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Barring egregious criminality, it doesn't make sense for someone who took a company from nothing (well, maybe a concept pioneered by Friendster and its antecede
by firasd 9y ago
Barring egregious criminality, it doesn't make sense for someone who took a company from nothing (well, maybe a concept pioneered by Friendster and its antecedents) to $500 billion in market cap to suddenly resign.
I feel this Cambridge Analytica story is a bit overblown. When the whistleblower says “target their inner demons”, he is just referring to campaigns placing Facebook Ads with certain parameters about who should see them.
Now the question of political targeting data being re-purposed from a personality quiz app, and issues of data privacy in general, are worth investigating. But the fall in Facebook stock price is a giant overreaction (unless the story invites legal regulation.)
The shock of Trump’s election and Brexit have prompted more scrutiny of social media, which is warranted. But there’s a limit to the benefit of worrying about Youtube algorithms, Facebook targeting, and Russian trolls. Changing the political situation will mostly require old-fashioned door-to-door politics.
- kristianc 9y ago> Now the question of political targeting data being re-purposed from a personality quiz app, and issues of data privacy in general, are worth investigating. The data from the quiz wasn't repurposed. The data from the quiz itself has nothing to do with this. The quiz was merely a gateway to get the user to hand over a laundry list of their profile data on themselves and all of their contacts.
- noobermin 9y agoNot only that but it ignores the elephant room here. And the ironic thing is the annoying phrase has been used so often it's lost its power, but this is literally the biggest "evidence" for 2016 in front of people's noses. Clinton won the popular vote. She won CA for example, so clearly Cambridge didn't mush people's brains up that much. The swing states in the Midwest she didn't win she didn't campaign in. Is it that hard to understand? Why do we have to constantly relitigate 2016? If you don't like what Trump is doing, why not fight against that instead of this constant reporting and talk of conspiracies? People who peddle/love this stuff are taking away the wrong lessons from 2016.