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Facebook Security Chief Said to Leave After Clashes Over Disinformation

nytimes.com

411–420 of 436 posts

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

#411

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's also the fact that political propaganda comes in a lot more veiled forms than corporate propaganda. Because it's in a sense natural for us to discuss politics face to face, or at least we recognize that some level of discussion about politics is necessary and good, we're mostly ok with things like celebrities endorsing a candidate. A candidate traveling around the country and speaking to potential voters is p…

> This type of belief-inception is precisely what Cambridge Analytica specialized in. The DNC and their friends in the media are no slouches at it either. Or was it someone else hinting that a Nazi revival was underway, not to mention some sort of equivalent movement of misogynists who were determined to put women back in the kitchen where they belonged? > I'll use my race example again, because Robert Mercer is esse…

The difference is deception, lies, secrecy, AND the amount of money behind it. Look at the Koch network, Mercer, Adelson, Murdoch, and how much they spend on politics and related disinformation (Heritage, ALEC, SPN, Cato/Koch Fnd, NRA, Americans for "Prosp", Reason, Federalist, Breitbart, NY Post, WSJ ed, Fox, Bos Herald, Wash Ex, IJR, Daily Caller, Prager "U" etc etc. - all controlled by billionaires, and that's leaving out Limbaugh and Hewitt and Levin who are just after personal profit)

There is a huge huge difference between the sides. And that difference gives a huge advantage to one group: billionaires who can use their money to lobby to retain more wealth from the economy.

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

#412

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Propaganda is not received in the same way. Nothing new here, seriously. Propaganda from both sides before elections has existed for as long as there were political debates and political campaigns. The fact that we have now systems to make Propaganda more targeted may make it more effective than before, but that's all. In the end, believing or not in Propaganda is the individual's responsibility.

I highly disagree. It's easier to simply disallow veiled political advertisements (propaganda) for both platforms and propagandists. Nobody has a "right" to spread propaganda, just like nobody has a right to defraud people simply because they aren't able to spot a scam

That will be hard, but we might eventually get there.

In the meantime, it's easy and possible today to require that all political spending MUST come with disclosure of funding. No more secret donations to Super PACs or Heritage or Hillsdale.

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

#413
post #92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This fact has me more confused than anything. What did most people think Facebook was doing... Keeping all the data locked away an never letting anyone make use of it? The interest in that data by political entities should have been especially obvious. Additionally, this information about Cambridge Analytica came out months ago. I remember first hearing about it on a podcast that was mostly focused on the personality…

> Additionally, this information about Cambridge Analytica came out months ago. Minor nit: Years ago. The name Cambridge Analytica was being circulated in hacker circles since at least mid-2016. Thus far, the only new revelation was the Channel 4 reporting [1]. Security nerds have been complaining about Facebook's business model for years and it fell upon deaf ears. Suddenly, the public gives a shit and I don't under…

Wasn't all this started with Blairs Premiership new Nudge technolgy to allow the government to get its subjects to behave as desired?

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

#414
post #392

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Not just security nerds. Take for example Eben moglen, professor in law and history of law. "So I was talking to a senior government official of this government (2012) about that outcome and he said well you know we've come to realize that we need a robust social graph of the United States. That's how we're going to connect new information to old information." I suspect that the only reason we are hearing about the T…

There's been evidence that the Trump campaign did a massively better job of taking advantage of Facebook than any other campaign, Republican or Democrat, had previously. There's also evidence that Facebook's advertising models were a massive help -- the Trump campaign and affiliated organizations were paying much lower advertising rates than the Clinton campaign + affiliates, largely because Facebook's model prioriti…

The only reason I can think that the Democrats wouldn't have used the data is because their plan was to rig the election. I say that because other than Seth Rich, the Democrats have no a single shred of ethics at work anyplace. If the Democrats thought murdering old ladies would win them the election, they would murder old ladies. Not that some of the Republicans wouldn't--they are all birds of a feather, after all.

The delicious thing about Trump, and what is becoming more and more clear, is that he is a reformed sociopath, or is trying to be that. I support him only for that reason--if we can't successfully reform our government and eliminate many of the truly awful people in it, then we're headed for a civil war as the next step. Regular Americans can't survive an oligarchy.

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

#415
post #375
post #197

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Precisely! From what I cant tell, that tweet (which went rather viral) is misleading at best; based on the public information, the 2012 Obama campaign wasn't using that access to target people who volunteered access to their Facebook data, they were using that access to get info about their non-consenting friends and figure out how to get them to vote for Obama. (I commented about this in one of the other threads: ht…

When you have a Facebook account, you are explicitly granting permission to FB to use your personal information and social graph to sell ads. There is nothing deceptive about this.

This isn’t about FB selling ads. Cambridge Abalytica and the Obama campaign are third-parties

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

#416
post #376

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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 .

Democrats are moving to the center (e.g. right) while conservatives move further right. Meanwhile, young progressive millennial and gen-xers are trying to move democrats to the left and are in large power struggle. Not the same.

I fail to see how gun prohibition and the destruction of the rest of our civil rights in the process (e.g. end of due process?) is anything but full-on hard-left playbook. Moving to the center? Only if you are left of Stalin himself.

I think what we are seeing is the age old game--trick the naive into giving up everything in hopes of utopia and then when they are starving and in dire need of security (@see: Venezuela) then shove them all into mass graves. That's your communist history in a nutshell.

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

#417

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I don't disagree with these sentiments, but the hope that engineers/IT staff will leave is wishful thinking. I speak from my own experience which my differ from others in other industries/regions/countries but, I find people who work in tech to be generally dispassionate with regards to the downstream effects of their contributions. I think that's because: a) We're often small cogs ... b) ... working on often interes…

I think the reason is (d), that most employees believe in the company's mission and do not think they are working for an unethical company, but instead that the company is being unfairly portrayed.

Most in Facebook or most in general in tech companies? If the latter, I'd bet my life that most people couldn't care less about visions or missions, which is more the realm of Founders, very young employees and marketing materials. I'm sorry to state it that harshly...

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

#419
post #92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This fact has me more confused than anything. What did most people think Facebook was doing... Keeping all the data locked away an never letting anyone make use of it? The interest in that data by political entities should have been especially obvious. Additionally, this information about Cambridge Analytica came out months ago. I remember first hearing about it on a podcast that was mostly focused on the personality…

> Additionally, this information about Cambridge Analytica came out months ago. Minor nit: Years ago. The name Cambridge Analytica was being circulated in hacker circles since at least mid-2016. Thus far, the only new revelation was the Channel 4 reporting [1]. Security nerds have been complaining about Facebook's business model for years and it fell upon deaf ears. Suddenly, the public gives a shit and I don't under…

The public does not "give a shit". If Trump's win tells us anything, it's that there is not necessarily a correlation between what gets trumpeted as national news and what people actually believe, accept, or experience.

There are major power players at work trying to a) exert control over the internet as a speech platform; and b) ensure that their political opponents can't win without establishment support. I discussed this some at https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16616227 .

As for my grandma, my mom, and my sisters, like most of the public, they don't care about any of this, because this data was mostly already public-enough (friends list restricted) and they just want a platform where they know they'll be able to engage with friends and family.

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

#420
post #355
post #305

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

That's why we need safeguards in place. Everyone was happy when Obama used it and never thought it can be used by someone else too. Edit: Someone linked this below - http://adage.com/article/moy-2008/obama-wins-ad-age-s-market...

Did Obama acquire the data under false pretense, use it to lie and mislead people, or downright coerce candidates through bribes and sex?
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