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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 Dem

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.
    - BryantD 9y ago
      Thanks and I agree in theory. It remains to be seen whether that statement was true, or just CA pumping up their own importance.
    - syngrog66 9y ago
      CA also has Russians playing key roles in its lifecycle, with early work done in Russia, and a link to a Russian government oil firm, Lukasoil, considered to be an overseas intelligence/influence agent of Putin's. I'm less concerned by the connection with Allied national citizons.
  - xienze 9y ago
    "That you know of" is referring to the fact that you don't know where the data is _now_ (well, we know the Dems still have it) and what it's going to be used for in the future, much as in the CA case. Unless you believe that the Dems destroyed all the data harvested in 2012 and haven't used it again.
    - BryantD 9y ago
      I believe in judging based on the facts in evidence rather than making assumptions about what happened. CA acquired data from a third party which did not have permission to give CA the data. The Obama campaign did not do that. Facebook required the third party (Dr. Kogan) to certify that the data had been destroyed. Dr. Kogan certified that the data had been destroyed, but did not do so. The Obama campaign did not do that. These facts support the conclusion that nobody should have access to this kind of data, including the Obama campaign. They do not support the conclusion that the Obama campaign did the same thing as CA. I also don't think you've provided evidence that the Obama campaign still has the data. If I've missed that please let me know. I also noticed that you are conflating the Obama campaign with the Democratic Party. If you have evidence that the Obama campaign shared this data with the Democratic Party, you should also share that.
      - xienze 9y ago
        > I also don't think you've provided evidence that the Obama campaign still has the data. If I've missed that please let me know. > “Where this gets complicated is, that freaked Facebook out, right? So they shut off the feature. Well, the Republicans never built an app to do that. So the data is out there, you can’t take it back, right? So Democrats have this information,” she said. This is what Davidsen has said. Also, as you said, they obtained the data legitimately. Why _wouldn't_ they keep the data around for future use? > I also noticed that you are conflating the Obama campaign with the Democratic Party. If you have evidence that the Obama campaign shared this data with the Democratic Party, you should also share that. Common freaking sense. It's a goldmine for future elections, they would be fools not to share it with the DNC. Considering how much traction this story is getting, and considering that the Obama campaign used the same friend list "breach" to obtain data, they really should comment to the effect that they aren't keeping the data around. Otherwise, common sense says they are. That, coupled with Facebook's rather "it's OK" response to learning that they sucked down tons of data makes me think FB didn't make a big stink about deleting the data. If they did, they need to attest to that.
  - belorn 9y ago
    Looking at the last quotes, is it worse that Facebook did not protect the data from a violator vs giving it away explicit and intentionally?
sol_remmy 9y ago
Sure, the Obama campaign itself did not do the above, but liberal-leaning SuperPACs did
ams6110 9y ago
> illegally transferred I'd question illegality. In violation of agreements, perhaps. If there were any, and there wasn't a wink, wink type of understanding on what would be done.
- BryantD 9y ago
  In violation of agreements, definitely, if you believe Facebook's public statement. I think it would be risky for Facebook to lie about their developer policies but that doesn't mean it's impossible. I don't have time right now to dig through archive.org to find an old copy of those, unfortunately. For a much better examination of legal aspects than I can provide, see https://www.lawfareblog.com/cambridge-analytica-facebook-debacle-legal-primer https://www.lawfareblog.com/cambridge-analytica-facebook-deb.... Please keep in mind the sentence "I am leaving aside for now the potential claims under British and European law, but those add to this list considerably," which is rather important given the EU's more aggressive privacy regulations.
- creaghpatr 9y ago
  It's like SuperPAC coordination. Every election cycle there are countless obvious violations of SuperPAC coordination at all levels and parties but these are hardly ever investigated much less prosecuted.
  - BryantD 9y ago
    Exactly. I sort of don't care why the media firestorm is so bad, even if it's unfair, because it means we might see some action which will limit bad actors on all sides of the political spectrum.
lr4444lr 9y ago
You are very naive if you don't know that many, if not most campaign consulting agencies are entirely apolitical about collecting and shopping around their data to various candidates. It's simply about expanding their market. Do yourself a favor and volunteer on a single campaign for a state or federal level committee-favored candidate to see for yourself.
Shivetya 9y ago
No, the only truth here has been 1. It was not Democrats, therefor it was wrong if not illegal. If Hillary had won none of this would have come about and even if it did no one in Congress would be up in arms. We have had nearly two years of people trying to delegitimize Trump's win. This is a standard political tactic by the losing side but this time Trump beat both sides at the game. These politicians and activist refuse to acknowledge that their message is either not acceptable or delivered wrong or even worse, that a large number of people were just tired of them. There wasn't simply enough money spent by Russia to change the outcome and this is completely ignoring the fact they have been doing similar in nearly every election they could if not within political parties and the media.

