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While I definitely believe that the motivation behind this latest media surge is suspect, do you really think people aren't justified in being upset about Faceb

While I definitely believe that the motivation behind this latest media surge is suspect, do you really think people aren't justified in being upset about Facebook's abuse? Maybe the outrage is simply because Facebook was new and people weren't aware of the dangers in 2008 and 2012? People don't have to be "damaged" by something to object to it. How do human rights abuses in third world countries "damage" you, exactly? Just because there isn't a direct link doesn't mean that there's nothing bad going on. I myself don't care that this data was used to help Donald Trump ascend to the presidency -- besides, I bet that Hilary's campaign did similar sketchy things with private data. The issue is that our private data is being abused by a company that misled us about data use -- and for folks who don't even have a Facebook account, whose information has been harvested via shadow profiles sourced from our less-privacy-conscious friends, data compilation occurred entirely without consent. This reeks of whataboutism to me. Why are you trying to imply that we shouldn't be concerned about privacy?

smokeyj 9y ago
More like we should care about privacy but don't. This is the place that considers Snowden a traitor and Obama (the dragnet drone king) a God. We can pretend that "omg we always cared about data", but that's not the truth. We just hate Trump so much that we're willing to see Zuck for the snake he is. I guess that's not the worse outcome.
baumy 9y ago
> This reeks of whataboutism to me. Why are you trying to imply that we shouldn't be concerned about privacy? I don't think I've seen a single person use the term "whataboutism" correctly since November 2016. People in this chain are simply pointing out that if somebody is angry at Cambridge Analytica, but not Obama's 2008/2012 campaigns, they do not actually care about data privacy. They just don't like Donald Trump. You can bet that the next time a data privacy issue comes up, these people will be indifferent so long as the abusing party is aligned with their politics. They also will likely be supportive of people they agree with circumventing any privacy regulations that may arise from this particular scandal. Asking these questions is a useful filter to help determine how many people actually care about the core privacy issue, and how many are just worried about "their team" having an advantage.
- lambda_lover 9y ago
  Then we agree. I think that both CA and the Obama campaign's use of personal information on Facebook was a violation of data privacy expectations, and anybody who criticizes one but not the other is a hypocrite and not at all concerned about data privacy. I was complaining that people are using Obama's data use to justify CA's data use. Obama did it and it was wrong. CA did it and it was still wrong.

smokeyj 9y ago

More like we should care about privacy but don't. This is the place that considers Snowden a traitor and Obama (the dragnet drone king) a God. We can pretend that "omg we always cared about data", but that's not the truth. We just hate Trump so much that we're willing to see Zuck for the snake he is. I guess that's not the worse outcome.

baumy 9y ago

> This reeks of whataboutism to me. Why are you trying to imply that we shouldn't be concerned about privacy? I don't think I've seen a single person use the term "whataboutism" correctly since November 2016. People in this chain are simply pointing out that if somebody is angry at Cambridge Analytica, but not Obama's 2008/2012 campaigns, they do not actually care about data privacy. They just don't like Donald Trump. You can bet that the next time a data privacy issue comes up, these people will be indifferent so long as the abusing party is aligned with their politics. They also will likely be supportive of people they agree with circumventing any privacy regulations that may arise from this particular scandal. Asking these questions is a useful filter to help determine how many people actually care about the core privacy issue, and how many are just worried about "their team" having an advantage.

lambda_lover 9y ago
Then we agree. I think that both CA and the Obama campaign's use of personal information on Facebook was a violation of data privacy expectations, and anybody who criticizes one but not the other is a hypocrite and not at all concerned about data privacy. I was complaining that people are using Obama's data use to justify CA's data use. Obama did it and it was wrong. CA did it and it was still wrong.