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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

#141

Post by SmirkingRevenge »

jrs235 wrote: post #138
SmirkingRevenge wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Folks bring up the Obama comparison... because... well... its a pretty comparable situation. I'm not so charitable towards the public. I wouldn't place any bets that the striking wave of outrage directed at Facebook right now isn't strictly related to the outcome . In this case, that outcome is Trump in the White-house. Not that that isn't a good reason to be outraged - but I don't think its a very principled reason.

Pre-2016 Trump campaign, data was used to reach people and encourage voting. 2016 Trump campaign, data was used to stir up FUD and/or discourage voting.

That's a rather suspiciously self-serving and self-reassuring characterization of each scenario, that I don't think holds up with a bit of intellectual honesty.

In either case, similar amounts of personal data was harvested from facebook, for whatever purposes the clients cared to use it for, to predictable results.

EDIT: And that's all besides the point - the problem isn't that someone with bad intentions got ahold of data and used in a way they shouldn't have, the problem is people are just getting ahold of data they should not have - period.

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

#142

Post by norikki »

throwaway5752 wrote: post #55
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…

People are trying so hard to create the false equivalency on this issue, too. Nobody ever did what Trump, Cambridge Analytica (Mercers/Bannon), Russia, Wikileaks/Assange did in coordination (allegedly, for now).

What does Wikileaks have to do with Cambridge Analytics? (other than both wanting hillary to lose)

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

#143

Post by _bxg1 »

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…

Speaking for myself, but also probably for a lot of others, I've wanted Facebook to die for years now. The discomfort around the privacy and toxicity has been slowly building, but the critical mass of the thing makes it hard to break away by yourself. You lose touch with people, you miss event invites, etc.

So maybe, for a lot of people, this moment of collective outrage is an opportunity to get out. If we can all quit at once, we can all be free.

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

#144

Post by rdtsc »

jrs235 wrote: post #138
SmirkingRevenge wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Folks bring up the Obama comparison... because... well... its a pretty comparable situation. I'm not so charitable towards the public. I wouldn't place any bets that the striking wave of outrage directed at Facebook right now isn't strictly related to the outcome . In this case, that outcome is Trump in the White-house. Not that that isn't a good reason to be outraged - but I don't think its a very principled reason.

Pre-2016 Trump campaign, data was used to reach people and encourage voting. 2016 Trump campaign, data was used to stir up FUD and/or discourage voting.

> 2016 Trump campaign, data was used to stir up FUD and/or discourage voting.

How so? Unless they were working with the rest of the media outlets and pushing the "Trump has no chance" / "He will never be the president" story. Do you know of any such campaigns? I mostly see it as a mass media hubris. The same outlets Clinton was expecting to help her ended up undermining the election for her, because, well if Trump only has 1% of winning, why bother putting on the shoes and going out to vote.

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

#145

Post by rdtsc »

throwaway5752 wrote: post #55
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…

People are trying so hard to create the false equivalency on this issue, too. Nobody ever did what Trump, Cambridge Analytica (Mercers/Bannon), Russia, Wikileaks/Assange did in coordination (allegedly, for now).

> Nobody ever did what Trump, Cambridge Analytica (Mercers/Bannon), Russia, Wikileaks/Assange

Wait, how did Russia, Assange and Trump coordinate? I keep hearing people talk about it, never seen any clear explanation.

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

#146

Post by throwaway5752 »

rdtsc wrote: post #145
throwaway5752 wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

People are trying so hard to create the false equivalency on this issue, too. Nobody ever did what Trump, Cambridge Analytica (Mercers/Bannon), Russia, Wikileaks/Assange did in coordination (allegedly, for now).

> Nobody ever did what Trump, Cambridge Analytica (Mercers/Bannon), Russia, Wikileaks/Assange Wait, how did Russia, Assange and Trump coordinate? I keep hearing people talk about it, never seen any clear explanation.

Russian hacked the DNC and Podesta. They coordinated on the content and messaging around cherry picked emails with the Trump campaign, and they were released through Wikileaks as an intermediary.

The hacking part is me just repeating the assessment of DHS and CIA, per congressional briefings. The coordination is my suspicion based on known interactions with high level Trump campaign surrogates (Trump Jr, Stone) and Assange. The DNC/Podesta hack attribution is Crowdstrike's.

https://www.factcheck.org/2018/02/words-trump-russian-meddli... might provide you with more of the information you lack.

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

#147

Post by rdtsc »

jayess wrote: post #91
astronautjones wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

yeah, CA was willfully stoking hate in its audience with hateful propaganda, and the Obama campaign literally did not do that. There is no equivalency

So the exploitation of massive amounts of personal data from unwilling participants is ok as long as you agree with the person doing it?

From the words of the person in charge of this:

https://twitter.com/cld276/status/975568208886484997

---

They [Facebook] were very candid that they allowed us to do things they wouldn’t have allowed someone else to do because they were on our side.

---

You just have to be on the right "side" that's all.

I wonder if anyone went back and ensure they deleted all the data they harvested, then went back and verified that they didn't lie. And in case they didn't, wonder what the media response would be and how many articles would be written about it.

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

#148

Post by SN76477 »

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.

that is the nature of things. big changes require a lot of accumulation of small things.

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

#149

Post by ikeyany »

mc32 wrote: post #136
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

Sometimes people who scrutinize things fail to see it from the working class's perspective (the "poorly educated" be they white or black, or something else.) I think there are quite a few people on HN who never hung out with poor people or never paid attention to how they may think, in some situations. If their "horse" wins, whatever the means, they're glad it wins. Case in point is O.J. Everyone knew he got away wit…

Your assertion that the poorly-educated/working-class don't care about integrity is incredibly condescending and ignorant.

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

#150

Post by ikeyany »

cryptoz wrote: post #31
Cacti wrote: post #16

I’m sorry, what quagmire? Most people either aren’t aware of the privacy issues or if they are don’t care. People like using Facebook, or at least are addicted to it.

You don't see the addiction itself as a quagmire? It sure is on its own. And "what quagmire"? You know what quagmire. The one where Facebook has been acting extremely guilty around entering Cambridge Analytica's offices and refusing to leave until police forced them out. The one where Facebook is complicit in the stolen information, whereby they had knowledge of the problem for 2+ years before acting. The one that sp…

> You don't see the addiction itself as a quagmire?

Some actually consider it a feature. A highly monetizable one at that.

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