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It's not a conspiracy theory to say that the vast majority of employees at the tech giants are very anti-Trump. People were openly weeping in their offices afte

It's not a conspiracy theory to say that the vast majority of employees at the tech giants are very anti-Trump. People were openly weeping in their offices after he was elected, execs gave people time off to cope. The parent poster is correct. What was once praised as savvy is now being eliminated as an option all together as it's become useful to the other side of the political spectrum.

tomnipotent 7y ago
> People were openly weeping in their offices after he was elected, execs gave people time off to cope. Same thing happened to certain classes of companies when Obama was elected, so what? > The parent poster is correct No they weren't. You don't just get to pass off an idea as fact. > praised as savvy is now being eliminated Because of bad press that's not worth the tiny revenues political ads bring in vs. everything else. Maybe they've simply made the better economic decision to avoid the revenue impact of these class of ads. Much more likely than "Tech Giants collude to deny Trump campaign access to social media advertising".
- malvosenior 7y ago
  You keep calling it a conspiracy theory without providing any evidence that it is. It's a known fact that Obama was praised for targeted political advertising: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2012/feb/17/obama-digital-data-machine-facebook-election https://www.theguardian.com/world/2012/feb/17/obama-digital-... It's also a fact that these very left leaning platforms are now removing the ability to do exactly what Obama was praised for. You've not disputed either of those, just called the people pointing them out childish conspiracy theorists.
  - tomnipotent 7y ago
    > You keep calling it a conspiracy theory without providing any evidence that it is That's not how it works. You need to provide actual evidence to back up your conspiracy, other than "Obama did it once" and "I have a gut feeling". How does Obama being praised for his campaign have ANYTHING to do with the motivations of staff and employees at these companies making these decisions today? > ability to do exactly what Obama was praised for Cambridge Analytica?
    - malvosenior 7y ago
      If the staff of these companies was actually concerned about this issue, they wouldn't have allowed Obama to do this. It's clearly not an issue with the technique, but who is employing it. > Have you been living under a rock? Cambridge Analytica? Like I said, Obama did exactly that (from the article I posted): > "Consciously or otherwise, the individual volunteer will be injecting all the information they store publicly on their Facebook page – home location, date of birth, interests and, crucially, network of friends – directly into the central Obama database."
      - tomnipotent 7y ago
        No one in 2012 knew how out-of-control the combination of social media advertising combined with politics could be, and it's absolutely disingenuous to expect people to predict the future because you have the benefit of hindsight. Obama's campaigned happened to be the 1st, and it was newsworthy. Then the next cycle happened, Facebook had more than doubled in size and this time around the combination was abused - enter Cambridge Analytica and Russia. Now the tech companies have spent days in front of the Senate & House in DC, and somehow we're surprised they've decided now of all times to call it quits? During one of the hottest political contests in recent history? What's more likely - tech giants colluded to stiff Trump and the right, or they all decided not to be a player in something so political and rather lose out on inconsequential revenues?
  - Nasrudith 7y ago
    To be fair they aren't entirely comparable even if they are both talked about as targetting. The Obama campaign was more about organizing as opposed to underhanded actions like abusing loose permissions. The emphasis of reporting on the targetting as opposed to the worse moral dodginess confuses me even from a cynical "assume jealousy from old media" perspective. I only have vague guesses of incompetence for not emphasizing the even worse parts or not being their target audience.
    - malvosenior 7y ago
      Aren't they almost exactly the same though? From the article: > "Consciously or otherwise, the individual volunteer will be injecting all the information they store publicly on their Facebook page – home location, date of birth, interests and, crucially, network of friends – directly into the central Obama database. That's literally the thing people are upset that Cambridge Analytica did.
- deleted 7y ago
  [deleted]
- dang 7y ago
  Can you please edit the name-calling out of your comments to HN, and generally not do flamewars here? From "This is a silly, childish conspiracy theory" and "Suuuuure" to "Have you been living under a rock", your comments stand out in this thread as particularly breaking the site guidelines. If you have better information or know more of the truth than other commenters, it's important to present that in a form which readers can respect and learn from. Otherwise you end up discrediting the very truth you're advocating for, leaving us all worse off. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&query=by%3Adang%20truth%20discredit&sort=byDate&type=comment https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&que...

