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How is what Cambridge Analytics did different?

NeverTrumpGOP said:
CA got data without user consent. Obama didn't. You fail.
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Maybe you could explain how the info C.A. got wasn't by consent, cause from what I've seen it was.
 
jdog21 said:
Maybe you could explain how the info C.A. got wasn't by consent, cause from what I've seen it was.
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It went far and beyond basic consent and it also harvest data from people who did not download the app but were on your friends list. The app is basically a data mining virus.
 
holbritter said:
Than what any data miners do?

Take away the political aspect, do not many companies have our public profiles analyzed to determine how to advertise to us? All those ads that pop up for items you were recently looking into are not coincidence.

What they do is offer tools that could identify the personalities of Americans to influence their behavior. Big retailers have been doing this for years. With social media being so important in society today, it was only a matter of time before politics used it to whoever's advantage.

From what was reported originally is that Cambridge sent out a survey and the information was obtained from the people who chose to answer the survey.

I guess I'm not getting what the huge deal is about, so asking for some insight please.
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A company I worked for would ingest gigabytes of data from Facebook on a regular basis under agreement with Facebook, and Facebook would regularly do "updates" to their product that would reset the opt-out on their customer base so that this company I worked for could do massive ingests. They would then sell their BI software that used that data to other companies to allow them to do targeted advertising, or simply offer their own BI service to companies that didn't want to do it themselves.

It was a seedy business and it didn't sit well with me. I eventually had to resign in order to maintain my own self image.

I'm still going through the reports on Cambridge Analytica, have yet to find anything that surpasses my example.
 
NeverTrumpGOP said:
It went far and beyond basic consent and it also harvest data from people who did not download the app but were on your friends list. The app is basically a data mining virus.
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As the other article pointed out with the Obama 2012 app it gathered info from what your friends liked as well. Isnt this the same thing? Or did it gather other information that the Obama app didn't?
 
Mycroft said:
This other stuff...the "blackmail", etc...is irrelevant, as well.
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I don’t see the justification in dismissing allegations of serious criminal offences just because they (probably) didn’t impact your 2016 election. If anything, I’d suggest some of the other questions being raised are actually much more serious and will probably get more traction after Channel 4 broadcasts those portions of it’s investigation.

Mycroft said:
The only relevant thing is that what C.A. did in regard to the 2016 Presidential campaign...just like what Obama did in regard to the 2012 Presidential campaign...was perfectly legal.
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That is yet to be determined. The allegations made are that CA bought the data from a third party who had posted the app on Facebook. That would be in breach of Facebook rules and potentially illegal in a number of jurisdictions. When Facebook found out, they banned the app and requested CA deleted the data, which CA said they had. The whistle-blower claims they didn’t actually delete the data, again potentially illegal.

From what I’ve read, the Obama campaign in 2012 themselves hosted an openly political app which gathered the data directly. There are general concerns about the data security and privacy structures on Facebook and neither situation seems flawless to me but the allegations against CA do go several steps further than anything else.
 
jdog21 said:
As the other article pointed out with the Obama 2012 app it gathered info from what your friends liked as well. Isnt this the same thing? Or did it gather other information that the Obama app didn't?
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The difference is, people logged into Obama app willingly. This CA app harvested your data without your knowledge.
 
HonestJoe said:
I don’t see the justification in dismissing allegations of serious criminal offences just because they (probably) didn’t impact your 2016 election. If anything, I’d suggest some of the other questions being raised are actually much more serious and will probably get more traction after Channel 4 broadcasts those portions of it’s investigation.

That is yet to be determined. The allegations made are that CA bought the data from a third party who had posted the app on Facebook. That would be in breach of Facebook rules and potentially illegal in a number of jurisdictions. When Facebook found out, they banned the app and requested CA deleted the data, which CA said they had. The whistle-blower claims they didn’t actually delete the data, again potentially illegal.

From what I’ve read, the Obama campaign in 2012 themselves hosted an openly political app which gathered the data directly. There are general concerns about the data security and privacy structures on Facebook and neither situation seems flawless to me but the allegations against CA do go several steps further than anything else.
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shrug...

Get back to me when someone is charged with a crime...in the US.

All the rest...the blackmail, etc...the speculation, etc...isn't worth my consideration. It's all irrelevant.

