8 ms·

The Secret Agenda of a Facebook Quiz

268 points by lingben 10y ago

sean_patel 10y ago
> If Mr. Zuckerberg takes seriously his oft-stated commitments to diversity and openness, he must grapple honestly with the fact that Facebook is no longer just a social network. It’s an advertising medium that’s now dangerously easy to weaponize. The story is chilling. It more or less proves that Trump campaign and the Billionaire Republican donor who owns the Data Analytics site used Facebook to profile people and send targeted "fear" stories to them and swing the vote away from Clinton. Fear is a great motivator.
- Rapzid 10y ago
  I'm not sure how the Dem's will compete with this going forward. Maybe it will become taboo and they won't have to. Maybe they already are.. I hope they don't go too deep into the mud on this. It's almost impressive though how well the Republicans, and Trump specifically, are employing these, IMHO shady, tactics. Is it scandalous how little scandal is made of all this(the FUD, populist rhetoric, phycological manipulation, etc)? I can imagine how this would be spun if "evil Hillary" was found to be targeting people with "dark posts".
  - Gargoyle 10y ago
    Democrats will use it in completely analogous ways.
    - jackbrian 10y ago
      I agree. However using the same methods in this election, 'establishment' Hillary would have probably come across as big brother-esque whereas Trump as more of a 'new awareness' message to some targeted users (fitting his rhetoric). Surely not in all cases but perhaps notable enough.
    - sean_patel 10y ago
      > analogous ways. I really don't understand what this mean? Can anyone explain?? Thank you :)
      - techwizrd 10y ago
        He's deflecting by saying Democrats will do the same thing. It's a false equivalency.
      - morpher 10y ago
        similar/comparable (https://www.google.com#q=define%20analogous https://www.google.com#q=define%20analogous)
  - jjawssd 10y ago
    Zuckerberg really loves Trump and I can see how he is more than willing to help give Trump the platform he needs to continue to spread his propaganda
    - deleted 10y ago
      [deleted]
  - SnakePlissken 10y ago
    Google's Eric Schmidt proposed a plan similar to this (though in more ambiguous terms) back in 2014, sharing a draft with Cheryl Mills that was forwarded to the Clinton braintrust (John Podesta, Robby Mook and David Plouffe) and subsequently released by Wikileaks[0]. The use of quizzes as a front detailed in OP's article is especially insidious, but the idea of individually targeting voters with "stories" in such a manner was clearly in play. Whether they followed through with it or not, it seems naive to think they won't do something similar in the future now that Cambridge Analytica has been shown to have been so effective. [0] https://wikileaks.org/podesta-emails/emailid/37262 https://wikileaks.org/podesta-emails/emailid/37262
  - tmuir 10y ago
    It's not as if Donald Trump, or anyone else invented this tactic in 2016, or even the 21st century. Mass media has manufactured consent with those tools for as long as there has been a mass media. William Randolph Hearst was a master of it over 100 years ago. This is a subject that very few in the media are willing to report on, because it would delegitimize the media itself. Even if there was a media outlet willing to destroy their reputation and business, good luck convincing human beings that they've been conditioned to behave as they do through media messaging. Brainwashing is Hollywood scifi mumbojumbo, not a scientific explanation for why basic training produces a uniform level of discipline in the military, or why millions of people pay for the privilege of inhaling carcinogens. To top it off, I am well aware of how tinfoil the preceding two paragraphs must sound.
  - jerf 10y ago
    Going forward? https://www.theguardian.com/world/2012/feb/17/obama-digital-data-machine-facebook-election https://www.theguardian.com/world/2012/feb/17/obama-digital-... Obviously, this is not identical, but many of the same principles are in play. You can argue around the edges of who understood exactly who was getting what data but I pretty much guarantee you the bulk of the people didn't know exactly what they had just done then, either. I also do not mean this as a partisan attack, because everyone's gonna do it, and do it better every election cycle, until something major stops them. In 2012 it was widely believed the Republicans simply had no good digital ground game, so I can't really link you to articles about theirs, or I would. And I'm having a hard time imagining what will stop this, short of total internet collapse.
  - legodt 10y ago
    I think the fact that the Dems ran Clinton despite more support in key demos for Bernie shows that as of right now they aren't very interested in following data if it conflicts with their other agendas. If this trend continues and extends down to congressional elections, etc. for both parties as it is now (Republicans ready to follow data to build campaigns, Democrats playing out of an opaque narrative), this could spell bad news for the future of the American Democratic party.
    - stephancoral 10y ago
      It's funny because people were playing this exact card during the 2012 election due to Obama's tech-savvy reëlection effort. A lot can change in four years.
  - imron 10y ago
    > I can imagine how this would be spun if "evil Hillary" was found to be targeting people with "dark posts". You do realise this article is exactly that kind of post right? Have a look at who wrote it, which foundation funds his fellowship, who created that foundation, and which candidate that billionaire donated funds to and supported. We are all but pawns in the games played by these billionaires. Edit: also, regarding Hillary, don't forget leaked emails from her campaign manager and the DNC showed that they were directly colluding with the media and doing this sort of thing. Not wishy, washy sinister billionaire donor rumors, but actual, verifiable (thanks to DKIM) emails from the DNC and the Hillary campaign itself.
    - GavinMcG 10y ago
