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Suspending Cambridge Analytica and SCL Group from Facebook

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Re: Suspending Cambridge Analytica and SCL Group from Facebook

#61
post #46
post #11

I don’t understand why it was legal for trump to hire Cambridge Analytica, which is foreign owned, to influence the presidential election. I also don’t understand why Russia gets all the news, when this foreign election tampering was so much more effective and done in the open. [edit: Downvotes. Wow. My comment is certainly on topic, so I guess “Foreign corporations shouldn’t participate in our elections” is controve…

Trump didn't hire them, they worked for free for his campaign and the Brexit campaign because it serves their owner's political views. They refuse to work for politicians they dislike.

No, actually, no. People can volunteer their personal labor for campaigns, but if a corporation gives data "for free" or a lawyer pays off an adult industry actress "for free", that's a campaign contribution.

Re: Suspending Cambridge Analytica and SCL Group from Facebook

#62
post #29
post #18

Anyone else suspicious that Zuckerberg may be gearing FB to ban the analytic tools of his competition if/when he runs? If Zuckerberg does run, I wonder to what extent FB will be his personal tool? Could you imagine if an old school news paper baron ran for president and his journalists always wrote in his favor?

He's got full control right now, and opinions of him seem pretty negative overall (esp. wrt privacy/trust). I can't imagine it'd be any easier to manipulate opinions en masse if he were actively seeking office.

People aren't that dumb, but it is still pretty scary that he'd be able to scientifically design an electoral campaign that can be updated in real time using various FB tools. No other politician has access to power like that.

I can't imagine what kind of coalition he could assemble. I don't know if it would win, but if he takes whatever position his data tells him, the only obvious thing that would sink him would be his lack of authenticity. Imagine a candidate that always had an appealing take to a slim to large majority on whatever issue (for people that don't know too much about the issue).

In the previous 2016 race, HRC was perceived as inauthentic and lost. DJT was perceived as authentic to a substantial fraction the right (not the media class, though that has changed with the direction of the wind) and inauthentic to the left.

Re: Suspending Cambridge Analytica and SCL Group from Facebook

#63
Dump facebook. Just do it.

Make your final posts informing your friends how to contact you by email. Follow up with a reminder or two over the coming weeks and delete it.

It will be the best feeling you ever had from doing something with your facebook account.

Re: Suspending Cambridge Analytica and SCL Group from Facebook

#64
post #52

Some additional context on Cambridge Analytica. I'm guessing Dr. Aleksandr Kogan (who also had his FB account suspended) was Cambridge Analytica (and the Trump campaign's) source of data on individual Facebook profiles: https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2017/oct/26/cambridge... > Cambridge Analytica used its own database and voter information collected from Facebook and news publishers in its effort to help elec…

I urge everyone to watch this video from Cambridge Analytica about their techniques with big data and psychographic profiling leading up to the 2016 election. Very dystopian, it almost feels like a seminar with a Bond villain. Quote from the video: > "we were able to form a model to predict the personality of every single adult in the United States of America." https://youtu.be/n8Dd5aVXLCc Edit: also this article is…

So, I'm far to the left of most people, and I'm no fan of Trump, but I watched that video and I got the sense I usually get from reading about ML/big data, people seem to be selling these as more than they actually are. It almost is intuitive if not, I guess, what most people who study market research already know: you tailor your message to your audience. Even on a personal level, anyone who has navigated real life with real people knows that you have to communicate with people in the way that they will be most receptive. Nowhere are they "planting" ideas in people's heads, nowhere are they brainwashing people, they are merely saying the same message (for example, defend the 2nd ammendment) to people who might already agree in a way that they'll receive it. The big 5 personality traits are an already well known and documented idea, and even without that, in your day-to-day life, you learn what people's personalities are and you tailor how you communicate with them anyway.

The thing that they seem to bring to the table however is the massive amount of personalized data. That is the issue here, because that data can be abused by nefarious actors if it were to fall in the wrong hands. What usually takes a much more personal touch (like going out to voters, talking to them, or if you can't do that, have teams on the ground that talk to voters and tell you before your speech what they care about and why) can be done in mass due to essentially aggregating private data that users "agree to" obliviously or even don't consent to. That is the issue at hand, not like Cambridge somehow warped the people in Wisconsin's brains to mush and made them go to the polls.

Re: Suspending Cambridge Analytica and SCL Group from Facebook

#65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Excuse me, I think you dropped this -> " "

I think Poe's law isn't that absolute. Given HN style, I could tell his post was sarcastic.

Among other things it's virtually a HN rule at this point that the top voted post is critical. A purely positive post is a clear red flag and indicates sarcasm or some other snark.

Re: Suspending Cambridge Analytica and SCL Group from Facebook

#66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Excuse me, I think you dropped this -> " "

Just as a great comedian doesn't laugh at their own joke, great sarcasm is best served without a sarcasm tag.

I disagree when the medium is text; it's harder without tone to hear.

Re: Suspending Cambridge Analytica and SCL Group from Facebook

#67
post #17

> Protecting people’s information is at the heart of everything we do Thanks for striking down the bad guys, Facebook, our ever vigilant guardian of personal information.

The best way for them to maintain their walled garden is by restricting 3rd party access to the data. This isn't to protect users, it's to maintain and improve their wall.

Re: Suspending Cambridge Analytica and SCL Group from Facebook

#68
post #18

Anyone else suspicious that Zuckerberg may be gearing FB to ban the analytic tools of his competition if/when he runs? If Zuckerberg does run, I wonder to what extent FB will be his personal tool? Could you imagine if an old school news paper baron ran for president and his journalists always wrote in his favor?

I'm 99% sure there's no way anyone would vote for him, regardless of anything.

[deleted]

Re: Suspending Cambridge Analytica and SCL Group from Facebook

#69
post #4

Good. We can expect such behavior from vile conservative companies like Cambridge Analytics, funded by Mercer and the cause for Brexit. Why are they even allowed on FB? Such extreme groups should never be allowed.

> vile conservative companies > cause for Brexit. > Such extreme groups should never be allowed. I surmise "extreme" in this context merely means "conservative" or "isolationist". Voting for Brexit is hardly extreme or fringe. So much so, in fact, that most of the UK did so.

[deleted]

Re: Suspending Cambridge Analytica and SCL Group from Facebook

#70

It's too easy for this information to get out. There's basically no penalty, you just use as you want and year's late facebook cuts you off? So you start a new company, owned by a new llc, get the lawyers to sign the 'i am not evil' doc and repeat. There's no way this will have any impact until there are criminal citations on the people involved. In this case, because it's the us, there's not going to be anything cri…

I'm getting downvoted why? Isn't it true that's it is too easy to do this? The us govt wasn't hacked? see https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/federal-eye/wp/2015/07/0... .

Now my downvote question is getting downvoted. It's very meta. Let's see if my downvote downvote question get's downvoted.
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