Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

The Secret Agenda of a Facebook Quiz

nytimes.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

41–50 of 114 posts

Re: The Secret Agenda of a Facebook Quiz

#41

Post by fattire »

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."

That answer depresses the shit out of me.

Re: The Secret Agenda of a Facebook Quiz

#42

Post by toyg »

Meh, big deal. Like the Obama campaigns were't good at "weaponizing" all web tools they could find.

Note how the examples proposed are all GOTV efforts targeted to the R base rather than anything appealing larger slices of the electorate. Despite all this black magic, R turnout wasn't that impressive and Trump lost the popular vote. Where it might have helped a little bit is in exploiting weaknesses that Dems shouldn't have had in the first place, i.e. Clinton's baggage, to reduce D turnout in key states, but again, that's more the Democrats' fault for fielding such a candidate knowing very well that she had such baggage.

Re: The Secret Agenda of a Facebook Quiz

#43

Post by shelvacu »

notyourwork wrote: post #24
divbit wrote: post #20

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 co…

Can I re-phrase your question? "Why do we allow people to voluntarily hand over their own information at their own will?" Sounds much different when its phrase properly and not accusatory.

I think it's very hard to conceptualize just how valuable and/or powerfull that data can be. Especially when it's given away in small pieces; Knowing my birthday by itself is useless, and so when some webform asks for it I all too easily think it's fine to give away without a second thought.

The same can be said for someone wanting to keep their location private; It's harmless to let the public know you live next to a park, and it was relevant to the story you wanted to tell that day. A month later you complain about the noise, and someone links that you may be near a highway. A week later you complain about a storm, even going so far as to live tweet it from the comfort of your own home, at one point tweeting "wow the rain got real loud for a moment there. Glad to have a nice house :D".

And now Mr. Dedicated Bad Guy has a list of three locations your house could be, all from seemingly innocuous information.

Re: The Secret Agenda of a Facebook Quiz

#46

Post by potatosoup »

> In the immediate wake of Mr. Trump’s surprise election

How was it a surprise? With huge crowd sizes at his rallies (that NYT didn't show, but RSBN for example did), strong populist message that worked, and the awful candidate the other side put up (while sadly destroying Bernie), I was not surprised.

Re: The Secret Agenda of a Facebook Quiz

#47

Post by imron »

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…

> The story is chilling.

Chilling. In fact, you could say it was a "fear" story.

All it's missing is the billionaire pulling the strings - except if you look at the tag line at the end you see it was written by someone who is an Open Society Fellow.

You know, those fellowships from the Open Society Foundation that are funded by Billionaire Democrat donor George Soros.

Did this article make you feel any negativity towards Trump and the Republicans?

If so, then for Soros, this was money on dark articles well spent.

Re: The Secret Agenda of a Facebook Quiz

#48

Post by imron »

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…

> I can imagine how this would be spun if "evil Hillary" was found to be targeting people with "dark posts".

You do realise this article is exactly that kind of post right?

Have a look at who wrote it, which foundation funds his fellowship, who created that foundation, and which candidate that billionaire donated funds to and supported.

We are all but pawns in the games played by these billionaires.

Edit: also, regarding Hillary, don't forget leaked emails from her campaign manager and the DNC showed that they were directly colluding with the media and doing this sort of thing.

Not wishy, washy sinister billionaire donor rumors, but actual, verifiable (thanks to DKIM) emails from the DNC and the Hillary campaign itself.

Re: The Secret Agenda of a Facebook Quiz

#49

Post by IshKebab »

potatosoup wrote: post #46

> In the immediate wake of Mr. Trump’s surprise election How was it a surprise? With huge crowd sizes at his rallies (that NYT didn't show, but RSBN for example did), strong populist message that worked, and the awful candidate the other side put up (while sadly destroying Bernie), I was not surprised.

Because most poll models gave him a small chance of success. How bad is your memory?

Re: The Secret Agenda of a Facebook Quiz

#50

Post by golergka »

IshKebab wrote: post #49
potatosoup wrote: post #46

> In the immediate wake of Mr. Trump’s surprise election How was it a surprise? With huge crowd sizes at his rallies (that NYT didn't show, but RSBN for example did), strong populist message that worked, and the awful candidate the other side put up (while sadly destroying Bernie), I was not surprised.

Because most poll models gave him a small chance of success. How bad is your memory?

You're assuming majority of people put faith in those polls?
Post reply on HN