What's changed? I've been telling people this for f___ing ages...
The Cambridge Analytica scandal isn’t a scandal: this is how Facebook works
131–140 of 163 posts
Re: The Cambridge Analytica scandal isn’t a scandal: this is how Facebook works
#132This is a scandal, and we should not blur lines here. Facebook engages in surveillance capitalism. Cambridge Analytica engages in Orwellian practices of deliberate and targeted mass manipulation, actively deceiving users from the outset about it's intentions, and using lies as a means to an end. From the Facebook report on the reason CA was suspended: > Like all app developers, Kogan requested and gained access to in…
CA sound like a bunch of scumbags and I'm glad people are shining light on these kinds of activities. However, I'm not convinced what they did was really all that new or interesting. This is our modern world and it's terrifying. Call it marketing, propaganda, fake news or disinformation, we're being manipulated constantly by numerous unattributable actors. The more interesting question to me is why is CA being called…
> Call it marketing, propaganda, fake news or disinformation, we're being manipulated constantly by numerous unattributable actors.
“The democratic method is that institutional arrangement for arriving at political decisions in which individuals acquire the power to decide by means of a competitive struggle for the people’s vote.”
Joseph Schumpeter —Capitalism, Socialism, and Democracy (1947)
Re: The Cambridge Analytica scandal isn’t a scandal: this is how Facebook works
#133Earlier quoted context omitted.
“practices of deliberate and targeted mass manipulation, actively deceiving users from the outset about it's intentions, and using lies as a means to an end” Isn’t this the modern definition of politics?
Which needs fixing. We need to restore truth to public debate, and to politics. Cynicism is destroying Western liberal democracy.
Restore?
Re: The Cambridge Analytica scandal isn’t a scandal: this is how Facebook works
#134Is it really that different from the 2012 campaign? "But the Obama team had a solution in place: a Facebook application that will transform the way campaigns are conducted in the future. For supporters, the app appeared to be just another way to digitally connect to the campaign.... That’s because the more than 1 million Obama backers who signed up for the app gave the campaign permission to look at their Facebook fr…
This is completely different. Cambridge Analytica deliberately lied and deceived users about the intention of the application they created to harvest information about users: > Like all app developers, Kogan requested and gained access to information from people after they chose to download his app. His app, “thisisyourdigitallife,” offered a personality prediction, and billed itself on Facebook as “a research app us…
What do you think all the tens of thousands of free android apps in play store are doing, if not deliberately harvesting data for any means of profit?
Re: The Cambridge Analytica scandal isn’t a scandal: this is how Facebook works
#135Earlier quoted context omitted.
CA sound like a bunch of scumbags and I'm glad people are shining light on these kinds of activities. However, I'm not convinced what they did was really all that new or interesting. This is our modern world and it's terrifying. Call it marketing, propaganda, fake news or disinformation, we're being manipulated constantly by numerous unattributable actors. The more interesting question to me is why is CA being called…
They aren't just scumbags they are snake oil salesmen. No one in the political world thinks of them as anything but snake oil salesmen. Their company is about tricking people into buying their service and never delivering any results. Look at their track record. A lot of people will point to them and say "see, this is how Trump won the election" but that's just not even remotely close to the truth, and honestly just…
How would you know this?
Given that Trump won on the slimmest of margins, if CA’s work resulted in a net increase in Trump’s margin, the “ROI” is huge.
Re: The Cambridge Analytica scandal isn’t a scandal: this is how Facebook works
#136Earlier quoted context omitted.
This is political weaponization of data and information for the purpose of putting an individual in power. It's not me trying to sell you a pug plushie or get you to use my accounting software. It's deliberately lying to seed fear, distrust, division, and hate between citizens. It's deliberate manipulation to create distrust of government institutions. It's the destruction of civil society and civil discourse for the…
The problem here, as is the root of almost all the problems we face in society isn't Cambridge Analytica. The problem is people lack basic critical thinking skills and the capacity to make good decisions. > It's deliberate manipulation to create distrust of government institutions. Nobody with any knowledge of history or good sense trusts any government institution. >It's the destruction of civil society and civil di…
This. A thousand times.
People lack very basic critical thinking skills.
