Cambridge Analytica

[debiman]

instead of relying on my poor editorial capabilities, just see for yourselves.

it has been a major news story both on an american populist radio station, and a rather serious german radio.
of course those are only my sources; i bet the news coverage is huge, but i mention this because these are rather opposite content providers, and if they both cover it extensively & critically, that means something in itself.

this is only the tip of the iceberg.
or wrong, the whole story is about revealing what hides underneath the tip of this particular iceberg.
so, this is only one of many icebergs of which we only see the tip.

what i remember from the report i heard:
companies like these (i don't belive that lancing this particular boil is the end of the story) influenced the outcomes of various elections.
read up on the techniques on the wikipedia article or elsewhere - that in itself is quite mindboggling and repulsive. and it isn't even illegal per se.
facebook knew about this. but now that someone blew the whistle, they're acting all surprised and disgusted.

etc. - don't take my word for it, go read/listen if you haven't already.

[dcihon]

Here is another story:
https://mashable.com/2018/03/20/facebook-cambridge-analytica-ico/?utm_cid=hp-n-1#_K9tiWpRwaqN

And another one:
https://www.theverge.com/2018/3/20/17142074/facebook-employee-meeting-cambridge-analytica

[n_hologram]

I am completely unsurprised.
https://www.xkcd.com/743/

Even now, most people I know literally don't care and refuse to change their social media/networking habits. This was willful neglect at its finest.

It's not like America has never influenced an election lol.

[Lysander]

Thanks for this, I didn't know anything about it. I've always been extremely critical and skeptical of FB. I deleted my account in 2013 but started another in 2016 for research purposes. FB is extremely useful for analysis of virtual communities and communicating with people who one wouldn't normally be able to communicate with. It's opened a whole new world in academia. However, I am very careful to put as little info there about myself as possible save my DOB, institution and photo. I didn't want to put the latter but people are more likely to communicate with a user if they have a photo up, I feel.

My caveat to any FB user is ideally not to use it at all. But if you must, be very careful about what info you put on there, how often you use it and what you use it for. It can be a great tool if used correctly but it is highly dangerous and addictive. Sort of like diazepam.

[ticojohn]

I also deleted my FB account years ago. Social Media scares the heck out of me. Don't use FB, Twitter or any other Social media. It's scary enough just using email accounts such as Yahoo or Gmail, none of which have my personal information. But yeah, it's not surprising given Zuckerberg's philosophy.

[Lysander]

I also deleted my FB account years ago. Social Media scares the heck out of me. Don't use FB, Twitter or any other Social media. It's scary enough just using email accounts such as Yahoo or Gmail, none of which have my personal information. But yeah, it's not surprising given Zuckerberg's philosophy.

You'll be interested in this then. The whole thing just took an interesting turn:

Cambridge Analytica: Mark Zuckerberg asked to appear before MPs

Facebook boss Mark Zuckerberg has been called on by a parliamentary committee to give evidence about the use of personal data by Cambridge Analytica.

The UK-based political consulting firm is accused of using the data of 50 million Facebook members to influence the 2016 US presidential election.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-43474760

[Bulkley]

Facebook is dangerous by design. Mr. Zuckerberg got rich by spying on his users and selling their information to any and all buyers. There is no such thing as a safe way to use Facebook; that would directly affect Mr. Zuckerberg's profits.

[Wheelerof4te]

There is no such thing as a safe way to use Facebook

And there is no such thing as "becoming mega-rich in very short amount of time" without some kind of unjust or immoral scam. This proves it. Just as Bill Gates used unjust methods of stealing patents, selling essentialy copy-free software at inflated prices, etc. Not just Bill, many people are mega-rich for being outright frauds and leeches to the society. Hell, look at banksters. 99% of those people should be in jail and tried for money-launding.

I deleted my FB account years ago. Same with Instagram, used it for a month, saw what garbage it is and deleted it. People don't need social media, we have mobile phones for socialising...You can reach anyone now, for Godos sake.

[debiman]

i love that this company is getting whipped (hopefully to the full extent of the law), and also mr zuckerberg for willingly looking the other way.

but even more, i like that this particular piece of news is likely to break the surface of what even the most deliberately ignorant facebook lusers could put off as "IT news".
democracy is at stake! whether you care if "they" know all about you or not!

it might become the first online privacy & security scandal that my work colleagues didn't here about from me!

[Wheelerof4te]

Well, they had to figure out some way to bring FB's "market value" stock down:
https://www.marketwatch.com/investing/stock/fb
ATM, it's about 5% down.

Seeing stuff like this makes my stomach turn. 50 billion vapour money lost, how on Earth? Give some of it to the poor and homeless? No? Okay then...

[oswaldkelso]

Looks like Tux has a friend called Brenda the civil disobedience Penguin

In the USA you got Trump and over here we got Brexit. All very suspicious when you look at who's going to benefit or cause divisions that weren't there before.

[Wheelerof4te]

I don't think it has anything to do with politics, really. Mark has simply bitten more than he could chew and got a little pat on the shoulder to remind him who's the boss (the state, intel and co.)
Not to mention the crazy dreams he had about becoming the president of the world, a global leader and similar nonsense. They put him down on the ground like they will do to anyone who gets carried away with borrowed "power".

[alan stone]

Businesses that make money by collecting and selling detailed records of private lives were once plainly described as "surveillance companies." Their rebranding as "social media" is the most successful deception since the Department of War became the Department of Defense. - Edward Snowden

[bw123]

I the USA you got Trump and over here we got Brexit. All very suspicious when you look at who's going to benefit or cause divisions that weren't there before.

Aha! I was wondering when someone would get the framing correct. This story is nothing new unless it is tied in with certain other contexts. i.e., Trump used this to win unfairly, brexit vote was unfairly influenced.

Perhaps it also caused people to stop standing for the pledge of allegiance, or caused children to play too many video games, or smoke marihuanna?

[Wheelerof4te]

Ahhh, I see:
http://money.cnn.com/2018/03/20/technol ... index.html

The scandal erupted over the weekend when The New York Times and UK media reported that Cambridge Analytica tried to influence American voters using information improperly gleaned from 50 million Facebook users.

Wait, so it's fine if they collect data from millions of people, but it's very bad if someone uses that data to "influence" elections, or voting in general. Note the wording "improperly gleaned", LOL. There's a proper way of breaking people's privacy?!

Again, it's perfectly OK if said data is used to make profit only? Call me crazy, but your lawmakers, media corporations and judges are smoking some weird stuff. Both in US, and in UK.