The last privacy scandal on Facebook from a bug that "teased" private postings of 14 million social network users, came a day after confirmation that Facebook has entered into data sharing agreements with Chinese Companies.
The Cambridge Analytica scandal after all this seems to have happened years ago.
Unfortunately, the Facebook approach still does not seem to produce results or has so many gray zones in the protection of personal data, which will take years to clear them up. Besides, the turning of a cruise ship is not something that is done directly.
There is a saying about Facebook: “It's easier to apologize than to ask for it permission".
Of course we cannot say that every problem privacy, it is appropriate from Facebook. Mistakes happen and it's very normal. But for Facebook, this means that over 2 billion users are affected, and we're talking about incredibly personal information.
Please note that Facebook most of the time does not even apologize. But after the latest disclosure, Erin Egan, the head of the data protection agency, came out and apologized:
We recently discovered an error that automatically posts posts publicly. We have corrected this issue and starting today, we tell everyone concerned to review the publications they have made. To be clear, the bug did not affect past posts. We would like to apologize for this mistake.
The post of Facebook trying to explain this error is titled "An Audience Selection Error" or "An Update on the Audience Selector Error". No apology, no promise that it will never happen again and no explanation for what caused the error. Posting ends:
We have heard loud and clear that we need to be more transparent in the way constructionof our products and how they products they use your data – even when things go wrong. And that's what we do.
So, FaceBook once again seems to have acquired the "don't ask for permission" specialty and we have seen it again and again. Remember psychological tests of the social network that took place without anyone knowing anything.
Of course what followed was again an apology. It's an "art" that Facebook seems to possess very well.