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The Cambridge Analytica scandal isn’t a scandal: this is how Facebook works
- leggomylibro 9y agoListening to Facebook is starting to feel like listening to an arms dealer who wants to sound remorseful. Well what did you think the very targeted things that you're selling to anyone would be used for?
- jebeng 9y agoI find it so hard to believe that everyone at Facebook is just shocked now to learn the realities of what they do. Their naivety and ignorance would have to be off the charts for it to be genuine.
- Analemma_ 9y ago"It is difficult to get a man to understand something when his salary depends on his not understanding it."
- stevenwoo 9y agoMaybe it's a lot of young people fresh from college and they hear about the big five or whatever, and choose Facebook because they think of it as a social networking company and big, famous, and cool. Just an old guy's opinion - would not want to work there.
- ikeyany 9y agoThat explains the actions of (some of) Facebook's "rockstar" developers. That does not explain the actions of Facebook's data scientists, psychologists, product managers, and execs. Occam's razor - They knew, and perhaps they cared, but they cared far more about their salary and climbing the industry ladder to say no or blow the whistle.
- pbalau 9y agoOr maybe there is no whistle to blow.
- zzzcpan 9y agoYou cannot really expect people who have to work for a living and do work for a vertically structured corporation to be ethical and to go against their bosses. The problem is inherent to capitalism and it can make people do far worse things than this, like killing people or promoting and making wars.
- ikeyany 9y agoYes you can. Doing the right thing at the expense of a comfortable lifestyle is a problem every generation has faced. Washing one's hands of responsibility in such a way is a rather lazy argument.
- zzzcpan 9y agoThe conscious and deliberate decision to put a system in place that manipulates and exploits people who have to work for a living and makes them do things with no questions asked is not created by employees themselves. But it is a decision nevertheless and it is unfair to expect employees, who are victims of such system, to do the right thing as they usually fear the consequences of the dissent. Which can literally mean not just losing a job, but life and death kind of choices, never being able to afford a medical care, lack of place to live, prison and so on.
- ikeyany 9y agoIt's disingenuous to claim that employees of Facebook are being exploited as such. Factory workers maybe, but not a lucrative position at Menlo Park.
- triplesec 9y agoThis response is the 'I was only following orders' response
- ufo 9y agoI think the simpler explanation is that people are very good at looking the other way when their income depends on it.
- Spooky23 9y agoI’ve worked in places that were pretty fubar. People work very hard to find ways to whitewash what they do. Nobody wants to be the bad guy.
- Feniks 9y agoThey did some interesting studies about this after WW2. Nobody ever sees themselves as the bad guy, not even the guards at Auschwitz. Humans fail at ethics and personal responsibility when placed in a tight group.
- IAmEveryone 9y agoCA did not rely on facebook’s ad platform-at least not for the part of their business now under scrutiny. They used the app API to gain acess to individual users’ data, something not possible with their ad targeting platform.
- guelo 9y agoSome regulation I'd like to see for social network ads, at least for political ads: - Make all ads publicly viewable along with the targeting demographics. So everybody can see, for example, that a politician is pushing xenophobia to older people. - Some kind of ad "fake news" score associated with a campaign. This one is difficult, but I could imagine a score based on a mixture of "fake news scoring providers" from across the ideological divide and news orgs. The point is to give voters some transparency into what a politician is actually campaigning on.
- makomk 9y agoI think Facebook may already have done the first one. That's probably not going to stop someone like Trump, though; his campaign staff mainly seem to see clever targetting techniques in terms of cost optimisation, as a way of not wasting money on showing people messages that are less likely to convince them. If people want to spread the other ads for free, that just saves them some money. It's not even clear that sleazy tricks with microtargeting are actually a winning strategy; people really don't like finding out they're being tricked and social media is pretty optimized for spreading that kind of discovery.
- SolarUpNote 9y agoI'd like to see which country the ad / news post / video is coming from. Stick a little flag icon on it.
- bostik 9y agoIn addition to making all ads, along with their targeting criteria, bought by any one actor, we'd need something more still. The second level. For all political ads, why not aggregate and publish the demographic's preferences too? "People who liked this ad also liked $these_things." That way you could see what kinds or subgroups the ads are trying to engage.
- ahoka 9y agoHow about simply banning targeted advertisement? It's clearly toxic to society.
