
Suspending Cambridge Analytica and SCL Group from Facebook - ilamont
https://newsroom.fb.com/news/h/suspending-cambridge-analytica/
======
mbid
_> Protecting people’s information is at the heart of everything we do_

Thanks for striking down the bad guys, Facebook, our ever vigilant guardian of
personal information.

~~~
nathanaldensr
That's exactly what I wanted to say. Talk about the fox guarding the hen
house... _none_ of these parties--Facebook included--can be trusted with _any_
data. They're all out to make a buck with it!

~~~
paulddraper
I 100% believe in the fox to guard the hen house...from the other foxes.

No point in sharing dinner.

~~~
notatoad
Exactly. Facebook really wants to protect your personal information - it's
their competitive advantage. If other companies all have your personal info
too, then it's less valuable to Facebook. The last thing they want to do is
let it get out.

If you've decided to share your info with Facebook, well, that's on you. But
Facebook isn't going to share it.

~~~
arjunrc
Are you serious, defending Facebook here?

There can't be a single repository of online data, which by design gives the
repository owner too much power and control. Blaming the users for falling for
it is like saying we can't have regulation because markets can self-regulate
themselves.

After the last 3 years, anyone who defends Facebook comes across as
disingenuous, naive or for a lack of a better word, a shill in my book.

Saying Facebook wants to protects your personal information is the most
hypocritical statement, I've heard yet.

~~~
noio
I don't think you and parent disagree. Facebook will do a good job of
'protecting' your personal data because that allows them —exclusively— to
benefit from it. Though the definition of 'protecting' might differ,
Facebook's might sacrifice that protection to benefit at any point. As a user,
you're not in control of that transaction and will never benefit.

~~~
Faark
Also lets not forget Facebook as to appear somewhat protective of data, or
they'll scare off even more user. Negative consequences of users sharing their
data have to appear dystopian fiction.

------
neuronexmachina
Some additional context on Cambridge Analytica. I'm guessing Dr. Aleksandr
Kogan (who also had his FB account suspended) was Cambridge Analytica (and the
Trump campaign's) source of data on individual Facebook profiles:

[https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2017/oct/26/cambridge...](https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2017/oct/26/cambridge-
analytica-used-data-from-facebook-and-politico-to-help-trump)

> Cambridge Analytica used its own database and voter information collected
> from Facebook and news publishers in its effort to help elect Donald Trump,
> despite a claim by a top campaign official who has downplayed the company’s
> role in the election. ... In another case, in the late stages of the
> November election, Schweickert said the company acquired data on voters who
> voted early – data it collected from local counties and states – and linked
> the information to individual Facebook profiles.

~~~
kbaker
I urge everyone to watch this video from Cambridge Analytica about their
techniques with big data and psychographic profiling leading up to the 2016
election. Very dystopian, it almost feels like a seminar with a Bond villain.
Quote from the video:

> "we were able to form a model to predict the personality of every single
> adult in the United States of America."

[https://youtu.be/n8Dd5aVXLCc](https://youtu.be/n8Dd5aVXLCc)

Edit: also this article is a good read about how they used Facebook likes to
build up profiles. Also contains a summary of the video:
[https://motherboard.vice.com/en_us/article/mg9vvn/how-our-
li...](https://motherboard.vice.com/en_us/article/mg9vvn/how-our-likes-helped-
trump-win)

~~~
noobermin
So, I'm far to the left of most people, and I'm no fan of Trump, but I watched
that video and I got the sense I usually get from reading about ML/big data,
people seem to be selling these as more than they actually are. It almost is
intuitive if not, I guess, what most people who study market research already
know: you tailor your message to your audience. Even on a personal level,
anyone who has navigated real life with real people knows that you have to
communicate with people in the way that they will be most receptive. Nowhere
are they "planting" ideas in people's heads, nowhere are they brainwashing
people, they are merely saying the same message (for example, defend the 2nd
ammendment) to people who might already agree in a way that they'll receive
it. The big 5 personality traits are an already well known and documented
idea, and even without that, in your day-to-day life, you learn what people's
personalities are and you tailor how you communicate with them anyway.

