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Federal Facebook Probe Now Includes FBI, SEC: Report (apnews.com)
A federal probe into Facebook's sharing of user data with Cambridge Analytica now involves the FBI, the Securities and Exchange Commission and the Justice Department, a report said. AP: Representatives from these agencies have joined the Federal Trade Commission in the inquiry, The Washington Post reported, citing five unnamed people familiar with the matter. The probe reportedly centers on what Facebook knew in 2015, when it learned that the political data-mining firm Cambridge Analytica had improperly accessed the personal data of tens of millions of Facebook users. Facebook didn't disclose the incident with the political firm, which later worked for the Trump campaign and other Republican candidates, until this March.
As much as I'd love to see a good witch burning, I think a more realistic expectation isn't fire or even jail time. It'll be a couple million dollar fine and a shameful finger wave.
If and until fines become greater than profits for corporations bad behavior, this cycle of crap will continue.
The American way... let company do terrible things to people and get too big to fail, THEN investigate.
Laws are rules for the court, but merely a bottom bar to hit for life. Think beyond laws in your actions always.
I'm not making a political statement either way. I'm simply explaining that if the FBI is involved then that means they are investigating whether federal law was violated. It may be as simple as lying to Congress or it may be more than that.
Facebook is too profitable for anyone to mess with. Zuckerberg is a very powerful and influential individual so he's practically untouchable. I'm sure a lot of people in high places own Facebook stock and they'll stop anyone or any faction from affecting Facebook's high profitability. High profits will always come before things like personal privacy protection. Zuckerberg is a winner at life and business. Nothing can stop him now. He's the second or third richest man in America so he's become some sort of a sacred icon to Wall Street. He's definitely Teflon-coated, so nothing bad can stick to him.
... this was data that Facebook happily gave the Obama campaign as well as just about any company that asked.
No they didn't. That is a lie started by Conservative Troll media (Fox News, Hannity, Rush, and all the idiots on political talk radio - and that makes you a rube.) I didn't start seeing ANYTHING from the Obama campaign until I signed up.
Now, what CA did was target people unsolicited with BS ads about immigrants , "America is for Americans only", stuff about infrastructure, and other issues that their data suggested - and targeted ads accordingly.
Trump then used that data to customize his speeches in those areas based upon data.
For example, they found that people were concerned about infrastructure and that is when Trump said that he was going to spend a Trillion dollars on roads, bridges and highways.
And why when he was in Potatohoe he railed about keeping them illegal immigrants out - even those people have no illegal immigrant problem.
And everyone seems to think facebook and CA are the problem when it's really our stupid electorate (mostly the conservatives) who lack critical thinking skills and are too lazy to really learn about the issues.
Because let's face it, Trump won on complete horseshit.
See the link below for the issues.
Part of the legal issues is that agreement, the link below, requiring that facebook perform actions which is being investigated to see if they broke.
the issue with Cambridge Analytica is that they had access to people who had not given consent, so breaking the FTC agreement.
What Obama's 2012 team was allowed to do by facebook was take data only from people who had consented (you logged into obama's website using your facebook account). However they were given access to data that facebook never gives to anyone else and is listed as user data that will not be distributed and was not the list of information that would be shared, so consent for some data not given. In addtion obama's team was allowed to suck that data directly from the facebook databases and then keep the data indefinitely. All of that is in violation of the FTC agreement.
https://www.ftc.gov/news-event...
I mean, while no one likes it, under current US law, there's really NOTHING that is codified as being illegal about it, otherwise we'd be stringing up tons of companies over this type thing.
The only good thing that could come out of this, is for the US to pass at least basic privacy laws for our citizens and let it be know that WE own our own data, have rights to see/view, and opt IN if we want it shared or used for us, and can also have it removed/deleted if we wish.
I'm not much of one for most EU type laws, but that last one on data privacy could be used for a model here, if anything useful is to come out of this FB data outrage.
Light travels faster than sound. This is why some people appear bright until you hear them speak.........
OK, I'm honestly a bit confused here.
Not making a political statement, but hasn't Facebook been selling data in violation of their own policies for the last few years?
