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The Secret Agenda of a Facebook Quiz

nytimes.com

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Re: The Secret Agenda of a Facebook Quiz

#11

Post by sean_patel »

techwizrd wrote: post #8

I've been warning friends and family about this for years. It's incredible how much information people will give about themselves to get totally inane information. This "psy-ops" stuff is shady and scary, and I guarantee you that most voters have no idea it's happening.

> I've been warning friends and family about this for years.

How did it work out? I tried the same too, but it was falling into deaf years. Most common response. "Sean beta (means son in hindi). You are being excessively paranoid. Facebook is a closed community, and I only share info with friends and family, so don't worry."

Re: The Secret Agenda of a Facebook Quiz

#12

Post by SnakePlissken »

Rapzid wrote: post #4
sean_patel wrote: post #2

> If Mr. Zuckerberg takes seriously his oft-stated commitments to diversity and openness, he must grapple honestly with the fact that Facebook is no longer just a social network. It’s an advertising medium that’s now dangerously easy to weaponize. The story is chilling. It more or less proves that Trump campaign and the Billionaire Republican donor who owns the Data Analytics site used Facebook to profile people and…

I'm not sure how the Dem's will compete with this going forward. Maybe it will become taboo and they won't have to. Maybe they already are.. I hope they don't go too deep into the mud on this. It's almost impressive though how well the Republicans, and Trump specifically, are employing these, IMHO shady, tactics. Is it scandalous how little scandal is made of all this(the FUD, populist rhetoric, phycological manipula…

Google's Eric Schmidt proposed a plan similar to this (though in more ambiguous terms) back in 2014, sharing a draft with Cheryl Mills that was forwarded to the Clinton braintrust (John Podesta, Robby Mook and David Plouffe) and subsequently released by Wikileaks[0]. The use of quizzes as a front detailed in OP's article is especially insidious, but the idea of individually targeting voters with "stories" in such a manner was clearly in play. Whether they followed through with it or not, it seems naive to think they won't do something similar in the future now that Cambridge Analytica has been shown to have been so effective.

[0] https://wikileaks.org/podesta-emails/emailid/37262

Re: The Secret Agenda of a Facebook Quiz

#13

Post by [deleted] »

jjawssd wrote: post #7
Rapzid wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not sure how the Dem's will compete with this going forward. Maybe it will become taboo and they won't have to. Maybe they already are.. I hope they don't go too deep into the mud on this. It's almost impressive though how well the Republicans, and Trump specifically, are employing these, IMHO shady, tactics. Is it scandalous how little scandal is made of all this(the FUD, populist rhetoric, phycological manipula…

Zuckerberg really loves Trump and I can see how he is more than willing to help give Trump the platform he needs to continue to spread his propaganda

[deleted]

Re: The Secret Agenda of a Facebook Quiz

#14

Post by techwizrd »

sean_patel wrote: post #11
techwizrd wrote: post #8

I've been warning friends and family about this for years. It's incredible how much information people will give about themselves to get totally inane information. This "psy-ops" stuff is shady and scary, and I guarantee you that most voters have no idea it's happening.

> I've been warning friends and family about this for years. How did it work out? I tried the same too, but it was falling into deaf years. Most common response. "Sean beta (means son in hindi). You are being excessively paranoid. Facebook is a closed community, and I only share info with friends and family, so don't worry."

I've had mostly the same responses. My family has said I'm being overly paranoid. My liberal friends don't think anyone cares what they think. And my conservative friends are afraid of the NSA and the government, but fully support this kind of spying and data collection by private companies as long as their team wins.