The thing that they seem to bring to the table however is the massive amount
of _personalized data_. _That_ is the issue here, because that data can be
abused by nefarious actors if it were to fall in the wrong hands. What usually
takes a much more personal touch (like going out to voters, talking to them,
or if you can't do that, have teams on the ground that talk to voters and tell
you before your speech what they care about and why) can be done in mass due
to essentially aggregating private data that users "agree to" obliviously or
even don't consent to. That is the issue at hand, not like Cambridge somehow
warped the people in Wisconsin's brains to mush and made them go to the polls.

~~~
mjburgess
Yes, M.L. is always sold on the metaphor and not on the reality -- that's
partly because its advocates are really unable to distinguish animal
consciousness and cognition from computation.

Machine Learning models are tools for computing specific predictions. They are
not thoughts, have no concepts, etc.

The model isnt what it is used for. A model isnt what it describes. The
ability of an ML system predict a person's action isn't a reasoning process. A
rock rolling down a hill predicts the path of water rolling down a hill. The
rock isnt thinking about it.

Describing ML models as if they were cognitive gives people the impression
that computers possess the relevant concepts and understanding which is why
its seems scary. It's just current through a write to a fancier dial.

------
abakker
Honest question: is this just masked preparation for GDPR?

It looks to me that CA may have gathered and shared FB data, and FB has
suddenly realized that they have a GDPR violation on their hands.

IANAL, but I have seen articles suggesting that people will need to re-consent
to the use of their data, and I could see this being a problem in this case,
where the consent was never given in the first place, but FB would have to be
able to report on how that data was being used.

Specifically, it looks likely that CA's data violates GDPR Article 9 section 1
- [https://gdpr-info.eu/art-9-gdpr/](https://gdpr-info.eu/art-9-gdpr/) \-
completely.

GDPR violations for a company of Facebook's size would be substantial. In
Facebook's case, if the fines were deemed to be "aggravated", the absolute
maximum fine would be 4% of FB's annual revenue, or $318Million USD.

~~~
tener
Is GDPR retroactive? I doubt so.

~~~
jjp
Yes in that it has no consideration on when the data was captured or acquired.
And there is a trickle down to anyone you have or passed the data onto.

~~~
tener
Ok so you should take care of the data you posses now, but if you have shared
the data with third party then I guess this is now their business to obey the
law? I just don't see how you could possibly be forced to go and police
everyone you have ever shared the data with.

~~~
jjp
Be interesting on this one. GDPR has explicitly called out legal obligations
for the data controller and the data processor. Controller is the one you
consent to data collection, processor is 3rd party carrying out processing on
behalf of controller. If data sold then it is passed to another data
controller.

In this case user has apparently given, some level of, consent to Cambridge
Analytica. I don't know whether that would then make them a data controller in
their own right or whether they still be treated as a data processor. If
former then user would have to engage directly with CA for right to erasure or
FB need to invoke T&C's. If later then it's down to FB T&Cs and then FB would
have to inform CA of user invoking right to erasure.

GDPR will a minefield for consumers and organisations for at least another 2
years until we have some case law that backs it all up

------
harry8
Dump facebook. Just do it.

Make your final posts informing your friends how to contact you by email.
Follow up with a reminder or two over the coming weeks and delete it.

It will be the best feeling you ever had from doing something with your
facebook account.

~~~
matt_wulfeck
And after you dump facebook, invest in creating a strong social network in
real life.

------
YeGoblynQueenne
>> 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.

So basically FB's problem is that Kogan passed the data to third parties,
without FB's knowledge and -I guess- without FB being in on the deal. Because
FB's whole business model is to hoover up its user's data and sell it to
"third parties".

Third parties who may then do with it whatever they like, without users having
any control over it. You know- like Kogan just did.

FB is trying to pretend they're the responsible party in this - "Protecting
peoples' information" is what they do, they say. Well, no it isn't. _Trading_
peoples' information is at the heart of everything they do. And this is just
one more example of why it is so harmful.

~~~
rogerb
Someone please correct me - but I don't think that FB sells data. They use it
for their own uses, and customers of their advertising platform can use that
data to target groups, but I don't think they sell their data to 3rd parties.
Am I wrong ?

