Slashdot Mirror
Facebook Suspends Donald Trump's Data Operations Team For Misusing People's Personal Information (theverge.com)
An anonymous reader quotes a report from The Verge: Facebook said late Friday that it had suspended Strategic Communication Laboratories (SCL), along with its political data analytics firm, Cambridge Analytica, for violating its policies around data collection and retention. The companies, which ran data operations for Donald Trump's 2016 presidential election campaign, are widely credited with helping Trump more effectively target voters on Facebook than his rival, Hillary Clinton. While the exact nature of their role remains somewhat mysterious, Facebook's disclosure suggests that the company improperly obtained user data that could have given it an unfair advantage in reaching voters. Facebook said it cannot determine whether or how the data in question could have been used in conjunction with election ad campaigns.
In a blog post, Facebook deputy general counsel Paul Grewal laid out how SCL came into possession of the user data. In 2015, Aleksandr Kogan, a psychology professor at the University of Cambridge, created an app named "thisisyourdigitallife" that promised to predict aspects of users' personalities. About 270,000 people downloaded it and logged in through Facebook, giving Kogan access to information about their city of residence, Facebook content they had liked, and information about their friends. Kogan passed the data to SCL and a man named Christopher Wylie from a data harvesting firm known as Eunoia Technologies, in violation of Facebook rules that prevent app developers from giving away or selling users' personal information. Facebook learned of the violation that year and removed his app from Facebook. It also asked Kogan and his associates to certify that they had destroyed the improperly collected data. Everyone said that they did. The suspension is not permanent, a Facebook spokesman said. But the suspended users would need to take unspecified steps to certify that they would comply with Facebook's terms of service.
In a blog post, Facebook deputy general counsel Paul Grewal laid out how SCL came into possession of the user data. In 2015, Aleksandr Kogan, a psychology professor at the University of Cambridge, created an app named "thisisyourdigitallife" that promised to predict aspects of users' personalities. About 270,000 people downloaded it and logged in through Facebook, giving Kogan access to information about their city of residence, Facebook content they had liked, and information about their friends. Kogan passed the data to SCL and a man named Christopher Wylie from a data harvesting firm known as Eunoia Technologies, in violation of Facebook rules that prevent app developers from giving away or selling users' personal information. Facebook learned of the violation that year and removed his app from Facebook. It also asked Kogan and his associates to certify that they had destroyed the improperly collected data. Everyone said that they did. The suspension is not permanent, a Facebook spokesman said. But the suspended users would need to take unspecified steps to certify that they would comply with Facebook's terms of service.
They're only mad that their proprietary data got out, not that it was being "misused." That's the power of marketing, baby!
You're right, it's the other way around.
Cambridge Analytica is owned by SCL which is owned by the hedge fund billionaire Robert Mercer and his harridan daughter/wife, Rebekah. They also own the Breitbart septic tank, as well as the manchurian candidate known as Donald J Trump, who is currently on loan to some Russian oligarchs and a terrorist named Putin who just murdered people in Britain with chemical weapons. One of the people he murdered was business partner of a Russian-born business partner of Donald Trump, a guy named Sater, who is a double-agent and convicted money launderer who tried to get Trump financing for a Moscow Trump Tower and is now an informant for the Mueller investigation.
https://www.rawstory.com/2018/...
https://www.cnn.com/2018/03/16...
This is all gonna make a great movie after Trump is done. It's like Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy, except with vulgar, money-grubbing sleazebags, porn stars, Slovenian prostitutes and two large failsons who like to run around the world killing endangered animals and posting Pepe memes.
You are welcome on my lawn.
I've had a long day, but I had time during the day - drove from the tail end of Long Island to home in western NY - to think about this. It struck me as odd, like, "Why the f would anyone with a brain vote for Trump?" And then I realized: They empathized with Trump to the extent that they wanted to be him. Like when we were kids - depending on how old you are - and Van Halen was all the rage, lots of people wanted to be EVH, but easily just as many people wanted to be "Diamond" David Lee Roth. Why? Well, the swagger, the charisma, the 'tude, the chicks. Either one had it all, but Roth, in particular, struck me as someone I'd rather emulate. In addition to all the above, he seemed funny, too. That was before I read more about both of them and realized they're people with their own issues and demons. Learning more about them took off a bit of the shine. Now, I know they're not perfect - in fact, they sound like assholes - but that doesn't mean I've completely abandoned them as a fan. I still like them both, but do I want to be them? No. I got my own life to worry about.
But that's the thing: I think a lot of people don't just like Trump; they want to be him. They want what they see in Trump: the TV job; the cars; the helicopters; the glamorous parties; the flash and bling; the commanded "respect," etc. At some point, though, many of us realized that we weren't going to be the next DLR or EVH. We might have even changed our minds completely, and rejected that person after learning of this or that scandal. Evidently, with Trump, the scandals and his obvious inadequacies for the job of president do not register with these folks. Instead of bringing them down to earth, they just dig in deeper. Maybe someone with a better grasp of psychology could tell you why. I'm guessing dissatisfaction with their personal lives, with likely a large touch of insecurity.
Bottom line: Is it really "idiocy," or is it escapism? Are Trump's supporters, in fact, a legion of fantasizing Walter Mittys?
It was not that long ago that the Trump team announced the guy who will run the 2020 re-election campaign is going to be the guy who ran Trump's digital campaign efforts, and there were stories about how he had cleverly taken advantage of a program Facebook offered to BOTH campaigns to embed teams to help with digital outreach (Facebook was NOT favoring Trump, Hillary simply turned down Facebook's offer).
In the modern era of outraged boycotting left wingers who go nuts against any company they suspect has been anything other than hostile to their enemies, is is possible this is Facebook's way of trying to deflect and protect itself from blowback?
Odd and bad things can happen when mobs with torches and pitchforks (real or virtual) are on the rampage.