
The Cambridge Analytica scandal isn’t a scandal: this is how Facebook works - auxbuss
https://www.independent.co.uk/voices/camridge-analytica-scandal-how-facebook-works-harvesting-data-politics-trump-brexit-a8264051.html
======
fny
This is a scandal, and we should not blur lines here.

Facebook engages in surveillance capitalism. Cambridge Analytica engages in
Orwellian practices of deliberate and targeted mass manipulation, actively
deceiving users from the outset about it's intentions, and using lies as a
means to an end.

From the Facebook report on the reason CA was suspended:

> 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.” [0]

Cambridge Analytica's CEO also espouses complete deceit as a strategy core
strategy for using data to manipulate outcomes and advocates for using
"behaviorally targeted language" to create an outcome. Like say you have a
"private beach." If you really want to keep people out, why not say "sharks
sighted" instead?

His example, not mine: [https://imgur.com/a/q1zYP](https://imgur.com/a/q1zYP),
[https://youtu.be/n8Dd5aVXLCc](https://youtu.be/n8Dd5aVXLCc),
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6bG5ps5KdDo](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6bG5ps5KdDo)

The scandals for me are two fold. First, we have a data repository (Facebook)
that's powerful enough to assist in this type of weaponized manipulation
that's entirely unprotected. Even if you think Facebook is some type of
benevolent overlord that you trust with your data, it's a scandal that nothing
has stopped any number of third-parties from doing what Cambridge Analytica
did.

Second, we have a sitting president who actively made use of these "targeted
information strategies" during his election in a blatantly unethical fashion.
(For the record, so did Ted Cruz.) I for a long time laughed off the Antifa
crowd as being an overreaction to Trump, but it's now blatantly clear to me
that he deliberately used authoritarian tactics to win the election.

~~~
AndyMcConachie
CA sound like a bunch of scumbags and I'm glad people are shining light on
these kinds of activities. However, I'm not convinced what they did was really
all that new or interesting. This is our modern world and it's terrifying.
Call it marketing, propaganda, fake news or disinformation, we're being
manipulated constantly by numerous unattributable actors.

The more interesting question to me is why is CA being called out for it? I'm
sure there are numerous groups doing this now both privately and funded
directly by states. That doesn't make it right, but it changes the question
to; What's special about CA?

I've been reading a biography of Allen Dulles called the Devil's Chessboard.
Dulles founded the CIA and setup the agency as a prime purveyor of
disinformation campaigns. These kinds of Machiavellian tactics likely go back
further than The Prince himself. The only thing new here is the level of
amplification modern data technology provides, but this is not limited to CA.

~~~
colordrops
> The more interesting question to me is why is CA being called out for it?

I mentioned this in another thread and got immediately downvoted, which I
predicted would happen. I will add more context here to perhaps avoid that.
What I said was:

"What changed is that an attack vector has been found to take out Cambridge
Analytica. The Democrats are in full political warfare with the Trump regime,
and this is just another salvo."

To be clear, I am not a Trump supporter, and identify as a far-left
progressive, so I'm only stating what I see to be happening, and not attacking
the Democrats. Secondly, I used to work at a gaming company that was the
largest 3rd party integration with Facebook, and saw that this type of data
leakage has been the norm and not the exception for at least 8 years.

Trump has been under a (mostly deserved) multi-pronged attack by various left-
wing media, political, corporate, and voter organizations since he got into
office. What is happening is that many, if not most, upwellings of public
sentiment against his presidency are actually engineered through the very same
sorts of PR firms as Cambridge Analytical, even though most people think the
that it's organic. There is obviously organic disgust for Trump, but it's
being fed and amplified and warped and guided using the same social media
techniques that Cambridge Analytica uses, which is ironic.

~~~
mhneu
There's just a ton more money on the right - the Koch network and GOP
billionaire donors dwarf the spending by progressives.

So it's a lot easier for right-wing purchased media and social media and
purchased think tanks (Cato/Koch) and foundations (Bradley, DeVos) and right-
wing news outlets to spread propaganda. Because they have more money to spend.

So I think rightfully, people feel that the bigger threat is from the right.
It's not a coincidence that CA was heavily funded by a GOP billionaire who
wants to damage gov't services to cut his own taxes (Mercer is in an $8B
dispute with the IRS).

I think the real problem is what Zeynep Tufeksi has been writing about:
_informed_ consent. Even if some tiny print says it's ok in a click-contract
where they have a majority of the negotiating power, Facebook is releasing
data on its uses without their informed consent. That's what we as a society
need to re-evaluate.

