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Couldn't see anything on this although I suspect it'll be raised in Trump and Brexit threads too.
On the back of the FB 'hacks' and data harvesting 'scam' (I quote that because it's still in the air whether technically people agreed to the harvesting, even if unwittingly) - but now seems like C4 News has stung them with claims they would bribe or honeytrap politicians to fix elections with a hidden camera meeting.
And their response seems to be that they wouldn't really, but they played along to avoid embarrassing the (journo) that was asking them about it.
Thoughts?
Scummy in my book. Even if they don't do that sort of thing, the embarrassment angle is pathetic - if someone approaches you asking if you can swing an election for them by foul means you call them out on it, report them to the authorities. It's morally about the same as joining in with racist abuse at the football because to call them racist scumbags might embarrass them.
Quack quack, Mr Nix.
but they played along to avoid embarrassing the (journo) that was asking them about it.
Seems like utter cobblers.
If I walk into my local bike shop and start asking them about televisions, they don't play along to avoid embarrassing me, they just tell me that they don't sell that, and I'm wasting their time and mine.
^ our FB metrics suggest that people who buy bikes actually don't ride them and sit on their arse and watch TV instead.
A bike shop that sells no bikes but lots of teles is not the LBS we want, but its the LBS we need.
Vote Tory for tax breaks on TV Bike shops.
Filthier than a filthy thing. The true impact of their psy-ops style approach to elections will probably never be fully known.
I suppose billionaires using their playthings to influence democracy is nothing new, and most people who read the Sun and the Mail have no idea that their political views are being echoed and amplified, just like the millions of Facebookers who are getting targeted.
Bloke looks and sounds like an IT database administrator with a James Bond fantasy, rather than someone taking a giant pair of scissors to the fabric of democracy. I suppose the truth lies somewhere in between.
I have no clue, though, it must be said 🙂 minimal user of social media so I've never seen these ads or understand how they function. Surprised at their supposed effectiveness, though - just on the basis that online advertising in general still seems really clunky and rudimentary - in its infancy compared to other forms. So this bloke claiming to wield it like a scalpel sounds more like pub talk.
50p says that ninfan, Jambafact and 5th think it's all just fine, and we should stop worrying about it.
I’m not totally surprised by the allegations TBH.
Companies have been data mining for decades, computers are good at stuff like that. What does concern me is the influence a few companies have on the lives of the many.. but we ought to get used to it because I think this is only the tip of the iceberg..
Every time you apply for a financial product these days you have been comprehensively profiled based on the data you provide, and the vast tracts of transactional data the folks at Experian et al call pull together. I'd be surprised if a lot of people fully understand what they are consenting to when they apply for a mortgage.
Data mining is a fact of life, but consent and transparency have some catching up to do. And what CA have been doing is a long way off the dodgy end of the scale.
I'm sure attention will soon be drawn to what Cambridge analytica's little canadian brother Aggregate IQ have been up to as well.
50p says that ninfan, Jambafact and 5th think it’s all just fine, and we should stop worrying about it.
Funnily enough... I have never had, and will never have a facebook account because this is what facebook is for.
Obama's team were even applauded for using facebook data (google obama team facebook cooperation to see the endless accolades).
Not my problem anyway. I'm not dumb enough to give facebook my data.
Google is a bit more of a problem...
I've been dubious about FB and Google for a while and this just confirms it.
I've always known my data was valuable and shared - what shocks me is that if a friend of mine on Facebook 'takes a quiz', then Facebook shared thier data, mine and 149 other people's data. This isn't even basic name and age - this was whole profile.
I am really considering leaving Facebook, and definately going to have a digital clean out of accounts. This may be after horse has bolted stuff, but I'm going to be a lot more careful going forward.
Y'know all them surveys on stw front page....
.......Todmorden Analytica
Will be interesting to see where the Cambridge Analytica investigation stops, tory press would never admit that their pet project was dodgy
https://twitter.com/georgescircus/status/976019740585091077?s=19
Probably a bit closer to this than most folks and this is the tip of a very very big iceberg that is called "political manipulation"
Trump Brexit Putin Breitbart Gannon Cambridge Analytica and the many more links/movements.
By the way UKIP and Farage are not in the above as they didnt have the money to buy in.
