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Palantir worked with Cambridge Analytica on the Facebook data it acquired
- deleted 9y ago[deleted]
- daodedickinson 9y agoHa. I was just talking here the other day about how my friend at Facebook would always say that Palantir has even more data, including just about everything from Facebook, and a commenter responded that they couldn't see how Palantir would actually be able to scrape up Facebook's data...
- bitxbit 9y agothis is a big deal that could really sink FB if true.
- SimbaOnSteroids 9y agoPeople are flocking to instagram, I don't believe that FB is in danger here, maybe they need to pivot, but I doubt they sink.
- olefoo 9y agoInstagram is owned by Facebook. Acquisition was in 2012.
- seattle_spring 9y agoThat was kind of the point of the parent post.
- olefoo 9y agoThey should have used the sarcasm tag.
- vinay427 9y agoThere wasn't any sarcasm. They were literally saying that "people are flocking to instagram" so they "don't believe that FB is in danger here."
- SimbaOnSteroids 9y agoYes exactly, and by pivot I mean prioritize data collection from Instagram.
- ShinTakuya 9y agoBut it's not sarcasm. It's true. People are "leaving Facebook" for instagram without understanding that Facebook owns instagram.
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- hisabness 9y agofb owns insta
- mieseratte 9y ago> including just about everything from Facebook So all those half-joking "conspiracy theories" about Facebook being a collection tool for three-letter agencies isn't that far off.
- dictum 9y agoUltimately, every American company is a collection tool for three-letter agencies, and through allies, most non-American corporations too. I like to think FB is how they check the accuracy of their other data sets.
- imperialdrive 9y agoIt's fantastic that they do collect and share this information - I imagine many thousands of arrests made based on data collected, if not 10K's+ I wouldn't be surprised if hundreds of lives were saved... and that's just the tip of the iceberg.
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- Bartweiss 9y agoFor me at least, it was never a joke... I don't think tech companies are literally run by three-letter agencies, but after Yahoo and Lavabit (showing two very different reactions to surveillance requests), it's become pretty clear that any large US-based company is at minimum a backup or validation source for surveillance. The standing questions seem to be "do they accept non-warrant surveillance?" and "do they allow bulk surveillance?". If anyone still thinks they don't comply with targeted surveillance, I'd be shocked.
- anigbrowl 9y agoScraping stuff from Facebook is tedious in the extreme due to all the obfuscatory javascript, but that doesn't seem like it would be a problem for a firm with Palantir's resources.
- Amadiro 9y agoNo need to scrape anything when you can just subpoena. That is the business palantir is in.
- anigbrowl 9y agoSubpoenas need some probable cause to be issued. It'd be interesting to estimate what percentage of target population you'd need to subpoena complete details on in order to build a social graph of the whole population, but I feel that that volume of legal activity would create waves even if it were only around 1%. Most court systems are overburdended as is, a significant increase would be noticeable. Of course, if you were just getting that information as a matter of course in many arrests and were willing to accumulate it slowly over time it's very possible. I'm preoccupied with scraping issues as that's my only available avenue.
- daodedickinson 9y agoPalantir works with agencies that can use FISA warrants to quickly and silently grab just about anything.
- throwaway84742 9y agoAnd CA was introduced to Palantir by none other than Sophie Schmidt, the daughter of one Eric Schmidt. It’s turtles all the way down, and anyone who thinks their private data is not being abused elsewhere (wink, wink) needs to perhaps think again.
- naturalgradient 9y agoDo you have a source? I am not doubting this, just curious on the connection.
- incomplete 9y agofrom the article: """ Wylie claimed that Cambridge Analytica CEO Alexander Nix was introduced to Palantir by Sophie Schmidt, the daughter of former Google CEO Eric Schmidt. """ so there's the one source we know about.
- naturalgradient 9y agoMy apologies, I thought from a throwaway this was some additional information and had not read the article yet.
- throwaway84742 9y agoIn the end it’s all “throwaway”, so, to paraphrase the old proverb, don’t judge the veracity of posts by the handle of the submitter.
- throwaway84742 9y agohttps://www.google.com/amp/s/www.cnbc.com/amp/2018/03/27/palantir-worked-with-cambridge-analytica-on-the-facebook-data-whistleblower.html https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.cnbc.com/amp/2018/03/27/pal...
- icc97 9y ago
- RosanaAnaDana 9y agoRight or wrong, 'Palantir' is a great name for this kind of company.
- brm 9y agoOnly if you're certain you're not Denethor
- pdpi 9y agoThat's part of what makes the name great, though. It comes with both references to great scrying power, and admonitions about the inherent risks.