I daresay, with the numbers involved, the Obama campaign got data about MANY more people who had no knowledge their data was being use by them. C.A. got data on 50 million or so. Obama got data on almost 200 million.

Furthermore, when FB found out what Obama was doing, they gave Obama their blessing...because they were on the "same side". Now, with their typical hypocrisy, they punish C.A.

Isn't anti-Trumpism a wonderful thing? It turns people and organizations into hypocritical, partisan hacks who make no apologies for their disingenuous behavior.
 
NeverTrumpGOP said:
The difference is, people logged into Obama app willingly. This CA app harvested your data without your knowledge.
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a professor at Cambridge University built a Facebook app around 2014 that involved a personality quiz. About 270,000 users of the app agreed to share some of their Facebook information, as well as data from people on their friends list.
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Seems like it was willingly to me.
How can you dispute that?
 
Liberals are sensing the trump- collusion story is dying so they jump on the "trump collided with facebook" story.

So sad these people.
 
Mycroft said:
Get back to me when someone is charged with a crime...in the US.
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You never discuss any allegations unless someone has been charged in the US? That must be very limiting here.

Mycroft said:
All the rest...the blackmail, etc...the speculation, etc...isn't worth my consideration. It's all irrelevant.
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You don’t care about allegations of blackmail, bribery and direct corruption in elections but you do care about allegations of misusing Facebook data? You have a strange moral compass.

Mycroft said:
I daresay, with the numbers involved, the Obama campaign got data about MANY more people who had no knowledge their data was being use by them. C.A. got data on 50 million or so. Obama got data on almost 200 million.
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The numbers aren’t really the key factor. They’d would be more luck that judgement anyway and in both cases I’m sure they’d have taken more if they could. The core allegation against CA isn’t that the gathered the data but that they illegitimately obtained it from a third party and lied about deleting it when requested. Again, neither case is good but the allegations against CA go significantly further.
 
holbritter said:
True about Facebook. I was thinking more of Google, and combined them incorrectly, with the data and targeted advertising. It's kind of creeps me out when I google luggage reviews, then all these luggage ads are everywhere.
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Its a strange age we live in when our own taste and predilections are force fed to us. On a nearly constant basis.
 
So Obama hired a professor to create a psycholigical research survey that 50 million people took part in. Then he took those 50 million people psychological profile and all there "friends" and targeted them based on that survey.
This was not marketing. This was not algorithms related to like clicks, this was data collected under false pretenses then weaponized.
But okay create a false narrative if it makes you feel better about the whole thing.
Hopefully since this "study" was supposed to be research not clear of it was called medical research...those that were told to destroy the information and didn't face some penalty.
 
HonestJoe said:
You never discuss any allegations unless someone has been charged in the US? That must be very limiting here.
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I prefer to limit myself to reality. I'll leave the speculation...the fantasy...the dreams...to others. If you like that kind of thing, go for it.

You don’t care about allegations of blackmail, bribery and direct corruption in elections but you do care about allegations of misusing Facebook data? You have a strange moral compass.
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Why should I care if this company blackmails some politician in another country? Show me they did it in MY country and I'll consider the issue.

I don't think any Facebook data has been misused. The data is there. Facebook makes it available to anyone...especially to those who pay them.

What I care about here is the hypocrisy of Facebook for punishing one company for doing the same thing an actual political campaign did...who Facebook ultimately permitted doing such things.

I care about the hypocrisy of the Mainstream Media who held up that political campaign as innovative, extraordinarily successful and outright geniuses for coming up with their Facebook data scheme...but who, when there is a connection to Trump, characterize C.A.'s scheme, which is virtually identical to that other politician's scheme, as everything from illegal to just plain ****ty.

My moral compass is secure.

The numbers aren’t really the key factor. They’d would be more luck that judgement anyway and in both cases I’m sure they’d have taken more if they could. The core allegation against CA isn’t that the gathered the data but that they illegitimately obtained it from a third party and lied about deleting it when requested. Again, neither case is good but the allegations against CA go significantly further.
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There was nothing illegitimate about how C.A. obtained their data. Marketing firms do the same thing every day. Heck, I get email ads from all kinds of people and organizations who got my address from a third party. I bought tires from a shop. Next thing I know, I'm getting email coupons for oil changes and people wanting to sell me vehicle service warranty junk. None of it is illegal. All of it is a fact of life nowadays.

