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Zuckerberg Has No Way Out of Facebook's Quagmire

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Re: Zuckerberg Has No Way Out of Facebook's Quagmire

#101

Post by fareesh »

nemothekid wrote: post #38
sverige wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The Facebook outrage is interesting since it is tied to Trump. When Obama did it, no one cared. For example, there's a video of Jim Messina, Obama's 2012 campaign manager, talking about how they obtained the entire Facebook social graph and used it to target voters. [1] I don't remember any "delete Facebook" campaigns back then. [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mZmcyHpG31A

I'm struggling to understand why people keep bringing up the Obama comparison. At the start of the 2016 elections everyone , Sanders, Clinton, Jeb!, Trump were doing what Obama did in 2012. The outrage isn't soley in the fact that the CA campaign used FB data. 1. CA obtained the data illicitly and tried to cover up the fact they had used it, and downplay how many users they had reached. 2. CA used the data to intenti…

Assuming it is true, for which I have yet to see any evidence, what is the substance of point #2?

I have trouble finding these arguments convincing in light of concrete data.

I have looked at examples of the fake news posts on Facebook, as reported by the media. Two of them say that you can tweet or SMS to vote instead of going in person. Is this all it takes to disrupt an American election?

I saw two other posts - one for a fake event called miners for Trump, and one that says Hillary Clinton has a low approval rating with military veterans. Is there someone making a serious argument that Hillary voters saw this and changed their minds? Folks were on the fence but this is what pushed them to vote for President Trump? I don't find that believable. The posts are weak and hardly convincing, if at all.

There was also an anti Trump march after the election which was attended by a large number of people including Michael Moore, which turned out to be organised by Russians on Facebook. That one was effective but seemed to be aimed at the President.

This is the kind of hoax stuff that you used to see in email forwards, and those have been doing the rounds for years. Seeing them on Facebook is not a new phenomenon, it's just a different platform.

I find this line of reasoning very sketchy because I have yet to see any content or post that makes a compelling argument based on false facts. If you have seen any such posts I would like to see them.

I'm also confused about why CA needed the data they took from Kogan in order to do this. How does one relate to the other? Let's pretend I have Kogans data right here with me and I have a few of these fake posts, what do I do next? Do I start adding some of these folks as friends and start sharing content with them? How did they use the Kogan data exactly?

By comparison I think some of the memes and hoaxes that the online Trump groups (mostly young Americans) came up with were quite well made. There was a campaign called #DraftOurDaughters that purposely perpetrated a hoax that Hillary Clinton wanted to draft women to fight wars in the middle East. There were also several campaigns to draw attention to the practice of spirit cooking, which was referenced once or twice in John Podesta's emails. I remember being in a discord voice chat one day in 2016 with a few folks from 4chan's /pol/ board and there was work being done where the emails were being made into pamphlets to pass around at church to reach some of the less tech savvy folks, and older folks who were not on Twitter and didn't know much about Wikileaks.

As for point #1, given that nobody consented to their data going to either Obama or Trump I think the comparison is quite valid. CA broke an arbitrary platform policy whereas the Obama campaign got the data with their blessing. I don't think that is a good thing, or that it makes their use of people's personal data acceptable.

Re: Zuckerberg Has No Way Out of Facebook's Quagmire

#102

Post by api »

sverige wrote: post #11
rectang wrote: post #5

It's fascinating that widespread outrage over privacy finally materializes when data is used for hated political causes. Commerce, law enforcement not so much... but "Trump" or "Obama" and suddenly people care.

The Facebook outrage is interesting since it is tied to Trump. When Obama did it, no one cared. For example, there's a video of Jim Messina, Obama's 2012 campaign manager, talking about how they obtained the entire Facebook social graph and used it to target voters. [1] I don't remember any "delete Facebook" campaigns back then. [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mZmcyHpG31A

What the Trump campaign did was more aggressive and dishonest. They took it too far, finally inspiring a backlash. It happens with lots of things: crime, financial bubbles, etc. Eventually you hit a critical mass and a reaction starts. Once started the reaction spreads virally and feeds on itself.