- ng12 9y agoI think you're being sarcastic but it actually is. The Palantiri are tools made for a good purpose which were co-opted for malicious purposes -- and well-intentioned people got swept up in their wake.
- jonhendry18 9y agoIf not Palantir, then maybe Insight, or Arnim Zola, as seen in Captain America: The Winter Soldier
- ghostbrainalpha 9y agoSide question, why is it legal to take a name from "Lord of The Rings"? Wouldn't the Tolkien Estate have a copyright on that? Could I start a newspaper tomorrow called "The Daily Bugle"...(which is where Spiderman works)?
- jzl 9y agoThey disingenuously claim it has roots in Latin without mentioning LotR at all: https://www.palantir.net/blog/palantir-philosophy-or-what-s-name-anyway https://www.palantir.net/blog/palantir-philosophy-or-what-s-... Even if it does, and I'd love to see more details about that (Google translates 'openly' as 'palam'), it's clearly a LotR reference.
- vowelless 9y agoI wonder how confident Thiel was of a Trump presidency back in May 2016, when he started being open about his support for Trump. Perhaps he was operating with more knowledge than available to the general public and national pollsters? I wonder how involved he was with CA for the purpose of the election. His $1.25 million donation in October 2016 seems even more interesting in light of all this. I took out a bet on Trump when Thiel became open with his support. It was driven by my belief that he was operating with deeper knowledge about the state of the nation precisely due to his association with Palantir (mostly) and Facebook. I feel dirty about winning that one.
- harryf 9y ago> I wonder how confident Thiel was of a Trump presidency back in May 2016 Well how many other companies are there with the capabilities of Palantir? If the answer was "none" then he knew for sure the Clinton campaign couldn't match Trump on social media manipulation. Which means he must have been pretty confident
- loceng 9y agoIf all it takes is being a "better" psychopath along with an organization lead by psychopaths that only care about popularity and not truth, then with initial testing for calculations - they likely had a very good idea what would happen once they added fuel to the fire.
- sjg007 9y agoEric Schmidt was a big Clinton supporter and I believe helped with her tech campaign. If the chain of events from Nix->Sophie Schmidt->Eric Schmidt->Thiel/Palantir is true then I don't know how the concern wouldn't have been raised to Clinton. I think the real question is what did FB know and when did they know it. Thiel being on the FB board and all. It's also weird that the What's App guy is on the board and just called for everyone to #deletefacebook.
- galieos_ghost 9y agoHe literally made a company for the sole purpose of getting her elected. https://qz.com/520652/groundwork-eric-schmidt-startup-working-for-hillary-clinton-campaign/ https://qz.com/520652/groundwork-eric-schmidt-startup-workin...
- throwawaymanbot 9y agoHiiiii Peter T.
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- olefoo 9y agoNot at all surprised that Palantir sees itself as being more powerful than national governments. The upside is that Palantir and Mr. Thiel will suffer the same fate as most business associates of Mr. Trump, out of the money and with a permanently tainted reputation to boot.
- BillinghamJ 9y agoPerhaps companies contracted to provide data processing services should be required to check that the source of the data was legitimate and within the allowances of data protection regulations. Just like AML rules, where companies processing large amounts of funds have to check the source of the funds to ensure they were obtained legitimately.
- JumpCrisscross 9y agoIf Cambridge Analytica violated (a) the CFAA [1] or (b) federal election law [2][3], Palantir could be--best case--dragged into years of lawsuits. If they knew about said violations and did nothing, it could be more serious. Either way, I'd write off the near-term odds of their managing an IPO. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Computer_Fraud_and_Abuse_Act#Criminal_offenses_under_the_Act https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Computer_Fraud_and_Abuse_Act#C... [2] https://www.politico.com/story/2018/03/26/cambridge-analytica-investigation-request-484866 https://www.politico.com/story/2018/03/26/cambridge-analytic... [3] https://www.blumenthal.senate.gov/newsroom/press/release/blumenthal-calls-for-fec-investigation-of-cambridge-analyticas-reported-illegal-interference-in-american-elections https://www.blumenthal.senate.gov/newsroom/press/release/blu...
- ineedasername 9y agoIf Palantir had staff donating their expertise to CA free of charge then it could also be considered an unreported donation in kind, and therefore a violation for the FEC to investigate.
- thyrsus 9y agoFEC: "The Commission is made up of six members, who are appointed by the President of the United States and confirmed by the United States Senate. Each member serves a six-year term, and two seats are subject to appointment every two years.[1] By law, no more than three Commissioners can be members of the same political party, and at least four votes are required for any official Commission action." - Wikipedia Given the Republican's enthusiasm for pursuing Trump pecadillos, nothing will ever come from there.
