
Facebook sues analytics firm Rankwave over data misuse - JumpCrisscross
https://techcrunch.com/2019/05/10/facebook-rankwave-lawsuit/
======
inflatableDodo
My prediction after the Cambridge Analytica scandal broke is that it would
lead to an explosion in wealthy people who want to play at noopolitics.

I suspect they have dozens of CA's on their hands currently. At the very
least, if not hundreds.

The key takeaway that some people will have had from Cambridge Analytica, is
not 'they got caught, don't do this', but rather 'they were largely successful
and incredibly cheap'.

The upshot from having lots of players in this space however, is not one of
greater control by insidious power addicts, but rather a loss of control as
the players compete for attention and influence. So, chaos in the news and the
elimination of any kind of consistent narrative from on high. I think we have
been experiencing this for a while now. In some ways it is almost an
improvement.

~~~
arendtio
My key takeaway of Cambridge Analytica was that the advertising industry is a
lot more harmful than I thought. I always thought, that there is no real
problem when some people influence/manipulate other people on what they spend
their money on.

But now we see that those same instruments can be used to not only change
shopping decisions but also democratic decisions, which is not okay in my
opinion and should be prosecuted and be punished with severe penalties.

Otherwise, the whole point of democracy (one human, one vote) is useless, as
the rich can simply buy ads to influence enough people to follow their goals.

~~~
dqybh
>Otherwise, the whole point of democracy (one human, one vote) is useless, as
the rich can simply buy ads to influence enough people to follow their goals.

As they've always done through the media? The hardest thing to swallow, for
some people, is that democracy is deeply flawed, and these things openly show
it. Until now they've been free to ignore it.

~~~
TelmoMenezes
> As they've always done through the media? The hardest thing to swallow, for
> some people, is that these things show very openly how democracy is deeply
> flawed.

If you study a bit of History, or look beyond the western world, you will see
how terrible the alternatives are. And you will see that democracy is
something worth fighting for. Democracy is not flawed, it is hard. We have to
fight for it, and the next generations will have to fight for it, and so on.
It's real life.

I haven't resigned myself to living in a Black Mirror episode.

~~~
syshum
Democracy is very very flawed, that is why the US is not a democracy, why at
every level of government there are checks put in place to put in road blocks
to democracy.

And why it is so extremely dangerous that people are trying to destroy those
checks and institute a direct democracy with things like the national popular
vote.

~~~
HeWhoLurksLate
I believe you have terms misconstrued.

What we in the US have is a representative democracy / republic that is also
rather decentralized federation (states and state's rights) as well.

 _The US is a democracy._ 🇺🇸

~~~
ratsmack
I believe we, the US, is a Constitutional Republic, and we vote
Democratically.

~~~
syshum
The original design of the government was to have only 1/2 of 1 branch of
government Democratically Elected. That being the House

The Senate was appointed by State Legislatures, this was changed with the 17th
Amendment

The President is Chosen by Electorial College not a democratic vote (which I
support BTW)

The Judicial Branch is Appointed for Life.

~~~
ratsmack
The Electoral College is one of the most significant aspects of our electoral
system and hopefully will never be supplanted by popular vote.

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melling
Michael Lewis (Moneyball, Big Short) interviewed Alex Kogan:

[https://atrpodcast.com/episodes/the-alex-kogan-
experience-s1...](https://atrpodcast.com/episodes/the-alex-kogan-
experience-s1!d20f3)

After listening to this, it sounds like Cambridge Analytica was overblown, in
the sense that the information wasn’t as useful as claimed.

~~~
JumpCrisscross
> _it sounds like Cambridge Analytica was overblown, in the sense that the
> information wasn’t as useful as claimed_

The consequences of the breach were overblown. Its scale and depth, however,
were not.

~~~
e40
The "overblown" part refers solely to the predictive powers of the dataset.

------
busymom0
Facebook is all words but no actions. Their actions speak otherwise. This
lawsuit is just a PR stunt for them to claim they did something so they have
something to reply with at the next senate hearing.

My problem in this whole data privacy debate is things like "shadow profiles"
where even though I don't have Facebook, they still have information on me
because one of my friends decided to share their entire contacts list with
facebook and thus facebook now knows my details too even though I never
consented to my details being shared.

Another problem I have with this privacy debate is the lack of technological
awareness in the politicians. I watched the US senate hearing last year with
Mark Zuckerberg and was absolutely shocked at how clueless the members in
office were. It was shameful. Mark also got away with giving almost useless
answers and the senators didn't grill him much on more important issues.