      That you are repeating this all over the thread doesn't make it a fact. Sure, if you start with the lens that everything is controlled behind the scenes by shady billionaire puppet masters, then this fits in with that view. But that's just how all the other conspiracy theorists do it, too: hold fast to a predetermined conclusion, highlighting whatever situations you can grab ahold of that look like they fit.
      - potatosoup 10y ago
        How is this different from "everything Trump is doing is an evil Russian conspiracy" claim that most media seems to be pushing these days? E.g. check out the front page of r/politics. I'm sure Trump will suck or fail in many ways (as all elected leaders do), but we've long time ago lost objectivity.
        GavinMcG 10y ago
        It isn't, necessarily. Why does it have to be? The fact that those opposed to Trump also think poorly at times doesn't excuse poor thinking elsewhere. That said, I just went over to /r/politics and saw zero Russia stories on the front page.
- jlarocco 10y ago
  It's pretty naive to think the democrats aren't doing the same thing. Maybe not with the same company, but I'm sure they're doing it to some extent.
- imron 10y ago
  > The story is chilling. Chilling. In fact, you could say it was a "fear" story. All it's missing is the billionaire pulling the strings - except if you look at the tag line at the end you see it was written by someone who is an Open Society Fellow. You know, those fellowships from the Open Society Foundation that are funded by Billionaire Democrat donor George Soros. Did this article make you feel any negativity towards Trump and the Republicans? If so, then for Soros, this was money on dark articles well spent.
- wtbob 10y ago
  How is that chilling? Were those ads false? Swaying votes away from one's opponents is the definition of running for office. Back in 2008 the Obama campaign ran a very successful information shop and was widely lauded for it; why is it now chilling when a different candidate does the same thing? N.b.: I did not vote for President Trump.
ENTP 10y ago
I'd suspected for years about such quizzes. Initially, I assumed the posts to calculate your (porn/movie/etc) name was a low grade phishing exercise as it asked you to mix personal data that are often used in security questions (eg first pet name plus mothers maiden name). This is a whole new level, but entirely unsurprising. Facebook is a data mining platform. Remembering that is nothing but a good thing.
- ChuckMcM 10y ago
  Especially quizzes like "where was your first job?" or "what's your favorite movie?" all sounded like phishing for security question answers.
  - angry-hacker 10y ago
    It is much harder nowadays, but around 2000 every Hotmail account was protected only by these easy one sentence questions. It was trivial to open accounts if you wanted to. Favorite football club, pets name - - just ask the target. I remember I was young and was wondering why is it so easy to 'hack' Hotmail.
    - johansch 10y ago
      There was also that time when it was trivial to login to every single Hotmail account by only knowing the username. And it was left like this for at least 12 hours after it was first reported in media... http://edition.cnn.com/TECH/computing/9908/30/hotmail.03/ http://edition.cnn.com/TECH/computing/9908/30/hotmail.03/ https://slashdot.org/story/99/08/30/1324206/hotmail-cracked-badly https://slashdot.org/story/99/08/30/1324206/hotmail-cracked-...
  - angry-hacker 10y ago
    Just got an evil idea.. You can target on fb and Google by email lists. You create some stupid web app with questions and promise something in return, a prize, or make it worthwhile to play and target them with all the security questions email accounts or whatever might ask. Could be that this is being done for phising already if the victims are being targeted specifically and don't have 2fa.
techwizrd 10y ago
I've been warning friends and family about this for years. It's incredible how much information people will give about themselves to get totally inane information. This "psy-ops" stuff is shady and scary, and I guarantee you that most voters have no idea it's happening.
- sean_patel 10y ago
  > I've been warning friends and family about this for years. How did it work out? I tried the same too, but it was falling into deaf years. Most common response. "Sean beta (means son in hindi). You are being excessively paranoid. Facebook is a closed community, and I only share info with friends and family, so don't worry."
  - techwizrd 10y ago
    I've had mostly the same responses. My family has said I'm being overly paranoid. My liberal friends don't think anyone cares what they think. And my conservative friends are afraid of the NSA and the government, but fully support this kind of spying and data collection by private companies as long as their team wins.
  - fattire 10y ago
    That answer depresses the shit out of me.
  - delinka 10y ago
    Nit: "falling on deaf ears" I will concede to typo/autocorrect, but wanted to make the comment in case someone reads your comment and assumes the phrase correct.
    - sean_patel 10y ago
      haha. Yes it was a typo/autocorrect. lol. thanks.
mjfl 10y ago
I'm not impressed. Did anyone notice that Cambridge Analytics did not work for Ted Cruz? I mean he did win Texas and the great plains states, but those were his most-winnable locations from the beginning due to his consistent conservatism and other nominees dropping out. He even lost the south, which should have been his other target, presumably due to being off-wavelength with southern voters, something the analytics data should have helped him with. Cambridge Analytics and their Facebook questionnaires don't seem to be very effective.
- patcon 10y ago
  I imagine we'd be equally unimpressed with other early tech. imho, our concern should be of an extrapolative nature. we can guess where this will be in 5 or 10 years, nevermind Ted Cruz' future electoral successes. and we know how easy people are to psychologically "nudge". (sorry for assuming our agreement there)
  - rounce 10y ago
    > and we know how easy people are to psychologically "nudge" How easy? I thought "Nudge theory" was beginning to unravel under the burden of empirical evidence?
- SnakePlissken 10y ago