C.A. ultimately had no obligation to Facebook to delete anything...just like Obama had no obligation to delete stuff HE got from Facebook.

I see this whole issue as biased anti-Trump hacks...which includes Facebook...trying to make a mountain out of a nothingburger.
 
holbritter said:
Than what any data miners do?
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They deliberately engaged in deceptive practices, to access critical personal information without permission.

They exploited an Amazon system (the "Mechanical Turk") which pays small sums to perform short online tasks (e.g. proofread a document etc). In this case, they had the MTs fill out a survey for $1 or $2; limited it to American participants; and required users to install and authorize a Facebook app. The survey was a front, the real goal was to grab all of the information they could via the Facebook app. As many as 300,000 people participated in the "survey," and anywhere from 30 to 50 million Facebook accounts were compromised.

On top of that, Facebook changed its API to prevent this type of exploit in 2015, and forced Cambridge to sign a legally binding document to delete the data. Cambridge staffers indicated the data was not deleted.

Separately, a UK TV network has them caught on tape offering unethical and/or illegal services to a prospective client (who was actually an undercover reporter), and saying they'd engaged in such activities in the past. This included using bribery and prostitutes to entrap and/or blackmail opponents, and planting fake stories in news outlets. Nix claimed they routinely used shadow companies to avoid it being connected to Cambridge or the client.

Despite top execs being caught on tape proposing those tactics and saying "we've done it before," Cambridge insists "oh we don't do that kind of stuff."


Obtaining some personal data isn't the problem; Americans are happy to turn over tons of info in exchange for tiny bits of free stuff. The real issue is that if the allegations are true (and the evidence is pretty strong, but investigations are just starting) Cambridge Analytica obtained the data unethically, and that's indicative of their lack of moral compass.
 
holbritter said:
How is it stealing if the person willingly took the survey? How did they blackmail anyone?
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Only 270,000 users were participants in the survey. Cambridge Analytica harvested the data of 50 million users by including a scraping tool in the app to gather private data from the participants’ friends list. In terms of blackmail - the CEO is on the record telling an undercover reporter that their firm used Ukrainian prostitutes to blackmail political rivals of their clients.
 
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NeverTrumpGOP said:
While maybe not a largish firm, they have a large international footprint. Yes, you are not allowed to harvest FB data without user consent. They did this to profit off of it. Obama didn't use FB data for profit, and he didn't do it without people's knowledge. CA, did. That is illegal.
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Why did the Obama campaign do it then?

Was it not to win the Presidency? Isn't that profiting?
 
WCH said:
When Obama did it, it was a sign of his brilliance.
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When Obama did it, they asked for and received consent of the Facebook users. They knew it was an application created by and for the Obama campaign; they knew they were granting data access to the app; they knew they were giving Facebook access to their Friend list. The campaign app also asked participants to do things like message their Facebook friends.

When Cambridge Analytica did it, they used deceptive practices. They used an Amazon system (Mechanical Turk) which paid people $1-2 to participate in a survey; participants had to be Americans, and had to install a Facebook app. The survey was fake, the goal was to install the Facebook app without telling the users who operated it or what it was doing, thus Cambridge did not have consent.

Obama's campaign may not have been brilliant. However, they did act ethically, whereas Cambridge apparently did not.
 
Napoleon said:
Only 270,000 users were participants in the survey. Cambridge Analytica harvested the data of 50 million users by including a scraping tool in the app to gather private data from the participants’ friends list. In terms of blackmail - the CEO is on the record telling an undercover reporter that their firm used Ukrainian prostitutes to blackmail political rivals of their clients.
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That sounds just like the app Obama used then. I don't get what the blackmail thing has to do with data mining?
 
Visbek said:
When Obama did it, they asked for and received consent of the Facebook users. They knew it was an application created by and for the Obama campaign; they knew they were granting data access to the app; they knew they were giving Facebook access to their Friend list. The campaign app also asked participants to do things like message their Facebook friends.

When Cambridge Analytica did it, they used deceptive practices. They used an Amazon system (Mechanical Turk) which paid people $1-2 to participate in a survey; participants had to be Americans, and had to install a Facebook app. The survey was fake, the goal was to install the Facebook app without telling the users who operated it or what it was doing, thus Cambridge did not have consent.

