Did you know that @facebook are asking people to ID themselves and asking for documents to be notarised by a notary public. Yes that means you have to go to a lawyer and pay hundreds of dollars to have an affidavit filled out. You can do all this and still have facebook demand more ID because they are a nameless faceless organisation.
This raises serious privacy concerns in the lead up to the Australian ID law implementation. Is this all just a giant data collection exercise for facebook that is allowing them to generate millions of dollars in data they can on sell to the highest bidder? Does this mean Facebook is on selling credit card information uploaded as part of the ID verification process?
Isn't it time The Australian Government had a have a serious look at the issue of big tech exploiting the data of citizens for profit? Is it time for a Senate inquiry that requires Mark Zuckerberg to attend and justify facebook's data harvesting activities?
In 2018, it became public knowledge that millions of Facebook users’ data had been harvested without their consent. At the heart of the issue was Cambridge Analytica (CA) which in partnership with Cambridge researcher, Aleksandr Kogan harvested data from millions of Facebook profiles. Kogan had developed an application called “thisisyourdigitallife” which featured a personality quiz and CA paid for people to take it. The app recorded results of each quiz, collected data from quiz taker’s Facebook account such as personal information and Facebook activity (e.g., what content was “liked”) as well as their Facebook friends which led to data harvesting of about 87 million Facebook profiles. The researcher then passed on this data to CA, which then used an algorithm that enabled them to psychologically profile people based on their Facebook interactions. Donald Trump had hired CA as a part of his 2016 Presidential election strategy. In order to deliver pro-Trump materials to individuals online, CA targeted individuals with a lesser known Facebook feature called “dark post” that contains personalized ads that are visible only to targeted individuals. CA consciously exploited fears of individuals with targeted advertising based on their personality profiles. The use of highly personalized ads made them vulnerable to Trump’s messages that compelled them to vote for him. This digital onslaught played a significant role in Trump’s victory over Hilary Clinton. This article will review how CA was able to harvest users’ personal data and what were its repercussions.
Facebook has never stopped treating users as products. Even now, as Australia moves toward a national digital ID system, the company is poised to harvest yet more private data—location histories, health records, financial patterns, and government-linked identifiers—to fuel its advertising empire. This is the same corporation with a long, documented history of exploiting and mistreating its users: censoring voices it dislikes, arbitrarily banning accounts, and weaponising its algorithms to silence dissent or punish criticism. Australians deserve far better than handing even more of their lives to Mark Zuckerberg’s profiteering machine.
The Australian Government must urgently pass world-leading privacy legislation that explicitly blocks platforms like Facebook from monetising citizens’ government-issued digital identities. A full Parliamentary or House of Representatives inquiry—where victims of Facebook’s censorship, de-platforming, and psychological manipulation can give public evidence—is long overdue. Only strong, enforceable laws and real accountability will stop Zuckerberg’s tyrannical regime from continuing to treat Australians as nothing more than data points to be sold to the highest bidder. It’s time to explore genuine alternative platforms that respect user privacy and refuse to sell people as the product.
Illustration: Is Facebook’s data collection machine unaccountable profiteering?
