Mark Zuckerberg AWOL From Facebook's Data Leak Damage Control Session (thedailybeast.com)

An anonymous reader writes: It's not just that he's silent in public. Facebook CEO and co-founder Mark Zuckerberg declined to face his employees on Tuesday to explain the company's role in a widening international scandal over the 2016 election. Facebook employees on Tuesday got the opportunity for an internal briefing and question-and-answer session about Facebook's role with the Trump-aligned data firm Cambridge Analytica. It was the first the company held to brief and reassure employees after, ahead of damaging news reports, Facebook abruptly suspended Cambridge Analytica. But Zuckerberg himself wasn't there, The Daily Beast has learned. Instead, the session was conducted by a Facebook attorney, Paul Grewal, according to a source familiar with the meeting. That was the same approach the company used on Capitol Hill this past fall, when it sent its top attorney, Colin Stretch, to brief Congress about the prevalence of Russian propaganda, to include paid ads and inauthentic accounts, on its platform. Further reading: Where in the world is Mark Zuckerberg? Frustrated Facebook execs are asking.

Comments

Leave Zuck alone

[Anonymous Coward]

He deserves privacy in these trying times

Re:Leave Zuck alone

[Anonymous Coward]

In b4 he gets found on Google Maps or something

Re: Leave Zuck alone

[Anonymous Coward]

Driving a white Bronco?

Re:Leave Zuck alone

[Wrexs0ul]

Too late, he clicked a friend's link to discover what kind of potato he was :(

Re:Leave Zuck alone

[sacrilicious]

Maybe he should go on another "Listening" tour... with his ear even further up everyone's rear end.

Re:Leave Zuck alone

[wiretrip]

Comment of the year! :-)

Re: Leave Zuck alone

[Anonymous Coward]

Nah, white Ferrari bruh.

Defend the undefendable

[sinij]

I can't blame him, how would you defend the obvious fact that FB collected way too much information and does not tightly control who uses it and for what purpose? Leaking your data all over is their core business model.

Re:Defend the undefendable

[amicusNYCL]

It's kind of telling when your company needs to do a "damage control session" because the public finally figured out what your business model is.

Here's a hint: if there's a company with a market cap of almost $500 billion, and you don't know what their product is, you're probably the product. Cambridge Analytica is the customer, they buy you.

I would be more interested in hearing about what data they actually got and what they paid for it, I want to know more about that market value.

Re:Defend the undefendable

[Anonymous Coward]

I can't blame him, how would you defend the obvious fact that FB collected way too much information and does not tightly control who uses it and for what purpose? Leaking your data all over is their core business model.

FB doesn't leak their data - that's what they make money off of.

Yeah, that would certainly make Zuck hide: "Umm, yeah, we violate user's privacy in violation of our own rules (a contract!) and even laws, as long as your under-the-table payments are large enough..."

Gee, you think Facebook might be sleazy enough to do that?

Re:Defend the undefendable

[Zocalo]

I would be more interested in hearing about what data they actually got and what they paid for it, I want to know more about that market value.

Can't help you on what they paid, but it seems pretty clear that one way or another Cambridge Analytica got hold of pretty much the entire contents of all those 50m Facebook profiles, including stuff that their owners (or as Zuck once supposedly called them, the "dumb fucks") thought was actually "private". If you're in the EU and have a FB profile then you can find out all about want profile contains - and much, much, more! - come May 28th when the GDPR comes into force by hitting them up with a Subject Access Request, or "SAR". Here's a template to get you started.

Re:Defend the undefendable

[Rob Y.]

To tell the truth, the fact that Facebook is leaking this info isn't the worst thing about it. As others have said, you're putting it up there, and presumably if you didn't participate in the bogus 'study' (which is a case of flat out fraud that should be prosecuted separately from any punishment meted out to FB), then all they got was the stuff you posted as public. If I'm wrong about that, please let me know.

Anyway, the real problem is that they're so willing to take advertising money from anybody - and to allow their advertisers to disguise false, propaganda ads as legitimate 'news' content. All this admittedly stolen info would be useless without Facebook's ad platform existing to allow manipulative content to be targeted using it. And (as the Cambridge Analytics exec admits on video), propaganda is worthless without being able to portray it as real information. If all Facebook paid content were clearly labeled as such - and formatted as an ad (i.e. clearly not news), and if all political advertising were required (like everywhere else) to disclose its source, Facebook wouldn't be such a target.

Interestingly, this comes at the same time as the story about Uber's first self-driving traffic fatality. It's long past time to admit that what passes for artificial intelligence these days is not intelligent at all. All it is, is various mechanisms to allow these kids to run huge businesses with next to no employees. But the nature of those businesses is phony. Facebook claims to be a 'media' outlet that ends up being cat videos + the National Enquirer. And Uber claims to empower regular folks to make some cash on the side, when all they really are is a sweatshop working their hearts out to lay off all of their employees. And the worst part about it is that the shit doesn't work - it's all hype, for and by Venture Capitalists to pump up huge market valuations. How about this: We wait until artificial intelligence is truly intelligent (which will happen in about 50 years, give or take) before we let it loose piloting 2 ton machines on our streets. The only intelligence these things have is in their crummy ability to recognize objects almost as well as a toddler. The rest of it is a Rube Goldberg mechanism of maps and specific programming on what to do in the few thousand situations that their programmers have thought of.

I'd feel a little safer with self flying quadcopter taxis than with self-driving cars. Those at least would only have to contend with buildings and other robot quadcopters (i.e. with similar, known algorithms that can be coordinated).

Re:Defend the undefendable

[Anonymous Coward]

Already now you can ask for details of what your profile contains in many places, including the EU.

Re:Defend the undefendable

[Luthair]

Except that isn't what happened at all. They allowed a researcher access for research purposes and that guy violated the terms of his agreement and sold the data. What should be happening however is a massive lawsuit against that researcher (he should lose all the money he made, plus an additional punitive amount) and possibly Cambridge Analytica too if there is evidence they knew.

Personally I'm not concerned about the current leadership at major tech companies, yes they collect far too much data about individuals - however they want to use it themselves, not sell it to third parties. The tech companies you should be worried about are all the other ad networks, analytics services and plugins (e.g. gravatar, diquss) who are also slurping up just as much data and are happy to sell it to everyone.

Re:Defend the undefendable

[Anonymous Coward]

How many parents are wondering if info has been sold to companies with pedophile links? I'm surprised the stock price hasn't crashed 90%.

Re:Defend the undefendable

[Anonymous Coward]

Yet when its reported Obama did it in 2012 there's not problem???

Face it, libtards. Your candidate sucked and Trump played the Electoral Collage game.

First it was Russians, now its a US Social Media company.. none of this is new news and none if it is going to overturn the election and no new laws will come of it.

If Trump runs again I'll vote for him in a heartbeat (unless something changes).

Re:Defend the undefendable

[amicusNYCL]

This researcher you're talking about, is that the same developer who exposed this? Yeah, let's fuck that guy over all we possibly can, that will definitely be a win for privacy.