It also doesn't help that Trump is allied with and most ardently supported by neo-Nazis. Not claiming all his supporters are such, but that's obviously his most vocal and enthusiastic base.

Re: Zuckerberg Has No Way Out of Facebook's Quagmire

#103

Post by SmirkingRevenge »

quadrangle wrote: post #88
sverige wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The Facebook outrage is interesting since it is tied to Trump. When Obama did it, no one cared. For example, there's a video of Jim Messina, Obama's 2012 campaign manager, talking about how they obtained the entire Facebook social graph and used it to target voters. [1] I don't remember any "delete Facebook" campaigns back then. [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mZmcyHpG31A

It's not that interesting. Obama is a typical politician. Trump is a bullshitting, dysfunctional, con-artist who would never have been elected under normal circumstances. Trump is not politics as usual.

> Obama is a typical politician.

> Trump is a bullshitting, dysfunctional, con-artist

Therefore, Trump is a typical politician.

Re: Zuckerberg Has No Way Out of Facebook's Quagmire

#104

Post by throwaway82729 »

colordrops wrote: post #52
nemothekid wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm struggling to understand why people keep bringing up the Obama comparison. At the start of the 2016 elections everyone , Sanders, Clinton, Jeb!, Trump were doing what Obama did in 2012. The outrage isn't soley in the fact that the CA campaign used FB data. 1. CA obtained the data illicitly and tried to cover up the fact they had used it, and downplay how many users they had reached. 2. CA used the data to intenti…

Do you really think most of the outraged public understand the nuanced differences between the two? The reason the public is outraged is because of an engineered campaign by Trump's enemies.

Russian trolls are infiltrating HN too?

Re: Zuckerberg Has No Way Out of Facebook's Quagmire

#105

Post by mistermann »

colordrops wrote: post #52
nemothekid wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm struggling to understand why people keep bringing up the Obama comparison. At the start of the 2016 elections everyone , Sanders, Clinton, Jeb!, Trump were doing what Obama did in 2012. The outrage isn't soley in the fact that the CA campaign used FB data. 1. CA obtained the data illicitly and tried to cover up the fact they had used it, and downplay how many users they had reached. 2. CA used the data to intenti…

Do you really think most of the outraged public understand the nuanced differences between the two? The reason the public is outraged is because of an engineered campaign by Trump's enemies.

Do we even have much evidence that the public is outraged?

Re: Zuckerberg Has No Way Out of Facebook's Quagmire

#106

Post by humanrebar »

lkrubner wrote: post #82

There is a suddenness to this episode that deserves some examination. For years, Facebook has been violating people's privacy. For years, people went along with it. Perhaps on some level, people were disturbed by it, but they weren't angry enough to do anything about it. If we were discussing economics, then we would call this a Minsky moment[1]. If you substitute "trust" for "money" then this almost fits: " A Minsky…

I'm not sold on the MySpace thesis. MySpace faltered due to autoplaying audio and video, obnoxious animated gifs, and ridiculous CSS customization powers given to the users. Facebook was cleaner, loaded faster, and had a better "scene" for people in the targeted demographic: college students and eventually recent graduates.

Re: Zuckerberg Has No Way Out of Facebook's Quagmire

#107

Post by frostburg »

throwaway7656 wrote: post #98
frostburg wrote: post #90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, it's an element of political discourse that is entirely necessary. Given how cheap and effective this sort of tactic is in the current media and information landscape, why would someone interested in destabilizing a country not do it?

