Did A Billionaire Harvest Big Data From Facebook To 'Hijack' Democracy? (theguardian.com)

Long-time Slashdot readers walterbyrd and whoever57 both submitted the same article about the mysterious data analytics company Cambridge Analytica and its activities with SCL Group, a 25-year-old military psyops company in the U.K. later bought by "secretive hedge fund billionaire" Robert Mercer. One former employee calls it "this dark, dystopian data company that gave the world Trump." Facebook was the source of the psychological insights that enabled Cambridge Analytica to target individuals. It was also the mechanism that enabled them to be delivered on a large scale. The company also (perfectly legally) bought consumer datasets -- on everything from magazine subscriptions to airline travel -- and uniquely it appended these with the psych data to voter files... Finding "persuadable" voters is key for any campaign and with its treasure trove of data, Cambridge Analytica could target people high in neuroticism, for example, with images of immigrants "swamping" the country. The key is finding emotional triggers for each individual voter. Cambridge Analytica worked on campaigns in several key states for a Republican political action committee. Its key objective, according to a memo the Observer has seen, was "voter disengagement" and "to persuade Democrat voters to stay at home"... In the U.S., the government is bound by strict laws about what data it can collect on individuals. But, for private companies anything goes.
A branch of this company reportedly also received half the campaign budgets of four pro-Brexit campaign groups, and there's some dark talk about "military-funded technology that has been harnessed by a global plutocracy...being used to sway elections in ways that people can't even see." The article notes the two firms have plied their services in Russia as well as Lithuania and the Ukraine, and suggests that "we are in the midst of a massive land grab for power by billionaires via our data. Data which is being silently amassed, harvested and stored."

Comments

Just the beginning

[volodymyrbiryuk]

and it won't stop as long as these "persuadable" voters make their decisions based on facebook posts.

Re: Just the beginning

[Fire_Wraith]

1) Taxes - As someone fairly educated on economics, Clinton had zero tax/economic policy. I wish she did, so I could compare.

Here, let me take two seconds to google that for you:
http://www.taxpolicycenter.org...

It's certainly fair to disagree with any of Clinton's policies, but to say she had none is either disingenuous or misinformed. Clinton had a huge policy shop - it just never caught much if any press attention. Maybe that was her fault for not pushing them more - perhaps the advice of campaign consultants to avoid her tendency to "wonk out" and glaze people over with details maybe.

while Trump was clearly against central federal involvement to the level that we had achieved over the previous 16 years.

The flaw in your logic here is that removing all of that doesn't improve the situation, it makes it worse. Getting rid of an inefficient or messy solution to a problem doesn't get rid of the original problem.

Clinton framed this issue as nothing more than "Trump is against immigrants." Why couldn't she just propose a comprehensive low-wage immigrant worker program? I mean, that is what the country ultimately needs. I would have voted for her if she had such a plan. She did not.

Her policy was a bit more than that. Again, I suggest using a search engine rather than accepting what others are telling you (whether on social media, or from various news shows/sites) without question. As for why she couldn't, I would suggest that given the history of both her and her husband, she would be entirely willing to entertain a reasonable (and widely supported) compromise. The Clintons have never been ideologues, and that's partly why they take lots of flak from the Left, because while they're on the left, they're also more than willing to throw whatever pet cause under the bus in order to champion a policy they think is going to attract majority support.
Trump, meanwhile, has shown zero inclination to any sort of compromises from an absolute hard line position, either on the campaign trail or now that he's in office. Furthermore, his past history has not been that of a compromise type, but rather someone who is adamant about getting his way, and using hardball tactics to get it. Now, if you want the policy he's pushing, then sure, that's a good thing - but I would argue that he's only going to cause us vastly greater problems for a variety of reasons, but that would be an entire thread of its own, so I'll skip it.

4) Open source - Well, I mean "open". Trump talked to the press and anyone who would listen. Clinton gave canned speeches to small groups of supporters. She basically never gave press conferences.

Clinton has always had an uneasy relationship with the press, sure. That said, she did give press conferences - far moreso than Trump, yet she was the one who was criticized in certain parts of the media (particularly those that leaned right). Worse, Trump outright banned reporters from certain major media outlets whose coverage he didn't like:
http://money.cnn.com/2016/06/1...

My feeling is that Clinton phoned-in her tenure at State.

Based on what? Criticism on Fox or such? It's fair to disagree with the outcomes, and to suggest she could have done things differently, but it seems strange to me to suggest she spent her time not working.

ACA - I can do math. I have an understanding of models. The ACA is doomed by math. Clinton would not say the obvious. Why not?

The ACA isn't doomed by math any more than Social Security will run out in 203X. Since this is Slashdot, here's the requisite car analogy. If your engine is making a whining or knocking sound, do you throw up your hands and say

Re: Just the beginning

[Anonymous Coward]

Common Core was not federally mandated.

Re:Nothing to hide

[605dave]

This goes way beyond traditional marketing. This isn't branding, this isn't an ad campaign, this isn't a PR slack on TV. This is psychological manipulation on a personal level.

Re:Mysterious

[OneAhead]

By the same logic, I present you a few fine organizations that cannot possibly have anything to hide because they have a website that tells you what they do:
The FSB
The mossad (hope this is the right site because I didn't much care to enable javascript)
The CIA
The NSA

On a completely unrelated note, would you by any chance be in the market for a bridge? I can make you a really good price, because you're my friend!

Re:Wouldn't be a problem -if-...

[james_marsh]

Actually the BBC failed miserably to debunk the lies. In its typically misplaced idea of "neutrality" it would typically avoid making a factual statement and instead have interviewees on to make opposing points. The effect of this was to dignify the lie and place it in the centre ground.

They've done this consistently for years, especially since coming under significant pressure from the Blair government around the Iraq war time (regarding the dodgy dossier, David Kelly etc). And now the threat of the Conservatives scrapping or reducing the licence fee appears to make them particularly timid about calling out political lies, for example never questioning the premise of austerity and the blame placed on the previous labour government.

With the advent of 24 hour news the factual content is even more diluted and it's 90% speculation and sensational interviews with nutters.

Channel 4 News in the UK does a much better job of fact checking and challenging, as does BBC Newsnight, but sadly they mostly only attract the educated and more liberal demographic that is less likely to be misled in the first place.