- ourmandave 9y agoSummary below article title: Three key parts of Facebook’s model come into play: gathering data from people in order to profile them, designing systems that allow that data to be used to target people, then allowing third parties to use the data and those targeting systems for their own purposes Back in Nov 2017, when the senate was questioning Facebook, Google, and Twitter about the Russian ads during the election... Burr issued a warning to the sites, saying they are on the front lines of defense for the security of the country's future, urging the representatives: "Don't let nation states disrupt our future." I sleep better knowing The Zuck is on the frontline keeping us safe. /s
- HenryBemis 9y agoFacebook treats people's volunteered information as goods-for trade. And business is booming!! Politics aside, I wonder how this will affect the "Russian intervention in US and UK politics" search for "truth". I am also expecting that UK authorities will be paying a visit to "Cambridge Analytica" and I hope we will find out the truth on what exactly they did for the UK Referendum, US Elections, and wherever else they "helped people decide". Something tells me though that we won't ever be told the truth. E.g. let's say that there was no Russian interventios to US election and it was all Cambridge Analytica's doing. With Theresa May driving the attention away from the actual problems and into a "UK-Russia" debate about the death of a spy, it would NOT serve her political agenda of smoke-and-mirrors to clear Russia's name (just theorising - I don't take sides). Ps: I remember a saying "live by the sword - die by the sword". How do people expect a spy (who has been uncovered) to die? In his bed on his 90s?
- cryptoz 9y ago> let's say that there was no Russian interventios to US election I know you're posing a hypothetical, but your scenario is impossible. Over a dozen Russians have already been indicted. Russia was involved. Period.
- talmand 9y agoPersonally, I'm waiting on the indictments of the US citizens, including high-level federal employees/politicians that have done the much same thing for decades in other countries.
- gdulli 9y agoHaha they must be referring to yesterday's version of the scandal. The appetizer. https://www.channel4.com/news/cambridge-analytica-revealed-trumps-election-consultants-filmed-saying-they-use-bribes-and-sex-workers-to-entrap-politicians-investigation https://www.channel4.com/news/cambridge-analytica-revealed-t...
- stevenwoo 9y agoThe audacity is jaw dropping. Their spokesman immediately walked back all the claims made on tape of course.
- jessaustin 9y agoWas there something in there about urination?
- mattmcknight 9y agoIs it really that different from the 2012 campaign? "But the Obama team had a solution in place: a Facebook application that will transform the way campaigns are conducted in the future. For supporters, the app appeared to be just another way to digitally connect to the campaign.... That’s because the more than 1 million Obama backers who signed up for the app gave the campaign permission to look at their Facebook friend lists. In an instant, the campaign had a way to see the hidden young voters. Roughly 85% of those without a listed phone number could be found in the uploaded friend lists....in those final weeks of the campaign, the team blitzed the supporters who had signed up for the app with requests to share specific online content with specific friends simply by clicking a button." http://swampland.time.com/2012/11/20/friended-how-the-obama-campaign-connected-with-young-voters/ http://swampland.time.com/2012/11/20/friended-how-the-obama-...
- slaunchwise 9y agoWhataboutism doesn't make it right.
- BLanen 9y agoYes. >signed up for the app
- mattmcknight 9y agoThe Cambridge Analytica users also signed up for the app, and also gave up their friend lists. You are correct though in that the nature of the application Cambridge Analytica used was more deceptive as it was not identified as having a political purpose.
- vvanders 9y agoI would argue the difference there was that was an explicitly political app where from what I understand the app that leaked this data wasn't political in any way. Either way it's great to see some light shined on FB, this is exactly the reason I don't use their services.
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- gt565k 9y agoWatch the mini documentary of the undercover op by channel 4 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mpbeOCKZFfQ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mpbeOCKZFfQ This isn't just data mining, it's straight up misinformation, entrapment, and god knows what else.
- throwaway5752 9y agoA little alarming to see this headline from The Independent. If this isn't a scandal then the word has no meaning.
- booleanbetrayal 9y agoSome additional context via NY Times coverage on the entrapment aspects of Cambridge Analytica's operating procedures. https://www.nytimes.com/2018/03/19/us/cambridge-analytica-alexander-nix.html https://www.nytimes.com/2018/03/19/us/cambridge-analytica-al... Note: I tried to post this here, because it seemed worthy of its own thread, but it was marked as a dupe for some reason - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16622761 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16622761
- knuththetruth 9y agoYeah, same. Not sure if it’s the mods or what.
- knuththetruth 9y agoI read elsewhere that the UK is now planning to raid Cambridge Analytica office/servers in light of this report and that Facebook was also somehow in house with them?
- enraged_camel 9y agoWow, the CEO of the company openly admitted to sending Ukranian hookers to opposition candidates' houses and hotel rooms and recording the interactions...
- booleanbetrayal 9y ago
- oxymoran 9y agoThe only thing surprising about this is that people are surprised about this.
- jessaustin 9y agoAt least now I won't be laughed out of the room when I tell friends and family that Facebook is horrible and they shouldn't use it.
