So if you’re anything like me you’ve probably been following this Facebook / Cambridge Analytica disaster something like,

Okay, I know, this obviously is no joke. This is about the privacy of millions of people, it’s about trust and power, it’s about manipulation, and depending on how the chips fall, it may be about American democracy. Still… I’m seeing a lot of humor or maybe just farce in the position and response of Facebook. I wanted to encapsulate some of the strangest parts in meme form for you all to enjoy and share. Here goes :)

1. “Sorry” not in the Terms of Service

Just two days ago we saw tweets and headlines like, Where is Mark Zuckerberg? Well, yesterday Zuckerberg finally came out with a statement, and I was left with an overwhelming feeling of, wut? In his post, and also parroted in his interview, Zuckerberg says, “We have a responsibility to protect your data, and if we can’t then we don’t deserve to serve you”. Those are his words, interpret them however you like :) But to help you understand how genuine he is, in his interview he said he was very “sorry”.

So the question now remains, what was Facebook’s responsibility to let you know your data had been leaked, who had it, and what you could do to protect yourself going forward? And how do we hold them accountable for not living up to that responsibility?

2. Bad luck Brian left in 2015

One of the worst parts of the whole story right now is that most of the really important details aren’t new. We’ve known about this data theft and that it was used for the Trump campaign for a year now and had a good idea it was happening for over two years! Still, it was only this week that Facebook decided to remove Cambridge Analytica from their platform. And only yesterday that Zuckerberg said anything about it.

While the current #deletefacebook movement is awesome, what of those folks who left Facebook way back in 2015? The fact is, even their data was possibly used to help classify, target, and manipulate their friends and family long after they left Facebook.

So where is Brian’s data now? The Trump campaign was just one high profile client and Cambridge Analytica was only one company that we have a hot lead on regarding their collection of this type of data. A lot of folks probably have had their data stolen, traded, and copied by a larger number of entities. It’s still out there.

3. Oh, it wasn’t a data breach?

The reason we know that Cambridge Analytica isn’t the only company that has copies of data pulled from Facebook, is that this was exactly how Facebook designed the system to work. So it wasn’t a breach, it was a feature. Facebook agrees and has already come out and denied that it was a data breach.

Here’s what one employee had to say,

Okay, I see where the sentiment is coming from, but it doesn’t make me feel great about Facebook’s position.

But we all kinda knew that right?

Feel free to share any of the above and let me know if you add any of your own to the mix! Spend the weekend talking to your friends and family about the importance of their personal data. Maybe install DuckDuckGo Privacy Essentials. And of course, check out the work we are doing at Textile.