Facebook Security Chief Said to Leave After Clashes Over Disinformation • Hacker News Board

Re: Facebook Security Chief Said to Leave After Clashes Over Disinformation

#331

Post by mistermann » Tue, Mar 20, 2018, 3:44 AM UTC

briandear wrote: post #281

magnusss wrote: post #248

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nothing changed. What happened in many of these cases (Weinstein, Facebook) is that the story was thoroughly researched and reported in depth by a team of professional journalists working for the New York Times. My only point (if there is one) is that, despite the massive proliferation of blogs and amateur media, it often takes a professional, salaried reporter to bring an important story into the public eye.

> the story was thoroughly researched and reported in depth by a team of professional journalists working for the New York Times No. It was Ronan Farrow that originally broke the story. The NY Times took their sweet time before going after someone that was an ultra-major Democrat party donor. The Weinstein story was rejected by multiple "professional" news outlets. The "professional" journalists working for the NY Ti…

And yet, almost everyone continues to insist that the system is more or less clean, even though it is blatantly obvious news and politics is lies and propaganda from top to bottom.

Bring on the smug downvotes boys, but until all media, social networks, and the overall internet can be brought completely under government control, it will continue because there is simply too much criminal activity going on everywhere.

Re: Facebook Security Chief Said to Leave After Clashes Over Disinformation

#332

Post by mistermann » Tue, Mar 20, 2018, 3:47 AM UTC

mhneu wrote: post #308

colordrops wrote: post #243

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What changed is that an attack vector has been found to take out Cambridge Analytica. The Democrats are in full political warfare with the Trump regime, and this is just another salvo.

p.s. Did you know Steve Bannon looked at tech workers as people he could bamboozle to be his political footsoldiers? That's why the Mercers completely fund Breitbart - to propagandize young, mostly tech, men and boys. From Josh Greene's book: "Yiannopoulos devoted much of Bretibart's tech coverage to cultural issues, particularly Gamergate, a long-running online argument over gaming culture that peaked in 2014. And t…

PS: And the democrats weaponize starry eyed, well-intentioned young progressive millennial and gen-xers. Why do you think the Russia-did-everything story sells so well when they were a bit player at most?

Sorry to burst your bubble, but everyone is in on it.

Re: Facebook Security Chief Said to Leave After Clashes Over Disinformation

#333

Post by vtrenrn31 » Tue, Mar 20, 2018, 3:49 AM UTC

opportune wrote: post #235

swebs wrote: post #233

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Nobody has a "right" to spread propaganda It's literally the first amendment.

There's a difference between me telling you my opinion on an issue and me knowingly spreading false information at a mass scale for personal gain. I think that specifically (in my layman's interpretation of law) does not fall under the first amendment's interpretation of allowing freedom of expression since the expression is not genuine, in the same way that fraud is not genuine. You would not be prosecuted for fraud…

Why are you assuming that the information spread is false? Propaganda is not necessarily false, in fact, it is better if it is true.

Platforms like Facebook would be well within their rights to try and prevent politically targeted advertising, even if it would be a fool's errand. Outlawing it would be unconstitutional.

If they try to prevent "spreading of false information" by political advertisers I've no doubt they will simply be harsher on the propagandists who have a political aim at odds with Facebook's interests, one of which is stopping these hit pieces by those angry that Trump won.

Nobody would be talking about this if Cambridge Analytica worked with Hillary. They simply want to stop their opponents from using the useful tool that is targeted advertising.

Re: Facebook Security Chief Said to Leave After Clashes Over Disinformation

#334

Post by mistermann » Tue, Mar 20, 2018, 3:49 AM UTC

mhneu wrote: post #305

letslightafire wrote: post #208

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My guess: Selling psychological data to advertisers is boring but if you get Bannon involved and rope it into the Trump news cycle, it suddenly gets a lot of people talking. https://www.theguardian.com/news/2018/mar/17/data-war-whistl... This article is probably the biggest one right now.

Selling psychological data to advertisers is boring, but when you get billionaires and foreign powers involved to elect a would-be autocrat who is degrading American democracy, it suddenly gets a lot of people talking. Yup. It's not a surprise why people are interested in the role of data in modern public debate and democracy.

Wait until people find out American democracy is smoke and mirrors, then you'll see people talking. They better this situation under control soon or that might just happen.

Re: Facebook Security Chief Said to Leave After Clashes Over Disinformation

#335

Post by slededit » Tue, Mar 20, 2018, 3:50 AM UTC

mattnewton wrote: post #304

jjeaff wrote: post #287

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's a disingenuous transcript. "They're rapists" is much more likely to be, "their rapists". And it makes a big difference. (as in, "...they're bringing drugs, they're bringing crime, their rapists.") In other words, they aren't sending their best, they are sending drug dealers, criminals, rapists, etc. That's completely different than that transcript's implication, which would be like saying, "they aren't sending…

Sorry, he wasn’t calling all Mexicans rapists, just the ones immigrating to the United States. Much better.

The truth matters. Disinformation hurts us all.

Re: Facebook Security Chief Said to Leave After Clashes Over Disinformation

#336

Post by drewmol » Tue, Mar 20, 2018, 3:53 AM UTC

sounds wrote: post #301

fooey wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because the "breaches" and "abuses" aren't breaches or abuses, it's Facebook's business model working as intended.

