Yeah, this whole "people are stupid" argument is incredibly dismissive. Not surprising of tech people's giant ego.

Do people really want their doctor to invest several hours a week understanding the latest shenanigans and dangers of technology? Or should we just let our doctors be good doctors? Replace "doctor" by any other non-tech profession you respect, and you get my point.

This isn't even about protecting "stupid" people, it's about letting people be useful members of society even if they're not tech experts.

I absolutely think regulation should be in place to protect against people/companies acting maliciously (thus preventing a Cambridge Analytica from existing in the first place), and I guess the reason people were so trusting is because they do expect such regulations to exist.

However, I disagree with modifying/removing a legitimate feature (API access) just because it can be abused. Otherwise, why not go further and also ban knives (or go after supermarkets that sell them) to solve knife crime?

> Otherwise, why not go further and also ban knives (or go after supermarkets that sell them) to solve knife crime?

That sounds like a very slippery argument, but no, the way to solve knife crime is not to ban knifes, it's to understand and "fix" the reasons (systems) why people do knife crimes in the first place (e.g. poverty, poor mental health resources).

In this case, we need to understand how the systems (e.g. the API) allowed for this to happen, and perhaps yes, get rid of it (or perhaps some other solution, I don't know, but beyond CA it seems that even a "legitimate" use of the API can easily cause harm).

> On on side you have a mega corp doing all it can to harvest as much data as possible, backed by behavioural analysis, AB testing, and all kind of studies on how to trick people's brain into feeding the algorithm with more data points. On the other hand you have "stupid users"

This lawsuit is explicitly not about the big tech giant's (Facebook) data processing (which I agree is a problem).

The lawsuit is about how Facebook should've somehow been able to predict the future malicious actions of a company and prevent users from sharing their data with them against their own will (again nobody's data was shared without consent - people explicitly opted to share their data - which includes basic info about their friends, which I'd argue is their data too - with Cambridge Analytica).

If there's a "megacorp shark" here, it's Cambridge Analytica and not Facebook.

> again nobody's data was shared without consent - people explicitly opted to share their data - which includes basic info about their friends, which I'd argue is their data too - with Cambridge Analytica

You frame this as if it was a logical train of thought but it isn't to me (and apparently I'm not the only one). You're not to decide what the UK courts determine to be acceptable or not and imho you're reasoning is rotten from the get go so any conclusions you draw from it are equally invalid. "consent" isn't a free pass, I can give you the explicit consent to kill me and it would still be illegal for you to do it in every country I know of.

Facebook has a systemic issue with the way they harvest, handle, share and monetise their users data, this case is just a drop in the ocean of sketchy things they've done, I'm not going to cry for them when they finally get a slap on the wrist

If we agree with your reasoning it would mean that simply getting a new phone would involve me calling/texting everyone in my contacts list to ask for their consent for me to enter their numbers on my new phone since I'm potentially sharing their details with a third-party.

> Facebook has a systemic issue with the way they harvest, handle, share and monetise their users data, this case is just a drop in the ocean of sketchy things they've done

How did Facebook benefit from this? Facebook got duped just like everyone else. CA did not disclose their intentions when they got access to the Facebook API because they wouldn't have got that access otherwise as their actions were against the FB API terms of use.

There's a bit of a witch hunt going on about Facebook, and while I despise that company and want to see it gone too, this is just an outraged mob clutching at straws. They can't go after Cambridge Analytica nor the people behind it (and I guess can't be bothered to vote/lobby for a legislative change so that those people can be prosecuted) so they're venting their anger on the next best thing: Facebook, even though they're a neutral party in this case.

> If we agree with your reasoning it would mean that simply getting a new phone would involve me calling/texting everyone in my contacts list to ask for their consent for me to enter their numbers on my new phone since I'm potentially sharing their details with a third-party.

But again, you're missing the forest for the tree. You discuss the symptoms while I discuss the root cause. A phone shouldn't let third party randomly siphon arbitrary data about you and your friends without making public the full scope of their project. A consent isn't consent if you're being tricked into giving it for nefarious use