

dymk• 8 years ago

Inaccurate headline. There's no "also"; Facebook didn't sell that data to CA.

fiatjaf• 8 years ago

Twitter is supposed to be public.

greggarious• 8 years ago

At least I thought carefully about what I tweeted since I knew it would be public. I'm much more upset that private Facebook data, never intended to be distributed to the public, was taken from me.

textmode• 8 years ago

"The ethics panel member added: "Facebook is rather deceptive on this and creates the appearance of a cosy and confidential peer group environment, as a means of gulling users into disclosing private information that they then sell to advertisers, but this doesn't make it right to an ethical researcher to follow their lead.""

https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2018/apr/24/cambridge...

The article discusses the Cambridge University ethics committee rejection of proposal for use of Facebook app to gather data.

Anyone have a non-scribd link to the full comments from the ethics committee members?

When the Facebook CTO recently testified before the UK Parliament, at one point they laughed at him for being so blatently insincere.

Facebook is now copying Reddit/HN up/downvotes, trial in NZ/AUS.

Twitter also sold data access to Cambridge Analytica researcher

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