Re: The Cambridge Analytica scandal isn’t a scandal: this is how Facebook works
#137Earlier quoted context omitted.
I also recall the heavy domination of social media like Reddit by Clinton supporters. CNN was solidly in the Clinton advocacy camp, too. Despite all that, she still had to manipulate the DNC party rules to get the nomination. Trump was nominated despite the rather intense opposition from the GOP establishment. The polls all predicted an easy coast to victory for Clinton. Even Trump on election night appeared shocked…
I tried not to discuss my political views in my comment - I'm sorry if you feel that I lent support to one candidate or the other. > Despite all that, she still had to manipulate the DNC party rules to get the nomination I don't think this is true. Irrespective of whether there was impropriety at any particular election, there was no way Clinton would have lost the nomination by the time that Sanders was in his strid…
> I don't think this is true.
Donna Brazile (Chairman of the DNC) wrote a book about it.
https://www.amazon.com/Hacks-Inside-Break-ins-Breakdowns-Don...
Re: The Cambridge Analytica scandal isn’t a scandal: this is how Facebook works
#138This is a scandal, and we should not blur lines here. Facebook engages in surveillance capitalism. Cambridge Analytica engages in Orwellian practices of deliberate and targeted mass manipulation, actively deceiving users from the outset about it's intentions, and using lies as a means to an end. From the Facebook report on the reason CA was suspended: > Like all app developers, Kogan requested and gained access to in…
Okay so one thing I'm interested in is why is CA so evil, and is the role they played any different to what Obama used in his midterms campaign?
> The Obama 2012 campaign used data analytics and the experimental method to assemble a winning coalition vote by vote. In doing so, it overturned the long dominance of TV advertising in U.S. politics and created something new in the world: a national campaign run like a local ward election, where the interests of individual voters were known and addressed.
https://www.technologyreview.com/s/509026/how-obamas-team-us...
Obama's campaign was famously one that was 'won by data', but there was no outrage back then, in fact the opposite. What's different here?
Re: The Cambridge Analytica scandal isn’t a scandal: this is how Facebook works
#139Earlier quoted context omitted.
The problem here, as is the root of almost all the problems we face in society isn't Cambridge Analytica. The problem is people lack basic critical thinking skills and the capacity to make good decisions. > It's deliberate manipulation to create distrust of government institutions. Nobody with any knowledge of history or good sense trusts any government institution. >It's the destruction of civil society and civil di…
You’ve thumbnailed elements of the problem, and left out the heart of the matter: The cabalistic forces of uber-rich conservatives (reactionaries) marshaled these propaganda tools to convince justifiably agreived voters to vote for a candidate who is letting them “run wild in the candy store.” The interests and ideology of the Mercers and the Koch are diametrically opposed to any practical solution to the problem of…
> The cabalistic forces of uber-rich conservatives (reactionaries) marshaled these propaganda tools to convince justifiably agreived voters to vote for a candidate
Most of the über rich conservatives were anti-Trump.
> are diametrically opposed to any practical solution to the problem of growing inequality in the US.
Trumps policies are incredibly practical and if implemented will go a long way towards solving inequality in the US.
Again, it's why most of the über rich conservatives are anti-Trump.
Re: The Cambridge Analytica scandal isn’t a scandal: this is how Facebook works
#140This is a scandal, and we should not blur lines here. Facebook engages in surveillance capitalism. Cambridge Analytica engages in Orwellian practices of deliberate and targeted mass manipulation, actively deceiving users from the outset about it's intentions, and using lies as a means to an end. From the Facebook report on the reason CA was suspended: > Like all app developers, Kogan requested and gained access to in…
Okay so one thing I'm interested in is why is CA so evil, and is the role they played any different to what Obama used in his midterms campaign? > The Obama 2012 campaign used data analytics and the experimental method to assemble a winning coalition vote by vote. In doing so, it overturned the long dominance of TV advertising in U.S. politics and created something new in the world: a national campaign run like a loc…
Cambridge Analytica got their data through a paid quiz that didn't fully disclose to the user what their friends and own data were going to be used for.
It almost certainly broke EU data laws, and CA referred to their data operations as 'propaganda' when speaking to clients. https://www.engadget.com/2018/03/19/cambridge-analytica-chan...