Recent Forum Topics › Forums › The Public House › Cambridge Analytica is the smoking gun
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wv.
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March 20, 2018 at 4:14 pm #84311
Billy_TParticipantI thought we were waaay beyond any doubt more than a year ago of Trump’s absolute guilt. There is just overwhelming evidence that he’s a crook on a massive scale, and that he sought and received major, illicit support from Russia (and other actors) to win the election. Since becoming president, the evidence is overwhelming that he’s covered this up, lied hundreds of times about it, and has engaged in serial obstruction of justice.
And now comes this:
http://www.businessinsider.com/cambridge-analytica-trump-russia-ties-2018-3
Excerpt:
The London-based data firm Cambridge Analytica was testing out slogans like “Drain the Swamp” and “Build the Wall” as early as 2014, the same year Russia launched its social media influence operation targeting the 2016 US election.
Those slogans would later become the bedrock of Republican nominee Donald Trump’s platform while he campaigned for the presidency. He invoked them frequently at his rallies, and his supporters often chanted them.
“We were testing all kinds of messages and all kinds of imagery, which included images of walls, people scaling walls,” Christopher Wylie, a former employee at Cambridge Analytica, told CNN. “We tested ‘drain the swamp’ … ideas of the deep state and the NSA watching you and the government is conspiring against you.”
“And a lot of these narratives, which at the time would have seemed crazy for a mainstream candidate to run on, those were the things that we were finding that there were pockets of Americans who this really appealed to,” Wylie added.
Steve Bannon, the former White House chief strategist and Trump campaign CEO, sat on the data firm’s board of directors, which is largely backed by Republican megadonor Robert Mercer.
Wylie said Monday that Bannon’s push for the Trump campaign to endorse far-right positions on issues like immigration and law enforcement largely stemmed from Cambridge Analytica’s research on those topics.
The Trump campaign hired Bannon in the summer of 2016. Around the same time, it also tapped Cambridge Analytica to manage its data operation.
A Trump aide told Wired that the firm played a “key role” in identifying political donors that helped them raise $80 million in July 2016.
In all my life, I have never seen a more obvious, slam-dunk case against a politian. And this latest revelation demonstrates yet again how mendacious he is and how he sold his voters a phony bill of goods. Social media/psych app testing, not his own beliefs, drove his campaign.
March 20, 2018 at 4:38 pm #84313Billy_TParticipantA Guardian article on the subject as well. It includes the hidden camera video of Cambridge execs:
Also, with the Facebook data breach involving 50 million members, the suggestion from some that the reach was minimal should be a dead talking point. And I think this is just the beginning. A recent article alleges Republicans in North Carolina utilized this service back in 2014 as well.
While both major parties may end up implicated, right now, at least, this appears to be a GOP-only scandal in the making, extending beyond Trump.
March 20, 2018 at 5:54 pm #84315wvParticipantI thought we were waaay beyond any doubt more than a year ago of Trump’s absolute guilt. There is just overwhelming evidence that he’s a crook on a massive scale, and that he sought and received major, illicit support from Russia (and other actors) to win the election. Since becoming president, the evidence is overwhelming that he’s covered this up, lied hundreds of times about it, and has engaged in serial obstruction of justice.
And now comes this:
http://www.businessinsider.com/cambridge-analytica-trump-russia-ties-2018-3
Excerpt:
The London-based data firm Cambridge Analytica was testing out slogans like “Drain the Swamp” and “Build the Wall” as early as 2014, the same year Russia launched its social media influence operation targeting the 2016 US election.
Those slogans would later become the bedrock of Republican nominee Donald Trump’s platform while he campaigned for the presidency. He invoked them frequently at his rallies, and his supporters often chanted them.
“We were testing all kinds of messages and all kinds of imagery, which included images of walls, people scaling walls,” Christopher Wylie, a former employee at Cambridge Analytica, told CNN. “We tested ‘drain the swamp’ … ideas of the deep state and the NSA watching you and the government is conspiring against you.”
“And a lot of these narratives, which at the time would have seemed crazy for a mainstream candidate to run on, those were the things that we were finding that there were pockets of Americans who this really appealed to,” Wylie added.
Steve Bannon, the former White House chief strategist and Trump campaign CEO, sat on the data firm’s board of directors, which is largely backed by Republican megadonor Robert Mercer.
Wylie said Monday that Bannon’s push for the Trump campaign to endorse far-right positions on issues like immigration and law enforcement largely stemmed from Cambridge Analytica’s research on those topics.
The Trump campaign hired Bannon in the summer of 2016. Around the same time, it also tapped Cambridge Analytica to manage its data operation.
A Trump aide told Wired that the firm played a “key role” in identifying political donors that helped them raise $80 million in July 2016.
In all my life, I have never seen a more obvious, slam-dunk case against a politian. And this latest revelation demonstrates yet again how mendacious he is and how he sold his voters a phony bill of goods. Social media/psych app testing, not his own beliefs, drove his campaign.
