I am not shock by the facts that they are collecting data. The fact they are designing a psychological procedure to feed their narrative and agenda to you in an unconscious way, shaping and changing your world view, with that message only tailored to you, is very creepy to me. This doesn't sound like advertising to me, this is manipulation and brainwashing.

Explain the difference in semantics between the two because the mechanics sound the same, best I can tell this company was just running ads like everyone else. Creating psychological profiles of voters to craft messages to them to pursuade their vote I believe is the same thing as political advertising and is exactly what Obama's campaign were doing and had countless fawning articles written about them (just Google it.) Best I can tell the real facet here being used to paint this in a new light is the use of harvested data in a way that violated Facebook ToS but that is 100% nothing new and crawling FB via the API to do data science was a new idea like 10+ years ago (and it has since been locked down due to the prevalence of abuse I'd assume.)

Why is this hard to understand? The same technology can be used for both good and bad.

Obama used it to inform people about his polcies and get the out to vote. Trump used it to spread lies, falsehoods and half-truths. Essentially any media that was outlandish enough to become viral was promoted and promoted to hapless people who probably might have wondered why they were seeing so many distressing articles about America in "Carnage" (as Trump puts it).

Yep. So Obama is just "good" and Trump is just "bad". Way to view things boy.

At most this is your own political standards. Not anything that can be neutral and objective. Claiming one set of political ideas to be "right" is very dangerous.

So you are stating that the reverse interpretation where Obama spread lies and falsehoods, and smears his opponents while Trump was merely informing the public of truths is objectively just as valid as the opposite?

Just because something is political and not neutral does not mean that there are no facts associated with it. We may disagree on them, debate them, but to take the stance that there are none at all is the kind of tactic used by people who do not wish to debate the actual validity of their viewpoints.

Is it your view that all politicians roughly speak the same amount of lies vs. truth? That Trump's message is the same as Obama's message which is the same as any other political message?

That is Baizuo logic..

It comes down to motivation. Obama is a career politician, but Bannon is an ideologist. The former seeks to get elected, the latter seeks to plant ideas and change the society in a fundamental way. To me, Bannon is much more dangerous than Obama, because he is subversive.

Technically, there might be little difference, but Bannon clearly excels at using this tool to a greater effect, and the result is far more impactful and outreaching, even revolutionary. Guaranteed, other groups will take notice and trying to replicate their success, to feed their version of personalized agenda to your month.

The biggest difference is Bannon wants to break society to that it can be remade as he wants. Classic villain methodology, where the ends justify the means. Creating and exploiting divisions in society, damaging democratic institutions, so that the Government collapses and Democracy along with it. To be replaced with 'his' vision for this country. That is evil and treasonous.

And Obama did broken the society. Probably it's broken so badly, that it cannot be mended anymore...

I agree with your discomfort on Bannon's agenda, but aren't you conceptually backwards here? If Bannon is evil not because of his agenda but because he wants to bring societal change, isn't the same true for Abraham Lincoln?

Change via Destruction is much different than change via Cohesion.

And now we have the Chaotic President, thanks, Bannon.

> This doesn't sound like advertising to me, this is manipulation and brainwashing.

If advertising isn't manipulating and brainwashing, what is it? As far as I can tell, advertising is precisely that.

that is what they claim they are able to do. the reality is likely quite different.

I guess the other question is why this hasn't been any news yet. But the answer might be that 10 years ago Tech wasn't much in the news because it was just not interesting for most people.

This has changed a lot in the last few years though, which might explain why the news agency now have to work through (at least!) 10 years of tech news backlog. I'd definitely like to see coverage of these topic from 'traditional journalists' who then bring this stuff into context and link it with politics for instance. It's a little sad that we needed the politic right and their friends to bring these things to public attention.

> Were any laws broken here?

In Germany they would have broken it by that. At least here every website needed already 10 years ago not only Terms of Services but also a data privacy section/page. Such a page would be of no use if you could collect data from people before they even visit your website.

>I guess the other question is why this hasn't been any news yet. But the answer might be that 10 years ago Tech wasn't much in the news because it was just not interesting for most people.

This 100% untrue:

https://bits.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/11/07/how-obamas-interne...

https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2009/10/exclusi...

These are only two links but let me assure you if you're interested google is full of articles from the 2008 election talking about how vital the internet and data was to the Obama strategy.

I very clearly remember these articles and many others at the time talking about the new "big data" strategies utilized in both 2008 and 2012. To me that is what makes this whole "we scraped data and stole the election for trump" narrative seem extremely suspicious.

> To me that is what makes this whole "we scraped data and stole the election for trump" narrative seem extremely suspicious.

Suspicious of what? Be more clear about what you're trying to say here please.

Because I hope it's not that people didn't complain enough when Obama did it, and therefore now nobody can? (aside from the fact that I did complain, because I complain about all advertising, but that's not the point)

The first one links to NYTimes Blog though. I mean now you see on general news coverage about cellphone chip companies -- absolutely uninteresting 10 years ago. Apparently voters were already manipulated to some degree at that time. But now it got even more. But at the same time technology immersed to much into day to day life that everybody is also interested in pure technology news.