Re:Defend the undefendable

[sycodon]

The allowed Obama to do it and didn't bat an eyelid.

So Big Data for Oabama, Good.

Big Data for Trump, Bad (even though he didn't even use it in the general campaign...RNC data was more accurate).

Re:Defend the undefendable

[Luthair]

The researcher didn't - turns out while Facebook for some reason has been saying researcher its actually a company called Global Science Research the Guardian has a story about it https://www.theguardian.com/ne...

The interesting side note is that Facebook actually hired one of the companies founders a couple years ago.

Re: Defend the undefendable

[Anonymous Coward]

Sorry, but you're purportedly an able-bodied non-potato.

I know it's a change from being spoonfed what to be poutraged about, but at least make an attempt to travel back a few decades and learn to use a search engine.

Re: Defend the undefendable

[Anonymous Coward]

Here are the details, oulined by a former Obama campaign manager:
https://www.zerohedge.com/news/2018-03-19/obamas-former-campaign-director-makes-bombshell-facebook-claim-they-were-our-side

Re:Defend the undefendable

[Anonymous Coward]

I'll spoon feed you baby bird

https://www.forbes.com/sites/kalevleetaru/2018/03/19/why-are-we-only-now-talking-about-facebook-and-elections/#4d3432924838

Re:Defend the undefendable

[slew]

Please google for information about Carol Davidsen, director for media analytics for Obama's 2012 campaign and Ken Strasma, Targeting Director for the 2008 Obama and 2004 Kerry campaigns.

Apparently Christopher Wylie (the renegade from Cambridge in the crosshairs of facebook) learned the craft from about micro-targeting and data politics from Ken Strasma.

If you are search engine impaired, you can start here...

https://heavy.com/news/2018/03...

Re:Defend the undefendable

[Anonymous Coward]

The article "forgets" to mention differences on how Obama used the data (i.e. to send messages to his supporters) and omits how CA used it (i.e. to create fake, untraceable, news).

Re:Defend the undefendable

[Anonymous Coward]

Point us to the details about how Obama supposedly did this, otherwise stop trolling.

The NY TImes fucking celebrated Obama's campaign shitting all over privacy - and Obama didn't limit it to Facebook data. He also strip-mined cable TV boxes:

Data You Can Believe In

The Obama Campaign’s Digital Masterminds Cash In

...

The campaign’s exhaustive use of Facebook triggered the site’s internal safeguards. “It was more like we blew through an alarm that their engineers hadn’t planned for or knew about,” said St. Clair, who had been working at a small firm in Chicago and joined the campaign at the suggestion of a friend. “They’d sigh and say, ‘You can do this as long as you stop doing it on Nov. 7.’ ”

...

But Gershkoff had come upon a cache of data that all the strategists would come to appreciate. She had contracted with a relatively new firm called Rentrak that was competing with Nielsen and was buying up real-time, raw viewing data directly from cable and satellite companies that had nearly 20 million set-top boxes in eight million homes. When Gershkoff told Grisolano, he was thrilled. Rentrak’s huge new trove of data, he surmised, could help him find out with relative certainty what shows were being delivered to the homes of the roughly 15 million persuadable voters Wagner’s department had identified.

...

But there was the potentially politically explosive matter of privacy. Unlike Facebook, where users were at least giving the campaign explicit permission to collect personal data even if they had not read the fine print, television watchers were making no such agreement.

Re:Defend the undefendable

[Anonymous Coward]

that guy violated the terms of his agreement and sold the data.

sold the data? Are you sure about that? I'm pretty sure the Channel 4 doco said that the researcher didn't sell the data. He was employed/contracted by CA but the data itself wasn't sold.

Re:Defend the undefendable

[Luthair]

Here is a better article: https://www.washingtonpost.com...

Any time people used Facebook’s log-in button to sign on to the campaign’s website, the Obama data scientists were able to access their profile as well as their friends’ information. That allowed them to chart the closeness of people’s relationships and make estimates about which people would be most likely to influence other people in their network to vote.

There is a huge distinction between a person proactively going to a campaign website and Facebook's API providing information, and a researcher granted a level of access provided for research using that to obtain private data to sell for commercial purposes.

To be clear - in my estimation Facebook should not be providing extensive information about people, especially people who simply happen to know someone who granted access.

Re:Defend the undefendable

[GrimSavant]

So what's your principle then? What is your standard that is independent of the particular actor? Is big data good, or is big data bad? Is what Obama did bad as well as what Trump did bad, or are they both ok? Or is there some reason why one is ok and the other is bad? Is it fine for Facebook and its ilk to have the keys to the big data kingdom to do with as they please?

Mods keep modding up this sort of crap, doesn't seem to accomplish much of getting to the bottom of the issue, just seems to be a bunch of Tu quoque chaff to short circuit any sort of higher thinking beyond tribalism. Perish the thought of a coherent analysis that might cause cognitive dissonance.

Re:Defend the undefendable

[ohnonononono]

The public didn't figure out anything. Don't give them credit as such.
The plutocracy decided it was worth it to cannibalize a portion of the failing facebook business to keep driving the wedge between the public.

Re:Defend the undefendable

[amicusNYCL]

They allowed a researcher access for research purposes and that guy violated the terms of his agreement and sold the data.

From what I hear, that's not true. It sounds like one of the apps that CA developed, some survey app, was used by 270,000 people. Per the terms (and capabilities) of Facebook's Social Graph API, CA then had access to all of the data for every "friend" of those 270,000 people, which got them to the 50 million number. And those people never agreed to the terms of the app or necessarily had anything to do with CA, they're just Facebook's product. It sounds like CA were doing exactly what Facebook allowed at the time, and the damage control is Facebook trying to convince everything that they don't do that now.

Re:Defend the undefendable

[amicusNYCL]

What's the point of this message? Should we allow everyone to do it, since Obama did it, is that your point? Should we get in a political partisan pissing contest and argue amongst ourselves while nothing gets done about the actual issue? Is that what you're suggesting? If Obama did anything to break the law, great, let's go after him for that. Otherwise, let's focus on individual data privacy while it's actually being talked about and on everyone's minds instead of some stupid political bullshit. Maybe we can take the opportunity to pass some legislation protecting individual data, or are you trying to derail that and get everyone to start slinging mud and shit at each other.

Re:Defend the undefendable

[Zocalo]

You can, but the GDPR takes that even further by letting you request information on all the policies and procedures surrounding that data, as well as those of the partners that the recipient is sharing your information with. Most current data access requests essentially just let you ask "What?", the GDPR gives you the right to ask "How?", "When?", "Who?", and "Why?" as well. I think most of us here are probably well aware of what kinds of information Facebook etc. have and a vague idea of how they use it, but beyond that it all gets very opaque, very fast. That opaqueness is really the key point of the Facebook/Cambridge Analytica story, and something that I suspect the GDPR's SARs in the hands of privacy focussed activists and journalists are going to blow wide open. I'm fully expecting that the rabbit hole is going to go a *lot* deeper than all but the most suspicious/paranoid suspect.

Re:Defend the undefendable

[h33t l4x0r]

Just stop. Don't make it about your guy. Let it just be about Facebook for a little while.