Worth looking at this
About how they gathered the data for supposed academic purposes and then used the same data to influence US elections/brexit and the involvement of russian business that's linked to the very closely to the kremlin
Personally, I was shocked to find it's not actually based in Cambridge. That's the real scandal 😉
I think the phrase "if it's free then you are the product" applies here. I'm with @5thElephant with this. The problem with FB is that even if you don't have an account they still track you as many sites (including this one) include their tracker code. View the page source and you'll find "<!-- Facebook Pixel Code -->" above a block of Javascript.
I was never trusting of FB years ago when they were much smaller and not as omnipotent as they are now. Nothing they've done in the interim has made me reconsider that.
Psy-ops? Honey traps? Facebook a tool of the military industrial complex?
Blatantly the tin foil hat brigade having a laugh...
What right do these journalists and investigators have to meddle with the democratic system we've come to know and love.
Keep power hidden in the hands of those with the deepest pockets by the foulest of means I say!!
>Nothing they’ve done in the interim has made me reconsider that.
I knew they weren't filling my news feed full of cat videos for purely altruistic purposes. They're probably all full of subliminal messages to vote Tory.....
Makes a mockery of the ICO’s GDPR initiative doesn’t it.
Just the next phase of post-democracy.
Old school papers and their manipulation in politics is history.
Definitely tip of the iceberg. FB will eventually be found complicit in much the same way Murdoch and co were. And also probably more guilty regarding data security laws than they're currently admitting. It's most definitely not just CA and their associated companies that have been 'naughty'.
My deadpool for this year consisted entirely of people related to the Trump Russia political meddling investigations. There will be at least one "oh how (in)convenient" death in that respect. I'm going to add one more to the list (the former Breitbart employee that was a LibDem intern).
This story is gonna get interesting for sure.
I knew they weren’t filling my news feed full of cat videos for purely altruistic purposes. They’re probably all full of subliminal messages to vote Tory…..
BORIS FOR PM!
>BORIS FOR PM!
I did wonder why that video appeared 132 times in my feed....
I don't think most people actually understand the implications of this big data analysis and manipulation. It seems to be written off as just more political campaigning the likes of which has always occurred. The thing is it's so much more detailed, personalised, invasive and invisible than has ever happened before.
The funny thing is all the publicity about the ICO plans to raid their offices. It is like they are inviting CA to get busy virtually burning documents.
so I’ve never seen these ads or understand how they function
One of the areas of focus is that no one will have seen all the ads.
With targeted marketing they can give you one ad saying the candidate believes x whilst providing me with the exact opposite based on our profiles.
One good starting point would be to force Facebook to publish all political ads and the rough target demographics.,
It is like they are inviting CA to get busy virtually burning documents.
That may be the intention. As the old saying goes, it's the cover-up that gets you, not the original crime.
>With targeted marketing they can give you one ad saying the candidate believes x whilst providing me with the exact opposite based on our profiles.
There was a FB plug in which tracked political ads you could install in your browser, came out round about the last election.....
https://www.propublica.org/article/help-us-monitor-political-ads-online
Although interesting to note it explicitly didn't track cat videos.......
Well the guy from CA was pulling the "Oh the MSM just don't like us cos we helped Trump so much". There's probably some truth in that, if he had made ads to make hundreds more people hug kittens, and misused data in some way, I don't think anyone would care.
But I think FB are very complicit in this - releasing data for "academic" purposes and then not bothering to ensure it's not used for political and commercial purposes until they get caught strikes me as involving a lot of nudges and winks when the data was provided.
Further to this, I hardly ever get pictures of old schoolfriends with their tits hanging out on nights out, and get far more political bollocks on FB, and for this reason I might leave soon.
>But I think FB are very complicit in this
Just like any large tech company, they only give a shit about revenue and would happily sell slaves if it increased profits and thought they could get away with it.
rm -r * was probably a popular key string last night 😉 . What do people expect. If people really want access to my endless supply of bike photos, they are welcome. FB is just a photo hosting site for me. Do people really use their FB account to register other sites? Really? For the sake of a decent password naming convention.
obama team facebook cooperation
nothing remotely like this comes up and nothing remotely relevant does either
50p says that ninfan, Jambafact and 5th think it’s all just fine, and we should stop worrying about it.
Not a bad punt but it looks like whatabouterry and some fake news was the choice today
FWIW I do agree that with FB you are the product to be sold but even
Do people really use their FB account to register other sites? Really?