  Ted Cruz is probably more to blame in this case than Cambridge; he came across to many as supremely unlikeable/comically phony and clearly lost the mud slinging fights with Trump that dominated the Republican primaries. Whatever benefit Cambridge bestowed probably wasn't enough to turn Ted Cruz into a serious Presidential candidate. In more colloquial terms, perhaps even the most effective data targeting can't polish a turd.
- forgetsusername 10y ago
  1. There are many degrees between "didn't work at all" and "worked so well he became predident". 2. Cruz was an establishment candidate. This electorate wanted an outsider.
divbit 10y ago
Seriously. Why do we allow this kind of data collection. This is ridiculous. Edit: the commenter who responded has pointed out that this is phrased fairly accusatory. Should the fact that there is probably a data cloud out there about me being used to manipulate me through subliminal type messaging not be upsetting? I don't think I have ever signed up for a service with the expectation that whatever information is collected will be collated in some over-arching cloud used for more things than just the service provided to me by the site. Maybe somewhere in a 30 page terms of service document, it said that, and I clicked "agree" upon skimming it. But should that really be enough? Edit 2: Here's an idea: charge me $3/month to use your service without ads, and with full expectation that my data will not be sold or used inappropriately (you can give it to the govt. if they need it for security reasons, I don't care). I currently pay for e-mail without ads from both outlook and mail.com and would gladly do the same for a pure facebook / gmail / google search / etc service.
- notyourwork 10y ago
  Can I re-phrase your question? "Why do we allow people to voluntarily hand over their own information at their own will?" Sounds much different when its phrase properly and not accusatory.
  - zenkat 10y ago
    Except the ways in which this data will be used is never disclosed, and in fact is deliberately obscured.
  - zenkat 10y ago
    Except the ways in which this data will be used is never disclosed, and in fact is deliberately obscured.
  - divbit 10y ago
    Let me quote what voluntarily handing over personal information means at the university level: "Obtaining written informed consent from a potential participant is more than just a signature on a form. The consent document is to be used as a guide for the verbal explanation of the study. The consent document should be the basis for a meaningful exchange between the researcher and the participant. The participant's signature provides documentation of agreement to participate in a study, but is only one part of the consent process. The consent document must not serve as a substitute for discussion." http://humansubjects.stanford.edu/new/resources/consent/index.html http://humansubjects.stanford.edu/new/resources/consent/inde... Seems phrased fairly differently from the typical "terms of use" document we get when signing up for an online service. So I ask. Should these be vastly different things?
YYZoroaster 10y ago
The Open Agenda of a New York Times article.
aw3c2 10y ago
Is this another rogue Cambridge Analytica ad that will get debunked later when the impact was done?
- imron 10y ago
  No, it was written by an Open Society Fellow, e.g funded by George Soros, a major Hillary Clinton backer. So basically, it's counter propaganda.
  - ubernostrum 10y ago
    e.g funded by George Soros Careful -- you've mentioned his name twice in this thread. Do it a third time and he'll appear in your bathroom mirror. Also, nothing in the article was particularly surprising, nor is any of it outside the realm of what we already know is technically possible at Facebook. Give it four years and see if Zuckerberg makes his rumored run for President, after beta-testing the tools in 2016...
toyg 10y ago
Meh, big deal. Like the Obama campaigns were't good at "weaponizing" all web tools they could find. Note how the examples proposed are all GOTV efforts targeted to the R base rather than anything appealing larger slices of the electorate. Despite all this black magic, R turnout wasn't that impressive and Trump lost the popular vote. Where it might have helped a little bit is in exploiting weaknesses that Dems shouldn't have had in the first place, i.e. Clinton's baggage, to reduce D turnout in key states, but again, that's more the Democrats' fault for fielding such a candidate knowing very well that she had such baggage.
mulla111 10y ago
check out what happned with me in facebook https://goo.gl/eqHeZS https://goo.gl/eqHeZS
potatosoup 10y ago
> In the immediate wake of Mr. Trump’s surprise election How was it a surprise? With huge crowd sizes at his rallies (that NYT didn't show, but RSBN for example did), strong populist message that worked, and the awful candidate the other side put up (while sadly destroying Bernie), I was not surprised.
- IshKebab 10y ago
  Because most poll models gave him a small chance of success. How bad is your memory?
  - golergka 10y ago
    You're assuming majority of people put faith in those polls?
  - potatosoup 10y ago
    Interestingly enough, the same pollsters are now saying that Trump has a 37% or something approval rating. And Obama went out with a 60%+ approval rating. Until they find a way to poll a significant slice of the population truly representative of the electorate, I'm surprised people can take them seriously. Since we're on HN, there is a startup idea here somewhere. (Edited to remove an electoral hypothesis, so that we can discuss polls and not politics.)
    - flavor8 10y ago
      Hillary ran a sub-par campaign as one of the least popular candidates in recent history, and that hurt down-ticket races. The democrats made a strategic mistake by allowing Clintonistas to take over the DNC and party establishment to the point that she was essentially "the anointed", and faced no real competition. Had e.g. Biden or even Franken run, the results might be quite different. Heck, if Obama had run against Trump (for a third term, were such a thing possible) it would likely be a different story. This is not the whole situation, of course; e.g. districts are more gerrymandered than ever, reducing competitiveness and allowing party establishments to push their favored candidates (out of touch establishment = unpopular candidate); e.g. the last congress was the most dysfunctional in decades, meaning that the bills that made it were compromises, and not a full test of democrat ideas; media echo chambers have polarized voters; etc. As easy as it is to critique Obama's policies on privacy & foreign policy, he was assured and rational, which people like in a leader. It's entirely reasonable that there's such a wide gap in approval polls. There's really no reason to significantly doubt them. Regardless of whether you agree on the above, we're about to see the GOP have its way and push a slew of policies that they favor. Many will actually be favorable for entrepreneurs and startups, but my guess is that overall they will turn out to be quite unpopular. I predict the house to flip back in 2018 and for Trump to be crushed in 2020 (if he makes it that far without being impeached.) We'll see.
