First, read this article:  “This Time, Facebook Really Might be Fucked” by Rhett Jones.  

Your question to answer is: Why is it important to protect user data? If people agree to the data protection statements of social media websites, is there still something wrong with mining their data? Why or why not?

Protecting user data is necessary for any application that uses it in any way. It’s important due to the range of identifiable information that can be involved when on any site, especially social media platforms. Some of that information includes names, pictures, interests, beliefs, home addresses, and financial data. If this information is being put into the hands of companies, then efficient security practices are crucial for preventing breaches that can lead to identity fraud or other crimes that have a large impact on people’s lives.

This impact was shown with Facebook’s scandal with Cambridge Analytica, and how they allowed the third-party company to mine the personal data of fifty million accounts for around three years without users knowing. So, to answer the question of the ethics of data mining, while users agree to data protection statements on social media sites, there is still an ethical dilemma with data mining due to the lack of transparency given to users. In the case of Cambridge Analytica, users agreed to entrust their data to Facebook, not to a third-party company that took their data easily without any pushback. To ignore the data agreement of the users by involving another party completely undermines its purpose, even if data mining is slipped into it. Furthermore, users who know that their data is being mined still need to be aware of who has access to it and what it’s being used for to maintain transparency and ethical standards.