Re: The Secret Agenda of a Facebook Quiz

#15

Post by tmuir »

Rapzid wrote: post #4
sean_patel wrote: post #2

> If Mr. Zuckerberg takes seriously his oft-stated commitments to diversity and openness, he must grapple honestly with the fact that Facebook is no longer just a social network. It’s an advertising medium that’s now dangerously easy to weaponize. The story is chilling. It more or less proves that Trump campaign and the Billionaire Republican donor who owns the Data Analytics site used Facebook to profile people and…

I'm not sure how the Dem's will compete with this going forward. Maybe it will become taboo and they won't have to. Maybe they already are.. I hope they don't go too deep into the mud on this. It's almost impressive though how well the Republicans, and Trump specifically, are employing these, IMHO shady, tactics. Is it scandalous how little scandal is made of all this(the FUD, populist rhetoric, phycological manipula…

It's not as if Donald Trump, or anyone else invented this tactic in 2016, or even the 21st century. Mass media has manufactured consent with those tools for as long as there has been a mass media. William Randolph Hearst was a master of it over 100 years ago. This is a subject that very few in the media are willing to report on, because it would delegitimize the media itself.

Even if there was a media outlet willing to destroy their reputation and business, good luck convincing human beings that they've been conditioned to behave as they do through media messaging. Brainwashing is Hollywood scifi mumbojumbo, not a scientific explanation for why basic training produces a uniform level of discipline in the military, or why millions of people pay for the privilege of inhaling carcinogens.

To top it off, I am well aware of how tinfoil the preceding two paragraphs must sound.

Re: The Secret Agenda of a Facebook Quiz

#16

Post by techwizrd »

sean_patel wrote: post #9
Gargoyle wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Democrats will use it in completely analogous ways.

> analogous ways. I really don't understand what this mean? Can anyone explain?? Thank you :)

He's deflecting by saying Democrats will do the same thing. It's a false equivalency.

Re: The Secret Agenda of a Facebook Quiz

#17

Post by morpher »

sean_patel wrote: post #9
Gargoyle wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Democrats will use it in completely analogous ways.

> analogous ways. I really don't understand what this mean? Can anyone explain?? Thank you :)

similar/comparable (https://www.google.com#q=define%20analogous)

Re: The Secret Agenda of a Facebook Quiz

#18

Post by patcon »

mjfl wrote: post #10

I'm not impressed. Did anyone notice that Cambridge Analytics did not work for Ted Cruz? I mean he did win Texas and the great plains states, but those were his most-winnable locations from the beginning due to his consistent conservatism and other nominees dropping out. He even lost the south, which should have been his other target, presumably due to being off-wavelength with southern voters, something the analytic…

I imagine we'd be equally unimpressed with other early tech.

imho, our concern should be of an extrapolative nature. we can guess where this will be in 5 or 10 years, nevermind Ted Cruz' future electoral successes. and we know how easy people are to psychologically "nudge". (sorry for assuming our agreement there)

Re: The Secret Agenda of a Facebook Quiz

#19

Post by SnakePlissken »

mjfl wrote: post #10

I'm not impressed. Did anyone notice that Cambridge Analytics did not work for Ted Cruz? I mean he did win Texas and the great plains states, but those were his most-winnable locations from the beginning due to his consistent conservatism and other nominees dropping out. He even lost the south, which should have been his other target, presumably due to being off-wavelength with southern voters, something the analytic…

Ted Cruz is probably more to blame in this case than Cambridge; he came across to many as supremely unlikeable/comically phony and clearly lost the mud slinging fights with Trump that dominated the Republican primaries. Whatever benefit Cambridge bestowed probably wasn't enough to turn Ted Cruz into a serious Presidential candidate. In more colloquial terms, perhaps even the most effective data targeting can't polish a turd.

Re: The Secret Agenda of a Facebook Quiz

#20

Post by divbit »

Seriously. Why do we allow this kind of data collection. This is ridiculous.

Edit: the commenter who responded has pointed out that this is phrased fairly accusatory. Should the fact that there is probably a data cloud out there about me being used to manipulate me through subliminal type messaging not be upsetting? I don't think I have ever signed up for a service with the expectation that whatever information is collected will be collated in some over-arching cloud used for more things than just the service provided to me by the site. Maybe somewhere in a 30 page terms of service document, it said that, and I clicked "agree" upon skimming it. But should that really be enough?

Edit 2: Here's an idea: charge me $3/month to use your service without ads, and with full expectation that my data will not be sold or used inappropriately (you can give it to the govt. if they need it for security reasons, I don't care). I currently pay for e-mail without ads from both outlook and mail.com and would gladly do the same for a pure facebook / gmail / google search / etc service.

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