After Cambridge Analytica, Crimson Hexagon Flayed Facebook policies
The ghost of 2014 data scandal haunts Facebook again
Facebook has suspended Boston-based data analytics company Crimson Hexagonalleging that the firm harvested users’ data, a report by The Wall Street Journal.
What is the report?
Facebook fears that the analytics firm is violating its policies regarding the use of data. The firm has contracts with the US government, a Russian non-profit organization tied to the Kremlin and the Turkish government and that it is sharing FB users’ data to benefit its contracts. The firm has contracts to analyze public data for third-party clients. The data is the property of Facebook.
What is this firm?
Started in 2007, Crimson Hexagon has the renowned Harvard Professor Gary King as its co-founder. Gary King is presently leading the Social Science One program of Facebook. It is an independent research initiative of preventing election interference by the social media giant.
Crimson Hexagon helps its clients with its Artificial Intelligence. Its job is to give insights for manufacturing and marketing. The insights help in manufacturing products and shaping marketing strategies. But its Chief Technology Officer Chris Bingham categorically stated that the firm didn’t collect private data from any platform including Facebook in his blog post.
Bingham further maintains that the firm only allowed government clients to use Crimson Hexagon for specific approved use cases that aren’t inappropriate.
Gary King, while speaking to the portal Fast Company,pleaded ignorance in the data breach matter saying that he wasn’t involved in the day-to-day working of the firm.
What is the allegation against Crimson Hexagon?
Facebook fears breach of trust similar to the 2014 Cambridge Analytica data scandal in which Facebook had to apologize the way data was collected and used. And the media giant called it “inappropriate”.
Crimson Hexagon is alleged to amass over 1 trillion public posts from social media platforms including Facebook, Instagram, Twitter and Tumblr. But Facebook doesn’t consider data collection as a breach of trust but the data shouldn’t be used for surveillance purpose.
ImeArchibong, Vice President of Product Partnerships Facebook said that they were investigating whether Crimson Hexagon violated their policy.
What Facebook has to say about data safety?
Facebook was concerned about the data breach in its first quarterly report presented in April’18. The report warned investors of more data scandals that can hit the brand image and online reputation of Facebook. But it assured the investors that steps like content review are taken for data safety would check the misuse of data.
The report further states that Facebook can also take note of media reports and information from third-parties if the reports have substance regarding misuse of data.
Mark Zuckerberg’s statement on data misuse
Mark Zuckerberg fears that his own personal data was part of 87 million users” whose information was ”improperly shared” in the 2014 scandal. He gave his statement before the lawmakers in the US Congress. In 2014, Facebook unearthed a data scandal by Cambridge Analytica firm. The firm used the personal public data inappropriately for political mileage by its clients. Facebook had to face a public outcry and present its apology for the breach of trust.