Obama's campaign may not have been brilliant. However, they did act ethically, whereas Cambridge apparently did not.
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Do you have a link for this? I have not heard this side of it yet.
 
holbritter said:
Than what any data miners do?
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Considering reading about it.
https://www.theguardian.com/news/20...er-christopher-wylie-faceook-nix-bannon-trump

First - using facebook profiles to target widget adds to you is one thing. Using that to create a disinformation/information campaign in media (it only originates on the web, it crosses to TV, etc.), in order to influence government elections. If you think they are identical..targeting widget adds to you, and national elections, than that would be an issue.
I think neither are acceptable, but obvious one may change the market share of a company, the other changes who runs nations. I think it's obvious that it's being taken too far. It's literally psychological warfare as it's used by intelligence agencies, used against their own populations.

- The survey was voluntary, but it was linked to an app that pulled your personal data from facebook (irrelevant to the quiz), AND your friends data (without them even taking a quiz).
At the end of which Kogan’s app, called thisismydigitallife, gave him permission to access their Facebook profiles. And not just theirs, but their friends’ too. On average, each “seeder” – the people who had taken the personality test, around 320,000 in total – unwittingly gave access to at least 160 other people’s profiles, none of whom would have known or had reason to suspect.
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- Kogan lied about being connected to Russia. Turns out, surprise, he has Russian government grants to study social media, Russian teaching position, speaks Russian, etc.

- Kogan's app started pulling so much personal data that it triggered Facebook security. They asked him what's going on. He said it was for academic research, so they said "OK". It clearly was not for academic research as used by C.A.

- Facebook asked them to delete the data. They encrypted it and spread it out. There was no real checking/verification from Facebook to see if they deleted the information.

- As they developed these sophisticated techniques to change elections using what is really a misuse of stolen data via fraud, Lukoil who is also working with them internationally, wanted more information on how they can make the connections between American voters and consumers (among other things, it was a back and forth of them wanting more information)

Lukoil is sanctioned by the U.S., it's essentially an arm of the Kremlin. For example, someone of Russian interest brought up on legal charges, Lukoil bails them out...yes, an oil company randomly bails out someone of interest to the Kremlin...it's why they are not allowed in the U.S.)

Nix wrote to Wylie: “We have been asked to write a memo to Lukoil (the Russian oil and gas company) to explain to them how our services are going to apply to the petroleum business. Nix said that “they understand behavioural microtargeting in the context of elections” but that they were “failing to make the connection between voters and their consumers”. The work, he said, would be “shared with the CEO of the business”, a former Soviet oil minister and associate of Putin, Vagit Alekperov.

“It didn’t make any sense to me,” says Wylie. “I didn’t understand either the email or the pitch presentation we did. Why would a Russian oil company want to target information on American voters?”
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So if we assumed the worst based on the information so far, this is what you have:
- Professor who took grants/position from Russia to research "social media psychology"
- Creates a survey that steals your data (not related to the survey), and your entire friends list (others, Obama? may have used firm that did similar...)
- Lied to Facebook saying it was only going to be used for Academic Research
- Given or sold for a token fee to Cambridge Analytica to be used in U.S. elections, primarily the 2016 presidential campaign for the Republican candidate
- The data is used in ways that are not just similar to the way the Military uses propaganda/information psychological warfare, it's better...Pentagon and Russia apparently are both actively interested in understanding how it all works.

- On top of all that, undercover video clearly shows C.A. principles discussing illegal activities, fraud, etc., as related to how they can influence an election (you can look those up, they are damning).

So you (And WCH and some of the others), can clearly see that "data mining" is the tip of the proverbial iceberg. Facebook is the big criminal on that front. Business that "take advantage" of facebook, while immoral/unethical, are really showing the flaws in Facebook.

That's just a summary.
 
holbritter said:
Than what any data miners do?

Take away the political aspect, do not many companies have our public profiles analyzed to determine how to advertise to us? All those ads that pop up for items you were recently looking into are not coincidence.

What they do is offer tools that could identify the personalities of Americans to influence their behavior. Big retailers have been doing this for years. With social media being so important in society today, it was only a matter of time before politics used it to whoever's advantage.

From what was reported originally is that Cambridge sent out a survey and the information was obtained from the people who chose to answer the survey.

I guess I'm not getting what the huge deal is about, so asking for some insight please.
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It's different, now, because "Truuuuuuuuump!".
 
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