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jcims parent
I’d give the researchers the benefit of the doubt here. But I’ve been in situations where people were doing security research and in the heat of the moment vastly overstepped reasonable bounds. It’s possible the truth falls somewhere in the middle here.
jacobsenscott
I suspect they are not reasonable bounds. Facebook is telling the researchers to "trust our scrubbed data sets". This is absurd as they can provide, omit, and modify the data as they see fit. The FB provided data sets are just free advertising for FB, and useless for research. I would expect a good researcher to say "No, I'll collect my own data, thanks."
judge2020
They were still using the same means of gathering that info as malware would. It's like wiretapping someone's conversation with you - not illegal in most states but they don't have to play nice, even if you were trying to 'research' their behavior.
jacobsenscott
It isn't like malware at all. They tell you exactly what data they collect, you need to opt in, and their code is opensource https://adobserver.org/

I have the right to do anything I want with the data facebook sends to my computer - including sending it to NYU researchers.

jcims OP
You can certainly assert that right and probably defend it successfully legally but it’s not obvious that its compatible with their terms of use.

https://m.facebook.com/terms.php

I’m no lawyer and have no idea if those terms are enforceable or even legal. Practically I think Facebook is just punching itself in the face here, but it is their platform and they do have some say in how it’s used.

The point of my original post is that I’ve had experience where researchers try to use the ends to justify their means and then cry foul when they are told that this means can’t be allowed to continue. (Eg in the infosec context rather than breaking into an account they own through some vulnerability, set up automation to break into thousands of those owned by customers and download all of their data).

Again I’m giving the researchers the benefit of the doubt, but i think the phenomenon still applies and in the general case is worth paying attention to when this kind of headline comes out.

MikeUt
> It’s possible the truth falls somewhere in the middle here.

Only if you believe Facebook has authority to decide what users do with the data Facebook shows them on their own machines. I find this suggestion repellent, the same as if I bought a copy of the New York Times, and afterwards the newspaper tried to forbid me from sharing which ads I saw on its front-page.

jcims OP
Authority comes from the law but Facebook obviously have some rights in that context. Copyright in the very least.

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