Re:Defend the undefendable

[Anonymous Coward]

The question about Obama doing this is: Why is this a big deal now and not before? Seems to me that the media powers that be are sending the message to Silicon Valley, "If you help Republicans, we will hurt you badly". Disgusting.

Re:Defend the undefendable

[DarkOx]

The thing is so far nobody has made any credible claim anyone broke any laws as related to this! Not the Obama campaign, not the Trump campaign, not even Cambridge Research.

At most what we have here is a Cambridge violating facebook's TOS; and facebook with a history of allowing TOS violations by people the happen to like. You were not allowed to extract the entire social graph, facebook thought their controls at the time were adequate to prevent it; when they discovered the Obama people were doing it they allowed it to continue. Before that there was Zinga (sp?) and other issues about privacy where facebook did not really take the high road. They seem to be upset about what Cambridge primarily because a group of "conservatives" (not sure Bannon really fits that definition) used their site for propaganda and facebook's sensibilities nominally only allow liberal propaganda (a point that if you want to argue at this point is silly the evidence is clear).

The political class has already derailed it; you had in 2k12 DNC Senators and House reps singing the praises of the Obama facebook and data efforts. You had the media claiming Romeny lost because he had not got a data game. Suddenly when the other side does the same kinds of things they have problem with it. Meanwhile you have conservatives also up in arms because there is real fear when you look at whats happen to sites like the NY Post dues to FB and Twitter censoring that the DNC is going to use these tools to hit back, and because the owners of these tools are friendly with the DNC its a fight conservative groups ultimately can't win. So everyone now wants to do something but those are different somethings for different reasons, with different objectives.

Mudslinging is actually the order of the day because I assure you the status quo is better for our democracy over all than anything that is about to come out of the political class on this for either side of the isle.

Re:Defend the undefendable

[amicusNYCL]

The thing is so far nobody has made any credible claim anyone broke any laws as related to this! Not the Obama campaign, not the Trump campaign, not even Cambridge Research.

Well, maybe we can take the opportunity to pass some legislation which would make this kind of thing illegal.

Or, we can sit here and yell about political parties. Whatever you prefer.

Re:Defend the undefendable

[DarkOx]

I made it clear - I'd much rather us sit and yell about parties because the alternative is some really draconian anti-1A and anti-10A legislation will get passed.

Re:Defend the undefendable

[amicusNYCL]

Well, in that case let's skip the yelling about parties and just act like it never happened. Let's just jump straight to the end.

Re:Defend the undefendable

[Anonymous Coward]

The Obama campaign did NOT violate the terms of use. The campaign released an app that stated the data policy and the campaign then honored that policy. Cambridge analytics deceived both the users and Facebook as well.

So deceitful lying fucks bad. Open honest policy acceptable.

Oh and the assertion that the data wasn't even used comes from one CBS reporter citing....absolutely NO sources whatsoever. Not really the kind of stuff you can claim as fact. Well not the kind of stuff you can HONESTLY claim as fact. Or you could take it as fact is Major Asshole asserts his somehow omniscient awareness of the goings on at the Trump campaign. In other words, not up to professional journalism standards. I mean really, Trump's kid in law whispers it to Major CBS asshat and it is taken as FACT? Just how stupid can you be?

Race to the bottom

[Anonymous Coward]

Trump or Zuckerberg? Who will the winner be, other than us of course...

Send in the attorneys, not the clowns . . .

[PolygamousRanchKid]

If you don't appear . . . and don't answer questions . . . you don't commit perjury.

Hey, even a US government IRS employee refused to testify in front of Congress. Of course, Zuck just sent his lawyer.

He's not going to say anything in public or on the record until his legal team has sorted their strategy out.

Re: Send in the attorneys, not the clowns . . .

[Anonymous Coward]

You're correct that one cannot be guilty of perjury for refusing to answer questions. However, refusing a subpoena can result in being held in contempt of Congress. And yes, that can result in imprisonment.

Re:Send in the attorneys, not the clowns . . .

[sinij]

He's not going to say anything in public or on the record until his legal team has sorted their strategy out.

You mean pleading the fifth, right?

Re: Send in the attorneys, not the clowns . . .

[sinij]

refusing a subpoena can result in being held in contempt of Congress. And yes, that can result in imprisonment.

So you expect GOP controlled congress to issue a subpoena to publicly air their own sausage making? If anything, it will be congratulatory closed door hearing with free hookers and blow.

Re:Send in the attorneys, not the clowns . . .

[Anonymous Coward]

I refuse to answer the question on the grounds that I may inseminate myself.

Re: Send in the attorneys, not the clowns . . .

[Penguinisto]

You never know - they may just do it to appease the opposition party. It costs them nothing, won't reveal anything useful (at least not w/o implicating both parties in the process, which neither side will allow to happen), and it allows the opportunity to show off how 'bipartisan' everyone is in the process...

Re:Send in the attorneys, not the clowns . . .

[Anonymous Coward]

You misspelled incinerate.

Re:Send in the attorneys, not the clowns . . .

[Anonymous Coward]

This strategy? goatse.cx

Re:Send in the attorneys, not the clowns . . .

[quantaman]

If you don't appear . . . and don't answer questions . . . you don't commit perjury.

Hey, even a US government IRS employee refused to testify in front of Congress. Of course, Zuck just sent his lawyer.

He's not going to say anything in public or on the record until his legal team has sorted their strategy out.

There's also a big PR aspect.

Zuckerberg, as the founder and CEO, is a very big part of Facebook's brand. And keeping him as a likeable trustworthy figure means that people are more likely to trust the company as a whole.

Zuckerberg on camera talking about FB related scandals leaves an impression that Zuckerberg personally knew and approved of the scandal causing behaviour, and that leaves a much bigger mark on FB's reputation.

It's much better to have some non-identifiable lawyer or PR person speak on behalf of FB, then it seems like this was just some rogue group or misguided executive. Zuckerberg might have to step in eventually, but they're probably better off protecting his reputation.

Re:Send in the attorneys, not the clowns . . .

[jenningsthecat]

^^ Mod parent up!

Re:Send in the attorneys, not the clowns . . .

[Anonymous Coward]

And keeping him as a likeable trustworthy figure means that people are more likely to trust the company as a whole.

Zuck: They "trust me"

Zuck: Dumb fucks.

Re:Send in the attorneys, not the clowns . . .

[cyn1c77]

Zuckerberg, as the founder and CEO, is a very big part of Facebook's brand. And keeping him as a likeable trustworthy figure means that people are more likely to trust the company as a whole.

What?!

Likeable? Trustworthy?

Are these still possible descriptors that can be applied to him? Really?

Re: Send in the attorneys, not the clowns . . .

[david_thornley]

They haven't done anything I've seen to appease the opposition party. Why start with this? My bet is on the closed session with hookers and blow.

Doesn't want to be connected

[Geoffrey.landis]

I suspect he wants his name associated with positive news, not negative news.

Can you blame him? Let the lawyers take the bullets!

