Thread · 4 tweets · 20 Dec 2018

The what and how matter. To take a basic example, until a few months ago when you logged in to a site using your Facebook account that site received your gender and age range without ever asking for it. Users certainly did not expect that.

Facebook was just throwing around user data to try to gain an edge in online identity, because lots of marketers want those demographics so it's an incentive to favour Facebook.

Having users use their data is evidently fine, on fact right now Facebook does not let users get all of their own data back. Throwing around people's data without their say-so for competitive advantage is unethical, and in some places illegal.

I'm not sure that requires much in the way of theory.