Facebook Under Pressure as EU, US Urge Probes of Data Practices (reuters.com) 68
Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg faced calls on Monday from U.S. and European lawmakers to explain how a consultancy that worked on President Donald Trump's election campaign gained access to data on 50 million Facebook users. From a report: Facebook's shares fell more than 7 percent, wiping around $40 billion off its market value, set for their biggest drop since September 2012, as investors worried that new legislation could damage the company's lucrative advertising business. "The lid is being opened on the black box of Facebook's data practices, and the picture is not pretty," said Frank Pasquale, a University of Maryland law professor who has written about Silicon Valley's use of data. Lawmakers in the United States, Britain and Europe have called for investigations into media reports that political analytics firm Cambridge Analytica had harvested the private data on more than 50 million Facebook users to support Trump's 2016 presidential election campaign. Further reading: An undercover investigation by Channel 4 News reveals how Cambridge Analytica secretly campaigns in elections across the world. Bosses were filmed talking about using bribes, ex-spies, fake IDs and sex workers.
DUH (Score:5, Insightful)
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https://ijr.com/2018/03/107708... [ijr.com]
Re: DUH (Score:4, Informative)
"In a Sunday tweet thread, Carol Davidson, former director of integration and media analytics for Obama for America, said the 2012 campaign led Facebook to “suck out the whole social graph” and target potential voters. They would then use that data to do things like append their email lists.
When Facebook found out what they were doing, they were “surprised,” she said. But she also claimed they didn’t stop them once they found out" https://ijr.com/2018/03/107708... [ijr.com]
Re: DUH (Score:1)
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It's amazing how quickly a post with a bunch of links gets modded to oblivion with "Informative" as the tag.
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But in your defence this is a relevant case and does not deserve to be modded down (at least in my opinion). It's a perfectly legal practise and in fact facebook's business model. Like the threat starter pointed out, what do people expect from a company that turns their users into a commodity that is to be
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And these:
https://www.cnn.com/2012/11/07... [cnn.com]
https://www.technologyreview.c... [technologyreview.com]
https://www.washingtonpost.com... [washingtonpost.com]
http://swampland.time.com/2012... [time.com]
They BRAGGED about doing the same things (and worse) than what they're accusing Cambridge of doing.
Re: DUH (Score:4, Interesting)
There's at least one big difference (besides the biggest difference which is that what the Obama data team did was nothing like what Trump's Cambridge Analytica team did, but let's put that aside for now). The people who were on Obama's data team were American citizens or were authorized to work in the US. Cambridge Analytica had a team made up primarily of foreign nationals who did not have US visas, green cards or work permits.
And, there is a law against that. Foreign nationals without green cards cannot work on US election campaigns even if they are volunteers.
https://www.fec.gov/updates/fo... [fec.gov]
https://www.theguardian.com/uk... [theguardian.com]
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Yeah, it is.
That opinion piece is by the famous Dick Morris, of Fox New/Hannity renown. You will notice he doesn't provide any citations or evidence. Just his assertions.
Better read that article more closely.
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What law prohibits hiring a foreign worker for a campaign? Because the FEC is quite explicit [fec.gov] and while a foreign national cannot contribute money or tangible assets, they can work for a campaign.
And you do realize that Dick Morris [wikipedia.org] was one of the most powerful men in the first Clinton term, and directed Clinton's 1996 re-election campaign until he we caught letting a prostitute listen in on Presidential phone calls. But I guess because he goes on Fox every once in a while he's a bad guy?
From the article ab
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Oh... So since someone else did some shady shit in the past it's ok for everyone who comes after to do the same shady shit? The United States has the president it deserves. A total fucking moron to lead the millions of loyal morons and agitate the other morons.
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I'm sorry I didn't respond to you earlier. I was too busy following the recent developments in the story. It appears that FEC violations would be the least of Cambridge Analytica's problems, considering there is now video tape of their CEO confessing to bribery, blackmail and using Ukranian prostitutes for purposes of blackmail (human trafficking). And not just once, but admitting on camera that they have a "history" of doing this. Did I mention
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I'm sorry old friend, but that's just not true. If you read through that link to the FEC, you'll see that there can't be any foreign workers in a "decision-making" capacity or "participating" in decision making.
Here's the language:
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I'm sorry old friend, but that's just not true. If you read through that link to the FEC, you'll see that there can't be any foreign workers in a "decision-making" capacity or "participating" in decision making.
So a data collection agency is now making decisions? I guess then you also hold Hillary Clinton and the DNC as 100% guilty via their hiring of Christopher Steele!
Now (and pay attention here, Rooster, because I see your eyes starting to glaze over), members of the Cambridge Analytica staff have already snitched that CA was give legal guidance by their own lawyers warning them not to have foreign nationals in key positions and that advice was ignored and laws have been broken. This isn't me saying this, it's Cambridge Analytica legal counsel.