Well, you consider it to be cheap and effective -- in 2018. But back in 2016: Obama said there was “no serious” person who would suggest it was possible to rig American elections, adding, “I’d invite Mr. Trump to stop whining and go try to make his case to get votes.” [0] I wonder how public opinion shifted. Back in 2016, the idea of rigging elections with facebook ads was alex-jones-level of tinfoil conspiracy, and…

Your election in 2000 was stolen with the help of technically faulty (at least) voting machines. The fact that the possibility was considered tinfoil conspiracy in 2016 just means that politicians are rather skilled at reassuring the public.

Obama probably felt that he would have damaged the democratic party by saying anything else.

Re: Zuckerberg Has No Way Out of Facebook's Quagmire

#108

Post by AndrewKemendo »

nemothekid wrote: post #38
sverige wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The Facebook outrage is interesting since it is tied to Trump. When Obama did it, no one cared. For example, there's a video of Jim Messina, Obama's 2012 campaign manager, talking about how they obtained the entire Facebook social graph and used it to target voters. [1] I don't remember any "delete Facebook" campaigns back then. [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mZmcyHpG31A

I'm struggling to understand why people keep bringing up the Obama comparison. At the start of the 2016 elections everyone , Sanders, Clinton, Jeb!, Trump were doing what Obama did in 2012. The outrage isn't soley in the fact that the CA campaign used FB data. 1. CA obtained the data illicitly and tried to cover up the fact they had used it, and downplay how many users they had reached. 2. CA used the data to intenti…

1. CA obtained the data illicitly and tried to cover up the fact they had used it, and downplay how many users they had reached.

At the end of the day in both cases, the analytics group (CA or Obama for America) obtained the data of millions of users that did not directly and explicitly authorize their data to be analyzed. ~50M in the case of CA and ~180M in the case of OFA.

Neither CA nor OFA broke any statues or laws, they both worked around loopholes and tricks in Facebook's TOS & API.

2. CA used the data to intentionally spread and optimizing the sharing of bogus news.

I haven't yet heard this exact argument made for why this specific case was bad, though I suspect it's implied, but it seems like that is just a piece of the problem. Interestingly however, the contents of the targeted ads seems immaterial to the most important argument which is that this was a "breach" of private user data - a completely separate argument.

Your last point I think sums it up well, Trump and his cronies used the system against itself and people don't like it. Full stop. It wasn't the fact that he used it, because others did, it was the fact that he used it in a way that we didn't expect or like (not that it broke laws).

I mean say what you will but it truly embodies the hacker ethos.

Re: Zuckerberg Has No Way Out of Facebook's Quagmire

#109

Post by api »

aidenn0 wrote: post #20
rectang wrote: post #5

It's fascinating that widespread outrage over privacy finally materializes when data is used for hated political causes. Commerce, law enforcement not so much... but "Trump" or "Obama" and suddenly people care.

One of my friends mentioned that Trump denying climate change galvanized a lot of support for reducing greenhouse emissions. Apparently people hate Trump more than they like our planet...

American politics has a certain "wicker man" aspect to it. We elect a representative of that which is to be destroyed. We do the same with celebrities, raising them up only to symbolically sacrifice them with scandal.

Note the explosion of vocal atheism and decline of the political power of the evangelical movement during Bush II, the rise of the alt-right during Obama, and now an explosion of social justice and #metoo type stuff during Trump.

Maybe the best strategy is to vote for your least favorite candidate?

Re: Zuckerberg Has No Way Out of Facebook's Quagmire

#110

Post by anonnel »

delhanty wrote: post #26
Mayzie wrote: post #14

Wow, is it just me, or is Bloomberg really on the attack on Facebook? Every article on Facebook from them submitted here and other places like Reddit have always been quite negative, especially the headline.

Yeah, Facebook/Google/... vs trad media is like lions vs hyenas fighting over a wildebeest carcass on the Seregenti. Personally, I'm rooting for the wildebeest to come back to life and run off.

FB is far from being a victim of lions or a carcass.

If the metaphor you are trying to paint is a struggle is between Journalism Media and Social Media, I totally disagree with the side you’re picking.

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