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Social Media or Information Warfare?

Ok, so it was only 30 million accounts and not 50 million…..that’s ok then!

Interesting conjecture as to who was behind the attack. Further evidence I think that identifies FaceBook as no longer being a social media platform but a tool for Cyber Enabled Information Warfare. Whether you use it illegally like these threat actors have or go in as a legitimate customer and pay the money, it is undeniable the power that this tool can provided beyond sharing cat pictures.

https://www.databreachtoday.com/facebook-clarifies-extent-data-breach-a-11598

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Information Warfare at a Competitive Price

I guess this really shouldn’t be a surprise that this happened. We already knew that FaceBook were conducting experiments on users judging emotional responses to positive/negative articles in newsfeeds. At the time I don’t think many really extrapolated this as a possible end result however.

What FaceBook has done isn’t (I don’t believe) inherently wrong, it has simply put a power information warfare tool in the hands of those who want to buy it with few controls to govern its usage . Whether this was intentional or not will never be known of course, but the fact remains the capability has been created and is now in the wild.

This article isn’t particularly in depth on the issues this brings up but it does describe a very simple example of why this capability matters and why something should really be done about controlling its usage.

https://www.newyorker.com/news/news-desk/cambridge-analytica-and-the-perils-of-psychographics