fovc 10y ago
And yet for all their magic, they were just as wrong about the outcome of the election: You might think from a casual reading of the Cambridge Analytica press release that they predicted the outcome of the election. They did not. A company spokesman called reporters before election day to say that Trump had only a 20 per cent chance of winning. Source: http://www.spectator.co.uk/2016/12/the-british-data-crunchers-who-say-they-helped-donald-trump-to-win/ http://www.spectator.co.uk/2016/12/the-british-data-cruncher...
- gareim 10y ago
  I'm not sure I get this logic. If I told someone they had a 16.6% chance of rolling a die and getting a 6, and then they proceed to roll the die and get a 6, would you laugh and tell me that I was wrong?
  - akjainaj 10y ago
    I get your point but that's not a fair comparison because there were 2 choices, not 6.
    - SixSigma 10y ago
      Ok. If I told you you had 80% chance of flipping a coin to a head and you got a tail, would you say I couldn't predict things ?
      - deleted 10y ago
        [deleted]
    - dagw 10y ago
      6 and Not 6 are two choices
  - forgetsusername 10y ago
    I think many people would, yes. Which is frightening. I just read an anecdote about Sid Meier dealing with this in the Civilization games in Michael Lewis' Undoing Project: people couldn't stand losing battles of 33% 3 times in a row.
kome 10y ago
Friendly reminder: don't use Facebook and block any advertisement and trackers online using ublock. It helps to keep some mental ecology.
- hedora 10y ago
  I did that too. Look where it got us. Anyway, I eventually set up a placholder Facebook account. Once I typed my name into the setup form, they provided a frighteningly detailed list of friends and acquaintances. Since then, due to "do you know" emails, I get the impression they slurp other people's call and sms logs (or maybe just contacts, if FB types are more OCD about address books than me) into their social network graph. Anyway, it is not much of an exaggeration to say that facebook gets more metadata to sell every time you make a phone call, regardless of whether you have an account. (Of course, I don't have their software installed on any of my devices. However, I did give them my phone number for 2FA purposes. How naive I was. Assuming the phone app grabs people's address books and/or call logs, they probably had it before I gave it to them)
lstroud 10y ago
Has anyone been able to validate or correlate the claims in this article? It's an opinion piece without a lot of verifiable references or data. Seems like it is, to some degree, describing itself.
RichardHeart 10y ago
"Mr. Zuckerberg is young, still skeptical that his radiant transparency machine could be anything but a force for good" This is naive bordering on delusional. I think Zuckerberg knows the real deal. Considering quotes like these: Zuck: Yeah so if you ever need info about anyone at Harvard Zuck: Just ask. Zuck: I have over 4,000 emails, pictures, addresses, SNS [Redacted Friend's Name]: What? How'd you manage that one? Zuck: People just submitted it. Zuck: I don't know why. Zuck: They "trust me" Zuck: Dumb fucks"
dominotw 10y ago
>shocked by an election upset. NYTimes never strays from its own 'Secret agenda'. Half the population is always "upset" after an election. Only ones "shocked" by this are moronic NYTimes readers who still don't have the clue to get their heads out of their asses.
- sctb 10y ago
  You should be well aware that such name calling is not OK on Hackers News. Please don't do this.
wtbob 10y ago
> In this election, dark posts were used to try to suppress the African-American vote. According to Bloomberg, the Trump campaign sent ads reminding certain selected black voters of Hillary Clinton’s infamous “super predator” line. It targeted Miami’s Little Haiti neighborhood with messages about the Clinton Foundation’s troubles in Haiti after the 2010 earthquake. How is this suppressing the vote? It's giving potential voters accurate information about your opponent. Frankly, how is it any different from Mr. Biden shouting, 'they're gonna put y'all back in chains!' — other than the former being true and probably in good taste? N.b.: I did not vote for President Trump.
- mattnewton 10y ago
  An answer to how this is different is provided in literally the next sentence of the article. >Federal Election Commission rules are unclear when it comes to Facebook posts, but even if they do apply and the facts are skewed and the dog whistles loud, the already weakening power of social opprobrium is gone when no one else sees the ad you see — and no one else sees “I’m Donald Trump, and I approved this message.”
Propen 10y ago
Is it just me starting to really have enough of "secret agendas" of Facebook and other internet giants? What the hell are the legislators doing? Even if you say that the advertising-based business model is OK where do you draw the line? Do they really need to know what kind of a psychologic personality I am and what kind of porn I watch ?! (exaggerating... but who knows nowadays)
08-15 10y ago
> In this election, dark posts were used to try to suppress the African-American vote. According to Bloomberg, the Trump campaign sent ads... Really? Sending ads is suppressing the vote of certain people? Like the soviet union suppressed dissenters by sending them to the gulag? I don't think so. But I think the New York Times has a secret agenda of its own, I just don't know what it is. Portraying the election as somehow "unfair" could result in civil unrest, who could possibly want that?

