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Here's NPR. https://www.npr.org/2018/03/25/596805347/how-does-cambridge-analytica-flap-compare-with-obama-s-campaign-tactics https://www.npr.org/2018/03/25/596

by jsonne 9y ago

Here's NPR. https://www.npr.org/2018/03/25/596805347/how-does-cambridge-analytica-flap-compare-with-obama-s-campaign-tactics https://www.npr.org/2018/03/25/596805347/how-does-cambridge-... Relevant quotes from Betsy Hoover the Obama 2012 online organizing director: "So the app that everyone's referring to in this moment was an app called Targeted Sharing. It was an app that we created on Facebook that fully followed Facebook's terms of service. And any individual could decide to use the app. When they clicked on the app, a screen would pop up that would say what data they're authorizing the app was giving us access to and exactly how we were going to use that data. And so at that time, it was totally legitimate on Facebook to say you're giving us access to your social network. You're giving us access to your friends on Facebook." "...So, you know, we got your list of friends. And then we matched it to our model, our list of voters that we didn't build with Facebook data. We built with voter history and, you know, all of the other data points that Democratic campaigns use to build models. But we matched the data of your friends to that model and then reflected it back to the person who had authorized the app..." Sounds very similar to Cambrdige Analytica imho. In addition I don't really think that exploring how deep the rabbit hole goes is deflection, rather showing how much more pervasive this practice is than people think.

scottmf 9y ago
>The people signing up knew the data they were handing over would be used to support a political campaign. Their friends, however, did not. >Facebook friends lists, tags and photos allowed Obama operatives to identify a person’s close friends, which they then matched with offline public records. (Was this person likely to vote for Obama, but unlikely to get out to vote?) They then told the app users which of their friends they should send campaign messages to. http://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/statements/2018/mar/22/meghan-mccain/comparing-facebook-data-use-obama-cambridge-analyt/ http://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/statements/2018/mar/... They seem pretty different. Not just in how the data was collected, but how it was then used. The research into Facebook likes and personality and the manipulation of those psychological profiles, which CA based their entire operation on, didn’t even exist in 2008. Comparing the two is absolutely a false equivalency. And the CA scandal goes way beyond the Facebook stuff. The company is allegedly involved in various illegal and anti-democratic activities around the world. Are people really downplaying this simply because they support Trump and CA has a Trump connection?
- drag0nballz 9y ago
  Agreed. In my understanding the CA data wasn't a friends list, which it what OFA got, but your friends Facebook data (their photos, posts, likes AND their friends data). That's how they got to 50M users. And how they used it sounds pretty different too.
  - makomk 9y ago
    The data OFA got wasn't just a list of your friends, it was their photos, posts and likes too. The Obama campaign's strategy revolved around using that information about your friends' social media - what photos they were tagged in, who interacted with who, etc - to figure out who was closest to which of their volunteers in order to work out who could best convince them to vote Obama. Which isn't what CA was offering, of course, but still seems rather creepy. The other difference is that based on what we know, the Trump campaign didn't actually have any interest in using the CA data in question. The head of their campaign has quite consistently said he thinks CA's psychographics was worthless nonsense, and I'm not aware of anyone finding evidence contradicting this. It's quite possible that, in fact, the 2012 Obama campaign was the only US presidential campaign that systematically gathered information on people's Facebook friends to feed their campaign machine.
- fedups 9y ago
  'False equivalency!' seems to be a popular new phrase to prevent self-reflection. If the CA situation is only bad insofar as it helped the GOP, then that's fine, but if you're interested in broader change regarding privacy then a knee-jerk partisan supremacy won't benefit anyone.
  - scottmf 9y ago
    It’s not a new phrase. Perhaps you’re seeing it more due to the flood of textbook false equivalencies from people trying to defend the president’s behavior.
gowld 9y ago
On the one hand you have FB users actively campaigning for Obama coordinating and voluntarily sharing their friend data with the campaign for the purpose of campaign, and on the other hand you have a goofy quiz app author secretly using the friend data for the Trump campaign.

by jsonne 9y ago

scottmf 9y ago

>The people signing up knew the data they were handing over would be used to support a political campaign. Their friends, however, did not. >Facebook friends lists, tags and photos allowed Obama operatives to identify a person’s close friends, which they then matched with offline public records. (Was this person likely to vote for Obama, but unlikely to get out to vote?) They then told the app users which of their friends they should send campaign messages to. http://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/statements/2018/mar/22/meghan-mccain/comparing-facebook-data-use-obama-cambridge-analyt/ http://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/statements/2018/mar/... They seem pretty different. Not just in how the data was collected, but how it was then used. The research into Facebook likes and personality and the manipulation of those psychological profiles, which CA based their entire operation on, didn’t even exist in 2008. Comparing the two is absolutely a false equivalency. And the CA scandal goes way beyond the Facebook stuff. The company is allegedly involved in various illegal and anti-democratic activities around the world. Are people really downplaying this simply because they support Trump and CA has a Trump connection?

drag0nballz 9y ago
Agreed. In my understanding the CA data wasn't a friends list, which it what OFA got, but your friends Facebook data (their photos, posts, likes AND their friends data). That's how they got to 50M users. And how they used it sounds pretty different too.
- makomk 9y ago
  The data OFA got wasn't just a list of your friends, it was their photos, posts and likes too. The Obama campaign's strategy revolved around using that information about your friends' social media - what photos they were tagged in, who interacted with who, etc - to figure out who was closest to which of their volunteers in order to work out who could best convince them to vote Obama. Which isn't what CA was offering, of course, but still seems rather creepy. The other difference is that based on what we know, the Trump campaign didn't actually have any interest in using the CA data in question. The head of their campaign has quite consistently said he thinks CA's psychographics was worthless nonsense, and I'm not aware of anyone finding evidence contradicting this. It's quite possible that, in fact, the 2012 Obama campaign was the only US presidential campaign that systematically gathered information on people's Facebook friends to feed their campaign machine.
fedups 9y ago
'False equivalency!' seems to be a popular new phrase to prevent self-reflection. If the CA situation is only bad insofar as it helped the GOP, then that's fine, but if you're interested in broader change regarding privacy then a knee-jerk partisan supremacy won't benefit anyone.
- scottmf 9y ago
  It’s not a new phrase. Perhaps you’re seeing it more due to the flood of textbook false equivalencies from people trying to defend the president’s behavior.

gowld 9y ago

On the one hand you have FB users actively campaigning for Obama coordinating and voluntarily sharing their friend data with the campaign for the purpose of campaign, and on the other hand you have a goofy quiz app author secretly using the friend data for the Trump campaign.