5 ms·

> and apparently has already been abused (some might even say weaponized) in a major election. You mean major election_s_, right? I do seem to remember the De

by xienze 9y ago

> and apparently has already been abused (some might even say weaponized) in a major election. You mean major election_s_, right? I do seem to remember the Democrats crowing about how Obama's team had used social media to their advantage and Republicans were hopelessly outmatched in this arena. 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-... Fun tidbits: > 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. But to the Windy City number crunchers, it was a game changer. “I think this will wind up being the most groundbreaking piece of technology developed for this campaign,” says Teddy Goff, the Obama campaign’s digital director. > 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. Whoa, that sounds exactly like the "breach" we're talking about here! And a former Obama staffer confirms this: https://www.theblaze.com/news/2018/03/20/ex-obama-staffer-claims-facebook-allowed-campaign-to-mine-user-data-because-they-were-on-our-side https://www.theblaze.com/news/2018/03/20/ex-obama-staffer-cl... (yeah yeah "I don't trust your source", but it's just screenshots straight from the horse's mouth). Money quotes: > Facebook was surprised we were able to suck out the whole social graph, but they didn’t stop us once they realized that was what we were doing. > They came to office in the days following election recruiting & were very candid that they allowed us to do things they wouldn’t have allowed someone else to do because they were on our side.

mistermann 9y ago
I have a feeling this fact won't be making the six o'clock news "for some unknown reason".
- xienze 9y ago
  You can see that already with the Obama staffer. Direct quotes from someone who was there yet the mainstream media simply isn't reporting on it. Just another right wing conspiracy, otherwise CNN would be talking about it, right? You do sometimes get bits and pieces like the Time article from 2012 that haven't been memory-holed yet, but again, the media won't bring up something like that because the intent to paint this chilling use of social media as something unique to the Trump campaign.
  - drak0n1c 9y ago
    There is a new Washington Post article that covers the Obama campaign story - it's not being entirely silenced: https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/economy/facebooks-rules-for-accessing-user-data-lured-more-than-just-cambridge-analytica/2018/03/19/31f6979c-658e-43d6-a71f-afdd8bf1308b_story.html https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/economy/facebooks-ru... I agree that there is a pattern of bias to all large media outlets on both sides. They may put a piece out like this one to appear impartial but only post-facto and if it supports the rancor of a news cycle that currently leans in their side's favor. Anyways, there is bipartisan benefit to people becoming more aware of their online presence. Maybe people will use social media less and become less fervently partisan?
    - mistermann 9y ago
      They squeezed it in right at the very end, but it was actually rather surprising how little they minced words: “We ingested the entire U.S. social graph,” Davidsen said in an interview. “We would ask permission to basically scrape your profile, and also scrape your friends, basically anything that was available to scrape. We scraped it all.” So obviously a fair amount of strategic writing going on but all things considered, pretty respectable. EDIT: Bloomberg has also admitted Obama took advantage of it as well: https://www.bloomberg.com/view/articles/2018-03-21/facebook-s-mark-zuckerberg-has-no-way-out-of-this-quagmire https://www.bloomberg.com/view/articles/2018-03-21/facebook-... "The scandal follows the revelation (to most Facebook users who read about it) that, until 2015, application developers on the social network's platform were able to get information about a user's Facebook friends after asking permission in the most perfunctory way. The 2012 Obama campaign used this functionality. So -- though in a more underhanded way -- did Cambridge Analytica, which may or may not have used the data to help elect President Donald Trump." To me, the interesting part going forward is: will Democrats and the mainstream media continue to frame this as if it was Donald Trump who committed the wrongdoing? I'm not really sensing any widespread public outrage so I would suspect not, but time will tell.
BryantD 9y ago
The major differences: 1. The Democrats didn't harvest the data under false pretenses; the data came from people who signed up for a political app. 2. The Democratic campaign data wasn't illegally transferred from one company to another. But I agree that the Obama campaign's actions should have been a flag and we should have worried harder about it, even if they weren't as bad as what Cambridge Analytica did.
- xienze 9y ago
  > 1. The Democrats didn't harvest the data under false pretenses; the data came from people who signed up for a political app. Were these people aware all their data and friend's data was going to be recursively sucked down? Somehow I doubt the app included a disclaimer to that effect. Doesn't really matter what your app does if the main goal of it is to, well, harvest data. 2. The Democratic campaign data wasn't illegally transferred from one company to another. That you know of. It's data, it can get around. The staffer did mention that the Democrats still have the data, and they weren't supposed to be sucking down the whole graph in the first place, hence Facebook's initial freakout (but of course, it was OK because "we're on your side.")
  - BryantD 9y ago
    Nope, not "that you know of." Cambridge Analytica got their data from a third party, violating their contract with Facebook. The Obama campaign got their data directly. That is an actual difference between the two actions. It's possible to say "I think the Obama campaign also took undesirable actions" without saying "and they were just as bad." I agree with that position, as I said.
    - criley2 9y ago
      Here's another difference. Obama campaign was US CITIZENS who are legally allowed to work on election programs. CA was staffed almost entirely by BRITISH and CANADIAN citizens, and ALL of their Trump 2016 (and Cruz et all) actions are straight FEC violations of foreign actors working US elections.
dontparticipate 9y ago
Quality whataboutism that doesn't change the overall debate about these practices. You do realize they talked about exactly this in the linked article right?
veidr 9y ago
(Yeah yeah "I don't trust your source", but my methamphetamine-enthusiast uncle assures me that Safeway supermarket lets the Jews decide how much salt your food is allowed to have, and Gwyneth Paltrow's magnet stickers can totally cure hemorrhoids...)
dbnoch 9y ago
IMO the point is the origin application. A Campaign App used for that purpose vs. an app that shows you what your face would look like when you were older to swing distorted news.
- xienze 9y ago
  > A Campaign App used for that purpose But how long does the harvested data remain "valid" for that purpose? The Dems still have the harvested data from 2012, is it OK to use it for 2016, which they most likely did?