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.
  - BryantD 9y ago
    Thanks and I agree in theory. It remains to be seen whether that statement was true, or just CA pumping up their own importance.
  - syngrog66 9y ago
    CA also has Russians playing key roles in its lifecycle, with early work done in Russia, and a link to a Russian government oil firm, Lukasoil, considered to be an overseas intelligence/influence agent of Putin's. I'm less concerned by the connection with Allied national citizons.
- xienze 9y ago
  "That you know of" is referring to the fact that you don't know where the data is _now_ (well, we know the Dems still have it) and what it's going to be used for in the future, much as in the CA case. Unless you believe that the Dems destroyed all the data harvested in 2012 and haven't used it again.
  - BryantD 9y ago
    I believe in judging based on the facts in evidence rather than making assumptions about what happened. CA acquired data from a third party which did not have permission to give CA the data. The Obama campaign did not do that. Facebook required the third party (Dr. Kogan) to certify that the data had been destroyed. Dr. Kogan certified that the data had been destroyed, but did not do so. The Obama campaign did not do that. These facts support the conclusion that nobody should have access to this kind of data, including the Obama campaign. They do not support the conclusion that the Obama campaign did the same thing as CA. I also don't think you've provided evidence that the Obama campaign still has the data. If I've missed that please let me know. I also noticed that you are conflating the Obama campaign with the Democratic Party. If you have evidence that the Obama campaign shared this data with the Democratic Party, you should also share that.
    - xienze 9y ago
      > I also don't think you've provided evidence that the Obama campaign still has the data. If I've missed that please let me know. > “Where this gets complicated is, that freaked Facebook out, right? So they shut off the feature. Well, the Republicans never built an app to do that. So the data is out there, you can’t take it back, right? So Democrats have this information,” she said. This is what Davidsen has said. Also, as you said, they obtained the data legitimately. Why _wouldn't_ they keep the data around for future use? > I also noticed that you are conflating the Obama campaign with the Democratic Party. If you have evidence that the Obama campaign shared this data with the Democratic Party, you should also share that. Common freaking sense. It's a goldmine for future elections, they would be fools not to share it with the DNC. Considering how much traction this story is getting, and considering that the Obama campaign used the same friend list "breach" to obtain data, they really should comment to the effect that they aren't keeping the data around. Otherwise, common sense says they are. That, coupled with Facebook's rather "it's OK" response to learning that they sucked down tons of data makes me think FB didn't make a big stink about deleting the data. If they did, they need to attest to that.
- belorn 9y ago
  Looking at the last quotes, is it worse that Facebook did not protect the data from a violator vs giving it away explicit and intentionally?

sol_remmy 9y ago

Sure, the Obama campaign itself did not do the above, but liberal-leaning SuperPACs did

ams6110 9y ago

> illegally transferred I'd question illegality. In violation of agreements, perhaps. If there were any, and there wasn't a wink, wink type of understanding on what would be done.

BryantD 9y ago
In violation of agreements, definitely, if you believe Facebook's public statement. I think it would be risky for Facebook to lie about their developer policies but that doesn't mean it's impossible. I don't have time right now to dig through archive.org to find an old copy of those, unfortunately. For a much better examination of legal aspects than I can provide, see https://www.lawfareblog.com/cambridge-analytica-facebook-debacle-legal-primer https://www.lawfareblog.com/cambridge-analytica-facebook-deb.... Please keep in mind the sentence "I am leaving aside for now the potential claims under British and European law, but those add to this list considerably," which is rather important given the EU's more aggressive privacy regulations.
creaghpatr 9y ago
It's like SuperPAC coordination. Every election cycle there are countless obvious violations of SuperPAC coordination at all levels and parties but these are hardly ever investigated much less prosecuted.
- BryantD 9y ago
  Exactly. I sort of don't care why the media firestorm is so bad, even if it's unfair, because it means we might see some action which will limit bad actors on all sides of the political spectrum.

lr4444lr 9y ago

You are very naive if you don't know that many, if not most campaign consulting agencies are entirely apolitical about collecting and shopping around their data to various candidates. It's simply about expanding their market. Do yourself a favor and volunteer on a single campaign for a state or federal level committee-favored candidate to see for yourself.

Shivetya 9y ago

No, the only truth here has been 1. It was not Democrats, therefor it was wrong if not illegal. If Hillary had won none of this would have come about and even if it did no one in Congress would be up in arms. We have had nearly two years of people trying to delegitimize Trump's win. This is a standard political tactic by the losing side but this time Trump beat both sides at the game. These politicians and activist refuse to acknowledge that their message is either not acceptable or delivered wrong or even worse, that a large number of people were just tired of them. There wasn't simply enough money spent by Russia to change the outcome and this is completely ignoring the fact they have been doing similar in nearly every election they could if not within political parties and the media.