Re:Doesn't want to be connected

[iggymanz]

Legal dept might have advised meeting should be conducted by attorney and not him. Then what happened would be the smart thing to do.

I hate facebook, but sometimes the kiddies here don't understand how things should be done in the real world.

Re:Doesn't want to be connected

[mrbester]

That's going to go well if a lawyer goes to the Parliamentary Committee instead of him as requested.

Re:Doesn't want to be connected

[iggymanz]

for Congressional investigations a lawyer can accompany but person requested must be there.

Re:Doesn't want to be connected

[Miser]

It's still bullshit. It's a situation that's being handled not for legal reasons (well, perhaps partially for legal reasons) but for PR reasons.

Whatever happened to someone's word being their bond? The meaning of a handshake deal? Having to muddy the waters with lawyers, legalese, doublespeak and the myriad of bullshit in today's society just to get something done just wears me out.

I really hope this marks the beginning of the end for Zuck and Facebook. Nothing of value would be lost and society would be a much better place without it, IMHO.

In before "get off my lawn". :)

2016?

[ArhcAngel]

Why is it a scandal when a company is working for a conservative/GOP candidate but not even a story when it isn't. This type of data collection has been going on for years.

Re:2016?

[sinij]

You are absolutely correct, it should be scandal every time it happens, but I will settle for even occasional scandal in hopes that it gives the people back some of the privacy.

Re:2016?

[XxtraLarGe]

Why is it a scandal when a company is working for a conservative/GOP candidate but not even a story when it isn't.

Because the mainstream media, Obama and Clinton were all fellow travelers. From their perspective, it's only wrong if it's being done by someone you disagree with.

Re:2016?

[SirGarlon]

Because this time it's the liberal spin doctors who got lucky. Don't worry, there is plenty of dirt to go around and some of it will stick to your political enemies soon enough.

Re:2016?

[Anonymous Coward]

This is also going on in the UK over the Brexit referendum. All of the mainstream media is painting it as being why the UK voted to leave - because the plebs were manipulated.

I don't think the establishment and their media lapdogs fully appreciate just how they are now being seen by the vast bulk of ordinary people in the UK. We see right through this bullshit and are beginning to openly despise the political and media class.

Add in the information coming out about how the gang rape/abuse by Muslims in the UK has been hidden by the establishment - not overlooked... hidden. And this isn't the general dislike or apathy I've watched for years. There's a genuine anger boiling up.. the kind of stuff that causes major change... we'll be extremely lucky if it's doesn't end up with violence.

Re:2016?

[Anonymous Coward]

And yet Obama said his administration was scandal free....and the media reported it that way verbatim without commentary.

So apparently he was lying, and the media was covering it up.

Re:2016?

[Skuld-Chan]

Cambridge Analytica wasn't just about collection data - it is about weaponizing it. Watch the channel 4 documentary about this - its rather shocking what they tell a potential client what they have done and what they will do for him

https://www.channel4.com/news/... (keep in mind this is part 4)

Re:2016?

[oh_my_080980980]

I thought Russia told Facebook users to vote Trump...

Re:2016?

[Balial]

They also violated the terms of service of Facebook data collection. ie. Facebook has a stupid honor system. If you're saying Obama did the same, you'd better show up with some proof.

Re:2016?

[Anonymous Coward]

This type of data collection has been going on for years.

That's not the issue. Just like Equifax, Facebook makes a living by selling the personal details of their (for lack of a better word) products.

The issue, again just like Equifax, is that someone got those details without paying for it and it made headlines. To Facebook, this is a huge problem.

If Cambridge Analytica had simply paid for the data upfront, no one would ever have known.

Re:2016?

[Anonymous Coward]

Why is it a scandal when a company is working for a conservative/GOP candidate but not even a story when it isn't.

Because the mainstream media, Obama and Clinton were all fellow travelers. From their perspective, it's only wrong if it's being done by someone you disagree with.

Is that why the tax story where the republicans got scrutinized got such attention?

It is funny how all sides seem to have such short memory.

Re:2016?

[Anonymous Coward]

really? everyone I've spoken to in the UK has the exact opposite story to tell

Re:2016?

[reboot246]

Did you just figure that out today? Most people have known it for years. The left knows it and doesn't care. The right knows it and can't do anything about it. The mainstream media is the propaganda department of the Democrat Party.

Re:2016?

[Kurrelgyre]

"In Obama’s case, the original contributors at least explicitly knew they were contributing to a campaign effort, even if their millions of unwitting friends had no idea their private information was being harvested to attempt to sway their voting behavior. In Cambridge Analytica’s case, users knew only that they were contributing to an academic research project..."

Re: 2016?

[Anonymous Coward]

And none of it will change. Especially not with useful idiot Corbyn and his new clothes.

Re:2016?

[Anonymous Coward]

You are absolutely correct, it should be scandal every time it happens, but I will settle for even occasional scandal in hopes that it gives the people back some of the privacy.

That's not how politics works. Team Democrat will use this real and legitimate issue to score points against team Republican. The Republicans will (correctly) point out that the Democrats are hypocrites who had no problem when Democrats used the IRS to harass Republicans. The Republicans will presume any complaint about privacy is a Democrat ploy to harm them, and fight it. The Democrats will see this behavior, and presume that Republicans are privacy-hating monsters who must be fought at all costs. Everyone will hate everyone else. The separation of powers design of the US government makes it easier to stop new policies than to enact new ones, so nothing will change.

If you want to avoid this, you need a movement that points out these problems whenever they happen, and finds high-profile cases where both Democrats and Republicans are to blame. For example, that movement could attack Google for silencing conservatives on YouTube. If you allow your idea to be owned by one party, you will lose the debate. You have to piss everyone off in roughly equal measure.

Re:2016?

[quantaman]

Why is it a scandal when a company is working for a conservative/GOP candidate but not even a story when it isn't. This type of data collection has been going on for years.

For the same reason that anytime the word "email" came up in conjunction with Clinton it became a major news story but historically stories related to record retention or classified information barely made a blip.

It feeds into the narrative. Right now voter manipulation by Russia, particularly over the Internet, is a big story. And Cambridge Analytica is actually under suspicion as a possible link between the Trump campaign and Russian operatives.

Any story involving voter manipulation, the Internet, and Cambrige Analytica is going to be big news.

Re:2016?

[liquid_schwartz]

And yet Obama said his administration was scandal free....and the media reported it that way verbatim without commentary.

So apparently he was lying, and the media was covering it up.

Obama was the most protected president *ever* by the media. Even more than JFK which I would have thought hard to imagine. His many flaws are slowly starting to leak out, like his association with Farrakhan, his lifting sanctions on Myanmar as they kill their own civilians, Assad getting away with genocide, slavery increasing on his watch, etc. He competes with Bush II for worst foreign policy in recent memory.

Re: 2016?

[Anonymous Coward]

Give it a fucking rest. Jesus Christ.

But let someone mention trump(THE CURRENT PRESIDENT) then all of a sudden comes the damage control teams.

Stop being partisan dick suckers. Did Obama get caught? No? Did trump? Yes? Suck it up. Christ sakes. If Obama got caught doing it while he was actively president then he would get the same amount of hate.

