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There was a grand reveal of a long awaited investigation into the problems of Facebook and privacy in Canada on Thursday.

It showed, according to the federal and BC privacy commissioners, that Facebook didn’t respect users privacy, failed to obtain consent before sharing information and failed to protect user information.

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This bizarrely all stemmed from the 2016 U.S. presidential election.

The investigation and report was prompted by a complaint about the behaviour of British firm Cambridge Analytica that was caught up in controversy regarding targeted Facebook ads during the 2016 U.S. presidential race.

As I’ve been saying from the beginning, using Facebook’s tools to target users isn’t a bug in the system — it is a feature.

During the 2012 presidential campaign, Barack Obama and his team used similar tactics to reach people that otherwise would not have voted.

They bragged about stripping user data and friends lists to create campaigns that would target key demographics and were heralded in the media for it.