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I'd be interested in seeing an unanimous FTC ruling on Barack Obama's campaign downloading and mining the entire Facebook social graph in 2012, with Facebook's

by m0zg 7y ago

I'd be interested in seeing an unanimous FTC ruling on Barack Obama's campaign downloading and mining the entire Facebook social graph in 2012, with Facebook's implicit consent. And unlike the Trump campaign, Obama's did use this data for more than just winning the primary. It went something like this: you downloaded an app on FB and that app would grab not just your data, but also _that of your friends_. FB turned the blind eye. Nary a word from the press, too. https://www.investors.com/politics/editorials/facebook-data-scandal-trump-election-obama-2012/ https://www.investors.com/politics/editorials/facebook-data-...

deleted 7y ago
[deleted]
sysyefyct 7y ago
The downvotes are because saying anything negative about Democrats or positive about Republicans isn't allowed here.
makomk 7y ago
The FTC's basis for this ruling against Cambridge Analytica is that they deceived users about what data was being gathered and how it was being used in order to get access. The 2012 Obama campaign didn't. Now that's not to say that they had any sort of consent from the people they were gathering information from - they clearly didn't, because they were scraping information about friends just like CA - or that what they were doing wasn't creepy and morally dubious. It just means that the reasoning in this opinion doesn't apply. In fact, they don't seem to allege that CA committed any kind of violation by scraping the data of US friends of people who used their app, precisely because those users didn't consent. Their argument is that CA breached the FTC Act by making false or misleading representations to get people to give them access to their data, but they can't stretch that to cover scraping of their friends' data because those friends never agreed to anything and CA made no promises to users about their friends.
- m0zg 7y ago
  But it kinda did, tho. I really doubt the users understood the full extent of the data they were _actually_ sharing, and particularly that this data included data of all their friends as well.
batterystd 7y ago
I hope people who downvote dissenting opinions are outright banned from hn
Traster 7y ago
This is basically whataboutism. If you agree with the principle you should be calling for the people in CA to be personally culpable (and their investors and customers, who knew full well what they were doing). If you disagree, make an argument as to why the principle is wrong.
- FpUser 7y ago
  "you should be calling for the people in CA to be personally culpable" I am all for it. But let's follow first come first served and start punishing the earlier perpetrators first. What you call "whataboutism" is simply people's natural feel for justice. When you advocate punishment make sure it applies EQUALLY TO EVERY ENTITY GUILTY. If not then people will start pointing fingers and quite rightfully. It is not them being "whataboutists". It is you behaving like/protecting a hypocrite.
  - m0zg 7y ago
    "Somoza may be a son of a bitch, but he's our son of a bitch." -- Franklin D. Roosevelt It's politics.
- m0zg 7y ago
  >> This is basically whataboutism. And this ^ is hypocrisy.

by m0zg 7y ago

deleted 7y ago

[deleted]

sysyefyct 7y ago

The downvotes are because saying anything negative about Democrats or positive about Republicans isn't allowed here.

makomk 7y ago

The FTC's basis for this ruling against Cambridge Analytica is that they deceived users about what data was being gathered and how it was being used in order to get access. The 2012 Obama campaign didn't. Now that's not to say that they had any sort of consent from the people they were gathering information from - they clearly didn't, because they were scraping information about friends just like CA - or that what they were doing wasn't creepy and morally dubious. It just means that the reasoning in this opinion doesn't apply. In fact, they don't seem to allege that CA committed any kind of violation by scraping the data of US friends of people who used their app, precisely because those users didn't consent. Their argument is that CA breached the FTC Act by making false or misleading representations to get people to give them access to their data, but they can't stretch that to cover scraping of their friends' data because those friends never agreed to anything and CA made no promises to users about their friends.

m0zg 7y ago
But it kinda did, tho. I really doubt the users understood the full extent of the data they were _actually_ sharing, and particularly that this data included data of all their friends as well.

batterystd 7y ago

I hope people who downvote dissenting opinions are outright banned from hn

Traster 7y ago

This is basically whataboutism. If you agree with the principle you should be calling for the people in CA to be personally culpable (and their investors and customers, who knew full well what they were doing). If you disagree, make an argument as to why the principle is wrong.

FpUser 7y ago
"you should be calling for the people in CA to be personally culpable" I am all for it. But let's follow first come first served and start punishing the earlier perpetrators first. What you call "whataboutism" is simply people's natural feel for justice. When you advocate punishment make sure it applies EQUALLY TO EVERY ENTITY GUILTY. If not then people will start pointing fingers and quite rightfully. It is not them being "whataboutists". It is you behaving like/protecting a hypocrite.
- m0zg 7y ago
  "Somoza may be a son of a bitch, but he's our son of a bitch." -- Franklin D. Roosevelt It's politics.
m0zg 7y ago
>> This is basically whataboutism. And this ^ is hypocrisy.