9 ms·

I get the gist of the article, and it is scary. I don't recall as much scare when people found out Obama's team used machine learning and data collection, as w

by eggy 10y ago

I get the gist of the article, and it is scary. I don't recall as much scare when people found out Obama's team used machine learning and data collection, as well as Hillary's later efforts, to influence voters or gain support. I am not a Trump supporter, nor a Hillary or Obama fan; I am pretty disgusted with the US political system, however, I also recall people praising the IT/ML/Big Data teams for Obama and Hillary without even a mention of what data they were slinging or collecting. I left FB years ago, and I feel much better for it, especially after reading this article.

throwaway_374 10y ago
I think the issue is exploitation to stoke hatred against minorities and women. Have you ever read the comments section on Breitbart? It's the new normalized Stormfront.
- eggy 10y ago
  Yes, I am fully aware of the vitriol, and again, not making a case for it. I am simply trying to be objective on the way manipulating media is perceived by the public and press. The ends don't justify the means for either side is what I am saying, and how surprised you don't find any cautionary tales from the other campaigns mentioned. I am a privacy advocate, and since taking media classes at NYU in 1982, I have always known this was going to happen - control of the media and public mindset. Polarization of the US into just a two-party system has allowed this to happen. It's good guys vs. bad guys simplicity - a much easier sell on the public for either side.
  - jackmott 10y ago
    We perceive if differently because its being used by evil people now, for the love of science. Are you a shill? you sound like a shill. The world is burning and you are harping on some edge point about "Obama did it too" fuck I hate this place.
    - Jun8 10y ago
      It's not an "edge point". One can discuss the inherent moral goodness or lack thereof of using a certain tool, whereas you seem to subscribe to the view that something is bad if "evil people" use it and not otherwise. With similar train of thought one may argue that nuclear weapons are good for the US to have but not for an evil empire such as the USSR (actual argument that was used by people), or a gun is bad when it's used by a criminal but good when used by someone in self-defense. You see that in these cases one can discuss the merits of the application but also argue about the whole ban of the tool itself, irregardless of who's using it. Also if you hate HN noone is forcing you to be here.
      - imgabe 10y ago
        A tool cannot have inherent moral goodness or lack it. A tool is inanimate. It is amoral. By itself it does nothing. Only humans can put tools to uses that may be good or bad for other humans. Morality does not exist outside of human perception.
        mschuster91 10y ago
        > A tool cannot have inherent moral goodness or lack it. I disagree. A registry of Muslim/Jewish/... people is a tool with inherent discrimination, which has next to no known good use for society. Only for evil.
        67726e 10y ago
        The tool would be a database, the use is a registry. Also, have you never heard of a census?
        mschuster91 10y ago
        > Also, have you never heard of a census? In a proper census you do not collect proven-sensitive information together with identifiable information, that's the difference. A database with a direct link between identity and religion can only be used for nefarious purposes.
- facepalm 10y ago
  Is it fair to judge a web site by their comments section? I'm sure "The Guardian" or even Hacker News get pretty nasty comments, too. You could demand censorship, but maybe some people simply are against it.
  - throwaway_374 10y ago
    Oh it's absolutely fair when there are calls for genocide against an entire people. Do you really want me to perform a statistical analysis on Breitbart comments with the word "muslim" or "black" or "jew"? Come on now, don't insult my intelligence - we're all smart people here.
    - facepalm 10y ago
      I haven't looked at their comments - but sure, why not make such an analysis? What do you mean by "we are all smart people here" - everybody knows the earth is flat? Edit: perhaps you could at least provide a link to a typical Breitbart comment section, full of hatred and calls for genocide?
facetube 10y ago
There is no comprehensible moral equivalence between outfits like Breitbart News (N.B. Steve Bannon is on the board of Cambridge Analytica) and the Obama campaign. What people use their tools for matters.
- patrickg_zill 10y ago
  Yes, breitbart never drone bombed innocents in a foreign country without a declaration of war, and never used depleted uranium rounds against for instance, Syrians--and then lied about it.
  - facetube 10y ago
    Whataboutism at its finest. These guys will go full nuclear.
    - coldtea 10y ago
      Whataboutism is actually the independent stance: caring to judge all actors in a situation for what they are. Condemnations of whataboutism is just sticking with one's side, and attributing all evil to the other side. Instead of having a historical, and morally accurate, perspective. And it's even more hideous and morally outrageous if the side one is not willing to criticize is several time worse than the other.
      - facetube 10y ago
        Unfortunately, a objective retrospective comparison of the most recent two nuclear-weapons-controlling administrations isn't possible; we're fully aboard the train. We're forced to predict based upon the words and vision the president offers. Unfortunately, Mr. Trump's vision (in Mr. Trump's own words) is a dark one: "American carnage". The promises of Trump have the potential to go far, far worse than the results of Obama. And no amount of blaming him will help.
        coldtea 10y ago
Mendenhall 10y ago
What I find fascinating is many people on this forum work for companies etc that make this very thing possible. Its interesting to see their opinions, concerns or more telling the lack thereof.
- yummyfajitas 10y ago