268 points by lingben 10y ago

> If Mr. Zuckerberg takes seriously his oft-stated commitments to diversity and openness, he must grapple honestly with the fact that Facebook is no longer just a social network. It’s an advertising medium that’s now dangerously easy to weaponize. The story is chilling. It more or less proves that Trump campaign and the Billionaire Republican donor who owns the Data Analytics site used Facebook to profile people and send targeted "fear" stories to them and swing the vote away from Clinton. Fear is a great motivator.

Rapzid 10y ago
I'm not sure how the Dem's will compete with this going forward. Maybe it will become taboo and they won't have to. Maybe they already are.. I hope they don't go too deep into the mud on this. It's almost impressive though how well the Republicans, and Trump specifically, are employing these, IMHO shady, tactics. Is it scandalous how little scandal is made of all this(the FUD, populist rhetoric, phycological manipulation, etc)? I can imagine how this would be spun if "evil Hillary" was found to be targeting people with "dark posts".
- Gargoyle 10y ago
  Democrats will use it in completely analogous ways.
  - jackbrian 10y ago
    I agree. However using the same methods in this election, 'establishment' Hillary would have probably come across as big brother-esque whereas Trump as more of a 'new awareness' message to some targeted users (fitting his rhetoric). Surely not in all cases but perhaps notable enough.
  - sean_patel 10y ago
    > analogous ways. I really don't understand what this mean? Can anyone explain?? Thank you :)
    - techwizrd 10y ago
      He's deflecting by saying Democrats will do the same thing. It's a false equivalency.
    - morpher 10y ago
      similar/comparable (https://www.google.com#q=define%20analogous https://www.google.com#q=define%20analogous)
- jjawssd 10y ago
  Zuckerberg really loves Trump and I can see how he is more than willing to help give Trump the platform he needs to continue to spread his propaganda
  - deleted 10y ago
    [deleted]
- SnakePlissken 10y ago
  Google's Eric Schmidt proposed a plan similar to this (though in more ambiguous terms) back in 2014, sharing a draft with Cheryl Mills that was forwarded to the Clinton braintrust (John Podesta, Robby Mook and David Plouffe) and subsequently released by Wikileaks[0]. The use of quizzes as a front detailed in OP's article is especially insidious, but the idea of individually targeting voters with "stories" in such a manner was clearly in play. Whether they followed through with it or not, it seems naive to think they won't do something similar in the future now that Cambridge Analytica has been shown to have been so effective. [0] https://wikileaks.org/podesta-emails/emailid/37262 https://wikileaks.org/podesta-emails/emailid/37262
- tmuir 10y ago
  It's not as if Donald Trump, or anyone else invented this tactic in 2016, or even the 21st century. Mass media has manufactured consent with those tools for as long as there has been a mass media. William Randolph Hearst was a master of it over 100 years ago. This is a subject that very few in the media are willing to report on, because it would delegitimize the media itself. Even if there was a media outlet willing to destroy their reputation and business, good luck convincing human beings that they've been conditioned to behave as they do through media messaging. Brainwashing is Hollywood scifi mumbojumbo, not a scientific explanation for why basic training produces a uniform level of discipline in the military, or why millions of people pay for the privilege of inhaling carcinogens. To top it off, I am well aware of how tinfoil the preceding two paragraphs must sound.
- jerf 10y ago
  Going forward? https://www.theguardian.com/world/2012/feb/17/obama-digital-data-machine-facebook-election https://www.theguardian.com/world/2012/feb/17/obama-digital-... Obviously, this is not identical, but many of the same principles are in play. You can argue around the edges of who understood exactly who was getting what data but I pretty much guarantee you the bulk of the people didn't know exactly what they had just done then, either. I also do not mean this as a partisan attack, because everyone's gonna do it, and do it better every election cycle, until something major stops them. In 2012 it was widely believed the Republicans simply had no good digital ground game, so I can't really link you to articles about theirs, or I would. And I'm having a hard time imagining what will stop this, short of total internet collapse.
- legodt 10y ago
  I think the fact that the Dems ran Clinton despite more support in key demos for Bernie shows that as of right now they aren't very interested in following data if it conflicts with their other agendas. If this trend continues and extends down to congressional elections, etc. for both parties as it is now (Republicans ready to follow data to build campaigns, Democrats playing out of an opaque narrative), this could spell bad news for the future of the American Democratic party.
  - stephancoral 10y ago
    It's funny because people were playing this exact card during the 2012 election due to Obama's tech-savvy reëlection effort. A lot can change in four years.
- imron 10y ago
  > I can imagine how this would be spun if "evil Hillary" was found to be targeting people with "dark posts". You do realise this article is exactly that kind of post right? Have a look at who wrote it, which foundation funds his fellowship, who created that foundation, and which candidate that billionaire donated funds to and supported. We are all but pawns in the games played by these billionaires. Edit: also, regarding Hillary, don't forget leaked emails from her campaign manager and the DNC showed that they were directly colluding with the media and doing this sort of thing. Not wishy, washy sinister billionaire donor rumors, but actual, verifiable (thanks to DKIM) emails from the DNC and the Hillary campaign itself.
  - GavinMcG 10y ago
    That you are repeating this all over the thread doesn't make it a fact. Sure, if you start with the lens that everything is controlled behind the scenes by shady billionaire puppet masters, then this fits in with that view. But that's just how all the other conspiracy theorists do it, too: hold fast to a predetermined conclusion, highlighting whatever situations you can grab ahold of that look like they fit.
    - potatosoup 10y ago
      How is this different from "everything Trump is doing is an evil Russian conspiracy" claim that most media seems to be pushing these days? E.g. check out the front page of r/politics. I'm sure Trump will suck or fail in many ways (as all elected leaders do), but we've long time ago lost objectivity.
      - GavinMcG 10y ago
        It isn't, necessarily. Why does it have to be? The fact that those opposed to Trump also think poorly at times doesn't excuse poor thinking elsewhere. That said, I just went over to /r/politics and saw zero Russia stories on the front page.
jlarocco 10y ago
It's pretty naive to think the democrats aren't doing the same thing. Maybe not with the same company, but I'm sure they're doing it to some extent.
imron 10y ago
> The story is chilling. Chilling. In fact, you could say it was a "fear" story. All it's missing is the billionaire pulling the strings - except if you look at the tag line at the end you see it was written by someone who is an Open Society Fellow. You know, those fellowships from the Open Society Foundation that are funded by Billionaire Democrat donor George Soros. Did this article make you feel any negativity towards Trump and the Republicans? If so, then for Soros, this was money on dark articles well spent.
wtbob 10y ago
How is that chilling? Were those ads false? Swaying votes away from one's opponents is the definition of running for office. Back in 2008 the Obama campaign ran a very successful information shop and was widely lauded for it; why is it now chilling when a different candidate does the same thing? N.b.: I did not vote for President Trump.