by xienze 9y ago

mistermann 9y ago

I have a feeling this fact won't be making the six o'clock news "for some unknown reason".

xienze 9y ago
You can see that already with the Obama staffer. Direct quotes from someone who was there yet the mainstream media simply isn't reporting on it. Just another right wing conspiracy, otherwise CNN would be talking about it, right? You do sometimes get bits and pieces like the Time article from 2012 that haven't been memory-holed yet, but again, the media won't bring up something like that because the intent to paint this chilling use of social media as something unique to the Trump campaign.
- drak0n1c 9y ago
  There is a new Washington Post article that covers the Obama campaign story - it's not being entirely silenced: https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/economy/facebooks-rules-for-accessing-user-data-lured-more-than-just-cambridge-analytica/2018/03/19/31f6979c-658e-43d6-a71f-afdd8bf1308b_story.html https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/economy/facebooks-ru... I agree that there is a pattern of bias to all large media outlets on both sides. They may put a piece out like this one to appear impartial but only post-facto and if it supports the rancor of a news cycle that currently leans in their side's favor. Anyways, there is bipartisan benefit to people becoming more aware of their online presence. Maybe people will use social media less and become less fervently partisan?
  - mistermann 9y ago
    They squeezed it in right at the very end, but it was actually rather surprising how little they minced words: “We ingested the entire U.S. social graph,” Davidsen said in an interview. “We would ask permission to basically scrape your profile, and also scrape your friends, basically anything that was available to scrape. We scraped it all.” So obviously a fair amount of strategic writing going on but all things considered, pretty respectable. EDIT: Bloomberg has also admitted Obama took advantage of it as well: https://www.bloomberg.com/view/articles/2018-03-21/facebook-s-mark-zuckerberg-has-no-way-out-of-this-quagmire https://www.bloomberg.com/view/articles/2018-03-21/facebook-... "The scandal follows the revelation (to most Facebook users who read about it) that, until 2015, application developers on the social network's platform were able to get information about a user's Facebook friends after asking permission in the most perfunctory way. The 2012 Obama campaign used this functionality. So -- though in a more underhanded way -- did Cambridge Analytica, which may or may not have used the data to help elect President Donald Trump." To me, the interesting part going forward is: will Democrats and the mainstream media continue to frame this as if it was Donald Trump who committed the wrongdoing? I'm not really sensing any widespread public outrage so I would suspect not, but time will tell.

BryantD 9y ago

The major differences: 1. The Democrats didn't harvest the data under false pretenses; the data came from people who signed up for a political app. 2. The Democratic campaign data wasn't illegally transferred from one company to another. But I agree that the Obama campaign's actions should have been a flag and we should have worried harder about it, even if they weren't as bad as what Cambridge Analytica did.

xienze 9y ago
> 1. The Democrats didn't harvest the data under false pretenses; the data came from people who signed up for a political app. Were these people aware all their data and friend's data was going to be recursively sucked down? Somehow I doubt the app included a disclaimer to that effect. Doesn't really matter what your app does if the main goal of it is to, well, harvest data. 2. The Democratic campaign data wasn't illegally transferred from one company to another. That you know of. It's data, it can get around. The staffer did mention that the Democrats still have the data, and they weren't supposed to be sucking down the whole graph in the first place, hence Facebook's initial freakout (but of course, it was OK because "we're on your side.")
- BryantD 9y ago
  Nope, not "that you know of." Cambridge Analytica got their data from a third party, violating their contract with Facebook. The Obama campaign got their data directly. That is an actual difference between the two actions. It's possible to say "I think the Obama campaign also took undesirable actions" without saying "and they were just as bad." I agree with that position, as I said.
  - criley2 9y ago
    Here's another difference. Obama campaign was US CITIZENS who are legally allowed to work on election programs. CA was staffed almost entirely by BRITISH and CANADIAN citizens, and ALL of their Trump 2016 (and Cruz et all) actions are straight FEC violations of foreign actors working US elections.

dontparticipate 9y ago

Quality whataboutism that doesn't change the overall debate about these practices. You do realize they talked about exactly this in the linked article right?

veidr 9y ago

(Yeah yeah "I don't trust your source", but my methamphetamine-enthusiast uncle assures me that Safeway supermarket lets the Jews decide how much salt your food is allowed to have, and Gwyneth Paltrow's magnet stickers can totally cure hemorrhoids...)

dbnoch 9y ago

IMO the point is the origin application. A Campaign App used for that purpose vs. an app that shows you what your face would look like when you were older to swing distorted news.

xienze 9y ago
> A Campaign App used for that purpose But how long does the harvested data remain "valid" for that purpose? The Dems still have the harvested data from 2012, is it OK to use it for 2016, which they most likely did?