tomnipotent 7y ago

> People were openly weeping in their offices after he was elected, execs gave people time off to cope. Same thing happened to certain classes of companies when Obama was elected, so what? > The parent poster is correct No they weren't. You don't just get to pass off an idea as fact. > praised as savvy is now being eliminated Because of bad press that's not worth the tiny revenues political ads bring in vs. everything else. Maybe they've simply made the better economic decision to avoid the revenue impact of these class of ads. Much more likely than "Tech Giants collude to deny Trump campaign access to social media advertising".

malvosenior 7y ago
You keep calling it a conspiracy theory without providing any evidence that it is. It's a known fact that Obama was praised for targeted political advertising: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2012/feb/17/obama-digital-data-machine-facebook-election https://www.theguardian.com/world/2012/feb/17/obama-digital-... It's also a fact that these very left leaning platforms are now removing the ability to do exactly what Obama was praised for. You've not disputed either of those, just called the people pointing them out childish conspiracy theorists.
- tomnipotent 7y ago
  > You keep calling it a conspiracy theory without providing any evidence that it is That's not how it works. You need to provide actual evidence to back up your conspiracy, other than "Obama did it once" and "I have a gut feeling". How does Obama being praised for his campaign have ANYTHING to do with the motivations of staff and employees at these companies making these decisions today? > ability to do exactly what Obama was praised for Cambridge Analytica?
  - malvosenior 7y ago
    If the staff of these companies was actually concerned about this issue, they wouldn't have allowed Obama to do this. It's clearly not an issue with the technique, but who is employing it. > Have you been living under a rock? Cambridge Analytica? Like I said, Obama did exactly that (from the article I posted): > "Consciously or otherwise, the individual volunteer will be injecting all the information they store publicly on their Facebook page – home location, date of birth, interests and, crucially, network of friends – directly into the central Obama database."
    - tomnipotent 7y ago
      No one in 2012 knew how out-of-control the combination of social media advertising combined with politics could be, and it's absolutely disingenuous to expect people to predict the future because you have the benefit of hindsight. Obama's campaigned happened to be the 1st, and it was newsworthy. Then the next cycle happened, Facebook had more than doubled in size and this time around the combination was abused - enter Cambridge Analytica and Russia. Now the tech companies have spent days in front of the Senate & House in DC, and somehow we're surprised they've decided now of all times to call it quits? During one of the hottest political contests in recent history? What's more likely - tech giants colluded to stiff Trump and the right, or they all decided not to be a player in something so political and rather lose out on inconsequential revenues?
- Nasrudith 7y ago
  To be fair they aren't entirely comparable even if they are both talked about as targetting. The Obama campaign was more about organizing as opposed to underhanded actions like abusing loose permissions. The emphasis of reporting on the targetting as opposed to the worse moral dodginess confuses me even from a cynical "assume jealousy from old media" perspective. I only have vague guesses of incompetence for not emphasizing the even worse parts or not being their target audience.
  - malvosenior 7y ago
    Aren't they almost exactly the same though? From the article: > "Consciously or otherwise, the individual volunteer will be injecting all the information they store publicly on their Facebook page – home location, date of birth, interests and, crucially, network of friends – directly into the central Obama database. That's literally the thing people are upset that Cambridge Analytica did.
deleted 7y ago
[deleted]
dang 7y ago
Can you please edit the name-calling out of your comments to HN, and generally not do flamewars here? From "This is a silly, childish conspiracy theory" and "Suuuuure" to "Have you been living under a rock", your comments stand out in this thread as particularly breaking the site guidelines. If you have better information or know more of the truth than other commenters, it's important to present that in a form which readers can respect and learn from. Otherwise you end up discrediting the very truth you're advocating for, leaving us all worse off. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&query=by%3Adang%20truth%20discredit&sort=byDate&type=comment https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&que...