  I'll provide my opinion as a person who does this stuff. This is all submarine marketing by Cambridge Analytica. http://paulgraham.com/submarine.html http://paulgraham.com/submarine.html Tools exist to do all the things that these articles describe. And the reality is very far from what these articles are describing. Given behavioral targeting (highly effective), demographic targeting (less effective) and A/B testing (highly effective), you can construct customized messages to improve your conversion rates. You can sell skin cream to the hippie by emphasizing the organic ingredients, and to the vain lady by showing her a pretty lady with great skin using the cream. That might get your conversion rate from 5% to 6%, which is HUGE WIN for your company - a 20% boost in revenue. That's also very far from the mind control being described here. If you want to understand what Trump did, rather than paying attention to the people who completely failed to predict his victory (i.e. the mainstream media), I'd focus on the people who predicted it perfectly (i.e. Scott Adams and similar folks). It's only in the mainstream media that a sequence of failed predictions somehow makes a person worth listening to.
  - Mendenhall 10y ago
    Thanks for thoughtful reply. I think I agree with all what you said. I am not the omg Trump is ending the world type, I see him as using the same "tools" as other political parties etc. To me the real question becomes what happens when the government uses the big data to "sell" ideas to the public. That 5% swing can be used in all sorts of ways.
    - yummyfajitas 10y ago
      It would surprise me if the government doesn't already attempt to use such techniques to manipulate the public. I just suspect they do it badly, because while Trump/Obama/Hillary can fire people who perform badly and hire the best people for the role, the civil service cannot. They certainly engage in propaganda in general, however, mainly by going directly through the media. The thing here which is actually interesting is not the use of propaganda. What's interesting is people outside the cathedral using it effectively. https://unqualified-reservations.blogspot.com/2009/01/gentle-introduction-to-unqualified.html https://unqualified-reservations.blogspot.com/2009/01/gentle... (Or a shorter description: http://home.earthlink.net/~peter.a.taylor/moldbug.htm http://home.earthlink.net/~peter.a.taylor/moldbug.htm )
makomk 10y ago
Yeah. I mean, there were literal pro-Clinton astroturfing efforts that tried to pressure the media into covering the news in ways that favoured her, crafting a narrative that any negative media coverage of her or perceived sluggishness in running anti-Trump stories was proof of shameful Trump support: https://www.nytimes.com/2016/09/23/us/politics/hillary-clinton-media-david-brock.html https://www.nytimes.com/2016/09/23/us/politics/hillary-clint... From what I saw, it worked; this became the dominant narrative on at least the parts of Twitter I saw. Yet there were no breathless headlines about Democrat "propaganda networks" that were "waging war on mainstream media", even though that's clearly exactly what they were doing.
- mistermann 10y ago
  "That's different!" Both sides have no idea how alike they are.
- oh_sigh 10y ago
  Also see the media reporting on Trump's "voter suppression efforts", which were targeted advertisements to, say, Haitian-US citizens about some horrible things the Clinton Foundation did in Haiti. Apparently informing people of bad things a candidate is associated with is 'voter suppression', because it will increase the odds that the people won't go out and vote for that candidate. Using the same terminology, the Trump Access Hollywood tape was far more of a voter suppression effort than any targeted facebook advertising, but that for some reason falls under the guise of relevant and informative information.
- dreamfactory2 10y ago
  They were a late and poor response to the surprisingly effective Kremlin troll factories that have been astroturfing wildly for Trump (and Brexit and Ukraine and across Europe)
jckt 10y ago
Wasn't the Obama campaign tech effort more about coordinating organisers/canvassers/etc in a "data-driven" way, rather than the Cambridge Analytica "propaganda network" type? Clinton did indeed have a programme similar to Obama's, which has since (perhaps uselessly overdue?) been panned heavily in the MSM[1]. This isn't to say that Obama/Clinton wouldn't have relied on a Cambridge Analytica type service for moral reasons (in fact IIRC Clinton's campaign did do something similar, but at a much smaller scale), though, but more that they underestimated its potency... [1]:https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/post-politics/wp/2016/11/09/clintons-data-driven-campaign-relied-heavily-on-an-algorithm-named-ada-what-didnt-she-see/?utm_term=.f9cb46092dc8 https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/post-politics/wp/2016/11...
- oh_sigh 10y ago
  Obama and Clinton both had a 'consortium of behavioral scientists', who helped with such things as how to craft messages for maximum impact, and how to counter what they felt were lies floating around about their candidate. If Trump had the same thing, they would be labeled cold blooded propagandists. http://www.nytimes.com/2012/11/13/health/dream-team-of-behavioral-scientists-advised-obama-campaign.html http://www.nytimes.com/2012/11/13/health/dream-team-of-behav...
  - michaelmrose 10y ago
    Perhaps because what he refers to as lies are annoying truths and what Obama called lies were in fact imaginary malarkey like him not being an American or being a crypto Muslim?
    - owebmaster 10y ago
      And what about other lies/truths? Pizzagate, Hillary mother of ISIS, killer of presidents? Ops, I mean... dictators....
deleted 10y ago
[deleted]
ChicagoDave 10y ago
As I recall, the Obama IT effort was used to identify voters and get out the vote. This Mercer thing is pure psyops. It's intentionally trying to alter mass psychology for its own benefit.
- noobermin 10y ago
  Conservatives have admitted in the past[0] that they win by suppressing the vote. That happens while Liberals usually win by getting out the vote. Saying "both sides do it" is just plain unfair and borderline propaganda. [0] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8GBAsFwPglw https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8GBAsFwPglw
- ChicagoDave 10y ago
  I'd like to add that one of their primary intentions isn't to change minds. My guess is they use this big data social media system to influence people negatively. They identify independent liberal-leaning voters and influence them in a way so that they are turned off from politics and won't bother voting. So these potential voters probably see a lot of ads showing how equally horrible any candidate is, how nothing matters, and that no single vote is going to make a difference.

