News for hackers. Stuff that matters.
Re:Zuckerberg Has No Way Out of Facebook's Quagmire by SmirkingRevenge on Wednesday March 21, 2018 @08:06PM (#16643829)
Folks bring up the Obama comparison... because... well... its a pretty comparable situation.

I'm not so charitable towards the public.

I wouldn't place any bets that the striking wave of outrage directed at Facebook right now isn't strictly related to the outcome. In this case, that outcome is Trump in the White-house. Not that that isn't a good reason to be outraged - but I don't think its a very principled reason.

Re:Zuckerberg Has No Way Out of Facebook's Quagmire by jrs235 on Wednesday March 21, 2018 @11:15PM (#16645397)
Pre-2016 Trump campaign, data was used to reach people and encourage voting.

2016 Trump campaign, data was used to stir up FUD and/or discourage voting.

Re:Zuckerberg Has No Way Out of Facebook's Quagmire by SmirkingRevenge on Wednesday March 21, 2018 @11:34PM (#16645478)
That's a rather suspiciously self-serving and self-reassuring characterization of each scenario, that I don't think holds up with a bit of intellectual honesty.

In either case, similar amounts of personal data was harvested from facebook, for whatever purposes the clients cared to use it for, to predictable results.

EDIT: And that's all besides the point - the problem isn't that someone with bad intentions got ahold of data and used in a way they shouldn't have, the problem is people are just getting ahold of data they should not have - period.

Re:Zuckerberg Has No Way Out of Facebook's Quagmire by rdtsc on Thursday March 22, 2018 @12:20AM (#16645701)
> 2016 Trump campaign, data was used to stir up FUD and/or discourage voting.

How so? Unless they were working with the rest of the media outlets and pushing the "Trump has no chance" / "He will never be the president" story. Do you know of any such campaigns? I mostly see it as a mass media hubris. The same outlets Clinton was expecting to help her ended up undermining the election for her, because, well if Trump only has 1% of winning, why bother putting on the shoes and going out to vote.