Trump fucked up. Deal with it. He's not perfect.

Re:2016?

[Anonymous Coward]

They also violated the terms of service of Facebook data collection. ie. Facebook has a stupid honor system. If you're saying Obama did the same, you'd better show up with some proof.

There's no "hard" proof, simply a public admission...

The campaign’s exhaustive use of Facebook triggered the site’s internal safeguards. “It was more like we blew through an alarm that their engineers hadn’t planned for or knew about,” said St. Clair, who had been working at a small firm in Chicago and joined the campaign at the suggestion of a friend. “They’d sigh and say, ‘You can do this as long as you stop doing it on Nov. 7.’ ” -- NY Times Magazine June 20, 2013

“Facebook was surprised we were able to suck out the whole social graph, but they didn’t stop us once they realized that was what we were doing.” And, in the most incendiary tweet: “They came to office in the days following election recruiting & were very candid that they allowed us to do things they wouldn’t have allowed someone else to do because they were on our side,” -- Carol Davidsen March 18, 2018 on Twitter

Re: 2016?

[Anonymous Coward]

Corbyn is far more dangerous than people think. Heâ(TM)s a thick as a plank, and doesnâ(TM)t care about much other than the âoeglorious revolutionâ heâ(TM)s been fighting for for a very long time. Add to that his handy bunch of bully boys. It is not going to be pretty.

Re: 2016?

[guruevi]

Obama got caught just as much as Trump did (neither of them did) however there is a narrative in the media shaping it like one did and the other didn't. Until one or the other is led away in handcuffs for their crimes, they haven't been caught. Clinton is way more "caught" with documented evidence and she is still roaming free, stumbling around drunk in India.

If you have a top attorney scrutinizing documents for half your presidency and unable to bring charges, you know you're doing pretty good. Capone eventually got caught for tax evasion though, so you never know where Obama/Clinton/Trump will make (or have made) their legal missteps, but it won't be in the political arena.

Re: 2016?

[Anonymous Coward]

The desperate attempts to compare Trump to sane politicians is getting beyond laughable.

Re:2016?

[Anonymous Coward]

You are indeed a fine example of one who is suffering from Dunning-Kruger syndrome. By the way, it is called the "Democratic Party." A reboot won't cure your disorder. Sad.

Re: 2016?

[david_thornley]

Clinton has been investigated inside and out. Her opponents haven't come up with anything warranting perp-walking her to the jail, and it's not for a lack of trying or lack of sympathy for their cause. Clinton really hasn't done anything calling for criminal prosecution. The investigations on Trump are ongoing.

Re: 2016?

[guruevi]

Depends on who you ask, it's been pretty clear that the FBI deliberately botched their investigations into Clinton's e-mail server and those scandals are now hamstringing their capabilities to prosecute Trump.

Re:2016?

[Anonymous Coward]

This isn't an issue of data collection. It's an issue of audience manipulation. The point of Cambridge Analytica's work for Trump was identifying people in key swing states who had a profile that indicated they would be susceptible to fake news and take actions as a result (sharing, attending rallies, voting for Trump)

Re:2016?

[Anonymous Coward]

Stop listening to the chattering class morons who've turned the EU into a ridiculous utopia.

Everyone else has.

Hence the high possibility for violence.

Re: 2016?

[david_thornley]

It has? The email servers themselves were legal (they wouldn't be now). The mishandling of classified information was inadvertent (I've never seen any sort of argument that it was deliberate, except for that one document she ordered sent by nonsecure channels, and if that was a State Department document she's the classification authority), and I couldn't find any case of a person prosecuted for such. (There was one person who agreed to plead guilty to misdemeanor charges, but that was dropped.) I'm not real happy about how she handled them, and I'm never going to take her advice about IT, but I don't see where she would have done anything worthy of prosecution.

Facebook and MI6 were "The Russians"

[Anonymous Coward]

Sorry kids, but the whole narrative that the Trump election was subverted by Putin has gone out the window.

It was a bunch of British spooks that bought and sold Facebook-Google-Twitter data - and so did Team Hilary.

And they continue to do so.

In face, don't you think Google has already mapped out EVERY voter and EVERY district to game EVERY election?

This is what "democracy" looks like in the face of corporatism.

Enjoy your 'Do No Evil.'

Re: Facebook and MI6 were "The Russians"

[Anonymous Coward]

Fuck you, commie cocksucker.

Re:Facebook and MI6 were "The Russians"

[Anonymous Coward]

Sorry kids, but the whole narrative that the Trump election was subverted by Putin has gone out the window.

It was a bunch of British spooks that bought and sold Facebook-Google-Twitter data - and so did Team Hilary.

And they continue to do so.

In face, don't you think Google has already mapped out EVERY voter and EVERY district to game EVERY election?

This is what "democracy" looks like in the face of corporatism.

Enjoy your 'Do No Evil.'

Lol, Trump supporters. Got to love their incredible ability to deny, deflect and excuse everything Trump related. Hypocritical morons who do nothing but hurt their causes every time they speak.

Because I know you aren't capable of understanding this on your own: these events and Russian interference in the election are not mutually exclusive

Re:Facebook and MI6 were "The Russians"

[greenwow]

But the foreign British spy Hillary hired was doing work at her direction. A foreign government wasn't interfering with our election. In this case, they were ordering Trump to do their bidding so it was a foreign government interfering with our election.

Same with Obama using Facebook data. An American company was helping an American candidate. In Trump's case, a foreign company was using Facebook data. It's completely different.

Re:Facebook and MI6 were "The Russians"

[Anonymous Coward]

Oh please. The difference is Obama used technology was Trump was used by it.

Re:Facebook and MI6 were "The Russians"

[oh_my_080980980]

As opposed to Clinton supporters...two peas in a pod...

Re:Facebook and MI6 were "The Russians"

[Anonymous Coward]

"Fuck you, commie cocksucker."

Wow...interchangeable.

"strategy"....

[gDLL]

And by strategy you mean "narrative"...

Facebook and privacy

[Anonymous Coward]

Zuck: Yeah so if you ever need info about anyone at Harvard
Zuck: Just ask
Zuck: I have over 4,000 emails, pictures, addresses, SNS
[Redacted Friend's Name]: What? How'd you manage that one?
Zuck: People just submitted it.
Zuck: I don't know why.
Zuck: They "trust me"
Zuck: Dumb fucks

Trump Aligned

[InvalidsYnc]

That company is used by a TON of other companies and entities, just because they also happened to be employed by Trump at the time, doesn't mean that they haven't done the same for countless others, even people on the other side of the aisle. The blatant politicization of EVERYTHING is getting so fricking annoying. Soon every breath you take will be analyzed to see if it "leans to the left, or the right, politically speaking".

Re:Trump Aligned

[Anonymous Coward]

I dress to the left.

Re:Trump Aligned

[labnet]

Oligarchs don't care if you vote left or right, as long as you are distracted by it!

So, is it still

[Anonymous Coward]

#HERTURN?