by eggy 10y ago

throwaway_374 10y ago

I think the issue is exploitation to stoke hatred against minorities and women. Have you ever read the comments section on Breitbart? It's the new normalized Stormfront.

eggy 10y ago
Yes, I am fully aware of the vitriol, and again, not making a case for it. I am simply trying to be objective on the way manipulating media is perceived by the public and press. The ends don't justify the means for either side is what I am saying, and how surprised you don't find any cautionary tales from the other campaigns mentioned. I am a privacy advocate, and since taking media classes at NYU in 1982, I have always known this was going to happen - control of the media and public mindset. Polarization of the US into just a two-party system has allowed this to happen. It's good guys vs. bad guys simplicity - a much easier sell on the public for either side.
- jackmott 10y ago
  We perceive if differently because its being used by evil people now, for the love of science. Are you a shill? you sound like a shill. The world is burning and you are harping on some edge point about "Obama did it too" fuck I hate this place.
  - Jun8 10y ago
    It's not an "edge point". One can discuss the inherent moral goodness or lack thereof of using a certain tool, whereas you seem to subscribe to the view that something is bad if "evil people" use it and not otherwise. With similar train of thought one may argue that nuclear weapons are good for the US to have but not for an evil empire such as the USSR (actual argument that was used by people), or a gun is bad when it's used by a criminal but good when used by someone in self-defense. You see that in these cases one can discuss the merits of the application but also argue about the whole ban of the tool itself, irregardless of who's using it. Also if you hate HN noone is forcing you to be here.
    - imgabe 10y ago
      A tool cannot have inherent moral goodness or lack it. A tool is inanimate. It is amoral. By itself it does nothing. Only humans can put tools to uses that may be good or bad for other humans. Morality does not exist outside of human perception.
      - mschuster91 10y ago
        > A tool cannot have inherent moral goodness or lack it. I disagree. A registry of Muslim/Jewish/... people is a tool with inherent discrimination, which has next to no known good use for society. Only for evil.
        67726e 10y ago
        The tool would be a database, the use is a registry. Also, have you never heard of a census?
        mschuster91 10y ago
        > Also, have you never heard of a census? In a proper census you do not collect proven-sensitive information together with identifiable information, that's the difference. A database with a direct link between identity and religion can only be used for nefarious purposes.
facepalm 10y ago
Is it fair to judge a web site by their comments section? I'm sure "The Guardian" or even Hacker News get pretty nasty comments, too. You could demand censorship, but maybe some people simply are against it.
- throwaway_374 10y ago
  Oh it's absolutely fair when there are calls for genocide against an entire people. Do you really want me to perform a statistical analysis on Breitbart comments with the word "muslim" or "black" or "jew"? Come on now, don't insult my intelligence - we're all smart people here.
  - facepalm 10y ago
    I haven't looked at their comments - but sure, why not make such an analysis? What do you mean by "we are all smart people here" - everybody knows the earth is flat? Edit: perhaps you could at least provide a link to a typical Breitbart comment section, full of hatred and calls for genocide?

