5 ms·

Apologies for not reading the article, but the key feature of Cambridge Analytica seems to have been that their stuff didn’t appear to work.

macspoofing 6y ago
The key feature of CA is that they were affiliated with the Trump campaign and therefore were made to be the scapegoats for what EVERYONE was doing. And yes, what they were doing specifically was a nothing burger.
cryptoz 6y ago
I have only seen this concept on HN and not elsewhere. Can you explain what you mean? What about CA “didn’t appear to work”? I went researching just now and didn’t find anything online to back up that vague opinion, so what exactly do you mean? There is certainly no way to know to what extent CA content changed voter patterns and actions. I don’t understand how you could be so confident you are right.
- mhh__ 6y ago
  Some people (largely on the left) like to treat Cambridge Analytica as a dark boogey-man that broke politics. This is partly true, however, a lot of hysteria around it is based off taking CA's marketing copy at face value. The Cruz campaign (IIRC) fired them because they were useless.
  - losteric 6y ago
    However, if CA is capable of delivering one should view them as more than “just“ a business... Perhaps CA’s owners found more value in not helping Cruz win?
fsflover 6y ago
Yes, it did work: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22466733 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22466733 Cambridge Analytica were the tip of the iceberg (graphcommons.com)
- specialist 6y ago
  Thanks, I somehow missed this, will read shortly. Meanwhile, one aspect of the 2016 presidential coverage that drives me nuts is the omission that HRC's voter file was stolen and likely used by GOP, Trump, Russia. Meaning they knew exactly who to target. A campaign's voter file is it's Crown Jewels, it's secret sauce. It is the campaign. HRC knew they had a problem in MN, WI, PA. They just couldn't figure out what was going on in time. Plus a zillion other things going on. Again, will read your link soonest. It might help me fill in a few more of the puzzle pieces.
  - xienze 6y ago
    > HRC knew they had a problem in MN, WI, PA. They just couldn't figure out what was going on in time. Yeah, the problem is that they took those states (and it’s MI not MN) for granted as safe blue states (which they had been for decades) and bought into the “Hillary is so far ahead in the polls she doesn’t even think about Trump anymore”[0] hype that they didn’t see the need to campaign there. 0: https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2016/10/23/hillary-clinton-so-far-ahead-in-polls-that-doesnt-even-think-abo/ https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2016/10/23/hillary-clinton-...
    - specialist 6y ago
      That's among the least of my criticisms. But it's easy to criticize. One unintuitive thing I wish was more easily explained: Any given move to gain votes will lose other votes. It's a wicked hard optimization problem.
- macspoofing 6y ago
  This doesn't show it worked. It shows that CA is connected to other similar companies either through a direct relationship or a tortured, barely tenuous connection (the slide on how some employees went to work for other companies in the same space is silly). Regardless, at no point does it attempt to even show that anything that CA did made one lick of a difference or that anything they did was even unprecedented in the space. For example, I don't believe for a second that Democratic campaigns haven't been using similar social media aggregation techniques in present and past elections. I even remember glowing articles written about how the Obama campaign was able to harness social media for purposes of political targeting and messaging. So what are we talking about here? And the entire thing is even more ridiculous in the larger context of how incompetent and disorganized the Trump 2016 campaign was.

macspoofing 6y ago

The key feature of CA is that they were affiliated with the Trump campaign and therefore were made to be the scapegoats for what EVERYONE was doing. And yes, what they were doing specifically was a nothing burger.

cryptoz 6y ago

I have only seen this concept on HN and not elsewhere. Can you explain what you mean? What about CA “didn’t appear to work”? I went researching just now and didn’t find anything online to back up that vague opinion, so what exactly do you mean? There is certainly no way to know to what extent CA content changed voter patterns and actions. I don’t understand how you could be so confident you are right.

mhh__ 6y ago
Some people (largely on the left) like to treat Cambridge Analytica as a dark boogey-man that broke politics. This is partly true, however, a lot of hysteria around it is based off taking CA's marketing copy at face value. The Cruz campaign (IIRC) fired them because they were useless.
- losteric 6y ago
  However, if CA is capable of delivering one should view them as more than “just“ a business... Perhaps CA’s owners found more value in not helping Cruz win?

fsflover 6y ago

Yes, it did work: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22466733 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22466733 Cambridge Analytica were the tip of the iceberg (graphcommons.com)

specialist 6y ago
Thanks, I somehow missed this, will read shortly. Meanwhile, one aspect of the 2016 presidential coverage that drives me nuts is the omission that HRC's voter file was stolen and likely used by GOP, Trump, Russia. Meaning they knew exactly who to target. A campaign's voter file is it's Crown Jewels, it's secret sauce. It is the campaign. HRC knew they had a problem in MN, WI, PA. They just couldn't figure out what was going on in time. Plus a zillion other things going on. Again, will read your link soonest. It might help me fill in a few more of the puzzle pieces.
- xienze 6y ago
  > HRC knew they had a problem in MN, WI, PA. They just couldn't figure out what was going on in time. Yeah, the problem is that they took those states (and it’s MI not MN) for granted as safe blue states (which they had been for decades) and bought into the “Hillary is so far ahead in the polls she doesn’t even think about Trump anymore”[0] hype that they didn’t see the need to campaign there. 0: https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2016/10/23/hillary-clinton-so-far-ahead-in-polls-that-doesnt-even-think-abo/ https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2016/10/23/hillary-clinton-...
  - specialist 6y ago
    That's among the least of my criticisms. But it's easy to criticize. One unintuitive thing I wish was more easily explained: Any given move to gain votes will lose other votes. It's a wicked hard optimization problem.
macspoofing 6y ago
This doesn't show it worked. It shows that CA is connected to other similar companies either through a direct relationship or a tortured, barely tenuous connection (the slide on how some employees went to work for other companies in the same space is silly). Regardless, at no point does it attempt to even show that anything that CA did made one lick of a difference or that anything they did was even unprecedented in the space. For example, I don't believe for a second that Democratic campaigns haven't been using similar social media aggregation techniques in present and past elections. I even remember glowing articles written about how the Obama campaign was able to harness social media for purposes of political targeting and messaging. So what are we talking about here? And the entire thing is even more ridiculous in the larger context of how incompetent and disorganized the Trump 2016 campaign was.