This continues previous post
Zuck on Opioids
13 April, 2018
Privacy
City Hall Disclosure Policy
"The City of Nelson does not share any of the individually identifiable information you may provide with the sites to which the City of Nelson links. We may, however, share aggregate data with such websites (such as how many people use our site)".
Nelson City Hall Website
Shape Shifters
Not "we may" - but "however" we do! All the time! And "such websites" means Facebook, since Facebook is doing the tracking of City Hall's user-clickers, and even if this actually were only for an accurate count (a pretext!): just for that they would need to be "individually identifiable" as well.
Which they are through all their unsecured Profile Data - involuntarily "shared" with Facebook via City Hall.
And automatically those of all their Friends.
But City Hall does not make this clear to its clickers - goes no further than the mealy-mouth Disclosure Policy above!
Identity Thieves
The double-dipping becomes a major issue during about 10 hours of disconcerting - often scary! - Washington Senate/House Hearings on the 87mill-Cambridge-Analytica disaster with Mark Zuckerberg.
Where he keeps talking about wanting the trust of users - and Senators/Representatives find it hard to trust him and his corporation over millions of blatantly manipulated subscribers.
Soul Merchants
Either City Hall is naively ignorant of Facebook's intentions with these data, or it knowingly feeds clickers to Zuckerberg; he in turn selling them to advertisers hawking anything under the sun - including political nudges.
An individual user's possibly very extensive Profile Data usually are spread over a multitude of diverse advertisers' data bases - often with dodgy commercial agendas.
Facebook - mainly focused on ever-increasing cash-flow-thus-power from/over advertisers - turns a blind eye where it should step-in!
Simple question and loud HELLO! City Hall: Why should "such websites" otherwise give a damn about "how many people use our site"?
Bottom-line: City Hall is enabling commercial exploitation of those unwitting Facebook users connecting with it.
Facebook has the same relationship with Nelson Star/Daily user-readers. Only it's not under the pretext of just counting clickers. There no reason at all is given for harvesting them.
Mind Snatchers
Facebook Canada's public policy wonk Kevin Chan - Policy Director for former Liberal leader Michael Ignatieff; still with deep access to the Liberal government tsk-tsk - during his recent grilling by a parliamentary committee in Ottawa - said in his opening statement:
"I want to begin by sharing that, while we do not yet have all the facts surrounding the situation with Cambridge Analytica, what is alleged to have occurred is a huge breach of trust to our users.
For that we are very sorry."
The Record.com, 21 April, 2018
This relates to 620k Canadians - how many in Nelson? - part of the Cambridge Analytica personal-data-sweep for political purposes. And who knows what else by who knows whom. Zuckerberg admits the probability of other players.
Apologizing after the fact is meaningless: these Canadian users' Profile Data are irretrievably way out there somewhere.
Nelson subscribers also may not know: Facebook has been getting away with similar schemes since 2010. They just didn't get significant push-back until now.
Aplologists
So now it is share, share, share and trust, trust, trust and sorry, sorry, sorry with CEO Zuckerberg, COO Sheryl Sandberg, and Kevin Chan.
Chan's sorry actually carries some weight in Canada: here saying sorry works in any situation.
Seemingly deemed sufficient enough by him as well, as he refuses to answer reporters' questions after the committee hearing, dealing mainly with Facebook shamelessly cozying up to the Liberal government in regards to - while not registered as lobbyist.
"After the CBC reported on the controversy, Facebook sent a statement saying it will "soon" register its personnel as lobbyists.
NDP MP Charlie Angus is skeptical about Facebook's decision to register now.
"Why is it that Facebook only does the right thing when they get caught," he told the CBC."
CBC News, April 22, 2018
Why, indeed!
Users-or-not, consider becoming informed!
They need to be stopped!
Artist:
Federico Salmi
Deb Kozak, Mayor
dkozak@nelson.ca
Frances Long, Director - Corp. Services
flong@nelson.ca
Kevin Cormack, CAO
kcormack@nelson.ca
City Council
nelsoncouncil@nelson.ca
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