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A comment on the WSJ brings up an interesting point—if Zuckerberg were to run for president, would he have access to this information? What else could he have a

A comment on the WSJ brings up an interesting point—if Zuckerberg were to run for president, would he have access to this information? What else could he have access to? Given the amount of data Facebook has about everybody, I find that possibility worrisome. It seems obvious that a campaign strategist could segment individual states, regions and cities. They could target people based on likes and interests. They could get very granular with messaging—advertisers can do this through Facebook right now. But what other information could be used that advertisers don't have access to? Application usage, website visits, WhatsApp message keywords?

659087 9y ago
> But what other information could be used that advertisers don't have access to? Application usage, website visits, WhatsApp keywords? Don't forget "private" conversations on messenger.
caseysoftware 9y ago
When you are active and who you interact with, allowing them to hit you with the "perfect" message at the right time. Having all your Likes - even the things you've unliked - so they know which celebrities to put in front of you. Having all of your browsing history+who you interact with and the language you use gives them near-perfect understanding of your opinions on policies and politicians going back the entire life your account all over the internet. That becomes incredibly simple to manipulate.. as I quoted yesterday: > "We predicted that our manipulation would produce a very small effect, if any, but that’s not what we found. On average, we were able to shift the proportion of people favouring any given candidate by more than 20 per cent overall and more than 60 per cent in some demographic groups. Even more disturbing, 99.5 per cent of our participants showed no awareness that they were viewing biased search rankings – in other words, that they were being manipulated." Ref: https://aeon.co/essays/how-the-internet-flips-elections-and-alters-our-thoughts https://aeon.co/essays/how-the-internet-flips-elections-and-...
LeoNatan25 9y ago
One could cynically say that the fake news spreading in this election on Facebook could have been a preliminary test of their algorithm for crowd control. Is such a theory really that far fetched, given news like this?
sethrin 9y ago
Well, as I've read on this, there is good news and bad news. The good news is that the best predictors of how you're going to vote are already public. Wait, maybe that's the bad news. Either way, as you say one can already do very granular advertising through FB already, but having more data is not necessarily equivalent to having better information, and you're not necessarily trying to market optimally to every potentially identifiable segment. If you knew that peanut-related political ads played really well with left-handed leftist lecturers in LA, you might still not consider that worth taking action on. For most people things like age, income, education, party registration, and parent's party registration are sufficiently predictive.
- Method-X 9y ago
  This is about influencing peoples current bias. Preaching to the choir won't win an election; changing the opinion of the opposition will.
dsfyu404ed 9y ago
You should read up on J Edgar Hoover and the way he used FBI information to manipulate political figures who he saw as obstructing his mission. I see Zuckerberg being in a position to do the same several steps in advance. If you send the right corporate execs the right embarrassing information they could certainly refrain from recommending that their company donate to an anti-Zuckerberg PAC.
saimiam 9y ago
You know, it's at times like this that the term limited Presidency sounds like a wonderful idea. Imagine a Zuckerberg getting elected time and again because his minions have us convinced that we love him.
- AlexandrB 9y ago
  Putin got around Russia's term limits by repeatedly swapping jobs with Medvedev (the prime minister). Zuck could do effectively the same thing by getting a string of cronies elected after himself. Term limits are of little use without checks and balances like an independent media.
reirob 9y ago
Stanford Seminar - Unethical Algorithms of Massive Scale [1]. It's worth watching even if it's 1 hour and 23 minutes. [1]: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-7qT_38iRSc&t=633s https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-7qT_38iRSc&t=633s

659087 9y ago

> But what other information could be used that advertisers don't have access to? Application usage, website visits, WhatsApp keywords? Don't forget "private" conversations on messenger.

caseysoftware 9y ago

When you are active and who you interact with, allowing them to hit you with the "perfect" message at the right time. Having all your Likes - even the things you've unliked - so they know which celebrities to put in front of you. Having all of your browsing history+who you interact with and the language you use gives them near-perfect understanding of your opinions on policies and politicians going back the entire life your account all over the internet. That becomes incredibly simple to manipulate.. as I quoted yesterday: > "We predicted that our manipulation would produce a very small effect, if any, but that’s not what we found. On average, we were able to shift the proportion of people favouring any given candidate by more than 20 per cent overall and more than 60 per cent in some demographic groups. Even more disturbing, 99.5 per cent of our participants showed no awareness that they were viewing biased search rankings – in other words, that they were being manipulated." Ref: https://aeon.co/essays/how-the-internet-flips-elections-and-alters-our-thoughts https://aeon.co/essays/how-the-internet-flips-elections-and-...

LeoNatan25 9y ago

One could cynically say that the fake news spreading in this election on Facebook could have been a preliminary test of their algorithm for crowd control. Is such a theory really that far fetched, given news like this?

sethrin 9y ago

Well, as I've read on this, there is good news and bad news. The good news is that the best predictors of how you're going to vote are already public. Wait, maybe that's the bad news. Either way, as you say one can already do very granular advertising through FB already, but having more data is not necessarily equivalent to having better information, and you're not necessarily trying to market optimally to every potentially identifiable segment. If you knew that peanut-related political ads played really well with left-handed leftist lecturers in LA, you might still not consider that worth taking action on. For most people things like age, income, education, party registration, and parent's party registration are sufficiently predictive.

Method-X 9y ago
This is about influencing peoples current bias. Preaching to the choir won't win an election; changing the opinion of the opposition will.

dsfyu404ed 9y ago

You should read up on J Edgar Hoover and the way he used FBI information to manipulate political figures who he saw as obstructing his mission. I see Zuckerberg being in a position to do the same several steps in advance. If you send the right corporate execs the right embarrassing information they could certainly refrain from recommending that their company donate to an anti-Zuckerberg PAC.

saimiam 9y ago

You know, it's at times like this that the term limited Presidency sounds like a wonderful idea. Imagine a Zuckerberg getting elected time and again because his minions have us convinced that we love him.

AlexandrB 9y ago
Putin got around Russia's term limits by repeatedly swapping jobs with Medvedev (the prime minister). Zuck could do effectively the same thing by getting a string of cronies elected after himself. Term limits are of little use without checks and balances like an independent media.

reirob 9y ago

Stanford Seminar - Unethical Algorithms of Massive Scale [1]. It's worth watching even if it's 1 hour and 23 minutes. [1]: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-7qT_38iRSc&t=633s https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-7qT_38iRSc&t=633s