facetube 10y ago

There is no comprehensible moral equivalence between outfits like Breitbart News (N.B. Steve Bannon is on the board of Cambridge Analytica) and the Obama campaign. What people use their tools for matters.

patrickg_zill 10y ago
Yes, breitbart never drone bombed innocents in a foreign country without a declaration of war, and never used depleted uranium rounds against for instance, Syrians--and then lied about it.
- facetube 10y ago
  Whataboutism at its finest. These guys will go full nuclear.
  - coldtea 10y ago
    Whataboutism is actually the independent stance: caring to judge all actors in a situation for what they are. Condemnations of whataboutism is just sticking with one's side, and attributing all evil to the other side. Instead of having a historical, and morally accurate, perspective. And it's even more hideous and morally outrageous if the side one is not willing to criticize is several time worse than the other.
    - facetube 10y ago
      Unfortunately, a objective retrospective comparison of the most recent two nuclear-weapons-controlling administrations isn't possible; we're fully aboard the train. We're forced to predict based upon the words and vision the president offers. Unfortunately, Mr. Trump's vision (in Mr. Trump's own words) is a dark one: "American carnage". The promises of Trump have the potential to go far, far worse than the results of Obama. And no amount of blaming him will help.
      - coldtea 10y ago

Mendenhall 10y ago

What I find fascinating is many people on this forum work for companies etc that make this very thing possible. Its interesting to see their opinions, concerns or more telling the lack thereof.

yummyfajitas 10y ago
I'll provide my opinion as a person who does this stuff. This is all submarine marketing by Cambridge Analytica. http://paulgraham.com/submarine.html http://paulgraham.com/submarine.html Tools exist to do all the things that these articles describe. And the reality is very far from what these articles are describing. Given behavioral targeting (highly effective), demographic targeting (less effective) and A/B testing (highly effective), you can construct customized messages to improve your conversion rates. You can sell skin cream to the hippie by emphasizing the organic ingredients, and to the vain lady by showing her a pretty lady with great skin using the cream. That might get your conversion rate from 5% to 6%, which is HUGE WIN for your company - a 20% boost in revenue. That's also very far from the mind control being described here. If you want to understand what Trump did, rather than paying attention to the people who completely failed to predict his victory (i.e. the mainstream media), I'd focus on the people who predicted it perfectly (i.e. Scott Adams and similar folks). It's only in the mainstream media that a sequence of failed predictions somehow makes a person worth listening to.
- Mendenhall 10y ago
  Thanks for thoughtful reply. I think I agree with all what you said. I am not the omg Trump is ending the world type, I see him as using the same "tools" as other political parties etc. To me the real question becomes what happens when the government uses the big data to "sell" ideas to the public. That 5% swing can be used in all sorts of ways.
  - yummyfajitas 10y ago
    It would surprise me if the government doesn't already attempt to use such techniques to manipulate the public. I just suspect they do it badly, because while Trump/Obama/Hillary can fire people who perform badly and hire the best people for the role, the civil service cannot. They certainly engage in propaganda in general, however, mainly by going directly through the media. The thing here which is actually interesting is not the use of propaganda. What's interesting is people outside the cathedral using it effectively. https://unqualified-reservations.blogspot.com/2009/01/gentle-introduction-to-unqualified.html https://unqualified-reservations.blogspot.com/2009/01/gentle... (Or a shorter description: http://home.earthlink.net/~peter.a.taylor/moldbug.htm http://home.earthlink.net/~peter.a.taylor/moldbug.htm )

