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Obama did basically what Cambridge Analytica did. To this date I don't understand why the media reacted so differently to both situations. Edit: See link in re

Obama did basically what Cambridge Analytica did. To this date I don't understand why the media reacted so differently to both situations. Edit: See link in response for an explanation. IMO I'm still uncomfortable with how they got data of friends, but that's about it. However, this does not refute the above point that Obama didn't heavily benefit from Facebook. https://www.theguardian.com/world/2012/feb/17/obama-digital-data-machine-facebook-election https://www.theguardian.com/world/2012/feb/17/obama-digital-...

lonelappde 7y ago
Because they were different. 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...
matchbok 7y ago
Simply not true, at all.
enraged_camel 7y ago
>> Obama did basically what Cambridge Analytica did. Only in the sense that a car and a bus are the same thing because they both have four wheels. As with all things technical though, it's the details that matter: 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... >> The people signing up [for the Obama campaign's app] knew the data they were handing over would be used to support a political campaign. >> The people who downloaded the app used by Cambridge Analytica did not know their data would be used to aid any political campaigns. The app was billed as a personality quiz that would be used by Cambridge University researchers. There were also substantial differences with regards to how the collected data was used. "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. Cambridge Analytica dialed up what Karpf called the creepiness factor. They combined the survey results with the Facebook data to create psychological profiles they then sold to campaigns. The idea was, if the firm could discover how these people thought, they could target ads toward them. Cambridge Analytica then sent targeted ads to the users on their database as well as users with similar profiles, identified by Facebook’s Lookalike tool. The friends of the app users weren’t being targeted by their friends, but by the campaign itself. In other words, the consenting middle man was gone."
- dx87 7y ago
  What difference does it make if someone willingly gives up your personal information, or someone is tricked into giving up your information? Either way, people who didn't consent had their information collected by a political campaign, which is what everyone was upset about with Cambridge Analytica.
  - enraged_camel 7y ago
    >>What difference does it make if someone willingly gives up your personal information, or someone is tricked into giving up your information? We must really have gone off the deep end here, because I can no longer tell who is trolling and who is posting for real. I'll give you the benefit of the doubt and answer your question in good faith: whether you willingly give your information, or are tricked into giving it, makes a world of difference. The only thing in common between the way the Obama campaign utilized Facebook data and the way Cambridge utilized the data is that, in both cases, the users sharing the data (whether willingly, or without realizing) also unwittingly provided access to their friend's data. That's where the similarities end. But no, the real reason most people were angry at Cambridge Analytica is that it (quite possibly illegally) obtained the data from Aleksandr Kogan, one of the researchers in Cambridge University who developed the original app. Furthermore, when Facebook noticed this and told them to delete the data, they did not. THAT is the real scandal.
    - cameronbrown 7y ago
      How many people agree that Facebook is a severe privacy violation, even though you've "willingly given consent"? Did people really, understand what was being used of their data? Vast majority of people didn't even know what targeted ads are (obviously no longer the case, hence CA outrage).
    - drusepth 7y ago
      >I'll give you the benefit of the doubt and answer your question in good faith: whether you willingly give your information, or are tricked into giving it, makes a world of difference. The comment you're replying to is positing that question in the context of other people giving up your information, not you yourself giving that information up. In both cases, the users giving the data knew they were giving that data to someone on the Internet. Their friends, however, didn't. The friends of the (either willing or tricked) participants had their data given up, too. Those friends did not consent in either case. In that case, I don't think it matters whether your data was given away willingly by your friends or whether your friends were tricked into giving it away. It's just splitting hairs over who is at fault when it's wrong in both cases.
milesward 7y ago
I was there, and we did not.
bduerst 7y ago
False equivalence. Using models on a MySQL database is different than exploiting Facebook APIs and sharing voter information with foreign agencies.

lonelappde 7y ago

Because they were different. 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...

matchbok 7y ago

Simply not true, at all.

enraged_camel 7y ago

>> Obama did basically what Cambridge Analytica did. Only in the sense that a car and a bus are the same thing because they both have four wheels. As with all things technical though, it's the details that matter: 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... >> The people signing up [for the Obama campaign's app] knew the data they were handing over would be used to support a political campaign. >> The people who downloaded the app used by Cambridge Analytica did not know their data would be used to aid any political campaigns. The app was billed as a personality quiz that would be used by Cambridge University researchers. There were also substantial differences with regards to how the collected data was used. "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. Cambridge Analytica dialed up what Karpf called the creepiness factor. They combined the survey results with the Facebook data to create psychological profiles they then sold to campaigns. The idea was, if the firm could discover how these people thought, they could target ads toward them. Cambridge Analytica then sent targeted ads to the users on their database as well as users with similar profiles, identified by Facebook’s Lookalike tool. The friends of the app users weren’t being targeted by their friends, but by the campaign itself. In other words, the consenting middle man was gone."

dx87 7y ago
What difference does it make if someone willingly gives up your personal information, or someone is tricked into giving up your information? Either way, people who didn't consent had their information collected by a political campaign, which is what everyone was upset about with Cambridge Analytica.
- enraged_camel 7y ago
  >>What difference does it make if someone willingly gives up your personal information, or someone is tricked into giving up your information? We must really have gone off the deep end here, because I can no longer tell who is trolling and who is posting for real. I'll give you the benefit of the doubt and answer your question in good faith: whether you willingly give your information, or are tricked into giving it, makes a world of difference. The only thing in common between the way the Obama campaign utilized Facebook data and the way Cambridge utilized the data is that, in both cases, the users sharing the data (whether willingly, or without realizing) also unwittingly provided access to their friend's data. That's where the similarities end. But no, the real reason most people were angry at Cambridge Analytica is that it (quite possibly illegally) obtained the data from Aleksandr Kogan, one of the researchers in Cambridge University who developed the original app. Furthermore, when Facebook noticed this and told them to delete the data, they did not. THAT is the real scandal.
  - cameronbrown 7y ago
    How many people agree that Facebook is a severe privacy violation, even though you've "willingly given consent"? Did people really, understand what was being used of their data? Vast majority of people didn't even know what targeted ads are (obviously no longer the case, hence CA outrage).
  - drusepth 7y ago
    >I'll give you the benefit of the doubt and answer your question in good faith: whether you willingly give your information, or are tricked into giving it, makes a world of difference. The comment you're replying to is positing that question in the context of other people giving up your information, not you yourself giving that information up. In both cases, the users giving the data knew they were giving that data to someone on the Internet. Their friends, however, didn't. The friends of the (either willing or tricked) participants had their data given up, too. Those friends did not consent in either case. In that case, I don't think it matters whether your data was given away willingly by your friends or whether your friends were tricked into giving it away. It's just splitting hairs over who is at fault when it's wrong in both cases.

milesward 7y ago

I was there, and we did not.

bduerst 7y ago

False equivalence. Using models on a MySQL database is different than exploiting Facebook APIs and sharing voter information with foreign agencies.