~~~
skookumchuck
> There's just a ton more money on the right - the Koch network and GOP
> billionaire donors dwarf the spending by progressives.

Clinton heavily outspent Trump in the last election.

"Clinton's unsuccessful campaign ($768 million in spending) outspent Trump's
successful one ($398 million) by nearly 2 to 1. The Democratic National
Committee and left-leaning outside groups also outspent their Republican
counterparts by considerable margins."

[https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2017/04/14/someb...](https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2017/04/14/somebody-
just-put-a-price-tag-on-the-2016-election-its-a-doozy)

~~~
ejstronge
Comparing the campaign spending does not capture the (vast) amounts of money
spent by PACs. Indeed, one would expect Democrats to have more small-money,
campaign donors, as opposed to large-dollar PAC donors.

I'm not satisfied with the off-hand dismissal of outside spending from the
linked article. Since 2010, this has (arguably) been the more interesting area
to scrutinize, and deserves more than a sentence.

~~~
skookumchuck
I also recall the heavy domination of social media like Reddit by Clinton
supporters. CNN was solidly in the Clinton advocacy camp, too. Despite all
that, she still had to manipulate the DNC party rules to get the nomination.
Trump was nominated despite the rather intense opposition from the GOP
establishment.

The polls all predicted an easy coast to victory for Clinton. Even Trump on
election night appeared shocked that he won, and seemed to have made no plans
in case he won.

How do you reconcile that with the claim that the Trump supporters vastly
outspent the Clinton supporters? Do you have any figures?

~~~
ejstronge
I tried not to discuss my political views in my comment - I'm sorry if you
feel that I lent support to one candidate or the other.

> Despite all that, she still had to manipulate the DNC party rules to get the
> nomination

I don't think this is true. Irrespective of whether there was impropriety at
any particular election, there was no way Clinton would have lost the
nomination by the time that Sanders was in his stride. The superdelegates all
but assured this.

Incidentally, the Sanders campaign went from decrying the presence of
superdelegates to courting them - they may be an unreasonable mechanism for
elections, but both groups tried to use them to their advantage.

> claim that the Trump supporters vastly outspent the Clinton supporters

I made no such claim. I suspect that it's true, but my point is that looking
at campaign donations (and Reddit activity) highlights the activity of low-
dollar donors.

Finally, to put into perspective the numbers from the article you cited, it
seems that PACs spent 4 billion USD (across all races) in 2016[1] - around
four times the spending of the two presidential campaigns.

It seems complicated to total super-PAC spending. Many websites state that
there was more money supporting Clinton/Democrats, but this may ignore
Republican PACs that do not declare a party preference[2].

[1] [https://www.fec.gov/updates/statistical-summary-24-month-
cam...](https://www.fec.gov/updates/statistical-summary-24-month-campaign-
activity-2015-2016-election-cycle/)

[2]
[https://www.opensecrets.org/outsidespending/summ.php?cycle=2...](https://www.opensecrets.org/outsidespending/summ.php?cycle=2016&disp=O&type=S&chrt=D)

~~~
skookumchuck
> I don't think this is true.

Donna Brazile (Chairman of the DNC) wrote a book about it.

[https://www.amazon.com/Hacks-Inside-Break-ins-Breakdowns-
Don...](https://www.amazon.com/Hacks-Inside-Break-ins-Breakdowns-
Donald/dp/0316478512/)

------
mattmcknight
Is it really that different from the 2012 campaign?

"But the Obama team had a solution in place: a Facebook application that will
transform the way campaigns are conducted in the future. For supporters, the
app appeared to be just another way to digitally connect to the campaign....
That’s because the more than 1 million Obama backers who signed up for the app
gave the campaign permission to look at their Facebook friend lists. In an
instant, the campaign had a way to see the hidden young voters. Roughly 85% of
those without a listed phone number could be found in the uploaded friend
lists....in those final weeks of the campaign, the team blitzed the supporters
who had signed up for the app with requests to share specific online content
with specific friends simply by clicking a button."

