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Suspending Cambridge Analytica and SCL Group from Facebook

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Re: Suspending Cambridge Analytica and SCL Group from Facebook

#81

Post by Stratoscope »

yjftsjthsd-h wrote: post #66
Stratoscope wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Just as a great comedian doesn't laugh at their own joke, great sarcasm is best served without a sarcasm tag.

I disagree when the medium is text; it's harder without tone to hear.

You have a point there. It is definitely harder to hear tone in text.

But does that mean one should always put in a tag? It may ruin the joke.

As an example, this was one (or two) of my highest-voted HN comments ever:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8690893

If I'd added a '/s' tag to those comments, it would have spoiled it, wouldn't it? Part of what made it funny was that I played it straight, and people believed I was sincere almost to the end - or beyond.

But now I fear I have led us far off topic. Back to our regularly scheduled discussion of Facebook, watchful defender of our privacy.

Re: Suspending Cambridge Analytica and SCL Group from Facebook

#82

Post by astronautjones »

aslkdjaslkdj wrote: post #48

Story from March 2017 about this: https://theintercept.com/2017/03/30/facebook-failed-to-prote... >In late 2015, the turkers began reporting that the Global Science Research survey had abruptly shut down. The Guardian had published a report that exposed exactly who the turkers were working for. Their data was being collected by Aleksandr Kogan, a young lecturer at Cambridge University. Kogan founded Global Science Re…

The Intercept is so wildly underrated (and unfairly disparaged). Vital reporting.

Re: Suspending Cambridge Analytica and SCL Group from Facebook

#83

Post by astronautjones »

OrganicMSG wrote: post #28

We are utterly shocked to discover that people have been invading our customer's privacy to manipulate them politically, without our consent. Sorry, their consent, I meant to say without their consent. Furthermore, we had no idea that this was going on, as we were reading a really good book at the time and the radio was on really loud. That said, we are paying attention now and you can trust us with everything from h…

read: how dare you not pay for this data

Re: Suspending Cambridge Analytica and SCL Group from Facebook

#85

Post by roywiggins »

NotSammyHagar wrote: post #70
NotSammyHagar wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm getting downvoted why? Isn't it true that's it is too easy to do this? The us govt wasn't hacked? see https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/federal-eye/wp/2015/07/0... .

Now my downvote question is getting downvoted. It's very meta. Let's see if my downvote downvote question get's downvoted.

Posts on "why is this down voted" always get downvoted, mostly because they're unanswerable and not germane to the actual topic under discussion.

It's also against the guidelines. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

Re: Suspending Cambridge Analytica and SCL Group from Facebook

#86

Post by ucaetano »

> In 2015, we learned that a psychology professor at the University of Cambridge named Dr. Aleksandr Kogan lied to us and violated our Platform Policies by passing data from an app that was using Facebook Login to SCL/Cambridge Analytica, a firm that does political, government and military work around the globe.

I guess Facebook is mad that Aleksandr Kogan profited from selling Facebook user info without Facebook taking a cut.

Re: Suspending Cambridge Analytica and SCL Group from Facebook

#87

Post by nradov »

digitalantfarm wrote: post #58
IIAOPSW wrote: post #18

Anyone else suspicious that Zuckerberg may be gearing FB to ban the analytic tools of his competition if/when he runs? If Zuckerberg does run, I wonder to what extent FB will be his personal tool? Could you imagine if an old school news paper baron ran for president and his journalists always wrote in his favor?

I'm 99% sure there's no way anyone would vote for him, regardless of anything.

People said the same thing about Ronald Reagan and Arnold Schwarzenegger before they were each elected as Governor of California.

Re: Suspending Cambridge Analytica and SCL Group from Facebook

#88

Post by bitL »

kbaker wrote: post #52
neuronexmachina wrote: post #13

Some additional context on Cambridge Analytica. I'm guessing Dr. Aleksandr Kogan (who also had his FB account suspended) was Cambridge Analytica (and the Trump campaign's) source of data on individual Facebook profiles: https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2017/oct/26/cambridge... > Cambridge Analytica used its own database and voter information collected from Facebook and news publishers in its effort to help elec…

I urge everyone to watch this video from Cambridge Analytica about their techniques with big data and psychographic profiling leading up to the 2016 election. Very dystopian, it almost feels like a seminar with a Bond villain. Quote from the video: > "we were able to form a model to predict the personality of every single adult in the United States of America." https://youtu.be/n8Dd5aVXLCc Edit: also this article is…

> form a model to predict the personality

I can do a model of personality using ML/DL anytime as well, it's a piece of cake. How good the model is is another question; I'd be surprised if they were significantly better than random noise given how pathetic "science" of psychology is.

Re: Suspending Cambridge Analytica and SCL Group from Facebook

#89

Post by itronitron »

ucaetano wrote: post #86

> In 2015, we learned that a psychology professor at the University of Cambridge named Dr. Aleksandr Kogan lied to us and violated our Platform Policies by passing data from an app that was using Facebook Login to SCL/Cambridge Analytica, a firm that does political, government and military work around the globe. I guess Facebook is mad that Aleksandr Kogan profited from selling Facebook user info without Facebook tak…

i wouldn't be surprised to hear that FB was at the same time also selling data directly to CA, such are the times in which we live

Re: Suspending Cambridge Analytica and SCL Group from Facebook

#90

Post by YeGoblynQueenne »

kbaker wrote: post #52
neuronexmachina wrote: post #13

Some additional context on Cambridge Analytica. I'm guessing Dr. Aleksandr Kogan (who also had his FB account suspended) was Cambridge Analytica (and the Trump campaign's) source of data on individual Facebook profiles: https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2017/oct/26/cambridge... > Cambridge Analytica used its own database and voter information collected from Facebook and news publishers in its effort to help elec…

I urge everyone to watch this video from Cambridge Analytica about their techniques with big data and psychographic profiling leading up to the 2016 election. Very dystopian, it almost feels like a seminar with a Bond villain. Quote from the video: > "we were able to form a model to predict the personality of every single adult in the United States of America." https://youtu.be/n8Dd5aVXLCc Edit: also this article is…

>> "we were able to form a model to predict the personality of every single adult in the United States of America."

That would be dystopian if it weren't so ridiculous. They can do nothing of the sort- predict the personality of any adult in the USA. At best they might be able to make predictions on a population basis, but anything more precise than that is out of the question. Behaviour prediction on an individual scale is pure, unadulterated fantasy.

This is just typical overselling of a service, by people who can use maths to obfuscate the fact that they 're making it up as they go along, targeted to people who wouldn't understand the maths if a five-year old explained it to them anyway.

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