Urban75 Home About Offline BrixtonBuzz Contact

Cambridge Analytica Whistleblower

Living in a university town I have heard occasional things about data mining etc for around 10 years now. The first time I heard of data mining I was like, "whoa" that is massive and ethically dubious. The people who did the original academic research must surely have understood this if I did. Research does not exist in a moral vacuum.

I think it's going to be very difficult to put the genie back in the bottle. I guess there needs to be a real political will to regulate this or a real social will to put pressure on companies, politicians etc to behave ethically.

Reiabuzz said:
I think you be overestimating the impact this had on both of those events.
Click to expand...
Maybe, I'd be interested to see (say) some serious evaluation of the Trump election campaign and their use of these tactics.
 
Last edited:
He claims he was naive imo that doesn't even come close. What the fuck was he thinking of? It wouldn't have taken much to research the likes of Steve Bannon.
 
1DHIB
 
TruXta said:
Hopefully this will equally shine a light on the political side of FB Corp and by extension your Alphabets etc. No way are they collecting all this data and only using it to sell advertising.
Click to expand...

The thing is, I'm not certain the average person really cares. You and I know what's probably going on and recognize it as a problem. There's a lot of low information voters out there, who don't know, or care, as long as they get their chat and photo posting services. They're happy to fill out all those cute little surveys to find out what kind of dragon they might be. A lot of people are going to say, if you don't like it, don't use Facebook. That, of course, ignores the larger issues. Or, they all assume that's its someone else getting manipulated, not them, they're just too smart for that.

The other thing is, to my knowledge, they've not broken any laws. It's certainly ethically questionable, but probably fully legal, and certainly ripe for exploitation. I can't see any laws being written against it, because a few of us think its unethical.
 
Last edited:
Yuwipi Woman said:
The thing is, I'm not certain the average person really cares. You and I know what's probably going on and recognize it as a problem. There's a lot of low information voters out there, who don't know, or care, as long as they get their chat and photo posting services. They're happy to fill out all those cute little surveys to find out what kind of dragon they might be. A lot of people are going to say, if you don't like it, don't use Facebook. That, of course, ignores the larger issues. Or, they all assume that's its someone else getting manipulated, not them, they're just too smart for that.

The other thing is, to my knowledge, they've not broken any laws. It's certainly ethically questionable, but probably fully legal, and certainly ripe for exploitation. I can't see any laws being written against it, because a few of us think its unethical.
Click to expand...

It doesnt matter if lots of people dont care. Everyone caring is not required in order for there to be a legislative response to this shit in various countries. At the very least, all these stories are adding up to a distinct change of mood music when the mainstream talk about social media.
 
elbows said:
It doesnt matter if lots of people dont care. Everyone caring is not required in order for there to be a legislative response to this shit in various countries. At the very least, all these stories are adding up to a distinct change of mood music when the mainstream talk about social media.
Click to expand...

That might generally work, but the people likely to benefit the most from doing nothing are our lawmakers.
 
Yuwipi Woman said:
That might generally work, but the people likely to benefit the most from doing nothing are our lawmakers.
Click to expand...

Doing nothing is not entirely risk-free for them in this case either though. We'll see, I'm not making any big predictions but it is clear that there is increasing appetite to reign in the net giants on certain limited fronts at least. Maybe not that much in the USA, but I'm talking about the UK and Europe here too.
 
elbows said:
Doing nothing is not entirely risk-free for them in this case either though. We'll see, I'm not making any big predictions but it is clear that there is increasing appetite to reign in the net giants on certain limited fronts at least. Maybe not that much in the USA, but I'm talking about the UK and Europe here too.
Click to expand...
As I understand it, when people used the app to respond to a survey, they gave consent for access to all their data. Maybe they didn't read the fine print, maybe they did and didn't understand it, maybe they didn't know what it would be used for, maybe they didn't care. However, consenting also gave access to the same data of people on their "friends lists," who had not given consent. That's how they were able to amass so much data so quickly. One person does the survey, has 500 friends - say half of which don't have their security locked down, so that's 250 comprehensive data sets from one hit, thank you very much.

Under the forthcoming General Data Protection Regulations in Europe (including the UK, whether or not Brexit happens), the latter would absolutely be a breach. The former would as well, as you now have to be very specific when requesting consent to use personal data - only ask for what is necessary, explain in simple terms exactly what it's for, destroy it as soon as possible or sooner if the person asks and absolutely never use it for anything outside what explicit consent is given for. The definition of personal data has expanded to include things like photos, or a set of information points that together, can be linked to an individual person. Fines for breaching GDPR will be pretty eye watering. Small beer for a massive corporation like Facebook, but it wouldn't take too many suits for them to start wincing.
 
elbows said:
Doing nothing is not entirely risk-free for them in this case either though. We'll see, I'm not making any big predictions but it is clear that there is increasing appetite to reign in the net giants on certain limited fronts at least. Maybe not that much in the USA, but I'm talking about the UK and Europe here too.
Click to expand...

I hope you're right. I have very little confidence in US politicians. I've spent too much time being lied to my face to think that they're anything but errand boys.
 
Last edited:
Revealed: Trump’s election consultants filmed saying they use bribes and sex workers to entrap politicians

Senior executives at Cambridge Analytica – the data company that credits itself with Donald Trump’s presidential victory – have been secretly filmed saying they could entrap politicians in compromising situations with bribes and Ukrainian sex workers

In an undercover investigation by Channel 4 News, the company’s chief executive Alexander Nix said the British firm secretly campaigns in elections across the world. This includes operating through a web of shadowy front companies, or by using sub-contractors.

In one exchange, when asked about digging up material on political opponents, Mr Nix said they could “send some girls around to the candidate’s house”, adding that Ukrainian girls “are very beautiful, I find that works very well”.
Click to expand...

 
Last edited:
  • Like
Reactions: CRI
Yuwipi Woman said:
The thing is, I'm not certain the average person really cares. You and I know what's probably going on and recognize it as a problem. There's a lot of low information voters out there, who don't know, or care, as long as they get their chat and photo posting services. They're happy to fill out all those cute little surveys to find out what kind of dragon they might be. A lot of people are going to say, if you don't like it, don't use Facebook.
Click to expand...
Those people aren't 'low information voters' - they're people who are in denial they've been played is all. No-one wants to think of themselves as a mug.
 
I wonder if a decent way to explain it is, would you be OK with some person following you all day every day and noting down where you shop, who you talk to, what you eat and who you're working with?
 
You must log in or register to reply here.

Similar threads

Idris2002
Ireland: Police Whistleblower Smeared as Child Abuser
2
Replies
37
Views
2K
Idris2002
Idris2002
T
Repression at Cambridge
2
Replies
57
Views
2K
fogbat
fogbat
Back
Top Bottom