Re:So, is it still

[Anonymous Coward]

#noitisnt #itsover #getoverit #shestoooldshewillnevergetanotherchance #ever #shesaloser #justlikeyou #yourealoser #asoreloser #ishitonyourface #yourfacesmellsofshit #myshit #HAHAHA

Re:So, is it still

[Anonymous Coward]

#kek

You can't blame him? Really?!

[DontBeAMoran]

Zuck: Yeah so if you ever need info about anyone at Harvard
Zuck: Just ask.
Zuck: I have over 4,000 emails, pictures, addresses, SNS
[Redacted Friend's Name]: What? How'd you manage that one?
Zuck: People just submitted it.
Zuck: I don't know why.
Zuck: They "trust me"
Zuck: Dumb fucks.

AWOL?

[Train0987]

The Facebook app has his phone's GPS location so he isn't missing.

Re:AWOL?

[Anonymous Coward]

wouldn't surprise me if mark doesn't personally use facebook anymore and that he has people to use it for him | on his behalf.

anyone with his supposed intellect would be smart enough to stay the fuck off the site.

Re: AWOL?

[Anonymous Coward]

He is also publicly known to tape over his laptops camera. He knows how invasive things really are.

Facebook can find Zuck

[Anonymous Coward]

Why can't we use the data collected by Facebook, Google, and/or Apple to find Fuckerberg?

He can't be that hidden. Unless he doesn't use his own tech.

Frustrated Facebook execs are asking...

[edi_guy]

If you are an executive at FB you dug this hole on your own. You made the FB system work the way it did, you were fine with the low level of privacy protections you had in place, and were super fine with packaging, selling, re-selling and marketing people's digital lives. You are remunerated handsomely for those decisions and probably gave yourself lots of credit for being so strong, so independent, so smart in all those meetings. But now that your decisions are viewed under a different light, you go crying for you parents (Zuck and Sharon). Yes, they also need to be held to account, but not much more than you FB execs.

Of course he's AWOL

[Anonymous Coward]

Of course he's AWOL — the adults kicked him out of the room.

Re:Of course he's AWOL

[greenwow]

> the adults

I do feel a little sorry for him, because I don't think he quite understood the gravity of the situation when he started interfering in elections in 2012.

Collected?

[ArchieBunker]

They didn't collect anything. It was all fed to them by users.

Re:Collected?

[jenningsthecat]

They didn't collect anything. It was all fed to them by users.

Yes, much of it was fed to them by users. But FB Hoovered up a shitload of additional data by stalking their users, (and non-users), all around the Web. Perhaps the users should have known better; but I'm sure they had a reasonable, (if entirely unrealistic), expectation that when they weren't actively using Facebook they weren't continuing to surrender details of their supposedly personal lives. It's easy to blame the users, but let's keep in mind that in large part they are victims of a sleazy, cynical, and utterly evil corporation.

Man child isn't grown up enough...

[Anonymous Coward]

Looks like Marky poo isn't grown up enough to deal with problems of a real company and not some college startup, just for fun project.

Come on Mark, you're in your 30s time to man up and eat your lunch. I know you're part of the "hey I want it all, right now, without working for it and with no responsibility" generation, but it's time to stop acting like a child. Aside from being coddled too much, your generation is absolutely no different than any other previous generation, nor are you special in any way, regardless of what your parents told you.

Hey Zuckerberg

[93 Escort Wagon]

Your rumored 2020 presidential campaign may have just gone down in flames...

Re:Hey Zuckerberg

[Anonymous Coward]

Maybe that was the goal.

Big difference

[Anonymous Coward]

The Democrats were looking for supporters - and money.

The Republicans were looking for stupid people to send propaganda, misinform and them suckered into their bait and switch.

Dems - normal marketing.

Reps - propaganda and unethical practices.

Have you ever seen the nonsense lies that were sent to folks who were marked?

Re:Big difference

[Anonymous Coward]

Dems "normal marketing", Republicans "propaganda and unethical practices".
Dems good, Republicans bad.

Ok, got it.

Re:Big difference

[Anonymous Coward]

Dems "normal marketing", Republicans "propaganda and unethical practices".
Dems good, Republicans bad.

Ok, got it.

You realize propaganda and unethical practices and normal marketing are the same thing don't you?

Re:Big difference

[Anonymous Coward]

Both campaigns were doing vanilla things on facebook. The Clinton campaign were doing mostly a get-out-to-vote video ad blitz, but the Trump campaign was simply putting up 100,000 different variations/day of still ads to sell campaign swag (e.g., MAGA hats) or slogans w/ a donate button.

The Trump campaign outspent Clinton campaign on facebook (reports up to $70M) and did most of their fundraising on that online (reports up to $250M) where Clinton spent the bulk of advertising on TV (Trump basically spent zero on TV ads).

The propaganda (both sides) were pretty much free-lancers who didn't really have much of a facebook impact (even the russians only spent about $150K). Most of these ads didn't mention any candidates at all (to attempt to fly under the radar), but were ads targetting hot-button wedge issues (gun control, jobs, immigration, etc)...

Of course if you look at *other* internet site, there were quite nasty propaganda, but the facebook ad-buys appear to be rather normal campaign fluff...

Re:Big difference

[Anonymous Coward]

That was my point. Glad to see someone figured it out.

Russia is Deeply Embedded in Facebook

[chill]

Original post by Puffin Fitness: https://np.reddit.com/r/politics/comments/85p30j/deletefacebook_movement_gains_steam_after_50/dvz4y6o/

* * *

In 2009, Russian social-media mogul Yuri Milner invested $200 million into Facebook at a valuation of $10 billion dollars without voting rights or a seat on the board. To understand this investment, at the time the world was going through a global recession and Facebook's general valuation had dropped from the $15 billion from the year prior to $4-$6 billion in 2009.

https://www.cnet.com/news/facebooks-valuation-the-cheat-sheet/

One company did offer a valuation of $8 billion, but with a seat on the board, which Zuckerberg was strongly against. In other words, Yuri Milner invested in Facebook when they were strapped for cash and at an inflated price without voting rights or a seat on the board. That's an amazing deal for Zuckerberg!

Here's Yuri Milner and Mark Zuckerberg hanging out for an interview: https://techcrunch.com/2009/05/26/mark-zuckerberg-and-yuri-milner-talk-about-facebooks-new-investment-video/

The deal was coordinated by Alisher B. Usmanov, a Russian oligarch that earned his fortune managing steel mill subsidiaries for Gazprom.

Usmanov spent six years in prison for fraud and embezzlement in the 80's.

In 2008, Usmanov fired a publisher and editor at one of Russia's most respected news paper after it published detailed accounts of Russian election fraud.

It is said, "His ties to the Kremlin and Facebook have stirred concerns that he might influence the companyâ(TM)s policies in subtle ways to appease governments in markets where Facebook is also an important tool of political dissent, such as Russia." This was in 2009.

