10 ms·

Cambridge Analytica were the tip of the iceberg

143 points by sturza 7y ago

user7629 7y ago
You can’t read this without JavaScript?
- CinchWrench 7y ago
  It's not really worth it. It's just a bunch of "look how bad these people are. And they're connected." Doesn't even really say how.
- onefuncman 7y ago
  It's an in-browser rendering of a graph database... I believe each slide is a live query.
troughway 7y ago
>The first step to beating these bastards is to understand them. The more of us working to that goal the better chance of success. When Obama was doing it nobody wanted to beat that bastard. What happened?
- uptown 7y ago
  Somebody did. Many of those "somebodies" are detailed in the link from this post.
  - troughway 7y ago
    The same "somebodies" who put Obama in power, you mean?
    - edoceo 7y ago
      It's objectively different groups of actors.
chishaku 7y ago
Edit: This is an honest question -- just wondering the difference in tactics and have received one helpful comment so far. --- When Obama won in '08 and '12, his team of data "nerds" were lauded as geniuses. Examples: How Obama Tapped Into Social Networks’ Power https://www.nytimes.com/2008/11/10/business/media/10carr.html https://www.nytimes.com/2008/11/10/business/media/10carr.htm... When the Nerds Go Marching In https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2012/11/when-the-nerds-go-marching-in/265325/ https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2012/11/when-... Can someone distinguish between what Obama and Trump were doing when it comes to digital campaigning?
- throwaway5752 7y ago
  Yes, easily. Microtargeting and related campaigns can be distinguished entirely by the content of they present. Microtargeting is just a technique that can be used for good or bad. In the case of Obama's campaign, nobody has accused them of misleading or false information. Brexit and the the US 2016 election was almost defined by misleading or false information (as you can see by lingering Pizzagate, QAnon, and Bengazi conspiracy theories). Amused at the downvotes. It is true. You can not like Clinton and not vote for her, or Obama. I don't judge and people can disagree. But the amount of false content in those campaigns (which came to be known as "fake news" after the fact) was unprecedent, was aided/spreaded by foreign sources, and was largely on partisan lines. Evidence includes https://news.stanford.edu/2017/01/18/stanford-study-examines-fake-news-2016-presidential-election/ https://news.stanford.edu/2017/01/18/stanford-study-examines... among countless others). It would be just as wrong if, say, the Sander campaign did the same thing.
  - munk-a 7y ago
    I do agree that Obama's campaign used this much "more ethically" but I didn't then and still don't approve of micotargeting or campaign advertising in general. I really want to see the US get to publicly funded elections because full public funding would cost not even a sliver of what elections current run and provide a more even playing field for candidates.
    - 7y ago
throwaway5752 7y ago
Wow, this is amazing content. I'm not sure anyone has exposed the reach of SCL similarly. edit: in case anyone here is just reading the headline, be sure to go through to the end. Seeing Parscale connected to this is concerning (though it may be a tenuous connection).
rhizome 7y ago
This is kind of a thin post linking to someone's larger project/company, but it does almost touch on something of substance, that there's (what I call) a "Blackwater Problem" with statistical-targeting companies. This is when one company out of many (manymany) emerges as the whipping boy for a problematic (if not inherently criminal) industry or profession. We see the same kinds of company name shuffling, same maintenance of primary leadership, who is essentially that industry's lobbyist over the long term.
harikb 7y ago
Nice way to show the content. Really brings home the fact that nothing much has changed for 2020, only getting worse. > When CA was closed down many employees simply moved to new companies doing the exact same thing. One of the more well known of these is Emerdata, not just sharing some of the same workers from CA but also funded by the same family. > Not everyone is aware, but CA was just a small part of a parent organisation called SCL. Pretty much all of the companies shown (in blue) on the left are/were part of this group.
- at-fates-hands 7y ago
  >> When CA was closed down many employees simply moved to new companies doing the exact same thing. I'm not really sure why this is such a surprise. Think about the dot com boom. People were hopping all over the place. I remember one friend who was a developer and chased the money from company to company to company. All the companies wanted to be the next "future of the internet backbone" technology companies. I would imagine its the same here. You have a specific set of skills, when one company gets shut down, you hop to the next company doing the same thing where you can continue utilizing the skills you were using at the last company. To me, this is just standard career trajectory. The fact the work they're doing is morally questionable obviously doesn't concern them when they're making fat money doing it.
- nickbauman 7y ago