On the other hand all journalists become more technical at the same time, so they have to digest some stuff from the past. Obviously even older news...

I guess it's fair to say that Techcrunch or ZDNet are not exactly great sources for usage of Big Data in politics...

> I remember when the Obama campaign hired data scientists and used targeted social networking tools to pursuade voters who were on the fence and it was heralded as brilliant and the future of politics.

If you go back to 2008 election, the media was praising Obama as the first social media president. Remember how well obama used youtube, myspace, facebook, reddit and the burgeoning social space during his election? It's strange how the media is now attacking the social media space they loved so much because trump won the election.

> Why is any of this news?

I think it's because the media and the democrats and a large segment of the elites need something to blame for trump's win. They don't want to blame hillary or themselves for the loss, so they attack social media.

During the 2016 election, Trump was complaining about foreign interference in the elections. And Obama stated there was no foreigner interference and that Trump was whining because he was losing in the polls. Back then, the traditional media was backing obama and mocking trump. Now that trump has won, the traditional media is the one pushing the foreign interference narrative.

But I guess it is all conjecture. But ever since trump won the election, there has been a relentless propaganda campaign against social media by the establishment. You can't go a day without seeing a propaganda piece on traditional or social media about how bad social media is.

If you had read the article, you would have seen that it is the elites who are running these operations. The "liberals" are not the ones who are the elites, it's the ones with money funding this sort of thing. It very clearly names the contributors, I suggest reading it.

There is still no evidence that 2008 had any foreign influence. The tactics used in 2008 did not include the sort of misinformation information warfare now being conducted.

In contrast, in Brexit and Trump's wins this article is claiming that there is conclusive foreign interference.

Regarding the establishment, the only propaganda campaigns I can see being waged are against the mainstream news (the ongoing fake news propaganda) and against the tech companies who I suppose are "new money" and not in with the oil and finance czars funding this sort of thing.

The article is really interesting, you should read it. It basically suggests that democracy has largely failed in the age of information warfare. Targeted campaigns by rich elites and foreign governments can now influence votes and psychology on a massive scale. It's no longer about "my side and their side." All of us are on the losing side here.

Using Facebook to raise money, organize locally, fight smear campaigns and get out the vote is vastly different than harvesting data to build a surveillance machine

There are actual reasons to be worried about this kind of thing:

- The advertisements were not overt ("fake news") - It raises the barrier of entry to the political process - Filter bubble effects

Or you can believe a story about "elites" and "biased media".

> There are actual reasons to be worried about this kind of thing:

I suppose. Why weren't people worried about this during obama's campaign?

> - The advertisements were not overt ("fake news") - It raises the barrier of entry to the political process - Filter bubble effects

If filter bubble effects are a problem, then we should be looking into traditional media, not social media. I'd say there is more of a filter bubble issues in CNN, NYTimes, WashingtonPost, Foxnews, etc than in social media. When nearly 100% of the largest media organizations are endorsing one candidate and/or espousing one type of ideology, maybe we should be looking at that.

> Or you can believe a story about "elites" and "biased media".

It's not a matter of believing. It's a matter of fact. Foxnews and the right wing were also whining about social media when obama won. Now it's the media and the left wing whining about social media because trump won. The only difference is that the leftwing has a much greater media presence.

It's so funny how both sides are the same. When it looked like trump was losing, he was blaming foreign interference and biased media and fake news. And the media/leftwing was mocking him for being paranoid and a sore loser. Now that trump won, it's the media/leftwing whining about foreign interference and biased social media and fake news. The hypocrisy displayed by every side is rather disheartening.

1. Obama's use of social media was reported.

2. Why is whatever Obama did relevant to this story? Do two wrongs make a right?

3. Where in the linked article does the journalist inject their own opinion? I couldn't find any instances. The opinions came from the interview subjects, and are reported by the journalist as they should be.

Isn’t harvesting data prohibited by Facebook TOS? (Not to say that people don’t still do it). Also, could you elaborate on what kind of data you get access to by doing this data harvesting versus just using Facebook targeting data that Facebook explicitly gives advertisers access to? I’m curious because fb gives a lot of targeting criteria, so I’m wondering what kinds of things this harvesting unlocks. Sentiment analysis on post language or something?

> Isn’t harvesting data prohibited by Facebook TOS?

This should be the main takeaway from this article--that Facebook relies on the honor system for protecting user data.

Breaking a company's TOS isn't a crime in and of itself, and social media data has been used for political targeting for years now. Insinuating that Trump won because of a nefarious brain control operation fueled by data from a "data breach" is irresponsible.

> Isn’t harvesting data prohibited by Facebook TOS?

Facebook gives companies access to the data (e.g., "for research") but they're not allowed to sell or provide that data to third parties (which is what these people did).

> Where any laws broken here ? Yes. The article mentions "British data protection laws were probably broken". NB Facebook lawyers have been trying to push the Guardian around. - https://twitter.com/carolecadwalla/status/974995682124804099

IMHO, but I am not a lawyer - clearly the law was broken, Data Protection Act.