[http://swampland.time.com/2012/11/20/friended-how-the-
obama-...](http://swampland.time.com/2012/11/20/friended-how-the-obama-
campaign-connected-with-young-voters/)

~~~
fny
This is completely different. Cambridge Analytica deliberately lied and
deceived users about the intention of the application they created to harvest
information about users:

> 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.” [0]

Cambridge Analytica is also in the business of using manipulation and
psychological techniques to convince users of an outcome. And this isn't
something I'm making up, the CEO of Cambridge Analytica peddles this as the
potential of his platform:
[https://youtu.be/n8Dd5aVXLCc](https://youtu.be/n8Dd5aVXLCc)

The most damning aspect is his naked promotion of misinformation under the
newspeak of "Behavioral Communication" where he suggests comparing the
effectiveness of using "Private Beach" vs "Sharks Sighted" as a deterrent.[1]

He also continued to revel in his company's ability to manipulate after the
election.[2]

[0]: [https://newsroom.fb.com/news/2018/03/suspending-cambridge-
an...](https://newsroom.fb.com/news/2018/03/suspending-cambridge-analytica/)

[1]:
[https://youtu.be/n8Dd5aVXLCc?t=1m45s](https://youtu.be/n8Dd5aVXLCc?t=1m45s)

[2]:
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6bG5ps5KdDo](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6bG5ps5KdDo)

~~~
mattmcknight
The application is different, but not 'completely different". The use of
friend lists harvested from an application to target ads was not known by
users. Much of political campaigning, and advertising in general, is exactly
as you describe, "using manipulation and psychological techniques to
convince".

I would agree with you that the purpose of the application was deceptive, but
don't most applications that use Facebook logins attempt to monetize this
data?

~~~
fny
This is political weaponization of data and information for the purpose of
putting an individual in power. It's not me trying to sell you a pug plushie
or get you to use my accounting software.

It's deliberately lying to seed fear, distrust, division, and hate between
citizens. It's deliberate manipulation to create distrust of government
institutions. It's the destruction of civil society and civil discourse for
the purpose of winning an election.

This should not be tolerated of anyone, particularly of our own head of state.

~~~
StanislavPetrov
The problem here, as is the root of almost all the problems we face in society
isn't Cambridge Analytica. The problem is people lack basic critical thinking
skills and the capacity to make good decisions.

> It's deliberate manipulation to create distrust of government institutions.

Nobody with any knowledge of history or good sense trusts any government
institution.

>It's the destruction of civil society and civil discourse for the purpose of
winning an election.

This would require having a civil society filled with civil discourse to start
out with, which we didn't (and don't) have.

The simple, irrefutable truth is that governments and those in other centers
of power have been using propaganda to control feeble minds and society at
large since Woodrow Wilson founded the first official state-run propaganda
machine (the CPI) over a hundred years ago.

Everyone is trying to find a "reason" that people rejected "traditional
American institutions" and the establishment candidate (Hillary Clinton) in
favor of a classless, boorish carnival barker in Donald Trump. They point to
the evil Russians, or the dastardly villains at Cambridge Analytics, because
they don't want to accept that "traditional American institutions" have been
utter garbage for decades. They don't want to accept that many, many Americans
are simply rejecting the status quo. Americans may not be smart or informed
enough to know exactly what is wrong with "the system", but they know its
horribly broken, it doesn't work in their interests, and many of them are
reflexively rejecting that system. They aren't rejecting it because of the
Russians, or because of some Twitter trolls, or some facebook ads - they are
rejecting it because they have seen their standards of living plummet over the
last few decades while those at the upper echelon of society have gotten
fabulously wealthy. They are rejecting it because so many people are one
illness or accident or lost job away from being homeless. They are rejecting
it because they have seen (and continue to see) a race to the bottom for
working people while the "elites" push for open borders and a massive influx
of cheap labor that will make their lives even more difficult.

So keep on crying about the evil Trump and the dastardly Russians, and
whatever other phantoms you invent to explain away the growing national
discontent while keeping your head in the sand about the real problems we
have.

~~~
fny
I don't disagree with you about at all about the ground truth of American
polity. (I have a lot of family that voted for Trump.) From my perspective,
the election sent the right message but through a profoundly dangerous
messenger.

For me, Russia and Cambridge Analytica are not scapegoats: they are other
problems that need to be addressed which are not orthogonal to addressing the
economic inequalities aggravated by the current system.

~~~
nopriorarrests
It worth remembering though, that this messenger was deliberately picked from
the crowd of 16 (!) people during primaries. Voters spoke when they abandoned
Kasich, Jeb and the rest. It's not like they had no choice. They had.

~~~
orangecat
There was an interval of about 3 months where if Cruz, Rubio, and Kasich had
agreed to draw straws and support the winner, Trump could have been stopped
relatively easily. But instead they all assumed Trump could never win, and
thus spent a lot of resources attacking each other and splitting the
traditional Republican vote.