  Here's a post that has been on HN before covers what phase of technology adoption we're in. https://idlewords.com/talks/ancient_web.htm https://idlewords.com/talks/ancient_web.htm Basically we've seen this kind of cultural manipulation on a massive scale before more than once. The last time it happened the manipulators were people like Joseph Goebbels. Remember the first thing the Nazi's did when they annexed a territory was to seize all forms of mass communication. Radios were replaced with new radios that could only be tuned to Nazi stations. But I heard from a talk given by a Hungarian Jew, Robert Holczer, who was secretly working for the Antifa in the city of Prague that was under control of the Nazis in the 40s. Even when listening to Nazi radio with their propaganda, he could tell when the tide had turned against Germany. There are always clues, he said; He figured out that the Normandy Invasion was successful by listening to Nazi Propaganda, for example. Eventually the culture-hacking turns against the hackers.
booboolayla 7y ago
Friendly reminder that Barack Obama's campaign didn't hire an external firm to manipulate Google and Facebook - they had direct access to the companies, with Google even providing a team of engineers to work with the campaign in Washington.
- m0zg 7y ago
  FB and Google also provided teams to work with campaigns, as they would for any such huge advertiser. What they did not do is they did not provide the entire goddamn social graph like they did for Obama in 2012. Or at least they did not provide it to Trump. Hillary's campaign was so sure of itself, they did not utilize the help Google and FB provided them. I'm sure such things could be arranged under the table for the anointed candidate.
- commandlinefan 7y ago
  > providing a team of engineers Who were manipulating search results in his favor. And will again.
  - booboolayla 7y ago
    Not only do they cheat, they're trying to gaslight us into accepting it as "fair game."
kevin_thibedeau 7y ago
Completely missing all of the legacy data aggregators that form the bulk of the iceberg.
cheese4242 7y ago
This whole debacle is just sour grapes over the absolute humiliation of the left in the 2016 election, and a growing fear that the humiliation will be repeated this November.
- jakeinspace 7y ago
  I wasn't "absolutely humiliated" by that election, but I was shocked and saddened. And when people try to tell me how humiliated and indignant I am in a "you mad bro?" sort of way, I just find it annoying. Why does the internet revel in being annoying in their taunts of the other side? What exactly do you enjoy about it? Genuine question, although obviously a bit confrontationally.
  - cheese4242 7y ago
    You do understand I can refer to "the left" and not mean each and every individual who comprises the left, right? Providing such qualifiers shouldn't be necessary. The point is, Trump's election was extremely humiliating to the left as a whole (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l4nh2oO93ts https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l4nh2oO93ts) and the 3+ years of hand-wringing over some Facebook ads (which nobody can prove swayed the election either way) is a bit of a clown show.
    - deleted 7y ago
      [deleted]
    - jakeinspace 7y ago
      > You do understand I can refer to "the left" and not mean each and every individual who comprises the left, right? Providing such qualifiers shouldn't be necessary. Sure, but in this case I guess you meant a subset (probably a large one I admit) of the "mainstream" media, plus some liberal talk show hosts/comedians. I'd be wary of judging the "left" through that lens, since TV is a product with its own priorities which only align with political ideologies when they're trying to tap into that market. I'll admit that I only have a handful of close friends and family members of the opposing party, but I try to use them as my barometer if I can instead of TV/online media/internet commenters (obviously polling is different and valid when relevant).
allovernow 7y ago
It is plainly foolish to believe that only right wing groups are targeted by this kind of manipulation. Particularly when the goal of KGB like entity is not necessarily to prop up one particular candidate or policy, but to generally sow discord. The fact that propaganda aligns with your views does not mean it isn't propaganda. We are not only particularly vulnerable, but playing right into these actors' hands when we pretend that only one side of our bipolar politics is subject to nefarious influence.
- DanTheManPR 7y ago
  All evidence I've seen indicates that the right wing engages in this kind of manipulation at a scale much more massive than other political groups.
  - take_a_breath 7y ago
    It is possible that third party actors are engaging in this type of activity in-favor of the right without explicit coordination between the two.
  - allovernow 7y ago
    How sure are you that those performing these analyses are operating without bias? Also everything I've seen in this style begins with an explicitly right wing group and then looks for connections - but performing the analysis in such a style is unlikely to uncover left leaning efforts because the graph is probably nearly or totally disjoint. It's very easy to conclusively show only one side of the story if no one reputable is looking into the other.
    - raisedbyninjas 7y ago
      Not an exhaustive study, but Jestin Coler got in the fake news clickbait game in 2013. He said that liberal targeted stories never gained viral traction like conservative stories.
m0zg 7y ago
Here's how you know this is a (rather crude) propaganda piece: try to find any mention of any democrats in it.