>Why is any of this news?

I think the clue is in the article:

> ... Russians ... had used the platform to perpetrate “information warfare” against the US

They harvested personal info of people. Something against FB policy and against the law. That is why it is news.

I understand that Hacker News has been accused of turning into reddit since reddit became a thing, but when the top most comment is from a guy who didn't even bother to read the article linked, there is a very little in the way distinction between the two sites.

And do you think the so-called "Russian influence" and the special counsel investigation have much substance to them anyways? Everybody can see from a mile how charged everything has become in American politics. They drum up the rhetoric on this one simply because they perceive Trump as their enemy and want him down no matter what, even though their "own" candidate might well have done the same thing or at least very similar things.

If this incident helps protect user privacy further it would be great. However I doubt it would happen at all. Most likely they'd just take this opportunity to aim another round of barrage at Trump instead of talking any substance about the issue itself. The purpose of this reportage is political attack against Trump instead of any concern for privacy in the first place.

Every advertisement should be ostensive

Using fb to advertise for Obama, Trump, etc, is ok

However that's not what has been done, but the a) use of shills and fake personas to pump up opinion b) creation of fake "grassroots movements" and "news articles" with a divisive purpose

https://thinkprogress.org/russia-facebook-pages-sophisticate...

https://www.reddit.com/r/RussiaLago/comments/7y6ola/there_ha...

How easily or willfully we forget the past:

3/14/2008

>The Obama campaign's chief strategist is a master of "Astroturfing" and has a second firm that shapes public opinion for corporations

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2008-03-14/the-secre...

Correct, doesn't make it right (and Hillary did some of this as well)

I agree. So why keep up this naive and demonstrably false act that 2016 was the year persuasion and behavioral psychology was put to practical use in politics to manipulate voters.

Every presidential election cycle I can remember was full of rhetoric and outright lies persuade voters. Does no one remember all of the hilariously terrible chain letters from past elections that claimed all sorts of nonsense? I just don't understand why people are running away with this idea that somehow facebook/twitter have changed the game when it comes to brainwashing people to vote conservative.

Politics is and always has been a no holds barred competition where anything goes that isn't straight up illegal. History books praise JFK for utilizing the television in 1960 to win his presidential election. I'm starting to think that if they had today's political climate he would be remembered as a manipulator rather than being savvy.

The difference is a lot of people never imagined Trump could be elected and many people for the first time are shocked to see what the other half of the country thinks. Imagining that they were manipulated by superior technology not previously available lets people hold to the idea that half the country really didn't vote for trump deep down - if only they hadn't been duped and knew what he really was.

Did you really link to russianlago, an actual shill subreddit? Also thinkprogress is a shill advocacy organization.

> However that's not what has been done, but the a) use of shills and fake personas to pump up opinion b) creation of fake "grassroots movements" and "news articles" with a divisive purpose

This has been done since forever. People supporting Obama did in 2008. Those supporting Ron Paul did it. Bernie sanders supporters did it and so did hillary supporters.

Ad-Hominem and Whataboutism on the same comment, congrats

I was directly responding to your point. You said shilling is bad. I agree. But it doesn't do your argument any favor when you use two shill sites to defend your position. Russianlago is a shill subreddit. Everyone knows this. Thinkprogress is a shill advocacy group. It's in their mission statement.

Also, "Ad-Hominem and Whataboutism" is the easiest way to spot shilling. The fact that it is capitalized makes me believe it was copied and pasted from a list of talking points.

If you truly believed shilling was bad, you wouldn't support russianlago or thinkprogress. But the fact that you linked to those two makes me believe you actually support shilling. Just the shilling you agree with. Just an observation.

> But it doesn't do your argument any favor when you use two shill sites to defend your position

And it doesn't help your point that you conveniently ignored the point these two websites are making, and that have been reported by others as well.

"Everybody knows this" is a cop-out.

Shilling is bad, but water is still wet regardless if it's reported by TP or FoxNews or Breitbart, as opposed to you who prefers to shoot the messenger and has a 32 day old account. Just an observation

E X A C T L Y

See my post: https://www.facebook.com/mstefanow/posts/10156280067194886

Since when NO NEWS is NEWS?

"Why is any of this news? My understanding is that companies harvesting social networking data via viral apps and then reselling it to perform targeted voter advertising is literally a 10 year old concept."

Other team didn't realize such thing as the internet exists?

(I'm outraged that this thing hit the news, as if it wasn't something already known)

Did you not read the article? Millions of users took a personality test that had nothing to do with politics, and that data was sold to the Trump campaign for targeting.

When did Obama’s campaign ever do that?

I think a lot of commenters did not read the article at all and are misunderstanding the “issue” to be use of big data, versus the fact that this specific data was obtained on tens of millions of people in what appears to be a very unethical manner.

270.000 users.

... and all of their ‘friends’, totaling over 50 million

Nope. It was not technical possible to share your friends' data in 2014.

>Did you not read the article?

No he didn't. On purpose