Gee, I wonder why? Perhaps it's easier to avoid the entire thing than try to do the legal amount without running into the issue we have here?
But clearly, if you think CA was an issue - then the hiring of Christopher Steele - a British Citizen - was clearly an issue for you too, correct?
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Yes, they participate in telling the Trump campaign who to target. If they were just providing data to the campaign, it would be OK.
No, see above.
So, what you're saying is that you believe Cambridge Analytica
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True, and the media praised him for his tech savvy, but Trump did the same for the wrong reasons.
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I haven't searched yet but I seem to remember Slashdot even praising Obama's data analytics which did far more than what they are criticizing Cambridge for doing.
Re: DUH (Score:4, Informative)
Well that search didn't take long...
Behold, "The Data Crunching Prowess of Barack Obama"
https://politics.slashdot.org/... [slashdot.org]
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" If they can't find some useful and almost convincing pro-tyranny posts to mod up to +5 and keep them there, we can expect this story to disappear shortly and a re-write to show up tomorrow."
The re-write just hit the front page...
Re: DUH (Score:5, Informative)
It was bragged, because it was used to get people excited about the candidate, and have them go out and vote for him.
What this was using the data to find people insecurities, and setup information to hate the other guy, and have people not vote, or be so polarized that they will be afraid to choose the lesser evil.
Like all technology there are lines to be crossed, because you can use technology for good or bad.
In this election, I didn't find too many people who were wild for Trump, but they just hated Hillary more. And in many coverage when asked why they hate Clinton, they sometimes pointed to a fake news article they read on Facebook.
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There are many people who just want to use technology and are actively disinterested in how it works. I call this "willful ignorance." They lack the background to see how data mining could be a problem. As long as most of our legislators and regulators remain willfully ignorant, there will be no meaningful safeguards on privacy.
It's sleazy to frame this is "here is how Trump cheated at the election" because AFAIK anyone could have and would have done the same thing. But if that's what it takes to get politi
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If you wanted to say malfeasance, fraud, bribery, perversion of office, and being a prick, I'd be right with you, but the constitution defines treason, and until Russia is defined as an official enemy then treason isn't even possible.
Section 3. Treason against the United States, shall consist only in levying war against them, or in adhering to their enemies, giving them aid and comfort. No person shall be convicted of treason unless on the testimony of two witnesses to the same overt act, or on confession in open court.
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Better to be the kingmaker than the king, and if you control the information that the kingmaker's need ...
Cambridge Analytics are dead. They were only effective whilst they remained hidden. They may well restructure, fold or shift assets, but by the time they are back someone else will be sucking from Facebook's teat and all the while Facebook can say 'It wasn't us who meddled'.
It's almost beyond political power. Win or lose, all parties end up using Facebook data.
Something about 'the spice must flow' and '
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That is the entire purpose of a propaganda campaign. They've already moved on to the next piece of propaganda before the last one can be refuted.
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There's no particular sign that this particular piece of information *can* honestly be refuted. If you have reason to believe otherwise, I'd like to know what it is.
Cambridge Analytica, hookers & blow (Score:5, Informative)
This just came across the transom. Apparently, Cambridge Analytica was doing more than just data mining for the Trump campaign.
https://boingboing.net/2018/03... [boingboing.net]
https://www.channel4.com/news/... [channel4.com]
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A couple of days ago it was a back and forth about whether Cambridge Analytica used malware for a data breach or it was simply an extension of Facebook's heavy data collection business, and how that intersects with the differences in data protection laws in Europe versus the United States. Now it looks like they are a straight up criminal enterprise, using bribery and honeypots with prostitutes. Doesn't even take any connection with the Russians for the excrement to be colliding wit
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It seems like as soon as one of these stories starts to break, all the bad guys can't help themselves but blurt out their crimes. It's like the part of the James Bond movie where the villain lays out his whole evil plan because he thinks he's gotten away with it and feels some twisted need for James Bond's approval or something.
I didn't see it mentioned in the Channel 4 story, but apparently over the past 48 hours there were superhuman efforts undertaken by Cambridge Analytica to kee
This will be fun (Score:1)
From the Channel 4 link.
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When the Obama campaign does it, it's a great victory with friends, but when Trump's campaign does it, it's a crime. Have you ever looked in the mirror and saw a dirty racist? You should try mirrors.
1). They're not _quite_ the same; afaik, the Obama campaign used social media to target people with advertising, but the Trump campaign appears to have used it to deliberately subvert the demographic process by feeding targets with fake news,
2). You recall that the Republicans were not exactly keen on Trump either? So some how he managed to defeat all the other Republican candidates (likely using same techniques), and now the result is?.... likely pretty bad for the entire Republican party for at least on