~~~
eadmund
And _that_ was due to two insane factors: first, that we use primaries rather
than caucuses; second, that many of them define the winner as the one with the
most votes.

On the first point, a representative democratic republic really shouldn't be
choosing its candidates by popular vote. A caucus system empowers parties to
moderate & modulate the voices of their voters. As horrifically corrupt as
Clinton, Inc. were in the 2016 election, in general it's a _good_ thing for
party insiders to seek a more electable candidate.

On the second point, it simply makes no sense at all for a 40-30-30 split to
go to the fellow with 40% of the vote. Instant runoff voting or a similar
method would be far preferable to the current way we count votes.

------
gt565k
Watch the mini documentary of the undercover op by channel 4

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mpbeOCKZFfQ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mpbeOCKZFfQ)

This isn't just data mining, it's straight up misinformation, entrapment, and
god knows what else.

~~~
booleanbetrayal
Some additional context via NY Times coverage on the entrapment aspects of
Cambridge Analytica's operating procedures.

[https://www.nytimes.com/2018/03/19/us/cambridge-analytica-
al...](https://www.nytimes.com/2018/03/19/us/cambridge-analytica-alexander-
nix.html)

Note: I tried to post this here, because it seemed worthy of its own thread,
but it was marked as a dupe for some reason -
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16622761](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16622761)

~~~
knuththetruth
Yeah, same. Not sure if it’s the mods or what.

------
ourmandave
Summary below article title:

 _Three key parts of Facebook’s model come into play: gathering data from
people in order to profile them, designing systems that allow that data to be
used to target people, then allowing third parties to use the data and those
targeting systems for their own purposes_

Back in Nov 2017, when the senate was questioning Facebook, Google, and
Twitter about the Russian ads during the election...

 _Burr issued a warning to the sites, saying they are on the front lines of
defense for the security of the country 's future, urging the representatives:
"Don't let nation states disrupt our future."_

I sleep better knowing The Zuck is on the frontline keeping us safe. /s

~~~
HenryBemis
Facebook treats people's volunteered information as goods-for trade. And
business is booming!!

Politics aside, I wonder how this will affect the "Russian intervention in US
and UK politics" search for "truth".

I am also expecting that UK authorities will be paying a visit to "Cambridge
Analytica" and I hope we will find out the truth on what exactly they did for
the UK Referendum, US Elections, and wherever else they "helped people
decide".

Something tells me though that we won't ever be told the truth. E.g. let's say
that there was no Russian interventios to US election and it was all Cambridge
Analytica's doing. With Theresa May driving the attention away from the actual
problems and into a "UK-Russia" debate about the death of a spy, it would NOT
serve her political agenda of smoke-and-mirrors to clear Russia's name (just
theorising - I don't take sides).

Ps: I remember a saying "live by the sword - die by the sword". How do people
expect a spy (who has been uncovered) to die? In his bed on his 90s?

~~~
cryptoz
> let's say that there was no Russian interventios to US election

I know you're posing a hypothetical, but your scenario is impossible. Over a
dozen Russians have already been indicted. Russia was involved. Period.

~~~
talmand
Personally, I'm waiting on the indictments of the US citizens, including high-
level federal employees/politicians that have done the much same thing for
decades in other countries.

~~~
ZeroGravitas
You're in luck. The company this article is talking about was part owned by an
American, and had an American high-level federal employeee as Vice President
and their CEO has just been captured on tape talking about having done much
the same thing in several other countries. Maybe you'll get your wish.

------
leggomylibro
Listening to Facebook is starting to feel like listening to an arms dealer who
wants to sound remorseful.

Well what did you _think_ the very targeted things that you're selling to
anyone would be used for?

~~~
jebeng
I find it so hard to believe that everyone at Facebook is just shocked now to
learn the realities of what they do. Their naivety and ignorance would have to
be off the charts for it to be genuine.

~~~
stevenwoo
Maybe it's a lot of young people fresh from college and they hear about the
big five or whatever, and choose Facebook because they think of it as a social
networking company and big, famous, and cool. Just an old guy's opinion -
would not want to work there.

~~~
ikeyany
That explains the actions of (some of) Facebook's "rockstar" developers. That
does not explain the actions of Facebook's data scientists, psychologists,
product managers, and execs.

Occam's razor - They knew, and perhaps they cared, but they cared far more
about their salary and climbing the industry ladder to say no or blow the
whistle.