~~~
SheinhardtWigCo
Nobody outside of Facebook has any way of knowing. That’s the problem.

~~~
cthalupa
Uh, anyone that bought data from Facebook would know. And people they spoke to
about selling data.

FB monetizes data by letting people use it for ad targeting, not by selling
it.

------
aslkdjaslkdj
Story from March 2017 about this:

[https://theintercept.com/2017/03/30/facebook-failed-to-
prote...](https://theintercept.com/2017/03/30/facebook-failed-to-
protect-30-million-users-from-having-their-data-harvested-by-trump-campaign-
affiliate/)

>In late 2015, the turkers began reporting that the Global Science Research
survey had abruptly shut down. The Guardian had published a report that
exposed exactly who the turkers were working for. Their data was being
collected by Aleksandr Kogan, a young lecturer at Cambridge University. Kogan
founded Global Science Research in 2014, after the university’s psychology
department refused to allow him to use its own pool of data for commercial
purposes. The data collection that Kogan undertook independent of the
university was done on behalf of a military contractor called Strategic
Communication Laboratories, or SCL. The company’s election division claims to
use “data-driven messaging” as part of “delivering electoral success.”

>Shortly after The Guardian published its 2015 article, Facebook contacted
Global Science Research and requested that it delete the data it had taken
from Facebook users. Facebook’s policies give Facebook the right to delete
data gathered by any app deemed to be “negatively impacting the Platform.” The
company believes that Kogan and SCL complied with the request, which was made
during the Republican primary, before Cambridge Analytica switched over from
Ted Cruz’s campaign to Donald Trump’s. It remains unclear what was ultimately
done with the Facebook data, or whether any models or algorithms derived from
it wound up being used by the Trump campaign.

>In public, Facebook continues to maintain that whatever happened during the
run-up to the election was business as usual. “Our investigation to date has
not uncovered anything that suggests wrongdoing,” a Facebook spokesperson told
The Intercept.

>Facebook appears not to have considered Global Science Research’s data
collection to have been a serious ethical lapse. Joseph Chancellor, Kogan’s
main collaborator on the SCL project and a former co-owner of Global Science
Research, is now employed by Facebook Research. “The work that he did
previously has no bearing on the work that he does at Facebook,” a Facebook
spokesperson told The Intercept.

~~~
astronautjones
The Intercept is so wildly underrated (and unfairly disparaged). Vital
reporting.

------
NotSammyHagar
It's too easy for this information to get out. There's basically no penalty,
you just use as you want and year's late facebook cuts you off? So you start a
new company, owned by a new llc, get the lawyers to sign the 'i am not evil'
doc and repeat.

There's no way this will have any impact until there are criminal citations on
the people involved. In this case, because it's the us, there's not going to
be anything criminal. Facebook, you need to sue companies that do this into
oblivion. You are rich and can stand up.

In europe, there's gdpr, the us has no defense. Remember, the chinese and
russian govts (probably) were the ones that hacked the company that had all
the security clearance applications. Basically, everyone but average americans
have access to us govt employee's private information. There must be some
blackmailing going on.

~~~
jimsmart
GDPR will most certainly reach into US businesses as well as EU businesses.
Any business collecting data on EU users will be subject to the GDPR.

[https://www.forbes.com/sites/forbestechcouncil/2017/12/04/ye...](https://www.forbes.com/sites/forbestechcouncil/2017/12/04/yes-
the-gdpr-will-affect-your-u-s-based-business/#7b96de266ff2)

Though as the article points out: "There are still questions about how the EU
will enforce these actions against U.S. and other multinational companies
[...]"

~~~
bklaasen
European companies that exchange PII with US-based companies in order to
provide features to their customers and value to themselves are terminating
those contracts and turning to EU-based companies.