143 points by sturza 7y ago

user7629 7y ago

You can’t read this without JavaScript?

CinchWrench 7y ago
It's not really worth it. It's just a bunch of "look how bad these people are. And they're connected." Doesn't even really say how.
onefuncman 7y ago
It's an in-browser rendering of a graph database... I believe each slide is a live query.

troughway 7y ago

>The first step to beating these bastards is to understand them. The more of us working to that goal the better chance of success. When Obama was doing it nobody wanted to beat that bastard. What happened?

uptown 7y ago
Somebody did. Many of those "somebodies" are detailed in the link from this post.
- troughway 7y ago
  The same "somebodies" who put Obama in power, you mean?
  - edoceo 7y ago
    It's objectively different groups of actors.

chishaku 7y ago

Edit: This is an honest question -- just wondering the difference in tactics and have received one helpful comment so far. --- When Obama won in '08 and '12, his team of data "nerds" were lauded as geniuses. Examples: How Obama Tapped Into Social Networks’ Power https://www.nytimes.com/2008/11/10/business/media/10carr.html https://www.nytimes.com/2008/11/10/business/media/10carr.htm... When the Nerds Go Marching In https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2012/11/when-the-nerds-go-marching-in/265325/ https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2012/11/when-... Can someone distinguish between what Obama and Trump were doing when it comes to digital campaigning?

throwaway5752 7y ago
Yes, easily. Microtargeting and related campaigns can be distinguished entirely by the content of they present. Microtargeting is just a technique that can be used for good or bad. In the case of Obama's campaign, nobody has accused them of misleading or false information. Brexit and the the US 2016 election was almost defined by misleading or false information (as you can see by lingering Pizzagate, QAnon, and Bengazi conspiracy theories). Amused at the downvotes. It is true. You can not like Clinton and not vote for her, or Obama. I don't judge and people can disagree. But the amount of false content in those campaigns (which came to be known as "fake news" after the fact) was unprecedent, was aided/spreaded by foreign sources, and was largely on partisan lines. Evidence includes https://news.stanford.edu/2017/01/18/stanford-study-examines-fake-news-2016-presidential-election/ https://news.stanford.edu/2017/01/18/stanford-study-examines... among countless others). It would be just as wrong if, say, the Sander campaign did the same thing.
- munk-a 7y ago
  I do agree that Obama's campaign used this much "more ethically" but I didn't then and still don't approve of micotargeting or campaign advertising in general. I really want to see the US get to publicly funded elections because full public funding would cost not even a sliver of what elections current run and provide a more even playing field for candidates.
  - 7y ago

throwaway5752 7y ago

Wow, this is amazing content. I'm not sure anyone has exposed the reach of SCL similarly. edit: in case anyone here is just reading the headline, be sure to go through to the end. Seeing Parscale connected to this is concerning (though it may be a tenuous connection).

rhizome 7y ago

This is kind of a thin post linking to someone's larger project/company, but it does almost touch on something of substance, that there's (what I call) a "Blackwater Problem" with statistical-targeting companies. This is when one company out of many (manymany) emerges as the whipping boy for a problematic (if not inherently criminal) industry or profession. We see the same kinds of company name shuffling, same maintenance of primary leadership, who is essentially that industry's lobbyist over the long term.

harikb 7y ago

Nice way to show the content. Really brings home the fact that nothing much has changed for 2020, only getting worse. > When CA was closed down many employees simply moved to new companies doing the exact same thing. One of the more well known of these is Emerdata, not just sharing some of the same workers from CA but also funded by the same family. > Not everyone is aware, but CA was just a small part of a parent organisation called SCL. Pretty much all of the companies shown (in blue) on the left are/were part of this group.

at-fates-hands 7y ago
>> When CA was closed down many employees simply moved to new companies doing the exact same thing. I'm not really sure why this is such a surprise. Think about the dot com boom. People were hopping all over the place. I remember one friend who was a developer and chased the money from company to company to company. All the companies wanted to be the next "future of the internet backbone" technology companies. I would imagine its the same here. You have a specific set of skills, when one company gets shut down, you hop to the next company doing the same thing where you can continue utilizing the skills you were using at the last company. To me, this is just standard career trajectory. The fact the work they're doing is morally questionable obviously doesn't concern them when they're making fat money doing it.
nickbauman 7y ago
Here's a post that has been on HN before covers what phase of technology adoption we're in. https://idlewords.com/talks/ancient_web.htm https://idlewords.com/talks/ancient_web.htm Basically we've seen this kind of cultural manipulation on a massive scale before more than once. The last time it happened the manipulators were people like Joseph Goebbels. Remember the first thing the Nazi's did when they annexed a territory was to seize all forms of mass communication. Radios were replaced with new radios that could only be tuned to Nazi stations. But I heard from a talk given by a Hungarian Jew, Robert Holczer, who was secretly working for the Antifa in the city of Prague that was under control of the Nazis in the 40s. Even when listening to Nazi radio with their propaganda, he could tell when the tide had turned against Germany. There are always clues, he said; He figured out that the Normandy Invasion was successful by listening to Nazi Propaganda, for example. Eventually the culture-hacking turns against the hackers.