~~~
zzzcpan
You cannot really expect people who have to work for a living and do work for
a vertically structured corporation to be ethical and to go against their
bosses. The problem is inherent to capitalism and it can make people do far
worse things than this, like killing people or promoting and making wars.

~~~
ikeyany
Yes you can. Doing the right thing at the expense of a comfortable lifestyle
is a problem every generation has faced. Washing one's hands of responsibility
in such a way is a rather lazy argument.

~~~
zzzcpan
The conscious and deliberate decision to put a system in place that
manipulates and exploits people who have to work for a living and makes them
do things with no questions asked is not created by employees themselves. But
it is a decision nevertheless and it is unfair to expect employees, who are
victims of such system, to do the right thing as they usually fear the
consequences of the dissent. Which can literally mean not just losing a job,
but life and death kind of choices, never being able to afford a medical care,
lack of place to live, prison and so on.

~~~
ikeyany
It's disingenuous to claim that employees of Facebook are being exploited as
such. Factory workers maybe, but not a lucrative position at Menlo Park.

------
gdulli
Haha they must be referring to yesterday's version of the scandal. The
appetizer.

[https://www.channel4.com/news/cambridge-analytica-
revealed-t...](https://www.channel4.com/news/cambridge-analytica-revealed-
trumps-election-consultants-filmed-saying-they-use-bribes-and-sex-workers-to-
entrap-politicians-investigation)

~~~
stevenwoo
The audacity is jaw dropping. Their spokesman immediately walked back all the
claims made on tape of course.

------
guelo
Some regulation I'd like to see for social network ads, at least for political
ads:

\- Make all ads publicly viewable along with the targeting demographics. So
everybody can see, for example, that a politician is pushing xenophobia to
older people.

\- Some kind of ad "fake news" score associated with a campaign. This one is
difficult, but I could imagine a score based on a mixture of "fake news
scoring providers" from across the ideological divide and news orgs.

The point is to give voters some transparency into what a politician is
actually campaigning on.

~~~
ahoka
How about simply banning targeted advertisement? It's clearly toxic to
society.

~~~
ninkendo
Facebook would cease to exist.

I love it! Where do I sign the petition?

------
woodandsteel
Facebook isn't unhappy because CA used user data to manipulate people.
Facebook is unhappy because CA got the date through a third party, instead of
paying for it directly.

The real test will be whether Facebook sues CA for a billion dollars over what
it did, or just gives it a slap on the wrist.

------
oxymoran
The only thing surprising about this is that people are surprised about this.

~~~
jessaustin
At least now I won't be laughed out of the room when I tell friends and family
that Facebook is horrible and they shouldn't use it.

------
zipwitch
I'm not much of a social network user. A few forums and a barely-used Google
account are as close as I've been willing to go. But it seems to me that
they're just crying out to be regulated as a utility, if they're going to be
allowed as a for-profit company at all.

------
Taniwha
I guess it's time to remind people that you are not a customer of Facebook,
you are the product being sold

------
sbg123
What's changed? I've been telling people this for f___ing ages...

------
dna_polymerase
This whole thing is just a convenient excuse for people to explain how Trump
got into office.

People uploaded their whole shitty lifes onto Facebook while everyone out
there warns you to not do that. Yet people argued that they need a place to
connect to their friends and all the other crap that FB-users come up with to
explain this shitty move (much like cigarette-addicts). Also it is pretty
clear how that data is sold. And how intelligence uses it. Snowden? Anyone?

Now that the masses need it they come up with this bullshit story. There have
been companies like this before, Democratic and Republican (e.g. Targeted
Victory helped Romney, Obama had his Team). The lemmings out there just used
the past 4 years to fill Facebook with all the data they could eventually sell
to Cambridge Analytica and their friends.

Grow the fuck up people.

~~~
jiveturkey
You are perhaps over-reacting. It's not a bullshit story, it's real. Yes, it
is just more of the same but that doesn't make it any less real. We shouldn't
allow one instance of evil to slide just because other instances have gotten
away with it.

Anyway from a tech standpoint this might be exciting times. It could very well
be the end of $FB. I doubt on its own it would be enough, but if someone has
been working on a social network for the past few years now would be a good
time to do a big publicity push? G+ are you listening!!

~~~
dna_polymerase
I am not overreacting. I don't care for Facebook or CA. But people knew this
could happen.

> We shouldn't allow one instance of evil to slide just because other
> instances have gotten away with it.

What evil exactly? People gave their data to FB and decided not to listen to
everyone warning them. It's in FB's ToS that they will sell your data and they
did. What evil did happen here? People may didn't like what was done here but
seriously they could have avoided it.

> G+ are you listening!!

So the next big headline will be G+ sold data to CA?

