Facebook Nation: Total Information Awareness

571 Pages·2021·16.501 MB·English

by  Newton Lee

Newton Lee
Facebook
Nation
Total Information Awareness
Third Edition
Facebook Nation
Newton Lee
Facebook Nation
Total Information Awareness
Third Edition
Newton Lee
Institute for Education, Research, and Scholarships
Los Angeles, CA, USA
ISBN 978-1-0716-1866-0 ISBN 978-1-0716-1867-7 (eBook)
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-0716-1867-7
© Springer Science+Business Media, LLC, part of Springer Nature 2013, 2014, 2021
This work is subject to copyright. All rights are reserved by the Publisher, whether the whole or part of
the material is concerned, specifically the rights of translation, reprinting, reuse of illustrations, recitation,
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now known or hereafter developed.
The use of general descriptive names, registered names, trademarks, service marks, etc. in this publication
does not imply, even in the absence of a specific statement, that such names are exempt from the relevant
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The publisher, the authors, and the editors are safe to assume that the advice and information in this book
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To peace, love, and freedom
Acknowledgements
The author wishes to thank the following contributing authors for writing some of
the book chapters:
Julien Carbonnell, University of Cergy-Pontoise
Mats Danielson, Stockholm University
Love Ekenberg, International Institute of Applied Systems Analysis
Alex Houg, BlitzMetrics
Inessa Lee, Institute for Education, Research, and Scholarships
Adriana Mihai, University of Bucharest
Emily Temple-Wood, WikiProject Women Scientists
Dennis Yu, BlitzMetrics
vii
About the Book
This book explores total information awareness empowered by social media. At the
FBI Citizens Academy in February 2021, I asked the FBI about the January 6
Capitol riot organized on social media that led to the unprecedented ban of a sitting
U.S. President by all major social networks. In March 2021, Facebook CEO Mark
Zuckerberg, Google CEO Sundar Pichai, and Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey appeared
before Congress to face criticism about their handling of misinformation and online
extremism that culminated in the storming of Capitol Hill.
With more than three billion monthly active users, Facebook family of apps is by
far the world’s largest social network. Facebook as a nation is bigger than the top
three most populous countries in the world: China, India, and the United States.
Social media has enabled its users to inform and misinform the public, to appease
and disrupt Wall Street, to mitigate and exacerbate the COVID-19 pandemic, and to
unite and divide a country.
Mark Zuckerberg once said, “We exist at the intersection of technology and
social issues.” He should have heeded his own words. In October 2021, former
Facebook manager-turned-whistleblower Frances Haugen testified at the U.S.
Senate that Facebook’s products “harm children, stoke division, and weaken our
democracy.”
This book offers discourse and practical advice on information and misinforma-
tion, cybersecurity and privacy issues, cryptocurrency and business intelligence,
social media marketing and caveats, e-government and e-activism, as well as the
pros and cons of total information awareness including the Edward Snowden leaks.
ix
Contents
Part I Prologue
1 From 1984 to Total Information Awareness . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3
1.1 U.S. Capitol Riot on January 6, 2021 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3
1.2 President Ronald Reagan on April 3, 1984 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4
1.3 Total Information Awareness . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8
1.4 Edward Snowden’s NSA Leaks and PRISM . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11
1.5 Social Networks’ Responses to NSA Leaks and PRISM . . . . . . . . 14
1.6 Reform Government Surveillance and Reset the Net . . . . . . . . . . . 17
References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 18
Part II P rivacy in the Age of Big Data
2 Social Networks and Privacy . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 25
2.1 Zero Privacy and the Central Intelligence Agency . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 26
2.2 The Archer, Carrier Pigeons, and President Jimmy Carter . . . . . . . 26
2.3 The Pervasiveness of Facebook . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 28
2.4 Chairs Are Like Facebook . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 31
2.5 Facebook and Personal Privacy . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 32
2.6 Facebook Friends and Personal Privacy. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 34
2.7 Facebook, Children, and COPPA . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 35
2.8 Netflix and Social Apps on Facebook . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 38
2.9 Facebook Timeline and Open Graph . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 39
2.10 Ambient Social Apps and Digital Surveillance . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 40
2.11 Stalking Apps and Badoo (aka Facebook for Sex) . . . . . . . . . . . . . 41
2.12 Facial Recognition Apps . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 43
2.13 Facial Recognition on Facebook, Google, and iPhone . . . . . . . . . . 44
2.14 Virtual Passports: From Privacy to Data Use . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 47
2.15 Social Search: Google, plus Your World and Microsoft’s Bing . . . . 49
2.16 Self-Destructing Messages . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 51
2.17 Facebook Anonymous Login . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 52
2.18 Anonymous Social Apps . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 53
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xii Contents
2.19 Responses to Zero Privacy . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 54
References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 55
3 Smartphones and Privacy . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 69
3.1 Smartphones . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 69
3.2 Location Tracking on iPhone and iPad . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 70
3.3 Carrier IQ . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 71
3.4 Smartphone Data Collection Transparency . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 72