Yup
FWIW I do agree that with FB you are the product to be sold
It's not just what you share or do in FB. It's what others share about you.
PS if you do have an FB a/c go to privacy etc. settings. Don't just turn off platform apps. There's also a section where you can (to a certain extent) choose what info can be shared when <span style="text-decoration: underline;">other people's</span> apps access your profile (apps just like those that CA and co. used to build their profiles). Turn everything off there too. It's a start, at least.
This is the first iteration of the game. No rulebooks, white lines, official kits, referees, or goal posts but a 'game' nonetheless. Next time round it'll be a little more refined, possibly more governance but people in power (well beyond the politicians) are rubbing their hands furiously at the possibilities and opportunities being realised here. The game will just evolve.
Do people really use their FB account to register other sites?
Ask Gigya, they seem to be doing allright out of it.
I do hope the warrant covers all those servers and databases they're talking about, I'm sure they are definitely in their London office after all.
nothing remotely like this comes up and nothing remotely relevant does either
Third link https://www.theguardian.com/world/2012/may/14/obama-digital-campaigning-dashboard
Look a bit further:
The only vaguely different thing is that Facebook was complicit with the Obama team.
Which if anything is more disturbing. Unless you're partisan.
Do people really use their FB account to register other sites?
It's quite common to see "Sign in with Facebook/Google" on sites, the usual balance of security/ease of use comes into play.
Are the experts working for the Information Commissioner likely to be able to gather the Information they're looking for? Or is it more likely that this eventuality has been planned for by CA? I can't imagine it will be a straightforward handing over of data even without any hasty deleting.
Digital forensics covers not just the available or recoverable data but the actions performed on it based on the evidence of logs describing system and user activity. Absence of logs and other indicators is typically reason to look more deeply... My guess is that as the new masters of the universe essentially operating in uncharted territory, CA will have been too vain to worry about the sort of operational security required to hide everything in a plausible manner.
What if the data is not kept in the UK? Does the information Commissioner have any powers over data stored overseas?
The whataboutery posted earlier in the thread raises an interesting question - What happens when your preferred political party wins an election having used a tool like Facebook to influence an electoral outcome?
Furthermore, how do we avoid a situation whereby a vote may be tainted again in any rerun?
If we can get CA to share date with Experian they can give us all a social score and let us be rated like we are in a black mirror episode or China
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2018/mar/05/algorithms-rate-credit-scores-finances-data?CMP=Share_AndroidApp_Copy_to_clipboar d"> http://The tyranny of algorithms is part of our lives: soon they could rate everything we do https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2018/mar/05/algorithms-rate-credit-scores-finances-data?CMP=Share_AndroidApp_Copy_to_clipboard
Just checking something I haven't understood.
If I've set my profile to be private, i.e. you can't see anything unless you're actually connected to me, then could my profile data still have been shared with Cambridge Analystica if a friend of mine that I am connected to had taken this 'personality test'; is that what's happened?
Yes.
Go to Settings - Apps - Apps others use
In there you can choose to a certain extent what information those connected to you can share via Apps (such as those personality test ones used by CA and co. designed to extract information not just from that user but all their contacts too).
Private means nothing more than you saying what shared data should be displayed via FB own web/app interface.
Oh...
and I'm waiting for the next movie...
The Social Network 2
where Zuck and others get banged up for gross negligence of data protection laws in multiple jurisdictions and for conspiracy to screw up and violate electoral law also in multiple jurisdictions.
More light reading for Junkyard: https://www.hannity.com/media-room/facebook-fail-obama-campaign-sucked-private-user-data-during-2012-election
5thelephant, could you explain why you think that's comparable, or disturbing?
5th; that's old news and Hannity is a well known sh*tb*g.
Do you have anything relevant to say?
I wonder how much money FB will be losing over people suddenly restricting data collection settings or reducing or boycotting FB use. There were reports that share prices dropped 10% at one point yesterday but this also be hitting their cash cow hard.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-43486054
https://twitter.com/rosscolquhoun/status/976434294313963520
Defintely nothing to see here
(thats CAs CEO Nix & the russsian ambassador who just did a 1hr press conference mocking the UKs skirpal investogation)
Picture take 2 days after wikileaks dumped Hillarys emails at the start fo DNC convention
meanwhile
https://twitter.com/jonsnowC4/status/976208719020220418