I realize how one could potentially perceive this as unfair play during the election, but by Facebook's own admission, it doesn't really seem to be much different that the rest of the data sharing going on.
Check your premises.
In case anyone is wondering about the hypocrisy, read this article https://www.theguardian.com/wo...
Only the State obtains its revenue by coercion. - Murray Rothbard
It was both good and bad for democracy.
Consider this: A political outsider running on a populist platform managed to get elected over the established candidate that everyone thought was going to win. That's amazing. An upset. A sign that we actually live in a democracy. Because even if everyone can vote, but there's only the illusion of choice and the party leaders are going to pick whom they want to run, then it's not really a democracy. And for all the elections I've been around for, the victor was pretty much determined by who paid more for it. That's not a democracy, that's a plutocracy at best or a government full of corrupt official semi-employed by corporate interests at worst. But Trump only raised about half the money Hilary did. And he still won.
I was feeling really cynical about the whole process but this one actually opened my eyes to the fact that the voters really DO have control over the outcome. Shocking I know. And HO BOY was that a shock. Seriously, I saw the numbers midway through and had to have a drink.
Now... it's ALSO a bad day for democracy. It showcased how effective propaganda can be, in case anyone had forgotten that. It also showcased how ugly elections can get. It wasn't NEARLY as bad as, say, the elections down in Mexico right now. The pile of corpses simply doesn't stack up. But it was relatively ugly for the crazy primary, tone of violence, vitriol, and hacking someone's email isn't the sort of thing we want to become commonplace. And just the sheer volume of bold-faced lies. It wasn't a good election. Better than some of our own from the past, but pretty bad by recent standards.
Buu ugliness aside, completely ignoring the... security holes of democracy and how easily swayed the voting masses are. This was a bad day for democracy. Because the guy that got elected is almost* universally reviled. The opposition really hates him. More so than the other side hated a black guy, surprisingly. The media hates him. His own party's leadership isn't a huge fan, but they're willing to use him. Some even came out against him. The best thing about our nation is it's ability to change. To balance out things and fix what's wrong. After this sort of populist movement got someone SO BAD into the white house, we're not going to see ANY hope of another populist movement again for a long time.
"but what is important is making sure it doesn't happen again."
Yep. Exactly. That'll mean more "super-candidates", more party control over who gets onto primary ballots, and the general populace will be more leery of political outsiders. It's kind of a damn shame, because if the DNC didn't have such a strong hold over the party then maybe Bernie might have had a real shot. Trump vs Bernie would have been an interesting election.
But hey, other than the EPA and FCC being castrated, maybe things won't be so bad. He's legitimately made good strides with N.Korea. Let's hope, right?
*almost, but not all. There is a very significant number of people that legitimately like his leadership style. A bully, in charge, bold, "masculine", authoritative. I'm pretty sure Mussolini wrote about this. "He'll make the trains run on time". One downside of democracy is that a lot of people are assholes.
this was data that Facebook happily gave the Obama campaign as well as just about any company that asked. ...No one cared when Obama used the same trick to steal the election from Romney.
The difference being what they used the data for. If you use the yellow pages to call people and tell them to vote for you guy, eh, fine. Annoying but not a crime. If you use the yellow pages to systematically murder people in a district to try and sway the vote, that's wrong.
Trump and Russia used and Internet propaganda campaign of lies to sway voters. This is, subtly, different from a campaign PR campaign. Namely:
- Is it clear who purchased the advertisement?
- Is it clear that it IS an advertisement?
- Does the advertisement lie to the viewer, and to what extent?
Show me the propaganda from the Obama campaign, and I'll show you a pile of garbage out of Russia that's 10 times worse.
"One can dream of a scenario where Hillary, Trump and Zuckerberg all share a cell together"
Which one still be the bitch?
Zuckerberg is probably the most feminine, with the most delicate features of the three- so probably him.
"That's the way to do it" - Punch
Apologies. Made the mistake of looking at Twitter earlier today, and my ability to distinguish between hyperbole and actionable rage is damaged at the moment.
Check your premises.