ENTP 10y ago

I'd suspected for years about such quizzes. Initially, I assumed the posts to calculate your (porn/movie/etc) name was a low grade phishing exercise as it asked you to mix personal data that are often used in security questions (eg first pet name plus mothers maiden name). This is a whole new level, but entirely unsurprising. Facebook is a data mining platform. Remembering that is nothing but a good thing.

ChuckMcM 10y ago
Especially quizzes like "where was your first job?" or "what's your favorite movie?" all sounded like phishing for security question answers.
- angry-hacker 10y ago
  It is much harder nowadays, but around 2000 every Hotmail account was protected only by these easy one sentence questions. It was trivial to open accounts if you wanted to. Favorite football club, pets name - - just ask the target. I remember I was young and was wondering why is it so easy to 'hack' Hotmail.
  - johansch 10y ago
    There was also that time when it was trivial to login to every single Hotmail account by only knowing the username. And it was left like this for at least 12 hours after it was first reported in media... http://edition.cnn.com/TECH/computing/9908/30/hotmail.03/ http://edition.cnn.com/TECH/computing/9908/30/hotmail.03/ https://slashdot.org/story/99/08/30/1324206/hotmail-cracked-badly https://slashdot.org/story/99/08/30/1324206/hotmail-cracked-...
- angry-hacker 10y ago
  Just got an evil idea.. You can target on fb and Google by email lists. You create some stupid web app with questions and promise something in return, a prize, or make it worthwhile to play and target them with all the security questions email accounts or whatever might ask. Could be that this is being done for phising already if the victims are being targeted specifically and don't have 2fa.

techwizrd 10y ago

I've been warning friends and family about this for years. It's incredible how much information people will give about themselves to get totally inane information. This "psy-ops" stuff is shady and scary, and I guarantee you that most voters have no idea it's happening.

sean_patel 10y ago
> I've been warning friends and family about this for years. How did it work out? I tried the same too, but it was falling into deaf years. Most common response. "Sean beta (means son in hindi). You are being excessively paranoid. Facebook is a closed community, and I only share info with friends and family, so don't worry."
- techwizrd 10y ago
  I've had mostly the same responses. My family has said I'm being overly paranoid. My liberal friends don't think anyone cares what they think. And my conservative friends are afraid of the NSA and the government, but fully support this kind of spying and data collection by private companies as long as their team wins.
- fattire 10y ago
  That answer depresses the shit out of me.
- delinka 10y ago
  Nit: "falling on deaf ears" I will concede to typo/autocorrect, but wanted to make the comment in case someone reads your comment and assumes the phrase correct.
  - sean_patel 10y ago
    haha. Yes it was a typo/autocorrect. lol. thanks.

mjfl 10y ago

I'm not impressed. Did anyone notice that Cambridge Analytics did not work for Ted Cruz? I mean he did win Texas and the great plains states, but those were his most-winnable locations from the beginning due to his consistent conservatism and other nominees dropping out. He even lost the south, which should have been his other target, presumably due to being off-wavelength with southern voters, something the analytics data should have helped him with. Cambridge Analytics and their Facebook questionnaires don't seem to be very effective.

patcon 10y ago
I imagine we'd be equally unimpressed with other early tech. imho, our concern should be of an extrapolative nature. we can guess where this will be in 5 or 10 years, nevermind Ted Cruz' future electoral successes. and we know how easy people are to psychologically "nudge". (sorry for assuming our agreement there)
- rounce 10y ago
  > and we know how easy people are to psychologically "nudge" How easy? I thought "Nudge theory" was beginning to unravel under the burden of empirical evidence?
SnakePlissken 10y ago
Ted Cruz is probably more to blame in this case than Cambridge; he came across to many as supremely unlikeable/comically phony and clearly lost the mud slinging fights with Trump that dominated the Republican primaries. Whatever benefit Cambridge bestowed probably wasn't enough to turn Ted Cruz into a serious Presidential candidate. In more colloquial terms, perhaps even the most effective data targeting can't polish a turd.
forgetsusername 10y ago
1. There are many degrees between "didn't work at all" and "worked so well he became predident". 2. Cruz was an establishment candidate. This electorate wanted an outsider.