=================
I dont get it BT. I dont see the illegality in any of that. (granted i havent studied on it)
That analytics stuff just looks like the same ole political focus group crap that Obama, Clinton, and all the rest of them have used for a long time. Whats illegal about it?
w
vMarch 20, 2018 at 6:21 pm #84316Billy_TParticipantI dont get it BT. I dont see the illegality in any of that. (granted i havent studied on it)
That analytics stuff just looks like the same ole political focus group crap that Obama, Clinton, and all the rest of them have used for a long time. Whats illegal about it?
w
vCambridge Analytica stole personal information from 50 million Facebook users, and FB has known about this for more than two years, apparently. They’re just now admitting it and have supposedly severed ties with CA. CA suspended their CEO in the wake of these revelations.
Revealed: 50 million Facebook profiles harvested for Cambridge Analytica in major data breach
Cambridge Analytica was founded by the Mercers, the far-right billionaire family, and Steven Bannon was on its board. Kushner brought them into the Trump campaign and they were key in his social media/digital operations. CA also had direct communication with Wikileaks.
And — surprise surprise!! The guy who created the app which culled those 50 million profiles is a Russian.
;>)
If you read the articles, you’ll also see a pattern with Cambridge of very sleazy business practices, including entrapment.
Yes, political operations for both major parties have engaged in seriously sleazy nonsense for a long, long time. But I’ve never seen anything like the Trump campaign. He makes Nixon look like a choirboy.
As mentioned before, I think the main driver for all of this is massive debt. Trump and Kushner owe billions, likely, and no one would lend Trump money except for the Russians. Kushner, while in the White House, managed to get half a billion from CEOs he met with in the Oval Office.
They’re breaking all records for corruption, and America has had more than its share.
March 20, 2018 at 7:17 pm #84322wvParticipantWell there’s several different issues there. Did CA ‘steal’ something from ‘facebook’? If they did why hasnt the FBI arrested someone? Is it ‘illegal’ to steal from facebook or is it a gray area?
Secondly are you saying CA is a russian organization? Or that simply a russian is part of it?
Btw, here is a post i read today on the lifeboat board. Its about CA as well. It was noted that CA has links to the British-CIA, not the Russian-CIA 🙂
Fwiw.__________________________
There’s a lot of fuss about CA now, seemingly because someone thinks they can convince everyone that Brexit and/or Trump only happened due to computer voodoo, and we should therefore reverse them. While they’re obviously dodgy, I think this story has been overblown by hopeful remainers: eg CA worked for ted cruz first for ages before trump – didn’t do cruz much good – most of the data they had was related to cruz – they switched to trump late in the day, so the effect of any direct trump-related psychometry had would have been minimal i’d guess. Similarly with brexit – they were going to work for leave.eu if they got the main funding, but they didn’t so they didn’t apparently. Companies like CA are in the business of overstating the power of their algorithms seems to me.The real issue for me is that SCL, CA’s parent company used to work for MI6 (or be run by them) and this technology was used by them in god knows what elections around the world for the good of the empire – and no doubt still is being used by many agencies, private and otherwise – and probably to a much higher sophistication level than CA has. Not to mention the same technology as used by the major social media giants in-house as a matter of course in their own business models.
(I read somewhere that the tories have apparently been in talks with CA for three months about working for them – can’t remeber where now)
=====================March 20, 2018 at 8:06 pm #84325Billy_TParticipantWell there’s several different issues there. Did CA ‘steal’ something from ‘facebook’? If they did why hasnt the FBI arrested someone? Is it ‘illegal’ to steal from facebook or is it a gray area?
Secondly are you saying CA is a russian organization? Or that simply a russian is part of it?
Btw, here is a post i read today on the lifeboat board. Its about CA as well. It was noted that CA has links to the British-CIA, not the Russian-CIA 🙂
Fwiw.__________________________
There’s a lot of fuss about CA now, seemingly because someone thinks they can convince everyone that Brexit and/or Trump only happened due to computer voodoo, and we should therefore reverse them. While they’re obviously dodgy, I think this story has been overblown by hopeful remainers: eg CA worked for ted cruz first for ages before trump – didn’t do cruz much good – most of the data they had was related to cruz – they switched to trump late in the day, so the effect of any direct trump-related psychometry had would have been minimal i’d guess. Similarly with brexit – they were going to work for leave.eu if they got the main funding, but they didn’t so they didn’t apparently. Companies like CA are in the business of overstating the power of their algorithms seems to me.The real issue for me is that SCL, CA’s parent company used to work for MI6 (or be run by them) and this technology was used by them in god knows what elections around the world for the good of the empire – and no doubt still is being used by many agencies, private and otherwise – and probably to a much higher sophistication level than CA has. Not to mention the same technology as used by the major social media giants in-house as a matter of course in their own business models.
(I read somewhere that the tories have apparently been in talks with CA for three months about working for them – can’t remeber where now)
=====================This is a pretty recent development, but I think arrests will be made in the near future. Mueller is apparently looking into this now. It’s pretty obvious by now that he works very slowly, methodically, etc.
As for illegality of harvesting info without permission: You know the law a hell of a lot better than I do, but I would guess it’s illegal in most spheres. I’m also guessing, however, that in the Internet, social media, digital realm, it is “gray” to some degree, but should not be. It’s gray because Silicon Valley has been adept at working both parties — in recent years, especially the Dems — to stave off serious regulations. But in this particular case, it does appear that CA misrepresented what they were doing to FB. So there may be an issue between the two corporations.