At this point, I am really curious whether our data is even valuable in the
"ad market" considering everything gets leaked anyway. So if something is
getting so easily available to these ad companies by simply "misusing" the
service, wouldn't the value of the data start going down? I remember a few
months ago, there was an article on how the data per use was valued at around
$12 (not sure if I am remembering right). I wonder if that value goes down
over time because of these so claimed "breaches".

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tomohawk
Cambridge Analytica was not the 1st time this was done.

[https://www.theguardian.com/world/2012/feb/17/obama-
digital-...](https://www.theguardian.com/world/2012/feb/17/obama-digital-data-
machine-facebook-election)

~~~
colordrops
Also I'm curious why Correct the Record and Share Blue are nearly complete
ignored when they did the exact same thing at the exact same time.

~~~
EasyTiger_
They took over the main politics subreddit in 2016, one of the worst things
I’ve seen happen online. Crickets.

~~~
fareesh
By all accounts it seems like there was a major reshuffling that took place on
the night of the Democratic National Convention.

The entire mood of the subreddit changed overnight from posts that vilified
Sec. Clinton to posts that glorified her - it was completely crazy. I read
that subreddit quite frequently during US election season and the difference
was staggering. People dismiss it as "everyone rallied behind the nominee" \-
as someone who was there practically every day. It definitely wasn't that.
There is definitely something shady going on with that subreddit in
particular.

Incidentally, the TV news media was also seemingly doing a blackout of the
fairly heated protests taking place outside the building where all the
disappointed Bernie folks were trying to get inside. I only found out of them
much later from online videos.

~~~
EasyTiger_
Yeah I used to enjoy the sub too, some interesting discussions that were
usually polite. You are 100% correct it was overnight, there was nothing
organic about that.

------
hetspookjee
What always amazed me about Cambridge Analytica is that the media onslaught
only started almost a year (cant reclal excactly but a long time) after the
presentation was shared online, it already garnered quite some views when I
saw i for the first time. I remembered watching the entire presentation and
was amazed by the depth of it all, but amazed as well how almost noone else
seemed to care about the presentation.

I couldn't find any news agencies reporting on it whatsoever and I didn't
understand why. I still have a hard time to believe that it took so long for
the media attention to catch on.

~~~
sonnyblarney
This is about narratives.

Tons of facts are out there in the wild, waiting to make enough noise that
they hit the mainstream press, when they pick up each others stories and it
goes global.

A single tweet from way back can do this.

This is why the press has so much power, ultimately, they decide where 1
billion eyeballs will be pointed (and where they won't).

For this reason I check the headlines from a lot of different sources; it's
amazing what doesn't get picked up.

------
yters
Didn't something similar happen with Obama's campaign and social media? I
don't remember any sort of outcry in that case.

------
return1
Facebook has probably had a lot of those, but they don't matter if they are
not related to specific US political campaigns.

~~~
matt4077
Are you sure? I recently saw a non-political case from South Korea get some
coverage, including on TechCrunch iirc.

~~~
return1
and i m pretty sure it will be forgotten in a week

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SeriousM
To be honest, "sending a message to the developers that we're enforcing our
policies" is equally too late as self advertisement as they change the rules
ever so often as they like if it sounds good to them. Fuck Facebook, you can
live without the so called "social" media circle.

------
temp99990
Did anyone else find it ironic there’s a scene in the Netflix AOC documentary
where she’s crowded around a computer with her boyfriend scrolling through
Google Ad spend targeting specific demographics and age groups?

~~~
Terretta
Should you _not_ target your Google Ad spending?

~~~
temp99990
I don’t think so, but isn’t the entire Cambridge Analytica debacle an issue of
using Facebook data to target political ads to users based on demographic
information?

~~~
Eleopteryx
I don't believe Google sells your psychological profile to third parties
seeking to target ads. Google might be able to ascertain my political leanings
based on my behavior, and other parties may be able to target ads toward
people with my political leanings, but Google never directly gives them actual
knowledge regarding my existence.

~~~
temp99990
Do you actually believe the profiles CA created were accurate or much more
insightful over whatever demographic data FB or Goog let you target with?

I did a very similar project for a CS/stats class in 2011. They did some basic
k-means clustering on likes and basic sentiment analysis on posts.

~~~
Eleopteryx
>Do you actually believe the profiles CA created were accurate or much more
insightful over whatever demographic data FB or Goog let you target with?