Even though many US-based companies are attempting to comply with GDPR,
European companies which use their services aren't prepared to take the risk
of being in breach of GDPR.

~~~
jimnotgym
Or US business are making a big show that the data is hosted within the EU in
order to retain the business.

[https://www.microsoft.com/en-
us/TrustCenter/Privacy/gdpr/def...](https://www.microsoft.com/en-
us/TrustCenter/Privacy/gdpr/default.aspx)

[https://thestack.com/cloud/2017/12/19/aws-opens-new-
region-i...](https://thestack.com/cloud/2017/12/19/aws-opens-new-region-in-
paris-to-widen-reach/)

------
kevingadd
This is an especially egregious case because it was well-known a long time ago
that Kogan extracted a lot of really sensitive user data via the Facebook APIs
that could be used for precision ad targeting. It says a lot about FB that
they took this long to take any significant action other than getting a pinky
promise from multiple companies that they deleted the data.

Even if they deleted the data, they could have retained information generated
_using_ that data which would allow them to effectively abuse the original
data for ad targeting - which they did years ago. FB had opportunity to know
this long before now.

It's bewildering that they knew this huge amount of sensitive data got into
the hands of unauthorized third parties and were willing to treat assurances
as a sufficient remedy. At the very least, all of their ad targeting should
have been carefully vetted, but it seems ridiculous to let these third parties
continue operating on the service when they had already demonstrated a
willingness to blatantly violate the FB ToS and use unethical tactics for ad
targeting.

In practice FB users aren't informed enough to know what this means or care
about it, but missteps like this really demolish any argument that FB cares
about user privacy or ToS enforcement. They had a huge amount of time to
realize this was happening and take action on it. At this point it seems
unlikely that CA and SCL are the only companies doing things like this - it's
not exactly a secret that these techniques are effective. If they wanted to
make it clear to third parties that this wouldn't be tolerated, they should
have cracked down years ago.

~~~
xienze
> It's bewildering that they knew this huge amount of sensitive data got into
> the hands of unauthorized third parties and were willing to treat assurances
> as a sufficient remedy.

What exactly should they have done? It’s data, once someone has it, game over.
It’s like trying to unring a bell.

~~~
thawkins
Manditory warning notices on all pages of FB, detailing about how your privacy
can be compromised, your democratic rights infringed by using FB, in the same
vein as warning notices on cigarette packs, or medication packaging.

------
lalos
What stops them from creating a holding company and getting access from that?
Seems like a rat and mouse game and feels like more a PR move because of
recent bad news exposure.

~~~
manigandham
> What stops them from creating a holding company

Nothing. Just like the adtech industry in general. So much of the spam and
fraud could be stopped if there was even minimal regulation and actual
consequences, but there isn't, so these actions are usually little more than
PR, especially once all the damage is already done.

~~~
noobermin
After the midterms and even possibly 2020, the future isn't going to look
great for these companies.

~~~
r00fus
You assume they won't lather rinse repeat using yet another way to get all the
data and manipulate public opinion?

------
hedora
I don’t understand why it was legal for trump to hire Cambridge Analytica,
which is foreign owned, to influence the presidential election.

I also don’t understand why Russia gets all the news, when this foreign
election tampering was so much more effective and done in the open.

[edit: Downvotes. Wow. My comment is certainly on topic, so I guess “Foreign
corporations shouldn’t participate in our elections” is controversial(?)]

~~~
colordrops
What I wonder is why Israel is so ignored when they have orders of magnitude
more money and influence in Washington than Russia. One of the top lobbyists
in the US is AIPAC, giving money directly to politicians. The hypocrisy is
absurd.

~~~
stevenwoo
This is slightly OT, but they registered as lobbyists and we know where the
money comes from - US citizens. Not that I agree with their message, but we
have made this type of bribery legal in the USA.

~~~
SamReidHughes
How is lobbying bribery?

~~~
valuearb
How is it not? Campaign contributions in return for votes.

~~~
IAmEveryone
That’s not lobbying. Lobbyists don’t give money to candidates. They do events,
write blueprint for complicated laws etc.

There’s a lot of shady shit going on, and PACs are basically legalized
bribery. But it’s important to be a bit nuanced when you want to effectively
argue against these practices.

------
OrganicMSG
We are utterly shocked to discover that people have been invading our
customer's privacy to manipulate them politically, without our consent. Sorry,
their consent, I meant to say without their consent. Furthermore, we had no
idea that this was going on, as we were reading a really good book at the time
and the radio was on really loud. That said, we are paying attention now and
you can trust us with everything from here on in, as we are really nice and
competent, honest.

~~~
astronautjones
read: how dare you not pay for this data

------
jimsmart
Curiously, just weeks ago, Alexander Nix (CEO of Cambridge Analytica) stated,
in a letter to UK Parliament, that they gather no such information:

"On 8 February 2018 Mr Matheson implied that Cambridge Analytica "gathers data
from users on Facebook." Cambridge Analytica does not gather such data."