booboolayla 7y ago

Friendly reminder that Barack Obama's campaign didn't hire an external firm to manipulate Google and Facebook - they had direct access to the companies, with Google even providing a team of engineers to work with the campaign in Washington.

m0zg 7y ago
FB and Google also provided teams to work with campaigns, as they would for any such huge advertiser. What they did not do is they did not provide the entire goddamn social graph like they did for Obama in 2012. Or at least they did not provide it to Trump. Hillary's campaign was so sure of itself, they did not utilize the help Google and FB provided them. I'm sure such things could be arranged under the table for the anointed candidate.
commandlinefan 7y ago
> providing a team of engineers Who were manipulating search results in his favor. And will again.
- booboolayla 7y ago
  Not only do they cheat, they're trying to gaslight us into accepting it as "fair game."

kevin_thibedeau 7y ago

Completely missing all of the legacy data aggregators that form the bulk of the iceberg.

cheese4242 7y ago

This whole debacle is just sour grapes over the absolute humiliation of the left in the 2016 election, and a growing fear that the humiliation will be repeated this November.

jakeinspace 7y ago
I wasn't "absolutely humiliated" by that election, but I was shocked and saddened. And when people try to tell me how humiliated and indignant I am in a "you mad bro?" sort of way, I just find it annoying. Why does the internet revel in being annoying in their taunts of the other side? What exactly do you enjoy about it? Genuine question, although obviously a bit confrontationally.
- cheese4242 7y ago
  You do understand I can refer to "the left" and not mean each and every individual who comprises the left, right? Providing such qualifiers shouldn't be necessary. The point is, Trump's election was extremely humiliating to the left as a whole (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l4nh2oO93ts https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l4nh2oO93ts) and the 3+ years of hand-wringing over some Facebook ads (which nobody can prove swayed the election either way) is a bit of a clown show.
  - deleted 7y ago
    [deleted]
  - jakeinspace 7y ago
    > You do understand I can refer to "the left" and not mean each and every individual who comprises the left, right? Providing such qualifiers shouldn't be necessary. Sure, but in this case I guess you meant a subset (probably a large one I admit) of the "mainstream" media, plus some liberal talk show hosts/comedians. I'd be wary of judging the "left" through that lens, since TV is a product with its own priorities which only align with political ideologies when they're trying to tap into that market. I'll admit that I only have a handful of close friends and family members of the opposing party, but I try to use them as my barometer if I can instead of TV/online media/internet commenters (obviously polling is different and valid when relevant).

allovernow 7y ago

It is plainly foolish to believe that only right wing groups are targeted by this kind of manipulation. Particularly when the goal of KGB like entity is not necessarily to prop up one particular candidate or policy, but to generally sow discord. The fact that propaganda aligns with your views does not mean it isn't propaganda. We are not only particularly vulnerable, but playing right into these actors' hands when we pretend that only one side of our bipolar politics is subject to nefarious influence.

DanTheManPR 7y ago
All evidence I've seen indicates that the right wing engages in this kind of manipulation at a scale much more massive than other political groups.
- take_a_breath 7y ago
  It is possible that third party actors are engaging in this type of activity in-favor of the right without explicit coordination between the two.
- allovernow 7y ago
  How sure are you that those performing these analyses are operating without bias? Also everything I've seen in this style begins with an explicitly right wing group and then looks for connections - but performing the analysis in such a style is unlikely to uncover left leaning efforts because the graph is probably nearly or totally disjoint. It's very easy to conclusively show only one side of the story if no one reputable is looking into the other.
  - raisedbyninjas 7y ago
    Not an exhaustive study, but Jestin Coler got in the fake news clickbait game in 2013. He said that liberal targeted stories never gained viral traction like conservative stories.

m0zg 7y ago

Here's how you know this is a (rather crude) propaganda piece: try to find any mention of any democrats in it.