Multiple political campaigns over the past several years clearly thought
Cambridge Analytica's data/services were more valuable, or uniquely valuable,
compared to services like Facebook or Google. If Google or Facebook were
equally suited to the same purposes, I imagine they would have simply used
Google or Facebook.

~~~
darkpuma
Many customers keep the tarot card shop down the street in business too.

Any marketing professional worth his salt employs the full force of his
persuasive skill against his own customers/employers. A marketing firm does
not merely try to convince you to buy coca-cola. They also try to convince The
Coca-Cola Company that they are effective at convincing you to buy Coca-Cola.

The question anybody looking to hire an advertising firm _should_ ask
themselves is whether skill at the later implies skill at the former. It
_could_ be the case that CA is good at persuading political campaigns, but bad
at persuading voters. One reason to believe there might be a discrepancy here
is because the persuasion tech used by CA in both cases is likely totally
different. Which is to say, CA likely did not employ their facebook profiling
tech against political campaigns to persuade those campaigns to buy their
services. Rather, they probably used more traditional sales tactics (perhaps
as simple as lying about the efficacy of their facebook profiling tech.)

~~~
Eleopteryx
>Many customers keep the tarot card shop down the street in business too.

Right, because there's literally no alternative to fortune-telling magic but
more kinds of fortune-telling magic. If there were already a conceptually
different prediction service with useful and measurable accuracy, the tarot
card place would need to have superior accuracy or some other hook, otherwise
they'd go out of business. Ultimately the differences would be measurable and
demonstrable.

Marketing team could be selling snake oil, I get it, but snake oil only exists
where a real, functioning product doesn't, otherwise there'd be results to
compare.

~~~
darkpuma
> _" but snake oil only exists where a real, functioning product doesn't"_

I have no idea where you could have gotten that impression. Snake oil can
exist whenever the consumer is unable to distinguish real products from snake
oil. Marketing is absolutely one of the industries in which snake oil abounds,
and there is no reason whatsoever that it doesn't exist in the niche of
political advertising.

------
megous
Interesting what people will sacrifice to see some barely defined number next
to their name, or next to their post in some app.

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kerng
Well, Facebook is going all in. Its said that offensive is the best defense.
But I doubt this will instill any more confidence, rather the opposite - how
any other companies are there that Facebook gave access to data via apps?

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hanniabu
Facebook is suing over data misuse? Does anybody else find this ironic?

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dmitriid
It means tgey are going to have another “horrible year” according to the
media. I.e. revenue up, profits up, investments up etc.

------
jsbaby608
Obama misused Facebook data during the 2008 election. He was lauded as a tech
genius and I saw countless articles about how this was the future of politics.

The only reason Facebook is even bothering to go after these companies is
because they don't want to be responsible for re-electing Trump.

It's the same reason they just banned multiple right-leaning influencers from
their platform.

It's scary to think what kind of stuff politicans will get away with when they
align with FBs politics.

All you need to do is lean left..and you can get away with murder.

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dbg31415
Has to be hundreds of companies in gross violation... wonder how far over the
line these guys were to get sued.

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bryanrasmussen
I had assumed it was Cambridge Analyticas all the way down.

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temp99990
I was reading an interesting Twitter thread on why Trump is spending insane
amounts on ads on FB right now (roughly $500k a week!) with many purposefully
breaking Facebook’s own guidelines on what’s acceptable. Basically the person
was saying Trump is playing a game of chicken with Facebook daring them to
remove them so he can play the victim card and claim bias against
conservatives. And if they don’t take them down then he gets to spread ads
that clearly violate the company’s policy and make them look hypocritical
either way.

~~~
YeahSureWhyNot
what's wrong with him posting ads? not allowed?

~~~
temp99990
The point is he’s buying a ton of ads that purposefully cross Facebook’s own
policy on political ad spend to force them to either take action so he can
claim victim status or keep them up and look like hypocrites.

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ARandomerDude
I'll save you the trouble:

Facebook: We're very sorry. We had no idea they would use our platform this
way. We'll take steps to make sure it never happens again.

Everybody: This is an outrage! Facebook is evil.

Also everybody: I'm bored. I'll check Facebook.

Almost nobody: I stopped using Facebook.

Lawmakers: This is unacceptable!

Also lawmakers: Hey Facebook, here's some ad money for my next campaign.

Shareholders: Oh good, the damage is a known. Stock price is up, this is
great!

7 months from now: _Breaking: Major Privacy Breach at Facebook_

~~~
wybiral
> Almost nobody: I stopped using Facebook.

I can't speak for the general population but I know _plenty_ of people who
have quit FB in recent years (myself included).

~~~
product50
Facebook releases their monthly active numbers with their quarterly earnings.
By all means the numbers have been trending up, even at their massive reach,
despite all the challenges they have been facing.

So looks like you and your friends are not representative of the general
population.

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OrgNet
Did they get this data for free?