3.5 Always On . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 74
3.6 Mobile Apps Privacy Invasion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 75
3.7 Mobile Apps for Children . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 76
3.8 Android Market and Google Play . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 76
3.9 Apple’s App Store . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 77
3.10 Facebook App Center . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 78
References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 79
4 Privacy Breaches . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 85
4.1 Facebook’s Massive Data Breaches . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 85
4.2 Google Street View . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 86
4.3 Google Easter Eggs in Disguise . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 89
4.4 Apple Software Bugs . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 91
4.5 Facebook User Tracking Bug and Online Behavioral Tracking . . . 93
4.6 Carrier IQ and Other Privacy Blunders . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 94
References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 95
Part III B usiness Intelligence in Social Media
5 Business Intelligence . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 101
5.1 French Revolution of Finance: A Tale of GameStop . . . . . . . . . . . . 101
5.2 Bitcoin, Dogecoin, and Crypto Pump-and-Dumps . . . . . . . . . . . . . 103
5.3 Facebook Credits, Libra, Diem, and Stablecoin . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 104
5.4 Intelligent Digital Billboards . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 104
5.5 Data Mining: Amazon.com, Lowe’s, Target, True&Co . . . . . . . . . . 105
5.6 Tumblr and Gmail: Yes to Advertisements . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 106
5.7 Social Ads on Facebook . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 107
5.8 News Feed, Sponsored Stories, Custom Stories, Facebook
Exchange, and Marketplace . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 109
5.9 Facebook for Every Phone . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 110
5.10 Instagram and Mobile App Install Ads . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 111
5.11 Facebook Home and Parse . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 113
5.12 WhatsApp and Facebook Audience Network . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 113
5.13 Location-based Mobile Advertisements . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 115
5.14 Business Communications on Facebook . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 115
5.15 B2B, B2C, and H2H on Social Media . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 117
References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 118
Contents xiii
6 Facebook Analytics, Advertising, and Marketing . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 127
6.1 The Viral Cycle . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 127
6.2 Metrics Analysis Action (MAA) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 128
6.3 Everything You Need to Know about Website Custom
Audiences (WCA) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 130
6.4 Ten Questions Any Facebook Marketing Consultant should
be Able to Answer . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 131
6.5 The Insider’s Guide to Facebook Traffic . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 134
6.6 Using Exclusion Targeting to Filter Out Unwanted Targets . . . . . . 135
6.7 Guess Where Users are Spending More Time — TV or
Mobile/Web? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 136
6.8 The Mechanics of Facebook Ad Budgeting . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 138
6.9 How Spending a Few Dollars on Facebook can Turn You
into an Influencer . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 142
6.10 The Danger of Buying Facebook Fans . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 143
6.11 How to Tell if Your Ad is Working and Diagnose Newsfeed
Burnout . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 145
References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 147
7 How to Become an Influencer and Make Money on Instagram . . . . . 151
7.1 Social Media Influencer . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 151
7.2 Advertisement . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 151
7.3 Affiliate Marketing . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 152
7.4 Personal Branding . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 152
7.5 Giveaways . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 153
7.6 Boosting Your Instagram Followers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 153
8 Consumer Privacy in the Age of Big Data . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 157
8.1 Data Privacy vs. Data Security . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 157
8.2 Facebook vs. Apple’s Privacy Nutrition Labels . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 158
8.3 Oil of the Digital Age . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 160
8.4 Data Brokers: The Good, the Bad and the Ugly . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 161
8.5 Consumer Privacy Bill of Rights . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 163
8.6 Federal Trade Commission Privacy Report: Do Not Track . . . . . . . 165
8.7 Google’s Federated Learning of Cohorts (FLoC) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 166
8.8 California Online Privacy Protection Act . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 167
8.9 European Union’s “Right to be Forgotten” Law . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 167
8.10 Facebook and Twitter Safety and Takedowns . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 168
References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 169
Part IV The Rise of Facebook Nation
9 Twitter – A World of Immediacy . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 175
9.1 Platform of Hope Amid COVID-19 Crisis. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 175
9.2 Crime Stoppers on Social Media . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 176
9.3 The Pen is Mightier than the Sword . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 177
9.4 Citizen Journalists . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 180