MJF Student ㅡ MJF 1535 N Dayton St. Chicago, IL 60642 312) 643-0991
Brian Hopkins 1400 N Ashland Ave Chicago, IL 60622 Dear Ald. Hopkins
Since have we have been using Facebook, we have been letting Facebook use us. They have been collecting data on its users, and we have been giving them that information. I’m sending this letter to you because I want you to see that there are people who want this issue to be resolved and to prevent anything like this situation in the future. On April 10th, personal data gathered by Facebook was put on trial in the largest social media case ever, for releasing data to another company called Cambridge Analytica without consent from any of its users. This affected up to 87 million users who had their data shared with this company. This had very extreme effects on the 2016 election. In fact CEO Alexander Nix has previously said CA was a major player in Donald Trump’s election in 2016, telling undercover reporters that the company “ran all the digital campaign”. This just shows how powerful knowing the thoughts and patterns of voters really is. Cambridge Analytica used this information to help control the election for Trump. Cambridge Analytica received payments totaling almost $6 million from Trump’s campaign team in 2016. Leave.EU, said in a book published in October 2015 that he group had hired CA, and that they use “big data and advanced psychographics” to influence people. This means that they knew exactly what they were doing, and they even got results from it. Facebook has proved itself untrustworthy since it allowed its data to leak to other companies. Mark Zuckerberg initially denied the idea that Russia would exploit the social media platform, and then apologized after discovering that Russian companies spent $100,000 on 3,000 ads before, during and after the 2016 election.” It is almost impossible to believe that Facebook is so powerful, but there are multiple cases where people are being controlled through social media. Zuckerberg acknowledged that he's "made a lot of mistakes in running the company" but says
he's working to restore people's faith in Facebook. Facebook has proven that the information we give is unsafe in their hands, therefore they need to be kept in check. Some might say that this is not a Chicago argument, but I don't believe that there is any one city, state, or country that has an only say in what should happen. The fact is there are millions of people who use Facebook all over the world, and we have to try and speak together. Chief Executive Mark Zuckerberg said in a conference call with reporters that Facebook had not seen “any meaningful impact” on usage or ad sales since the scandal, but the facts prove just how much collected data really affects the world if used wrongly. This is not just a Chicago argument it is a global argument. Clearly this is a big issue in not just your ward or even in Chicago. I wouldn't blame Facebook specifically, but this is an issue for anyone who uses Facebook and any other social media site like it. We can't let companies like Facebook use data that they collect on its users to do whatever they want. There should be some sort of resolution to this issue that prevents this in the future.
Sincerely,
MJF