Meta is about as trustworthy with your data as a lion in a butcher’s shop. The company is notorious for lifting users’ data by any means necessary, and the people of Australia know this more than ever. According to a new report, Meta scrapes the data of basically every Australian it can and has been for years. It’s been doing this back when the company was still called Facebook.
We’ve known that companies scrape tons of user data for a while. Before, these companies mostly scraped our data to fuel their ad businesses, like Google, but the winds have shifted in the past couple of years. Now, these companies are scraping our data to feed their AI models. So, if you use any of their services, just know that pretty much anything you do could be sent off to the company.
Meta scrapes the data of basically all Australian citizens
This bit of news should come as no surprise. Meta is one of the most data-hungry companies out there. However, the information revealed is a bit of a shock, and it should cause the Australian government to look at the company with a closer eye.
Australian politicians questioned Meta’s global privacy director, Melinda Claybaugh about whether the company has been lifting its users’ data for years. She denied the allegations initially, but Green senator David Shoebridge asked this question:
“The truth of the matter is that unless you have consciously set those posts to private since 2007, Meta has just decided that you will scrape all of the photos and all of the texts from every public post on Instagram or Facebook since 2007, unless there was a conscious decision to set them on private. That’s the reality, isn’t it?”
After that, Claybaugh responded with “Correct.” However, she was not allowed to finish her statement before being abruptly cut off by the rest of the politicians. Since she confirmed this information, it’s clear that Meta has been collecting Australian users’ data for the better part of two decades. That’s alarming.
The company has been smacked on the wrist by the EU for scraping its users’ data, so it has since stopped. The EU has strict laws against data scraping, and this has caused other companies to change how they operate their services in that area. However, Australia has no such laws, and Meta has been able to run rampant in that continent.
The data being scooped up applies to a wide range of content. It involves posts and even photos. We can only imagine the immense number of photos the company has scraped over the past 17 years.
Meta’s sneaky ways
As you can imagine, Meta tried its hardest to scrape as much data while maintaining some sort of legality. When Claybaugh denied the allegation, she was asked if Meta scraped people’s data as far back as 2007. However, the thing about David Shoebridge’s question was that it mentioned setting posts to private.
To recap, your posts would be scraped “unless you have consciously set those posts to private.” This could be seen as a way to get away with scraping data with no consequence. If Meta gave its users the ability to set their posts to private, then it technically gave users the ability to keep their data safe from being scraped. So, if their data is scraped, it’s not technically done without consent.
The issue with that is that the mass majority of users on Facebook and Instagram don’t know about this function. It’s not like these platforms come out and put it on the front page once you enter the app. So, many people don’t know that their data is being scraped, and they don’t know how to stop it.
Also, there’s not much point in using social media to share your posts privately. Social media is kind of about sharing your content with the masses.
The subject of kids
Meta mentioned that there are exceptions to the people who it scrapes data from. The company stated that it doesn’t scrape the data of people under the age of 18. That seems noble, but there’s always fine print when dealing with situations like these.
From the looks of it, the company doesn’t scrape data from accounts of people who are under 18, and this includes images. However, this only applies to the accounts, not the subjects of the images. This means that, if an account holder over the age of 18 has images of people under the age of 18 on it, Meta will still scrape the images.
So, it doesn’t really matter if Meta avoids scraping images from accounts of minors, as it’s still scooping up images of minors. Good going Meta…
Missing opt-out option
In the EU and in the U.S.A., Meta offers users the ability to opt out of having their data scraped. Once you flip that switch, your data is safe (well, supposedly it is. Remember, this is Meta, we’re talking about). However, the fact of the matter is that Meta didn’t provide that option to Australian users.
Why is that? Well, Meta is only playing nice in the EU because of its strict laws. “…we are offering an opt-out to users in Europe. I will say that the ongoing conversation in Europe is the direct result of the existing regulatory landscape,” Claybaugh said. This says a lot about Meta’s strategy. It will only mind users’ data if there are strict laws in place. If the company could get a multi-million dollar fine, then it won’t scrape data.
So, since Australia doesn’t have those laws, its data was basically served to meta on a silver platter.
Australia might have some laws in the future
This story is a real eye-opener. Meta basically stated that it’s been sucking up data from its users, in some capacity, as far back as 2007. That’s quite some time! Many of the users on its platforms weren’t even born back then.
The Australian government has expressed remorse over its lack of action in this area. “The government’s failure to act on privacy means companies like Meta are continuing to monetise and exploit pictures and videos of children on Facebook,” Australian Senator David Shoebridge told ABC News. “Meta made it clear today that if Australia had these same laws Australians’ data would also have been protected.”
Because of this, the Australian government is likely to crack down on this with some heavy laws to mitigate this. Since Meta would be the inspiration for any laws that come out, we can bet that the company’s practices will be greatly hindered. Since major legislature tends to take some time, there’s no telling when (if) the laws will come out. Hopefully, Australia and other regions in the world adopt strict laws to protect their users’ data.
2024-09-12 15:11:38