Table of Contents
Facebook Graph API version 1.0 was launched in April 2010.
Apps could request the user’s private messages, the ‘extended info‘. This was pulled from their Facebook DM inbox.
Information of the user and their friends was hoovered
- About me
- Actions
- Activities
- Birthdays
- Check-ins
- Education
- Events
- Games
- Groups
- Hometown
- Interests
- Likes
- Location
- Notes
- Online status
- Tags
- Photos
- Relationships
- Religion/Politics
- Subscriptions
- Work history
None of this required the consent of the ‘friends‘
Version 1.0 was deprecated in April 2014, and closed in April 2015.
Facebook Audience Network
On the same day as v1 was ended, FB announced the the Facebook Audience Network. The new version extended FB’s data profiling and ad-targeting to ‘the rest of the internet‘
Facebook in the 2012 Obama v Romney
Obama campaign
Here’s what you’d see back in 2012 if you were signing on to Obama campaign’s Facebook “I’m In” app, which they used to garner 1M supporters’ trust, and then harvest FB social graph.
First screen, from Obama home page
Or, log-in prompt if you were on Facebook
Useful nudge: showing you how many of your friends were already in Obama campaign app
Another nudge screen.
Here’s the Obama permission page.
- It only says your friends will receive messages you choose to send them
- It says nothing about information that campaign might obtain. That was bad.
Here’s the next screen you’d see if you clicked “allow.” Does this read like a disclaimer to you?
After you clicked “allow,” you’d see this screen which in fine print explains the range of data you were giving the campaign access to.
Romney Campaign
Here’s “MyMitt” a knock off of the MyObama Facebook pages
MyMitt invited you to join via various social networks, including AOL.
Romney Facebook login button. They didn’t push as hard as Obama campaign.
Digital information consumption
If you’re inside the tech monopoly ecosystem, you are only what you buy and how’ll you vote
The end?