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/05/16/technology/a-russian-facebook-bet-pays-off-big.html

Usmanov is close friends with Russian oligarch Roman Abramovich.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alisher_Usmanov

Ivanka Trump and Wendi Deng are good friends with Abramovich's then wife, Dasha Zhoukova. Here they are watching a tennis match.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3784716/Ivanka-Trump-Karlie-Kloss-Wendi-Deng-Murdoch-watch-Open.html

The leak of the Paradise Papers revealed the money Yuri Milner used to invest into Facebook came from Gazprom, a US sanctioned Russian oil and gas company, at one point owning 9% of the company.

http://www.wired.co.uk/article/what-is-the-paradise-papers-leak-facebook-yuri-milner-facebook-twitter-russia

Soon after, Zuckerberg and Milner became friends, meeting monthly:

https://finance.yahoo.com/news/zuckerberg-got-early-business-advice-194957335.html

And even spoke together in November 2015 at the 2016 Breakthrough Prize Ceremony.

http://www.wired.co.uk/article/what-is-the-paradise-papers-leak-facebook-yuri-milner-facebook-twitter-russia

In May 2012, Milner attended Zuckerberg's wedding. In 2014, Milner moved to California home he paid 100% above value on.

http://time.com/5011000/paradise-papers-tax-ha

Re:Russia is Deeply Embedded in Facebook

[Anonymous Coward]

Russia is Deeply Embedded in Facebook

This could explain the marked rise in the popularity of communism/socialism since the early 2000's. The russians have vast experience in this department and know it's the only way they can catch up in the wold having gone down the wrong path for 70 years.

captcha: control

Re:Russia is Deeply Embedded in Facebook

[Anonymous Coward]

+1 I love your post.

Re:Russia is Deeply Embedded in Facebook

[Anonymous Coward]

Russia is not communist or socialist, it is a kleptocracy. The same place we're headed.

Re:Russia is Deeply Embedded in Facebook

[Anonymous Coward]

Weapons grade autism right here. I doff my hat to you sir.

SAVE US, BATBOY!

[Thud457]

Zuck's evacuated to his survival pod in an undisclosed location since events have started counting down to the end of the world when Stephen Hawkwind was raptured back up to Valhalla.


every single word in this post is TRUTH.

Why work there

[Anonymous Coward]

Better question is why would anyone want to work for an employer that knows way too much about you, that tracks you during work and off-work hours and whose entire business model is to stalk and invade people's privacies? Some people just want to work for a company whose name everyone recognizes just so they can brag to others. There are actually technology companies that actually make things - tangible things that actually have some sort of ethics, you know.

When you learn your buness was a bad idea

[Dusanyu]

Who knew that people posting there dirty laundry on the internet was readily and easy to be abused? Giving a voice to Radical nut jobs ((from both sides of the fence)) that would have otherwise been ignored nah not that big of a issue. I may have been part of the fall of western civilization but i can go swim in my money

Election?

[Anonymous Coward]

I have never been on Facebook a day of my life (in fact most of their IPs and hostnames are blocked at my firewall). I don't really do social media. I voted for Trump. There, I said it. I'm not super right wing (I'm an Atheist and a scientist) but Trump supported many things I do care about. Most important to me is trying to control the damage inflicted upon us by Islam and a renewed sense of nationalism.

There are things I don't agree with (environmental concerns). But overall I made a decision based upon facts and occasionally using a real encyclopedia. Maybe I'm an outlier but is Facebook something people use to get any information besides what people ate for dinner or dog pictures or whatever it does contain? I certainly wouldn't trust the concept of social networking to anything important in my life. I look at it the same was as I do cable TV: I dropped that useless waste of time in the 90's.

Captcha: Redneck. Oh really?

Re:Election?

[ahodgson]

You see those Facebook "Like" buttons and Login With Facebook forms all over the Internet? Well every time you see one of those, Facebook sees you and the exact page you're looking at when you see it. Even if you're never used Facebook in your life, they have a pretty good profile on you and what you do on the Internet. And it just gets worse for actual Facebook users.

History repeating

[bitchtits]

In the Facebook movie, Zuck scrapes Harvard college websites for portraits of students to create a "hot or not" type game. Years later Cambridge Analytica scrapes facebook profiles. Sure demonstrates how insecurely your data is held.

Re:History repeating

[oh_my_080980980]

Because it was secure?

Not AWOL

[Anonymous Coward]

I am pretty sure Mark gave himself lead. After all, he is the CEO. He doesn't NEED leave from anyone else. So he can't be AWOL.

Re:Not AWOL

[Anonymous Coward]

Yeah kinda.

Until the US Congress, the US FTC (Federal Trade Commision), the EU (European Union) Privacy Commisioner, the UK Parliament Enquiry and god knows how many other high-ranking groups with jurisdiction to impose fines of billions and restrict access to markets.

THEN he is just a shitty little Silicon Valley nerd guy with bad dress sense.

Re:Not AWOL

[Anonymous Coward]

Ha exactly. Who is he, anyway?

For example, this article: http://money.cnn.com/2018/03/20/technology/mark-zuckerberg-facebook-data-controversy/index.html
“The thing that sets Facebook apart [from other tech companies,]" said a source at the company, is that "Mark and Sheryl [Sandberg] are brands themselves ... they're pretty widely recognized.”

WTF?!? The Facebook CEO is well known by tech company standards?
I guarantee that 10x more people have heard of Steve Jobs or Bill Gates and those guys don’t even run companies anymore (for different reasons).

Zuckerboard well known? Yeah right.

Re:Not AWOL

[Anonymous Coward]

FTC maximum fine is $40K per day per violation. Take $40K/day * 50million users (in leak) * several years? That’s several quadrillion dollars.

Add a zero or two if they fine them for all users (2 billion),

That would be awesome. Wouldn’t happen though.

Not AWOL

[140Mandak262Jamuna]

He might have been absent. But not AWOL. He is his own boss and he does not need any one's permission. He can not go Absent WITHOUT LEAVE by definition.

How about other elections?

[Anonymous Coward]

I wonder for instance how the companies helping candidate Marcon in France did what they did.
Or shall I believe that in this day and age only evil 'Ruskis' do it on FB?

His Handlers Wisked Him Away

[Anonymous Coward]

His handlers are keeping him in seclusion because they have to tutor him with the proper words to use to mansplain things.

"The entire company is outraged we were deceived."

[Anonymous Coward]

Bwahaha deceived we tell you, deceived! then in the next paragraph of the article:
"Zuckerberg has been publicly silent since the Observer and the New York Times reported on Saturday that Facebook has for years been aware that a third-party app, billing itself as collecting user data for research purposes, exploited sufficiently weak privacy settings on unsuspecting user accounts to accumulate 50 million profiles. "

HAHAHA so the company was deceived for years, i can just hear the PR companies salivating at the contracting fees they will get. Quick someone call the guys who worked for tobacco or the asbestos people. Seriously, go read the article from the daily beast, apparently FB asked CA to delete the data in 2015 but didn't follow up or verify the data was deleted...

