Facebook privacy and civil liberty

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Facebook Privacy and Civil Liberty
The recent data breach on Facebook carried out by the Cambridge Analytica led to about 50 million Facebook users having their personal information used without their consent (Ozer and Conley 1). As a result, Judicial, civil rights and organizations such as the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) and Color of Change have gone public to advocate for changes to be made on the Facebook Privacy policy. The demands from the human rights and civil unions have made Facebook consider reviewing its privacy policy and making changes that will ensure cases of breach such as that done by Cambridge Analytica do not reoccur.
As an approach to deal with the issues, Facebook has been forced to have their policy permit the users to have control over all their personal information such that none of it is shared without their consent. According to Richards (77), civil rights movement are have been pushing to have the social sites provide a meaningful ability for their users to opt out of having their information accessed with any third party including the information such as usernames and profile pictures that are categorized as “publicly available.” An example is a case of introducing the “nuclear option” where all the users are required to turn off all applications functionalities. Practically, through the option, the users who have privacy concerns are in a position to forego using applications they do not have what to access their Facebook profiles and limit any apps being used by their friends from access any of their personal information through their friends.

Secondly, Facebook has been instructed by the Judiciary to enhance their app privacy settings such that users can easily understand how it works and how they can control the information they share with other third-party platforms. Statt (1) explains that Facebook has already initiated a move to cut off access to personal information by any app the user has not used for more than three months. ACLU, on the other hand, is pushing for the company to clarify and redesign the “apps others use” setting that most users do not understand how it works. The campaign, in this case, is to have the settings protect the user’s personal information by default and have the users easily follow through how it works when they intend to have their data accessible by any third party
Thirdly, the ACLU and other civil and human rights movement are pushing for the company to have users notified in case any of their data has been accessed or misused by a third party (Ozer and Conley 1). It includes providing both the current and past instances in which the personal data of the users were used without their consent. According to the Congress judicial statement, the company is required to have all users notified about any case where their data was inappropriately retrieved from their page, used in hacking or contractual violation or any other usage that was not inline with the perspective the Facebook users had in mind.
In summary, the data breach in Facebook has led to the remodeling of the laws governing the use of personal information of Social sites users. Measures have been set in place to have the users control how their information is being used, which third-party app can access their personal information and made aware of any case where their data is being misused.

Works Cited
Ozer, Nicole, and Chris Conley. “After the Facebook Privacy Debacle, It’s Time for Clear Steps to Protect Users.” American Civil Liberties Union, 23 Mar. 2018, www.aclu.org/blog/privacy-technology/internet-privacy/after-facebook-privacy-debacle-its-time-clear-steps-protect.
Richards, Neil. Intellectual privacy: Rethinking civil liberties in the digital age. Oxford University Press, USA, (2015): 77.
Statt, Nick. “Facebook Says Cambridge Analytica Data Collection Affected Nearly Twice as Many Users as Previously Thought.” The Verge, The Verge, 4 Apr. 2018, www.theverge.com/2018/4/4/17199632/facebook-cambridge-analytica-data-collection-87-million-users-api-developer-restrictions.