- JumpCrisscross 9y agoEvery state has election laws and an Attorney General to enforce them. They have already taken an interest in Cambridge Analytica [1]. Palantir shouldn’t expect partisan protection. [1] https://www.cbsnews.com/news/cambridge-analytica-state-attorneys-general-send-letter-to-facebook-ceo-mark-zuckerberg/ https://www.cbsnews.com/news/cambridge-analytica-state-attor...
- mtgx 9y agoThiel also gave money to a PAC than then paid Cambridge Analytica: https://mashable.com/2018/03/22/facebook-peter-thiel-cambridge-analytica/ https://mashable.com/2018/03/22/facebook-peter-thiel-cambrid...
- stefan_ 9y agoWe need to treat illicitly obtained data like narcotics, incriminate everyone that touches them. Then, we need to stop doing that with narcotics.
- eitland 9y agoI've had a suggestion like that in my profile here at HN since sometime last year. Only I think all user data, legally obtained or not, and compare it to nuclear waste.
- dbt00 9y agoFWIW Palantir gave a pretty ironclad denial on the record for this article: > A spokesperson for Palantir told CNBC the company has never had a relationship with Cambridge Analytica and has never worked on any Cambridge Analytica data. Cambridge Analytica was not immediately available for comment.
- rhizome 9y agoDoes that include SCL and Emerdata and any other entities in this intentional warren of shell companies?
- Panjam 9y agoYes, this. It seems SCL associates have exploited the commercial veil very effectively and we need to look behind that veil to work out what happened. I would also say that SCL has very cleverly exploited the difference between equity and contract payments to subvert spending caps. Invest a business...no spending cap.... I hate these guys. I'm a proud Brit, I do biz globally, and these guys have trashes Brand UK. I'm sometimes close to tears at what these guys have done.
- dbt00 9y agoAaaaand it turns out that a Palantir dude did talk to CA and suggest ideas. Palantir still says they turned down all opportunities and had no interest in doing any kind of partisan election work.
- stevievee 9y agoI wonder if anyone is really surprised by this. It became pretty clear right after Trump won the election (as early as December 2016) during this meeting: https://youtu.be/oX_9yD2lN2g https://youtu.be/oX_9yD2lN2g. Trump met with 13 tech company giants and somehow Alex Karp (CEO of Palantir) is at the table. The rest of the executives are from companies with market caps well into the hundreds of billions.
- adamnemecek 9y agoLet’s not forget Thiel gave Trump money.
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- gnbfulbvgjbvv 9y agoDeleted due to lack of context
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- tzahola 9y agotbh, your posts read like the ramblings of a paranoid schizophrenic.
- gnbfulbvgjbvv 9y agoDeleted
- deft 9y agoCould you repost your original comment please? People seem to think any and all outrageous tales where X told Y some shady Z was happening means schizophrenia.
- gnbfulbvgjbvv 9y agoIt probably was schizophrenia. Sorry for wasting bandwidth.
- tzahola 9y agoFYI, his original post contained incoherent ramblings about Peter Thiel sending people to gangstalk on him for the past 20 years, and how he's on the verge of killing himself.
- gnbfulbvgjbvv 9y ago
- mvpu 9y agoThe sad part isn't that CA mined the data or that Palantir helped build models, it's that those 50 million people believed in the campaigns they were fed. If a few powerful people can influence the masses to achieve their objectives, what good is democracy bringing to the table? More importantly, how different is mental manipulation compared to physical manipulation as commonly seen with dictatorship?
- lmoml 9y agoBack when propaganda was first being developed as a field, particularly between the two World Wars, it was greeted with a great deal of excitement by the powers that be precisely for this reason: It provided a non-physical means of coercing the will of the masses. There is plenty of material from those days about the wonders of propaganda, that it would enable the ruling elite to guide the caprices of the people while avoiding physical conflict (win/win!). It was always a half-baked idea, and the other shoe dropped very quickly (Nazi Germany was very forward thinking in its use of propaganda), but nothing changed. I doubt that you can remove all social inequality, and it seems throughout history there have always been people who have exerted their wills more in order to accomplish their ends in society. The deep issue that we face is that there is no ingrained morality. Imagine if wealth and power were viewed as a weighty responsibility rather than a privilege--as the holder is responsible for using it to accomplish what they will, the choice of what one does reflects the quality and worth of the person. That's the reality in any case, but imagine if that were universally ingrained as how we, as a society, defined success....