divbit 10y ago

Seriously. Why do we allow this kind of data collection. This is ridiculous. Edit: the commenter who responded has pointed out that this is phrased fairly accusatory. Should the fact that there is probably a data cloud out there about me being used to manipulate me through subliminal type messaging not be upsetting? I don't think I have ever signed up for a service with the expectation that whatever information is collected will be collated in some over-arching cloud used for more things than just the service provided to me by the site. Maybe somewhere in a 30 page terms of service document, it said that, and I clicked "agree" upon skimming it. But should that really be enough? Edit 2: Here's an idea: charge me $3/month to use your service without ads, and with full expectation that my data will not be sold or used inappropriately (you can give it to the govt. if they need it for security reasons, I don't care). I currently pay for e-mail without ads from both outlook and mail.com and would gladly do the same for a pure facebook / gmail / google search / etc service.

notyourwork 10y ago
Can I re-phrase your question? "Why do we allow people to voluntarily hand over their own information at their own will?" Sounds much different when its phrase properly and not accusatory.
- zenkat 10y ago
  Except the ways in which this data will be used is never disclosed, and in fact is deliberately obscured.
- zenkat 10y ago
  Except the ways in which this data will be used is never disclosed, and in fact is deliberately obscured.
- divbit 10y ago
  Let me quote what voluntarily handing over personal information means at the university level: "Obtaining written informed consent from a potential participant is more than just a signature on a form. The consent document is to be used as a guide for the verbal explanation of the study. The consent document should be the basis for a meaningful exchange between the researcher and the participant. The participant's signature provides documentation of agreement to participate in a study, but is only one part of the consent process. The consent document must not serve as a substitute for discussion." http://humansubjects.stanford.edu/new/resources/consent/index.html http://humansubjects.stanford.edu/new/resources/consent/inde... Seems phrased fairly differently from the typical "terms of use" document we get when signing up for an online service. So I ask. Should these be vastly different things?

YYZoroaster 10y ago

The Open Agenda of a New York Times article.

aw3c2 10y ago

Is this another rogue Cambridge Analytica ad that will get debunked later when the impact was done?

imron 10y ago
No, it was written by an Open Society Fellow, e.g funded by George Soros, a major Hillary Clinton backer. So basically, it's counter propaganda.
- ubernostrum 10y ago
  e.g funded by George Soros Careful -- you've mentioned his name twice in this thread. Do it a third time and he'll appear in your bathroom mirror. Also, nothing in the article was particularly surprising, nor is any of it outside the realm of what we already know is technically possible at Facebook. Give it four years and see if Zuckerberg makes his rumored run for President, after beta-testing the tools in 2016...

toyg 10y ago

Meh, big deal. Like the Obama campaigns were't good at "weaponizing" all web tools they could find. Note how the examples proposed are all GOTV efforts targeted to the R base rather than anything appealing larger slices of the electorate. Despite all this black magic, R turnout wasn't that impressive and Trump lost the popular vote. Where it might have helped a little bit is in exploiting weaknesses that Dems shouldn't have had in the first place, i.e. Clinton's baggage, to reduce D turnout in key states, but again, that's more the Democrats' fault for fielding such a candidate knowing very well that she had such baggage.

mulla111 10y ago

check out what happned with me in facebook https://goo.gl/eqHeZS https://goo.gl/eqHeZS

potatosoup 10y ago

> In the immediate wake of Mr. Trump’s surprise election How was it a surprise? With huge crowd sizes at his rallies (that NYT didn't show, but RSBN for example did), strong populist message that worked, and the awful candidate the other side put up (while sadly destroying Bernie), I was not surprised.

IshKebab 10y ago
Because most poll models gave him a small chance of success. How bad is your memory?
- golergka 10y ago
  You're assuming majority of people put faith in those polls?
- potatosoup 10y ago
  Interestingly enough, the same pollsters are now saying that Trump has a 37% or something approval rating. And Obama went out with a 60%+ approval rating. Until they find a way to poll a significant slice of the population truly representative of the electorate, I'm surprised people can take them seriously. Since we're on HN, there is a startup idea here somewhere. (Edited to remove an electoral hypothesis, so that we can discuss polls and not politics.)
  - flavor8 10y ago
    Hillary ran a sub-par campaign as one of the least popular candidates in recent history, and that hurt down-ticket races. The democrats made a strategic mistake by allowing Clintonistas to take over the DNC and party establishment to the point that she was essentially "the anointed", and faced no real competition. Had e.g. Biden or even Franken run, the results might be quite different. Heck, if Obama had run against Trump (for a third term, were such a thing possible) it would likely be a different story. This is not the whole situation, of course; e.g. districts are more gerrymandered than ever, reducing competitiveness and allowing party establishments to push their favored candidates (out of touch establishment = unpopular candidate); e.g. the last congress was the most dysfunctional in decades, meaning that the bills that made it were compromises, and not a full test of democrat ideas; media echo chambers have polarized voters; etc. As easy as it is to critique Obama's policies on privacy & foreign policy, he was assured and rational, which people like in a leader. It's entirely reasonable that there's such a wide gap in approval polls. There's really no reason to significantly doubt them. Regardless of whether you agree on the above, we're about to see the GOP have its way and push a slew of policies that they favor. Many will actually be favorable for entrepreneurs and startups, but my guess is that overall they will turn out to be quite unpopular. I predict the house to flip back in 2018 and for Trump to be crushed in 2020 (if he makes it that far without being impeached.) We'll see.