“The people whose job is to protect the user always are fighting an uphill battle against the people whose job is to make money for the company,” said Sandy Parakilas Just a shout out to all you who might be at a company like this. If your company hasn't figured out user privacy yet (Facebook hasn't), you might want to look for the exit. If your company treats you badly, look for the exit. If your company treats you…

Also, if your company treats what many (probably not most on here) people would consider to be private details of your employment contract financials like an asset to be sold/ another piece of data to monitize... send a GDPR type request to HR. Then look for exit. Or just treat them similarly, and discretely monitize every piece of information you've gained from the relationship that they would expect, but not mandate, you to keep quite about.

If you are not aware, here's where most of your Equifax data that's been leaked online comes from, send in a request: https://www.theworknumber.com/Employees/DataReport/

You can confirm employer participation--> Login--> Find Employer Code if someone wants to scrape the DB list.

Re: Facebook Security Chief Said to Leave After Clashes Over Disinformation

#337

Post by berberous » Tue, Mar 20, 2018, 3:54 AM UTC

briandear wrote: post #281

magnusss wrote: post #248

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nothing changed. What happened in many of these cases (Weinstein, Facebook) is that the story was thoroughly researched and reported in depth by a team of professional journalists working for the New York Times. My only point (if there is one) is that, despite the massive proliferation of blogs and amateur media, it often takes a professional, salaried reporter to bring an important story into the public eye.

> the story was thoroughly researched and reported in depth by a team of professional journalists working for the New York Times No. It was Ronan Farrow that originally broke the story. The NY Times took their sweet time before going after someone that was an ultra-major Democrat party donor. The Weinstein story was rejected by multiple "professional" news outlets. The "professional" journalists working for the NY Ti…

NYT finally published because Ashley Judd went on the record. NYT knew just like so many others, but that was really mostly just based on rumors...how do you possibly publish something like that and risk the lawsuits? You need solid evidence to make taking the risk a responsible choice, and in a case like Weinstein's, that really means at a minimum someone needs to go on the record.

Re: Facebook Security Chief Said to Leave After Clashes Over Disinformation

#338

Post by mistermann » Tue, Mar 20, 2018, 3:56 AM UTC

mhneu wrote: post #323

manigandham wrote: post #222

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Psychographic data (personalities and traits beyond simple demographics) has long been known and used before Facebook ever existed, it's just much easier now that so many people are feeding data to a centralized system with easy access. CA's CEO is seen presenting this clearly in 2016, specifically how well it helped the Cruz campaign: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n8Dd5aVXLCc Worldview Standard has a podcast calle…

This is in some sense an extension of the Myers-Briggs-type personality typing, which in its early days also grew out of data analysis. People use the Myers-Briggs typing at work because it helps you work with (read persuade) people. So you can make an argument this is at least 100 years old. As for why we've reached critical mass - it seems likely the ability to influence democratic elections, and the efforts by ene…

> As for why we've reached critical mass - it seems likely the ability to influence democratic elections, and the efforts by enemies of the Western world to use it to undermine democracy, are getting people to notice.

American politicians of both stripes have realized the private sector now wields comparable propaganda power to that of the government, hence the post election "Russia" propaganda activity burst and full court press on the story by friendly newspapers to rein everyone in, before they are neutered.

Re: Facebook Security Chief Said to Leave After Clashes Over Disinformation

#339

Post by vtrenrn31 » Tue, Mar 20, 2018, 4:00 AM UTC

briandear wrote: post #292

cratermoon wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

Interesting how whataboutism became a common use term recently -- when people started pointing out hypocrisy, suddenly we care about whataboutism? Hypocrisy is what I care about and there's enough of it to repave the entire Interstate system. When someone criticized Obama or Democrats, the first words in response was some variation of "Bush..." Blame Bush was a competitive sport. Whatabout that?

In its original incarnation it was not so bad. If one criticizes the Russian government for their low-level corruption and it responds with "but you are lynching negroes", that is basically irrelevant and does not invalidate the criticism and one can categorize the response as whataboutism to disregard it.

But it is disingenuous to use it to disregard others who point out hypocrisy. If you want others not to use a useful strategy, you can't use it yourself and then whine when they respond in kind, telling them they should stop without making any assurances that you yourself will. It's like telling someone they should only fight with fists while you're wearing brass knuckles.

Say targeted advertising is like a nuke. If you complain when your enemy drops a nuke on you, but not when you drop a nuke on them, your problem is obviously not with nukes, just with your enemies dropping them on you.

This whole media campaign against Facebook is aimed to prevent something like Trump 2016 from ever happening again by denying the people who [i]shouldn't win[/i] modern tools. It has nothing to do with privacy.

Re: Facebook Security Chief Said to Leave After Clashes Over Disinformation

#340

Post by mistermann » Tue, Mar 20, 2018, 4:09 AM UTC

rdtsc wrote: post #320

TAForObvReasons wrote: post #106

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think culturally we've accepted that political propaganda is different from run-of-the-mill corporate advertisement. Even the words we use are different: few people would call a TV spot "propaganda", even though both seek to influence people to act in a certain way. People understand and accept the concept and execution of advertisement. Propaganda is not received in the same way.

> I think culturally we've accepted that political propaganda is different from run-of-the-mill corporate advertisement I think we want to believe that but hasn't been true for many years. Presidents sell a brand unfortunately, just like large companies do their commercials. With the same psychological and rhetorical tricks. One of my favorite examples I always bring up is this: http://adage.com/article/moy-2008/obam…

The vast majority of people, and that includes HNers, don't think of that as propaganda. Well, if it was done by a Republican maybe you'd get somewhat better uptake, but I'm getting the feeling the American mind is highly resistant to any suggestion that things aren't as they're told they are. America is the Greatest Country of All Time, after all. It's starting to get very difficult to maintain this level of ignorance but most people are fighting the good fight, at least those who are even paying attention at all.