Quoted from 'Letter from Alexander Nix, CEO, Cambridge Analytica, to the Chair
of the Committee, 23 February 2018' (PDF), linked from this page:
[https://www.parliament.uk/business/committees/committees-
a-z...](https://www.parliament.uk/business/committees/committees-a-z/commons-
select/digital-culture-media-and-sport-committee/news/cambridge-analytica-ev/)

— So it would seem that they've been caught with their pants on fire then?

~~~
jimnotgym
It is interesting to see Arron Banks (Arch Brexiteer and the money(under
investigation by the Electoral Commission) behind Leave.EU) calling Nix a liar
on Twitter recently.

It is alleged that Banks colluded with other pro-Brexit campaigns to spend a
lot of money with a CA subsidiary. By spreading it around the groups they
would have been able to breach the election spending limits. It is also
alleged that the money itself came from outside the UK (which is also illegal)

It's a twisted web but here is an entry point with Carole Cadwalladr of the
Guardian. [https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2017/may/07/the-
great...](https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2017/may/07/the-great-
british-brexit-robbery-hijacked-democracy)

------
IIAOPSW
Anyone else suspicious that Zuckerberg may be gearing FB to ban the analytic
tools of his competition if/when he runs? If Zuckerberg does run, I wonder to
what extent FB will be his personal tool? Could you imagine if an old school
news paper baron ran for president and his journalists always wrote in his
favor?

~~~
bmpafa
He's got full control right now, and opinions of him seem pretty negative
overall (esp. wrt privacy/trust). I can't imagine it'd be any easier to
manipulate opinions en masse if he were actively seeking office.

~~~
jadedhacker
People aren't that dumb, but it is still pretty scary that he'd be able to
scientifically design an electoral campaign that can be updated in real time
using various FB tools. No other politician has access to power like that.

I can't imagine what kind of coalition he could assemble. I don't know if it
would win, but if he takes whatever position his data tells him, the only
obvious thing that would sink him would be his lack of authenticity. Imagine a
candidate that always had an appealing take to a slim to large majority on
whatever issue (for people that don't know too much about the issue).

In the previous 2016 race, HRC was perceived as inauthentic and lost. DJT was
perceived as authentic to a substantial fraction the right (not the media
class, though that has changed with the direction of the wind) and inauthentic
to the left.

~~~
xienze
Zuck is a Democrat, he’d get a pass on all that, especially if it meant
getting Trump out of office. Let’s not kid ourselves, hardly anyone in the
media and government would make a stink about what he does with FB to get
elected.

This is all hypothetical of course, he has to be one of the most unlikeable
people in ages, and the reception to his “I identify with you, middle
Americans” tour really solidified that feeling.

~~~
meowface
Yeah, there are large numbers of billionaire CEOs with far more charisma and
public support than Zuckerberg (like Mark Cuban and Elon Musk). Hate him or
not (I'm in the former group), Trump also has charisma. Zuckerberg has brains
but not an ounce of charisma or PR ability.

------
supergirl
I wonder how many apps do this and continue to do it. FB just looked for any
reason to do something about these problematic companies to appease their
favorite politicians.

------
ericls
The only things that can be trusted is the things does not require trust.

------
zitterbewegung
Are they actually pretending that they give any credence to the personal
information that a Facebook app could access? Back years before Facebooks IPO
a professor I worked with had an idea to study social networks using Facebook
as a dataset. They would make an App that would collect personal data and
create conclusions. She looked into what Facebook collected and promptly
stopped the data collection system. From my understanding any App that
integrates with the Facebook platform has a large amount of data that can be
mined. I think they started restricting this but still if you let an app
attach to your profile all sorts of wondrous things can be found out

------
Cactus2018
Cambridge Analytica Lead Data Scientist Job Description

"Python for machine learning with SciPy stack and scikit-learn. Applied
knowledge of SQL"

[https://pastebin.com/LMKN64Da](https://pastebin.com/LMKN64Da)

------
mind-blight
I'm curious to see what FB does to mitigate this sort of data grab in the
future. Is there anything stopping them from creating a walled garden around
user data? For instance, they could enforce that any code with access to user
PII has to be run on their servers, and all results can only display aggregate
data? It still can be manipulated, but it seems like it would be harder

