Facebook Allowed Firm To Exploit Data To Target American Voters

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therealduckofdeath

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therickmu25. That is so factually incorrect it's not shocking to see as a retort from someone defending this. That write-up clearly states Obama collected info at his rallies, stating why their info was collected. This user info download was based on an anonymous survey that had nothing to do with the election and it was combined with a Russian's developer account access that allowed them to download all user data for anyone on the participants friends lists. Hence, the 50 million number out of a few hundred thousand initial names.
 

andrewkelb

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Independent Journal Review article came out today with the former director of integrity and media analytics for Obama for America. She said FB was "on our side" and FB let the campaign "ingest the entire social network". Partisanship aside, no one should be happy with what FB does and what people do with FB's information.
 

kenjitamura

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Kind of hard for me to feel outraged about this. People are going online and divulging absolutely everything about themselves and all this company and facebook are doing is keeping it on record. Yeah they're not telling them that the information is going to be weaponized for political purposes but honestly if you're not already suspecting that of every company out there then you are just willfully blind to the cut throat moral less world of business.
 
Interesting that seemingly innocuous groups, even at THG, use "weaponized for political purposes" (good one!) ... especially those who use 'independent' in their titles, and of course, our old friends "freedom" and "patriots"

Do they have an off-switch ??
 

therealduckofdeath

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The "off switch" was the one Facebook lied to its users about a couple years ago, when they started promising that your privacy was their top priority. They've clearly kept selling all of it to the highest bidders since then.
I have a feeling Facebook, Google, Twitter and their likes are in for some really tough times in Europe over the next few years. Was the short huge profits worth it? I don't think so...
 
I can't stress how important education is. Do I think it's unethical for them to, to quote the article, "exploit users’ data to shape political opinion without any transparency"? Yes, I do think it's unethical. Regardless, I think people need to be educated in society so their political opinion is not shaped by something as external as certain targeted headlines and filtered content being displayed on a screen. Arguably, I think if one's political opinion is shaped by that, they are not actually doing factual research in the first place or already have an agenda they are just looking to be confirmed.

And that is to be expected. If you are going to really identify strongly with some political opinion, I would hope it's based upon actual research. But that's boring, for most people politics is a sports game: they inherit the team of their parents or family, or their friends, and they are in it to win it.

This goes along with the Russia interference in the 2016 elections. Again, do I think it's unethical for them to do this? Yes. But we are ignoring a larger issue here. The interference was pretty much done by means of influencing the opinion of the voters. The actual votes cast in the ballot were still the voters; the machines were not manipulated. The only thing manipulated were people's minds, and the counter to this is education.

Philosophy, political science - hit the books on these things, really think about this stuff and delve deep, and pretty soon nothing on Facebook will have any influence over your political opinion. I believe I used to have more strong political opinions, but as I continue to realize what I don't know, I separate myself from opinions since I acknowledge I'm not really educated in those aspects, as I haven't done real research. The more you learn the less confident you are in a subject matter, until you become truly an expert. This is the Dunning Kruger Effect.

TLDR: We need to educate society better so they are not influenced by stuff in the media so easily.
 

therealduckofdeath

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Organisations like Cambridge Analytica didn't target you head on with political arguments. That doesn't work. We have a decades long defence mechanism towards that. Never backing down on our political opinions. They were targeting personal interests. You're a dog person? Here's a fake story about immigrants driving around in a white van stealing all the dogs. You like MMO's? You get a story about foreigners spending thousands on cheating. You like community work? Lucky you, you get a story about how they're abusing that. You wish you had a better job? You get fed lies about how women and coloured are taking all the good jobs while getting equal pay and never having to go to work.
Triggering people by making them hate groups of people based on common personalities or interests. It's simple, cheap and extremely effective when they do it all without any insight.
 

logainofhades

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The third party ones weren't any better, to be honest. My vote doesn't really matter anyway. Chicago/cook county runs IL, despite the capital being Springfield. They have the highest population density, so if the candidate is the one they want, that is the one that wins IL. Not enough population, outside of that area, to go up against the Chicago machine. Only going to get worse, as people are fleeing the state in droves. Right, wrong, or otherwise, that is the way it is.
 
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