This Cambridge Analytica exploit of FB is precisely the reason I got off FB years ago, after studying its developer API. This wasn't a "breach" or a hack. This was using FB's API EXACTLY AS IT WAS DESIGNED TO BE USED. The "platform policy" is a fig leaf. bit.ly/2FQUJ7Q
All you have to do on FB is check that box saying "Yes I allow this [stupid app to pass my friend a virtual beer or whatever] to access my personal information" and you're meat, along with all your FB friends, for whichever anonymous person created that app.
You have no idea who those people are. You have no idea what they will do with the information they harvested. You have no way of finding that out, either. Once they have it, it's theirs to do whatever they want to with it.
Further, there is no way to appeal to FB to make them delete any information they may have gathered on you. You can check out any time you like, but you can never leave.
After several days of poring over their API, back in 2011, I literally, physically, shuddered. No ethical developer would have EVER built an API like that. The nefarious intent in it was plainly evident in its design, for anyone with the skill to recognize it.
Also - FB's development staff has always been overwhelmingly concentrated on the developer's API. What, you think those thousands of developers are working on their horrid front end - the one you see as a user? ROFL!
It has to be so much more dangerous now than it was when I studied it in 2011. All I can say is: If you know all this, and you're still on FB? That's on you. You chose to be a patsy. You surrendered effectively ALL of your privacy for a few hits of "social" dopamine. It's on you.