~~~
xienze
There’s nothing they can do. Once you have access to the data it’s as good as
copied.

~~~
mind-blight
FB would have to not give personally identifying info (PII) to the app in the
first place. The main reason apps (from a user's perspective) need PII are 1)
Display it to you or someone else in the app, or 2) perform a calculation or
action on it (e.g. send a text to a phone number, or display an add to women
age 20-28). If all I have is a user ID, FB can make it possible to do both
without ever access PII.

For #1: PII could be embedded using an iframe and a url. You could even pass
data (such as templates) in with url params

For #2: FB would expose endpoints that allow actions (such as send this email
to the user). They could make it as generic as they needed, up to running
arbitrary code on a VM, minus networking calls.

~~~
JetSpiegel
Facebook without PII is worthless. All that security is irrelevant when you
can just bypass it all through the analogue hole. Chrome Headless just makes
it easier.

------
gaius
Given that both are in the sleazy data business and FB is the dominant
incumbent CA has a good anti-monopoly case and it will be pleasurable to watch
them fight it out. Whoever loses, we all win.

------
mozumder
Any tech site that provide private user data via an API needs to make sure
that data is guarded like it was their own site, as if their own employees
were accessing the data.

Maybe what's needed is a PCI-compliance standard or a HIPPA-act for general
user data?

~~~
riantogo
GDPR is coming. In my opinion it has flaws and I'm personally not a fan (big
corps will have resources to comply and small ones will find it to be a
barrier to entry), but if you want regulations this is as strict as it gets.

[https://www.eugdpr.org](https://www.eugdpr.org)

~~~
evrydayhustling
As a startup founder, GDPR is an enormous pain in my butt. As a human, I think
it's terrific.

A lot of the adoption pain reveals just how much we built businesses that
couldn't care less about what individuals would like done with their data over
time. If GDPR had been alive early in the web, I think we'd see different and
more human business models, and technology to support them.

------
gorbypark
I wonder what percentage of Facebook's revenue comes from political
advertising? In an ideal world, I'd like to see all political advertising
banned from their (and similar) platform.

------
inetknght
One _single_ person (Dr. Aleksandr Kogan) did all that damage, Facebook? And
you think that the current method of enforcement is okay?

------
bitL
Read: only Facebook has the right to pass data to "firm that does political,
government and military work around the globe."

------
ucaetano
> _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._

I guess Facebook is mad that Aleksandr Kogan profited from selling Facebook
user info without Facebook taking a cut.

~~~
itronitron
i wouldn't be surprised to hear that FB was at the same time also selling data
directly to CA, such are the times in which we live

------
rvo
Good. We can expect such behavior from vile conservative companies like
Cambridge Analytics, funded by Mercer and the cause for Brexit. Why are they
even allowed on FB? Such extreme groups should never be allowed.

~~~
kevingadd
CA's political stance is basically irrelevant here, they're mercenaries.
"Liberal" companies of this stripe would easily do the same thing if given the
opportunity. The sort of work they do is intrinsically compromising unless
your business is operating with a very firm moral/ethical code and it really
hinders your ability to chase opportunities and maximize revenues.

It's not a coincidence that Google ditched 'don't be evil', and doing that
doesn't indicate a twist to the far right or anything of the sort: It's just
the reality that being a wildly profitable advertising firm can require a lot
of moral/ethical flexibility that leads to outcomes like what we have here
with CA & SCL.

The significance of CA's politics is specifically that they gave their
services for free to a political campaign that aligned with their goals, which
is already of questionable legality - and in this case, likely expected and
possibly already received regulatory kickbacks in exchange. But that doesn't
really matter in the context of FB deciding to enforce rules.

EDIT: To clarify, Trump's campaign did pay CA but sources have claimed that
they received a deep discount.

~~~
hedora
Naming a liberal-leaning political consultancy that is this slimy would help.
(The DNC’s behavior during the primaries comes to mind, in fairness to your
argument)

~~~
stevenwoo
I would say the DNC is not very liberal, it's more corporatist/neoliberal,
which is not progressive at all. And their reach/tech is pretty low tech.