"Under mounting pressure, Facebook announced Monday that it has hired auditors to determine if the Facebook data collected by Cambridge Analytica has in fact been purged. âoeIf this data still exists, it would be a grave violation of Facebookâ(TM)s policies and an unacceptable violation of trust and the commitments these groups made,â it announced in a blog post Monday. "

and they pinky promise to never do it again! LMAO What do you think the penalties would be for breaching FB's policies? they could never use the service again, well at least under that companies name as if it is complex to just start a new company and get back to accessing the data under a new agreement. Facebook really needs better PR people

Is This Even a Data Leak?

[Dangerous_Minds]

Not to say that what is happening isn't wrong, but is this really a "data leak"? We're talking information that was harvested on apps where users likely gave their consent to have their information sold anyway. I'd call this more of a clear cut case how Facebook is by no means something you should use if you want privacy. Reference.

Re:Is This Even a Data Leak?

[Anonymous Coward]

No, it's not a data leak from what I've read. The issue is that roughly 250,000 people used the facebook app, and facebook allowed it access to the users entire profile and *gasp* the users friends entire profiles. Even if you have the strictest privacy settings or didn't consent (even though it's likely in the TOS/EULA), Cambridge Analitica still got the whole profile.

Poster is an idiot

[Anonymous Coward]

AWOL = Away Without Leave
Heâ(TM)s the CEO, Chairman, and I believe still had the biggest majority of ownership. Sooo, he is the one that gives leave therefore he is not AWOL. Heâ(TM)s just A.

Comment removed

[account_deleted]

Comment removed based on user account deletion

Funny how it's Trump aligned

[Anonymous Coward]

when Hillary's side also used facebook in the same way...

Re:Funny how it's Trump aligned

[viperidaenz]

Because Trump hired smarter people who did a better job.

Contrary to popular belief, he's not actually retarded. He knew he couldn't compete against Obama, so didn't even try. Instead he switched from democrat to republican and spent that time appealing to core republicans, like spreading a rumor the black president is a dirty foreigner, ineligible for office.
He spent his whole campaign as anti-establishment, anti-regulations, America First, fuck the foreigners.

Probably even got tips from Putin's propaganda people. The whole world hates him, but he just won another election.

Whatabouttery

[Anonymous Coward]

It is misleading to try to compare the two - the Obama campaign told the individuals what they were sharing, and why, whereas Cambridge Analytica acted fraudently.

Theres a massive difference

[Anonymous Coward]

The difference is that the '12 campaign was upfront in what data they were asking for and how it would be used.

Re: Theres a massive difference

[Anonymous Coward]

Fun assertion with little evidence of anything like veracity.

Absent without leave?

[mi]

Mark Zuckerberg AWOL From Facebook's Data Leak Damage Control Session

From whom would the company CEO (and the biggest share-holder) need a leave to skip a meeting?

Maybe, the term "AWOL" is not entirely appropriate here, editorial wordsmiths?

funny

[viperidaenz]

Hillary fanboy Mark Zuckerberg butthurt that his push to monetise his platform and sell everyone's personal data ended up putting Trump in office.

Tom

[Anonymous Coward]

There isn't anyone on earth that ever believed in the bullshit that was MySpace than Tom, and maybe Justin Timberlake.

Candidate Zuckerberg is absent

[Anonymous Coward]

Private citizen Zuckerberg is of course concerned this issue will adversely affect his public office future. Legally, he can't say he's even thinking about running for public office until he's fully ready to throw his hat into the ring but he does everything with "public office" in mind -- and this news is bad for possible-candidate Zuckerberg.

Facebook has always been monstrous.

[jbn-o]

Objecting to Facebook on the basis of surveillance? That's hardly new. Software freedom fighters got there years ago.

Free Software Foundation got there earlier. From publishing https://www.fsf.org/facebook published on on Dec 20, 2010. FSF & GNU Project founder Richard Stallman has been rightly objecting to Facebook for years in his talks and on his personal website.

Long-time former FSF lawyer Eben Moglen rightly called Facebook a monstrous surveillance engine in talks and he pointed out the ugliness of Facebook's endless surveillance (at length in part 3 but in other places in the same lecture series as well). See http://snowdenandthefuture.info/ for the entire series of talks.

Fecesbook, created by Zuck "they trust me, dumb fu

[Anonymous Coward]

What did you expect? Even if Fecesbook goes under tomorrow, he's already laughed all the way to the bank.

Weren't Russians his major pre-ipo investors

[Anonymous Coward]

Wahhh wahhh

OOO.OoOO..OoOO.OOOOoO.OOOoO.OOO..OO.OOO.OO.OO.OOOO

[Anonymous Coward]

OOO.OOoOOOoOOOoOOOOOOOOOO.OOOOoOOOoOOOOOOOoOOOOOoOOOOOO.OOOOOOOOoOOOOOOoOOOOOOoOOOOO.OOoOOOOoOOOOOoOOoOOOOOoOOOOOOoOOoOOOoOOOOOOO.OOOOOOOOOOOoOOOOOO.OOOOOOoOOOOO

EVERYBODY POI?NT YOUR FI?NGER AT S?UCKERBER?G AND KILL HIM

. :OOOOOOOO.OOOOOOOOOOOO.OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO.OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO.OOOOOOOOOOO

(My best impression for body snatchers :P)

Dots inserted to circunvebt repetition filter...you loose... use advanced AI next time :P*

Cambridge Analytica

[Anonymous Coward]

I am reading today that UK government wants a warrant for the Cambridge Analytica's HQ in UK:
https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2018/mar/19/cambridge-analytica-execs-boast-dirty-tricks-honey-traps-elections

I can't help but wonder if they want to screw up the archives, simply because I don't trust them (I don't like in the UK though).

I am sort of reminded of this story from locally years back, where important historical documents to an institution/org was deemed destroyed, because they were stored in a place where water damage supposedly destroyed the records.

Who did Mark piss off?

[sad_]

Somehow everybody is acting surprised and stock fall and people leave facebook... for something we already know for years.
Who did Mark Zuckerberg piss off to create this mass revolt?
Looks to me the same machine that was using facebook earlier as his ally has now turned against it, the question is - why?

LOL!

[MerlTurkin]

Facebook. ROTFLMFAO! Facebook! LOL!

Coming Soon!

[Anonymous Coward]

Youtube proudly presents! The modern odd couple of Zuckerberg and Snowden living together in a shitty flat in Moscow! Tune in if you like your borscht with a side of drama!

AWOL???!!!

[Anonymous Coward]

I thought Silicon Valley companies had taken to tracking their employees? So, clearly, he's not missing. He's just in his safe space, sucking his thumb.

This is why tech companies used to hire and even listen to adults. First, they likely would have pumped the breaks when the business model that required treating your users like dairy cows was being developed. Second, maturity and experience would help a lot in developing the response to this PR -- and quickly unfolding regulatory -- nightmare.

Good news, at least people who never even realized how they were being mistreated are finally waking up to the fact that Silicon Valley is run by a bunch of greedy sociopaths.

AWOL? Probably not.

[McFortner]

He's just keeping his mouth shut so he doesn't say anything on the record that can be used against him in a criminal and/or civil trial. It's the most important thing your lawyer tells you to do when you are in deep trouble. Few people actually follow this advice. Apparently he is.