- fny 9y agoThis is a scandal, and we should not blur lines here. Facebook engages in surveillance capitalism. Cambridge Analytica engages in Orwellian practices of deliberate and targeted mass manipulation, actively deceiving users from the outset about it's intentions, and using lies as a means to an end. From the Facebook report on the reason CA was suspended: > Like all app developers, Kogan requested and gained access to information from people after they chose to download his app. His app, “thisisyourdigitallife,” offered a personality prediction, and billed itself on Facebook as “a research app used by psychologists.” [0] Cambridge Analytica's CEO also espouses complete deceit as a strategy core strategy for using data to manipulate outcomes and advocates for using "behaviorally targeted language" to create an outcome. Like say you have a "private beach." If you really want to keep people out, why not say "sharks sighted" instead? His example, not mine: https://imgur.com/a/q1zYP https://imgur.com/a/q1zYP, https://youtu.be/n8Dd5aVXLCc https://youtu.be/n8Dd5aVXLCc, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6bG5ps5KdDo https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6bG5ps5KdDo The scandals for me are two fold. First, we have a data repository (Facebook) that's powerful enough to assist in this type of weaponized manipulation that's entirely unprotected. Even if you think Facebook is some type of benevolent overlord that you trust with your data, it's a scandal that nothing has stopped any number of third-parties from doing what Cambridge Analytica did. Second, we have a sitting president who actively made use of these "targeted information strategies" during his election in a blatantly unethical fashion. (For the record, so did Ted Cruz.) I for a long time laughed off the Antifa crowd as being an overreaction to Trump, but it's now blatantly clear to me that he deliberately used authoritarian tactics to win the election.
- debt 9y ago"Facebook engages in surveillance capitalism." I agree. It seems like the 360-degree camera work they've done in addition to all their work in VR seems more surveillance-related than people are willing to admit but whatever.
- moolcool 9y agoApps and services not being forthright about what they do with your data is (unfortunately) the status quo. Facebook is the broker for this data in this case, and you'd be a fool to allot them any trust with it given their history. The Cambridge Analytica "scandal" is the system working as intended, but now with unpopular consequences. Who could have imagined that a suite of tools used to manipulate and target users through commercial advertising and spam could also be used for political means.
- Feniks 9y agoTrue, I have no idea how Facebook could ever become GDPR compliant. No loss for the EU as far as I'm concerned.
- deleted 9y ago[deleted]
- dna_polymerase 9y agoThis whole thing is just a convenient excuse for people to explain how Trump got into office. People uploaded their whole shitty lifes onto Facebook while everyone out there warns you to not do that. Yet people argued that they need a place to connect to their friends and all the other crap that FB-users come up with to explain this shitty move (much like cigarette-addicts). Also it is pretty clear how that data is sold. And how intelligence uses it. Snowden? Anyone? Now that the masses need it they come up with this bullshit story. There have been companies like this before, Democratic and Republican (e.g. Targeted Victory helped Romney, Obama had his Team). The lemmings out there just used the past 4 years to fill Facebook with all the data they could eventually sell to Cambridge Analytica and their friends. Grow the fuck up people.
- pyjammas 9y agoWe once had a Hitler. Therefore any warnings of genocide are just convenient bullshit stories, and people just need to grow the fuck up.
- sorokod 9y agoPerhaps this is how growing up looks like
- jiveturkey 9y agoYou are perhaps over-reacting. It's not a bullshit story, it's real. Yes, it is just more of the same but that doesn't make it any less real. We shouldn't allow one instance of evil to slide just because other instances have gotten away with it. Anyway from a tech standpoint this might be exciting times. It could very well be the end of $FB. I doubt on its own it would be enough, but if someone has been working on a social network for the past few years now would be a good time to do a big publicity push? G+ are you listening!!
- dna_polymerase 9y agoI am not overreacting. I don't care for Facebook or CA. But people knew this could happen. > We shouldn't allow one instance of evil to slide just because other instances have gotten away with it. What evil exactly? People gave their data to FB and decided not to listen to everyone warning them. It's in FB's ToS that they will sell your data and they did. What evil did happen here? People may didn't like what was done here but seriously they could have avoided it. > G+ are you listening!! So the next big headline will be G+ sold data to CA?
- zipwitch 9y agoI'm not much of a social network user. A few forums and a barely-used Google account are as close as I've been willing to go. But it seems to me that they're just crying out to be regulated as a utility, if they're going to be allowed as a for-profit company at all.
- woodandsteel 9y agoFacebook isn't unhappy because CA used user data to manipulate people. Facebook is unhappy because CA got the date through a third party, instead of paying for it directly. The real test will be whether Facebook sues CA for a billion dollars over what it did, or just gives it a slap on the wrist.
- anonbloke 9y agomy friend who works at an israeli startup otonomo was boasting about a big deal subcontracted down cambridge analytica. they were putting together profiles of people car data. i was just enamored and amused by all the targeted adverts that will know my driving habits. i'm floored to see this. this is rather frightening.
- sbg123 9y agoWhat's changed? I've been telling people this for f___ing ages...
- Taniwha 9y agoI guess it's time to remind people that you are not a customer of Facebook, you are the product being sold