Cambridge Analytica/SCL

Politics and religion
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Background info

So, Facebook has issued a statement about their involvement with Cambridge Analytica:

Protecting people’s information is at the heart of everything we do, and we require the same from people who operate apps on Facebook. In 2015, we learned that a psychology professor at the University of Cambridge named Dr. Aleksandr Kogan lied to us and violated our Platform Policies by passing data from an app that was using Facebook Login to SCL/Cambridge Analytica, a firm that does political, government and military work around the globe. He also passed that data to Christopher Wylie of Eunoia Technologies, Inc.

Like all app developers, Kogan requested and gained access to information from people after they chose to download his app. His app, “thisisyourdigitallife,” offered a personality prediction, and billed itself on Facebook as “a research app used by psychologists.” Approximately 270,000 people downloaded the app. In so doing, they gave their consent for Kogan to access information such as the city they set on their profile, or content they had liked, as well as more limited information about friends who had their privacy settings set to allow it.

Although Kogan gained access to this information in a legitimate way and through the proper channels that governed all developers on Facebook at that time, he did not subsequently abide by our rules. By passing information on to a third party, including SCL/Cambridge Analytica and Christopher Wylie of Eunoia Technologies, he violated our platform policies. When we learned of this violation in 2015, we removed his app from Facebook and demanded certifications from Kogan and all parties he had given data to that the information had been destroyed. Cambridge Analytica, Kogan and Wylie all certified to us that they destroyed the data.

This seems to be in response to new reporting from The NY Times and others:

While the Facebook statement indicates data from less than 300,000 people is involved, the article claims 50 million, just a wee bit of a difference.

I urge people to read the Guardian article, because it is a fascinating read and explains how this data was used to microtarget ads and influence voters, not just for Brexit, but here in the US. From the Times article:

Under the guidance of Brad Parscale, Mr. Trump’s digital director in 2016 and now the campaign manager for his 2020 re-election effort, Cambridge performed a variety of services, former campaign officials said. That included designing target audiences for digital ads and fund-raising appeals, modeling voter turnout, buying $5 million in television ads and determining where Mr. Trump should travel to best drum up support.

I don’t think we have heard nearly enough about this side of the story. They used that Facebook data to identify susceptible individuals in key districts and served up individualized ads to them to influence them. I think this is what swung the election for Trump. And it should be getting much more attention.

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In regards to the Lukoil meeting in 2014, there’s another Times article where Wylie describes being perplexed that the guy they met with kept asking about “political targeting in America”

The thing is, people keep saying that no votes were changed as a result of Russian efforts to hack the election. But I don’t think they were after changing physical votes, but changing votes before they were cast or shifting the probability that individuals would vote/not vote. I think those other hacks may have been for voter registration data, which is why the election integrity (hah) commission’s request for voter registration info a while back was so alarming.

This kind of problem isn’t going away. Next time it might not be Facebook and CA. Our current system of elections allows manipulating small numbers of voters to achieve big results. It’s a problem.

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We need to stop talking about “next time”. It’s NOW, our next national and highly consequential election is only half a year away! Now is their prime time to identify vulnerable targets and start preparing the way with communication.

5

Fair, I simply meant this isn’t a one and done problem.

6

Cambridge Analytica are done, Channel 4 ran an expose and filmed the CEO saying everything you’ve ever thought, and worst. Lots of dirt on Trump too.

Watch this space.

7

I’d like to believe that, but I sincerely doubt it. They have very powerful friends.

8

The CEO was offering to bring in Ukranian prostitutes to entrap rival politicians, paying bribes etc. Blatant FCPA violations on this at the bare minimum.

9

If this resulted in the downfall of the Mercers I would be so happy. Though I’m not holding my breath (billions of dollars buys you lots of leeway.)

10

It’s a 3 parter, the US is tomorrow.

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It’s already really bad. Like way worse than I could have imagined. I’d be rolling my eyes if the CEO of a data firm was acting like this in a bond spy thriller.

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Think of it like this. If the general populace is about 1% psychopath, and top corporate leadership about 3%, and prisons about 15%, what percent would you imagine among top politicians? (2013 article)

Psychopathy in 2016 candidates (spoiler: Trump ranks just between Hitler and Idi Amin, Hillary
only behind 12% between Napoleon and Churchill)

13

This looks like collusion or whatever it is called

14

They knew about this for how long and it wasn’t until it was exposed that they sent their lawyers in. Basically everything you need to know about Facebook’s behavior.

15

Up until recently I was convinced the whole Cambridge Analytica thing was overblown and they were just a shitty facebook ad company overhyping how good their ads were.

Those recorded conversations are amazing. They talk about how they write the speeches for dictators. How they sometimes don’t even need to do leg work to actually honey-trap a politician into a real scandal with a prostitute because faking the video works well enough if you can spread it through secret third parties. How they target people’s deepest fears and hype them up and how the facts are completely irrelevant. We are in bond villain territory here. WTF is going on.

16

What kind of spooky dystopian title is "Information Commissioner? That’s worse than “Comptroller” or “Synergy Facilitator”…

17

We did it.

Another Republican tweeted about something being ‘deeply concerning’ while doing absolutely nothing about it.

18

The quicker the house investigation shuts down, the less damage it can do to any actual investigations. Good riddance.

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So disturbed that it only took 2 years of knowing about it to 'fess up.

20

I’m just glad this is finally being talked about. We got more elections coming. I’d like to see a temporary ban on political ads on social media until we can really understand the magnitude of what they have done.