fovc 10y ago

And yet for all their magic, they were just as wrong about the outcome of the election: You might think from a casual reading of the Cambridge Analytica press release that they predicted the outcome of the election. They did not. A company spokesman called reporters before election day to say that Trump had only a 20 per cent chance of winning. Source: http://www.spectator.co.uk/2016/12/the-british-data-crunchers-who-say-they-helped-donald-trump-to-win/ http://www.spectator.co.uk/2016/12/the-british-data-cruncher...

gareim 10y ago
I'm not sure I get this logic. If I told someone they had a 16.6% chance of rolling a die and getting a 6, and then they proceed to roll the die and get a 6, would you laugh and tell me that I was wrong?
- akjainaj 10y ago
  I get your point but that's not a fair comparison because there were 2 choices, not 6.
  - SixSigma 10y ago
    Ok. If I told you you had 80% chance of flipping a coin to a head and you got a tail, would you say I couldn't predict things ?
    - deleted 10y ago
      [deleted]
  - dagw 10y ago
    6 and Not 6 are two choices
- forgetsusername 10y ago
  I think many people would, yes. Which is frightening. I just read an anecdote about Sid Meier dealing with this in the Civilization games in Michael Lewis' Undoing Project: people couldn't stand losing battles of 33% 3 times in a row.

kome 10y ago

Friendly reminder: don't use Facebook and block any advertisement and trackers online using ublock. It helps to keep some mental ecology.

hedora 10y ago
I did that too. Look where it got us. Anyway, I eventually set up a placholder Facebook account. Once I typed my name into the setup form, they provided a frighteningly detailed list of friends and acquaintances. Since then, due to "do you know" emails, I get the impression they slurp other people's call and sms logs (or maybe just contacts, if FB types are more OCD about address books than me) into their social network graph. Anyway, it is not much of an exaggeration to say that facebook gets more metadata to sell every time you make a phone call, regardless of whether you have an account. (Of course, I don't have their software installed on any of my devices. However, I did give them my phone number for 2FA purposes. How naive I was. Assuming the phone app grabs people's address books and/or call logs, they probably had it before I gave it to them)

lstroud 10y ago

Has anyone been able to validate or correlate the claims in this article? It's an opinion piece without a lot of verifiable references or data. Seems like it is, to some degree, describing itself.

RichardHeart 10y ago

"Mr. Zuckerberg is young, still skeptical that his radiant transparency machine could be anything but a force for good" This is naive bordering on delusional. I think Zuckerberg knows the real deal. Considering quotes like these: Zuck: Yeah so if you ever need info about anyone at Harvard Zuck: Just ask. Zuck: I have over 4,000 emails, pictures, addresses, SNS [Redacted Friend's Name]: What? How'd you manage that one? Zuck: People just submitted it. Zuck: I don't know why. Zuck: They "trust me" Zuck: Dumb fucks"

dominotw 10y ago

>shocked by an election upset. NYTimes never strays from its own 'Secret agenda'. Half the population is always "upset" after an election. Only ones "shocked" by this are moronic NYTimes readers who still don't have the clue to get their heads out of their asses.

sctb 10y ago
You should be well aware that such name calling is not OK on Hackers News. Please don't do this.

wtbob 10y ago

> In this election, dark posts were used to try to suppress the African-American vote. According to Bloomberg, the Trump campaign sent ads reminding certain selected black voters of Hillary Clinton’s infamous “super predator” line. It targeted Miami’s Little Haiti neighborhood with messages about the Clinton Foundation’s troubles in Haiti after the 2010 earthquake. How is this suppressing the vote? It's giving potential voters accurate information about your opponent. Frankly, how is it any different from Mr. Biden shouting, 'they're gonna put y'all back in chains!' — other than the former being true and probably in good taste? N.b.: I did not vote for President Trump.

mattnewton 10y ago
An answer to how this is different is provided in literally the next sentence of the article. >Federal Election Commission rules are unclear when it comes to Facebook posts, but even if they do apply and the facts are skewed and the dog whistles loud, the already weakening power of social opprobrium is gone when no one else sees the ad you see — and no one else sees “I’m Donald Trump, and I approved this message.”

Propen 10y ago

Is it just me starting to really have enough of "secret agendas" of Facebook and other internet giants? What the hell are the legislators doing? Even if you say that the advertising-based business model is OK where do you draw the line? Do they really need to know what kind of a psychologic personality I am and what kind of porn I watch ?! (exaggerating... but who knows nowadays)

08-15 10y ago

> In this election, dark posts were used to try to suppress the African-American vote. According to Bloomberg, the Trump campaign sent ads... Really? Sending ads is suppressing the vote of certain people? Like the soviet union suppressed dissenters by sending them to the gulag? I don't think so. But I think the New York Times has a secret agenda of its own, I just don't know what it is. Portraying the election as somehow "unfair" could result in civil unrest, who could possibly want that?