makomk 10y ago

Yeah. I mean, there were literal pro-Clinton astroturfing efforts that tried to pressure the media into covering the news in ways that favoured her, crafting a narrative that any negative media coverage of her or perceived sluggishness in running anti-Trump stories was proof of shameful Trump support: https://www.nytimes.com/2016/09/23/us/politics/hillary-clinton-media-david-brock.html https://www.nytimes.com/2016/09/23/us/politics/hillary-clint... From what I saw, it worked; this became the dominant narrative on at least the parts of Twitter I saw. Yet there were no breathless headlines about Democrat "propaganda networks" that were "waging war on mainstream media", even though that's clearly exactly what they were doing.

mistermann 10y ago
"That's different!" Both sides have no idea how alike they are.
oh_sigh 10y ago
Also see the media reporting on Trump's "voter suppression efforts", which were targeted advertisements to, say, Haitian-US citizens about some horrible things the Clinton Foundation did in Haiti. Apparently informing people of bad things a candidate is associated with is 'voter suppression', because it will increase the odds that the people won't go out and vote for that candidate. Using the same terminology, the Trump Access Hollywood tape was far more of a voter suppression effort than any targeted facebook advertising, but that for some reason falls under the guise of relevant and informative information.
dreamfactory2 10y ago
They were a late and poor response to the surprisingly effective Kremlin troll factories that have been astroturfing wildly for Trump (and Brexit and Ukraine and across Europe)

jckt 10y ago

Wasn't the Obama campaign tech effort more about coordinating organisers/canvassers/etc in a "data-driven" way, rather than the Cambridge Analytica "propaganda network" type? Clinton did indeed have a programme similar to Obama's, which has since (perhaps uselessly overdue?) been panned heavily in the MSM[1]. This isn't to say that Obama/Clinton wouldn't have relied on a Cambridge Analytica type service for moral reasons (in fact IIRC Clinton's campaign did do something similar, but at a much smaller scale), though, but more that they underestimated its potency... [1]:https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/post-politics/wp/2016/11/09/clintons-data-driven-campaign-relied-heavily-on-an-algorithm-named-ada-what-didnt-she-see/?utm_term=.f9cb46092dc8 https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/post-politics/wp/2016/11...

oh_sigh 10y ago
Obama and Clinton both had a 'consortium of behavioral scientists', who helped with such things as how to craft messages for maximum impact, and how to counter what they felt were lies floating around about their candidate. If Trump had the same thing, they would be labeled cold blooded propagandists. http://www.nytimes.com/2012/11/13/health/dream-team-of-behavioral-scientists-advised-obama-campaign.html http://www.nytimes.com/2012/11/13/health/dream-team-of-behav...
- michaelmrose 10y ago
  Perhaps because what he refers to as lies are annoying truths and what Obama called lies were in fact imaginary malarkey like him not being an American or being a crypto Muslim?
  - owebmaster 10y ago
    And what about other lies/truths? Pizzagate, Hillary mother of ISIS, killer of presidents? Ops, I mean... dictators....

deleted 10y ago

[deleted]

ChicagoDave 10y ago

As I recall, the Obama IT effort was used to identify voters and get out the vote. This Mercer thing is pure psyops. It's intentionally trying to alter mass psychology for its own benefit.

noobermin 10y ago
Conservatives have admitted in the past[0] that they win by suppressing the vote. That happens while Liberals usually win by getting out the vote. Saying "both sides do it" is just plain unfair and borderline propaganda. [0] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8GBAsFwPglw https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8GBAsFwPglw
ChicagoDave 10y ago
I'd like to add that one of their primary intentions isn't to change minds. My guess is they use this big data social media system to influence people negatively. They identify independent liberal-leaning voters and influence them in a way so that they are turned off from politics and won't bother voting. So these potential voters probably see a lot of ads showing how equally horrible any candidate is, how nothing matters, and that no single vote is going to make a difference.