~ John Lennon
BOOM! Cambridge Analytica explodes following extraordinary TV expose
BOOM! Cambridge Analytica explodes following extraordinary TV expose
*Brian Acton on Twitter: "It is time. #deletefacebook"
History Lesson-Gough Whitlam - 'ALP' - 'Its Time' Election Jingle. - YouTube
ANALYSIS: TRUE. No one can pretend Facebook is just harmless fun any more
In iconic Delacroix painting, art lovers see a masterpiece. France sees liberty. Facebook and MD sees nipples SCMP
IT ISN’T BOMBSHELL IF IT ONLY CONFIRMS WHAT EVERYBODY KNEW: Ex-Obama Campaign Director Drops Bombshell Claim on Facebook: ‘They Were on Our Side.’
IT ISN’T BOMBSHELL IF IT ONLY CONFIRMS WHAT EVERYBODY KNEW: Ex-Obama Campaign Director Drops Bombshell Claim on Facebook: ‘They Were on Our Side.’
Numerous follow-ups to my posting yesterday – NYT, Guardian – How Trump Consultants Exploited the Facebook Data of Millions – UK Channel Four Television has a report on the widening depth and breath of this scandal – An undercover investigation by Channel 4 News reveals how Cambridge Analytica secretly campaigns in elections across the world. Bosses were filmed talking about using bribes, ex-spies, fake IDs and sex workers [note – the video is included within the linked article. This report is Part Two of a Channel 4 News series, ‘Data, Democracy and Dirty Tricks’, investigating Cambridge Analytica. Part Three, on the company’s work in the United States, will be broadcast at 7pm tomorrow (Tuesday, 20 March 2018). You can watch Part One here.]
See also this press release – Cambridge Analytica responds to use of entrapment and mischaracterization by Channel 4 News
CBS News – Facebook hires firm to conduct forensic audit of Cambridge Analytica data – “Facebook has hired Stroz Friedberg, a digital forensics firm, to conduct an audit of Cambridge Analytica, which recently came under scrutiny after reports said the company harvested personal data from more than 50 million unwitting Facebook users. According to a press release issued by Facebook on Monday, Cambridge Analytica has agreed to “comply and afford the firm complete access to their servers and systems.” The social network said it asked Christopher Wylie and University of Cambridge professor Aleksandr Kogan to submit to an audit. Facebook says Kogan has verbally agreed to participate, but Wylie has declined. Wylie is a former employee of Cambridge Analytica who described the company’s use of illicit data in interviews late last week. Cambridge Analytica, Kogan and Wylie were banned from Facebook on Friday. Cambridge Analytica did not immediately confirm that it had agreed to comply with the audit. The firm has denied the allegations that it improperly collected and used the data. A spokeswoman for Stroz Friedberg declined to comment on the firm’s involvement with an audit. Cambridge Analytica was hired by the Trump campaign during the 2016 primaries, but the company says it did not use the data as part of its work with the campaign…”
Even if we want to avoid the site and keep our data protected, it’s not as easy as one might think. According to Roger McNamee, an early investor in Facebook, the company uses techniques found in propaganda and casino gambling to foster psychological addiction in its users – such as constant notifications and variable rewards. By keeping us hooked, Facebook is able to hold a huge amount of data on us. What is surprising, and worrying, is the derived data Facebook has – the profiles it can build of its users based on seemingly innocuous information. The author of the book Networks of Control, Wolfie Christl, noted that a patent published by Facebook works out people’s commute times by using location data from mobile apps. It then uses this and other data to segregate users into social classes.Facebook’s massive data cache goes hand in hand with its acquisition of competitors. Nick Srnicek, author of Platform Capitalism, says, “Facebook is acting like a classic monopoly: it’s buying up competitors like Instagram, it’s blatantly copying rivals like Snapchat, and it even has its own app, Onavo, that acts to warn them of potential threats. All of this is combined with an unchecked sweeping up of our data that’s being used to build an impervious moat around its business.”
ANTISOCIAL MEDIA: Facebook may have broken FTC deal in Cambridge Analytica incident.
Facebook may face more legal trouble than you might think in the wake of Cambridge Analytica’s large-scale data harvesting. Former US officials David Vladeck and Jessica Rich have told the Washington Post that Facebook’s data sharing may violate the FTC consent decree requiring that it both ask for permission before sharing data and report any authorized access. The “Thisisyourdigitallife” app at the heart of the affair asked for permission from those who directly used it, but not the millions of Facebook friends whose data was taken in the process.
Beware the Big Five New York Review of Books
(See Terry Pratchett’s The Truth for a discussion of “fracas” vs. “rumpus.”) I’m actually a little baffled about where to file this material, since as an event the fracas begins as a “2016 Post Mortem,” but then ramifies outward to questions of valuation, the melding of the press, opposition researchers, the political class, and the intelligence community, besides raising privacy issues.Revealed: Trump’s election consultants filmed saying they use bribes and sex workers to entrap politicians Channel 4. Cambridge Analytica, who bought the Trump campaign’s Facebook advertisements. Among other things?Top hole crisis management:
* * * Trump campaign phased out use of Cambridge Analytica data before election CBS. So if they were that good…Follow-Up Questions For Facebook, Cambridge Analytica and Trump Campaign on Massive Breach Just Security. “Breach” is a misnomer, since that implies that Facebook’s database was hacked via an intrusion. Instead, data was gathered on the Facebook platform under false pretenses.Facebook may have violated FTC privacy deal, say former federal officials, triggering risk of massive fines WaPo. At$40K per violation, that raises questions about Facebook’s valuation.
BRIBES AND SEX WORKERS: Apparently
that’s part of the formula that Cambridge
Analytica used to help its clients prevail in elections. The company, which was
hired by the Trump campaign and is now under scrutiny over its unauthorized use
of data from some 50 million Facebook users, used subterfuge to disguise any involvement,
according to undercover video captured by the UK’s
Channel 4 News. On Monday, British Prime Minister Theresa May backed an
investigation into Facebook and Cambridge Analytica. The European Union also
said it would launch a probe into the alleged misuse of private data.
TIME TO
RETHINK GROUPS: The company has already announced
plans to make its Groups show up in more news feeds. Bad idea, reports
BuzzFeed. “The unintended consequence is that the more than a billion users active in
groups are being placed on a collision course with the hackers, trolls, and
other bad actors who will follow Facebook’s lead and make groups even more of a
focus for their activities.” This is a must read.
A “MYSPACE MOMENT?”: That’s
what Dan Kennedy is wondering as he writes for WGBH: “From creepy psychological
experiments to advertising aimed at ‘Jew haters,’ from the manipulation of its
Trending Topics feed to the proliferation of Russian-backed fake news, Facebook
is looking more and more like a uniquely malign influence in our lives. The
question is whether Mark Zuckerberg and company, in their arrogance and greed,
have dealt themselves a blow from which they will not recover.”
No one at Facebook seems to want to talk
about this, though NPR Silicon Valley correspondent Aarti Shahani tried:
— CAMBRIDGE ANALYTICA’S LEAK SHOULDN’T SURPRISE YOU, BUT IT SHOULD SCARE YOU — FACEBOOK IS NOT ALONE IN MAKING EVERYONE’S DATA AVAILABLE FOR WHATEVER PURPOSE
