DailyPost 748
DATA SCRAPING
The Facebook Russia saga does not seem to end. It crops up newer and newer dimensions day after day. While large number of Facebook accounts of doubtful integrity pertaining to the US mid-term elections unearthed, the fairness of US Nov 6 elections still remains in doubt. Later revelations might just prove the worst fears to be true. For now Facebook has deleted one Russian firm’s accounts for data scraping.
“Facebook has disabled dozens of accounts and profiles belonging to Russian database provider SocialDataHub for what it termed the unauthorized collection of user information.” The issue in question is whatever is dished out by Facebook is what we have to live by. This has never been a reliable method, as we have seen over and over again in the last one year. Does data diplomacy become an potent and worthwhile tool in the diplomats and the foreign policy kit. Why not the same reactions as it happens in other cases of security / diplomatic misdemeanor.
Social DataHub had previously provided analytical services to the Russian govt and Facebook says it had violated the terms of use. Facebook says to provide security to the users, the accounts of the company was deleted, as they were scraping information of the users. Being violation of terms of service Facebook has deleted “more than 66 of SDH’s accounts, profiles, pages, and apps from our service,” The investigation is on and it would disable morr as the evidence comes to light.
Facebook want the SDH stops collecting data and give details of parties to whom data has been shared or sold. Is this a new regime of self regulation getting initiated or another media gimmick, only the time will tell.
“ONLY STRICT DATA LAW MAKING ANY NEFARIOUS DATA USE A CRIMINAL ACT CAN STEM THE TIDE.
Sanjay Sahay