- gowld 9y agoIt goes back farther than the world wars. Fake News used to be called Yellow Journalism. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yellow_journalism https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yellow_journalism
- intended 9y agoNo; Fake news is the specific phenomenon observed recently of websites, operated primarily by Romanian citizens, which made up events entirely to drive ad click revenue. The sites were made to look like they were for legitimate news papers, but there were no actual newspapers with those names in existence. Soon after the term was coined it was co-opted by president trump to mean all media, leading to the blurring of its meaning. Fake news is neither journalism nor politically motivated. It’s pure avarice sans morality. Yellow journalism was still about news and journalism. The root of fake news is hard to even put into words. It’s people who didn’t care about news, they just a/b tested text and saw what got the most shares and likes. Then they conned people into believing it was a legitimate source by putting it under a news site like banner.
- yawaramin 9y agoArticle leaves out that Palantir's co-founder Thiel is on the board of Facebook, and donated to a PAC which funded the Cambridge Analytica campaign.
- Antifragile1 9y agoWe have been reading a lot about Facebook, Cambridge Analytica and privacy lately and the general sentiment is that Cambridge Analytica did something wrong and Facebook was complicit or at least didn't do as much as it should have to prevent it. Lets visit the story from the beginning. So, there was 2016 US elections. In those elections, various lobbies either funded by corporate interests or by international money took sides... as did major corporations to get their candidate elected. On top of that, the campaigns hired individuals and companies for marketing purposes. One of those companies was Cambridge Analytica, which first worked for the Cruz campaign and was later hired by Trump team when Trump became the Republican nominee. What Cambridge Analytica allegedly did was that it used the data that it had collected from political quiz answered voluntarily by people and used it to target political ads. The ads targeted in that way were very effective, compared to the targeting done by the competition. What exactly did Facebook do wrong here? They had a platform for making apps, Cambridge Analytica used that platform to create an app to ask users questions about their personality and political preferences and used that data to better target their ad campaign. Basically Facebook created an app platform and Cambridge Analytica did their job well. So, you maybe wondering whats up with the news and privacy concerns and all this? The privacy issue has always been the same since Facebook was establised and any app platform that can allow apps to request permission to users data or ask for user input can make use of the data. So what is it? It's another nothing burger like everything else you've seen from these clowns since November 2016. Democrats lost with all major corporations and media houses backing their candidate and they can't get over the fact that they lost because the people didn't want their corrupt hag as the president. So, they keep making stuff up.
- joshwa 9y agoWhat I want to know: who were the ones who took that data and did the ad buys, picked/wrote the rage-bait content, etc? I don't think I have seen that detail anywhere. Did I miss it somewhere? (follow the money, etc) Psychographic profiles/privacy issues aside, to me it's the tension-stoking-Willie-Horton-propaganda tactics that deserve public scorn, if, alas, not prosecution. Unless it was (also) Russia.
- nkassis 9y agoCould be a company in Texas named Harris Media was involved in the Kenyan election at the behest of CA according to the Channel 4 investigation. They also are a prime choice for republican campaigns in the US. Their list of clients seems pretty much aligned with CA's client list. https://www.harrismediallc.com/ https://www.harrismediallc.com/
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- samkone 9y agoDoes this even come as surprise?
- colordrops 9y agoAnd Palantir worked with HBGary to infiltrate and destroy Wikileaks in 2010: http://www.businessinsider.com/palantir-wikileaks-apology-2011-2 http://www.businessinsider.com/palantir-wikileaks-apology-20...
- downandout 9y agoThis title really should be updated. Even the title in the linked story says that this is “alleged,” and there is zero evidence in the story other than the say-so of one media-hungry individual. Further, Palantir has issued a flat out denial, yet this headline appears on HN as a statement of fact.
- killjoywashere 9y agoIs anyone getting the sense that Palantir, Cambridge Analytica, and Facebook aligned on a rather coherent political axis, with Google and Apple staking out an opposing axis, and Amazon is staking out a sort of arms-dealer neutrality?
- brokensegue 9y agono because the headline here is wrong, the CEO of Palantir is a known Trump critic and CA isn't even prominent enough to be on the same level as any of these other companies.
- feelin_googley 9y ago"Mr. Wylie said that he and Mr. Nix visited Palantir's London office on Soho Square. One side was set up like a high-security office, Mr. Wylie said, with separate rooms that could be entered only with particular codes. The other side, he said, was like a tech start-up - "weird inspirational quotes and stuff on the wall and free beer, and there's a Ping-Pong table."" Source: https://www.nytimes.com/2018/03/27/us/cambridge-analytica-palantir.html https://www.nytimes.com/2018/03/27/us/cambridge-analytica-pa...
- YTGRK 9y agohttps://youtu.be/I2l8xkjTUh4 https://youtu.be/I2l8xkjTUh4