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I've always been curious why nobody cared when Obama misused Facebook data in 2012 to win the election. I remember countless tech articles lauding him as a gen

I've always been curious why nobody cared when Obama misused Facebook data in 2012 to win the election. I remember countless tech articles lauding him as a genius and talking about how this would be the new way to campaign. Facebook knew about it and allowed it to happen. They then closed the door for other politicians. This sort of election meddling is worse than the Russians. The mainstream media doesn`t care because they supported the person that did it. It really seems like it only matters because a Republican was involved. If Hillary had won, things would be business as usual and we wouldn't even know about election interference.

remotecool 7y ago
Weird that my comment was down voted in the split second that I posted it. I have suspected there were voting bots on HN for awhile now...And now it seems like it's actually happening.
- deleted 7y ago
  [deleted]
- edoceo 7y ago
  Well, and more than enough human visitors to downvote political comment. I think that's one of the rules here
  - remotecool 7y ago
    So posting countless political articles is allowed? Please... It's because I questioned the Democrats.
    - techntoke 7y ago
      I actually find that comments supporting Democrats, and especially progressive ideas are more likely to be downvoted on Hacker News. Almost like corporate PR doesn't want them to become popular opinions.
    - smt88 7y ago
      I don't see many purely political articles. HN used to have lots, but they seem to be explicitly removed now.
rrauenza 7y ago
I’ve struggled with the what-about-ism there as well. When researching it I’ve found there are some differences, particularly about degree of openness towards the people targeted: https://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/statements/2018/mar/22/meghan-mccain/comparing-facebook-data-use-obama-cambridge-analyt/ https://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/statements/2018/mar...
- remotecool 7y ago
  Both campaigns misused data in an attempt to win votes. They are equally bad. At the end, it states that neither campaign were able to persuade many voters. If that's the case, why do we care?
  - gowld 7y ago
    One campaign did it with consent. The other did not. That's not equal.
    - gfodor 7y ago
      This seems false. The root of the problem is the FB API used to grant you access to friend-of-friend data. This capability is what led to the possibility of having a million sign ups get you data on the entire US. Those people mined through second order links did not give consent.
dunstad 7y ago
You seem really relaxed about foreign powers interfering with our elections.
- BeetleB 7y ago
  >You seem really relaxed about foreign powers interfering with our elections. The reality is that Americans have historically been quite relaxed about the US interfering in others' elections - they do it more than any other country.[1] At least they're consistent if they're relaxed when it happens the other way round. [1]: https://www.npr.org/2016/12/22/506625913/database-tracks-history-of-u-s-meddling-in-foreign-elections https://www.npr.org/2016/12/22/506625913/database-tracks-his...
  - dunstad 7y ago
    And in order to change that we would need to vote in the people that foreign powers are hindering the campaigns of.
- remotecool 7y ago
  I'm not relaxed about anyone interfering with our elections either a domestic private company or a foreign power. Both subvert Democracy. Russia is really a non-issue. They have a pittance in terms of economy and a handful of bots and phishing attacks didn't really do anything to change the election. The stadiums of people that still come out for Trump supports this. We should be worried about big tech. They are altering our elections through massive censorship of opposing views and search result tampering to change the definition of the 'truth'. If the Ceos of these companies were Republicans, there would be endless lawsuits.

remotecool 7y ago

Weird that my comment was down voted in the split second that I posted it. I have suspected there were voting bots on HN for awhile now...And now it seems like it's actually happening.

deleted 7y ago
[deleted]
edoceo 7y ago
Well, and more than enough human visitors to downvote political comment. I think that's one of the rules here
- remotecool 7y ago
  So posting countless political articles is allowed? Please... It's because I questioned the Democrats.
  - techntoke 7y ago
    I actually find that comments supporting Democrats, and especially progressive ideas are more likely to be downvoted on Hacker News. Almost like corporate PR doesn't want them to become popular opinions.
  - smt88 7y ago
    I don't see many purely political articles. HN used to have lots, but they seem to be explicitly removed now.

rrauenza 7y ago

I’ve struggled with the what-about-ism there as well. When researching it I’ve found there are some differences, particularly about degree of openness towards the people targeted: https://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/statements/2018/mar/22/meghan-mccain/comparing-facebook-data-use-obama-cambridge-analyt/ https://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/statements/2018/mar...

remotecool 7y ago
Both campaigns misused data in an attempt to win votes. They are equally bad. At the end, it states that neither campaign were able to persuade many voters. If that's the case, why do we care?
- gowld 7y ago
  One campaign did it with consent. The other did not. That's not equal.
  - gfodor 7y ago
    This seems false. The root of the problem is the FB API used to grant you access to friend-of-friend data. This capability is what led to the possibility of having a million sign ups get you data on the entire US. Those people mined through second order links did not give consent.

dunstad 7y ago

You seem really relaxed about foreign powers interfering with our elections.

BeetleB 7y ago
>You seem really relaxed about foreign powers interfering with our elections. The reality is that Americans have historically been quite relaxed about the US interfering in others' elections - they do it more than any other country.[1] At least they're consistent if they're relaxed when it happens the other way round. [1]: https://www.npr.org/2016/12/22/506625913/database-tracks-history-of-u-s-meddling-in-foreign-elections https://www.npr.org/2016/12/22/506625913/database-tracks-his...
- dunstad 7y ago
  And in order to change that we would need to vote in the people that foreign powers are hindering the campaigns of.
remotecool 7y ago
I'm not relaxed about anyone interfering with our elections either a domestic private company or a foreign power. Both subvert Democracy. Russia is really a non-issue. They have a pittance in terms of economy and a handful of bots and phishing attacks didn't really do anything to change the election. The stadiums of people that still come out for Trump supports this. We should be worried about big tech. They are altering our elections through massive censorship of opposing views and search result tampering to change the definition of the 'truth'. If the Ceos of these companies were Republicans, there would be endless lawsuits.