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The idea is this: given the complete graph and add some external data, you can identify those users you should advertise to, i. e. jane@test.com. BUT: what is

The idea is this: given the complete graph and add some external data, you can identify those users you should advertise to, i. e. jane@test.com. BUT: what is still possible, and what Cambridge Analytica was actually building, is slightly different: with a statistical sample of maybe a few ten thousand complete profiles, you can build a statistical model that targets your advertisement not to a user, but a set of criteria: "Males between the ages of 35 and 40 living in a mid-sized town in Texas who liked curling and Star Wars Episode I, but has never traveled to Australia". This is still perfectly possible. It's likely the latter model performs at least 90% as well as the former, with an upward trajectory as methods are improved. Note that CA probably didn't get this working terribly well. But someone else definitely will. Intuitively, I am far more uncomfortable with the first. But practically, I can't really think of a reason why.

downandout 9y ago
Agreed that it’s scary if someone actually manages to get it working. CA did not, nor did Obama who was given access to far more data. But the issue is the false narrative being sold by these news stories. If you ask an average person right now what happened based upon these news stories, they’ll tell you that Trump hired someone to hack their Facebook data and then used it to target Facebook ads to them, and that this was so effective that he was able to steal the election from Hillary. That’s what I take issue with - it’s a provably false narrative.
- brazzledazzle 9y ago
  I’m actually not opposed to this. In fact I wouldn’t mind if a similar narrative started about Clinton and how she used it to steal the popular vote. Then both major parties would be pushing for privacy in the US. Digital privacy is complex and I’d rather people have a misinformed motivation for it than apathy. It’s not unlike geopolitics or economics in that you almost need to have egregiously simplified propaganda to get people onboard because the reality is so complex and nuanced that most people's eyes glaze over at the thought of it. The truth and depth of understanding is available to anyone that wants it but my parents are never really going to get it the way I do. They don't have my understanding of how data, applications and the web actually work to make it all click so they think Facebook spies on them using their microphone when the reality is so much more insidious.
mistermann 9y ago
> you can build a statistical model that targets your advertisement not to a user, but a set of criteria: "Males between the ages of 35 and 40 living in a mid-sized town in Texas who liked curling and Star Wars Episode I, but has never traveled to Australia". This is still perfectly possible. Prediction: It won't be after the government is done with a new set of regulations, at least for election purposes. I continue to believe this is about the ability to wield political influence, not privacy. The privacy issues have been well known for years, and there's very little evidence of public concern over the privacy, other than newspaper article after newspaper article claiming there is, each one "coincidentally" making reference to Donald Trump, as if he was somehow personally responsible for this debacle, and almost no stories on the Obama campaign who did largely the same thing on a much grander scale. If someone knows of any convincing independent public polls, with published questions (with the right questions, you can get whatever "answer" you want to produce) that shows that there are in fact widespread public privacy concerns, I'd love to read them. Until then, I'm going to continue to believe this is about the power to influence the public in the political sphere, and predict that the Facebook platform is going to be stripped of that power.

downandout 9y ago

Agreed that it’s scary if someone actually manages to get it working. CA did not, nor did Obama who was given access to far more data. But the issue is the false narrative being sold by these news stories. If you ask an average person right now what happened based upon these news stories, they’ll tell you that Trump hired someone to hack their Facebook data and then used it to target Facebook ads to them, and that this was so effective that he was able to steal the election from Hillary. That’s what I take issue with - it’s a provably false narrative.

brazzledazzle 9y ago
I’m actually not opposed to this. In fact I wouldn’t mind if a similar narrative started about Clinton and how she used it to steal the popular vote. Then both major parties would be pushing for privacy in the US. Digital privacy is complex and I’d rather people have a misinformed motivation for it than apathy. It’s not unlike geopolitics or economics in that you almost need to have egregiously simplified propaganda to get people onboard because the reality is so complex and nuanced that most people's eyes glaze over at the thought of it. The truth and depth of understanding is available to anyone that wants it but my parents are never really going to get it the way I do. They don't have my understanding of how data, applications and the web actually work to make it all click so they think Facebook spies on them using their microphone when the reality is so much more insidious.

mistermann 9y ago

> you can build a statistical model that targets your advertisement not to a user, but a set of criteria: "Males between the ages of 35 and 40 living in a mid-sized town in Texas who liked curling and Star Wars Episode I, but has never traveled to Australia". This is still perfectly possible. Prediction: It won't be after the government is done with a new set of regulations, at least for election purposes. I continue to believe this is about the ability to wield political influence, not privacy. The privacy issues have been well known for years, and there's very little evidence of public concern over the privacy, other than newspaper article after newspaper article claiming there is, each one "coincidentally" making reference to Donald Trump, as if he was somehow personally responsible for this debacle, and almost no stories on the Obama campaign who did largely the same thing on a much grander scale. If someone knows of any convincing independent public polls, with published questions (with the right questions, you can get whatever "answer" you want to produce) that shows that there are in fact widespread public privacy concerns, I'd love to read them. Until then, I'm going to continue to believe this is about the power to influence the public in the political sphere, and predict that the Facebook platform is going to be stripped of that power.