I don’t think any private company, of any kind, in any sphere, should be able to harvest any of our personal information, ever, without our consent, and that that should be the law. It appears to be, however, that they can, and they do, without telling us, and then they sell it to other companies, which don’t tell us either. I’d make that all against the law.
No, I don’t think CA is a Russian organization. But it looks like they hired a Russian to build the app in question.
A follow up on your quote from lifeboat in the next post.
March 20, 2018 at 8:24 pm #84328Billy_TParticipantThere’s a lot of fuss about CA now, seemingly because someone thinks they can convince everyone that Brexit and/or Trump only happened due to computer voodoo, and we should therefore reverse them. While they’re obviously dodgy, I think this story has been overblown by hopeful remainers: eg CA worked for ted cruz first for ages before trump – didn’t do cruz much good – most of the data they had was related to cruz – they switched to trump late in the day, so the effect of any direct trump-related psychometry had would have been minimal i’d guess. Similarly with brexit – they were going to work for leave.eu if they got the main funding, but they didn’t so they didn’t apparently. Companies like CA are in the business of overstating the power of their algorithms seems to me.
The poster’s premise seems inflated to me from the get go, and I think he or she seeks to dismiss recent scrutiny via major exaggeration. I don’t bump into anyone reporting on this trying to claim CA is the reason why Brexit passed or Trump won, and no one is suggesting the results should be reversed because of CA. They’re just doing their due diligence about corporate corruption, which is beyond dispute in this case. Even FB now admits it happened, after two years of trying to hide it. It makes them look bad too, and their stock took a hit, so it’s not as if they gain by finally coming clean about this.
Also, the post is wrong about the timing of the Cruz connection. It can’t have been “ages” as the company wasn’t even formed until 2013, and they switched to Trump in 2015 (marketing his core slogans in 2014). Yes, the Mercers originally backed Cruz, as did people like Kellyanne Conway, but then they switched to Trump and still back him. Bannon, as mentioned, was on the CA board.
For me, this isn’t about how much impact it had on the election, if any. It’s the immorality of it, the sleaziness, the likely illegality. I think the people involved should be held accountable, all the way up to Trump and the Mercers. To me, it sends a horrible message if they can get away with it. It tells billionaires they can use any means necessary to win elections, pass preferred legislation, force their own agenda into law, etc. etc. I think all attempts to corrupt the process should be exposed and the people responsible made to pay the price, regardless of party.
March 20, 2018 at 10:41 pm #84339wvParticipantFor me, this isn’t about how much impact it had on the election, if any.
It’s the immorality of it,
the sleaziness,
the likely illegality…===============
Well, I agree on the immorality. And i agree on the Sleaziness.
As for the Illegality — In a Corporotacracy? BT, as you well know poisoning the entire biosphere is perfectly ‘legal’ here. Fracking is legal. Busting Unions is legal. Neoliberalism is legal. NAFTA is legal. Buying elections is legal. Incarcerating gazillions of people on drug charges is legal. Increasing global warming is legal. Imprisoning whistle-blowers is legal. Interfering in other nations elections is legal. Torturing people is legal. Blowing people to bits with drones is legal. Denying poor people adequate health care is legal. Empire is legal. The CIA is legal.
Drenching people in propaganda is legal.I dont even know what ‘legal’ means in a Corporotacracy, BT.
Carry on, Billy. I’m nuthin but dark-matter, i know 🙂
You be the light.
w
vMarch 20, 2018 at 10:53 pm #84342wvParticipantPS — this is really the only part of that post that I was interested in: “…is that SCL, CA’s parent company used to work for MI6 (or be run by them) and this technology was used by them in god knows what elections around the world for the good of the empire…”
——————————–This is just another drop in the vast ocean-of-lies that make up “the West” now.
This is my mantra, BT. (until i become obsessed with a different mantra 🙂 )
Did you know that CA’s parent company worked for the brit-lie-factory? I didnt. Most people dont. What does it mean? I dunno. We dont get to know.
In a land of lies, we dont get to know. What can we trust anymore? What information can we trust in the West? Or the East.
Thats the situation one finds oneself in, in a factory-of-Lies.
And the people are so dummed-down now (not their fault) by the factory-of-lies, that they have…no…clue. They are not ‘citizens’ in any meaningful sense.
There are no citizens in a factory-of-lies.
Just how i see it now. Not tryin to persuade anyone.
w
vMarch 20, 2018 at 11:39 pm #84344Billy_TParticipantFor me, this isn’t about how much impact it had on the election, if any.
It’s the immorality of it,
the sleaziness,
the likely illegality…===============
Well, I agree on the immorality. And i agree on the Sleaziness.
As for the Illegality — In a Corporotacracy? BT, as you well know poisoning the entire biosphere is perfectly ‘legal’ here. Fracking is legal. Busting Unions is legal. Neoliberalism is legal. NAFTA is legal. Buying elections is legal. Incarcerating gazillions of people on drug charges is legal. Increasing global warming is legal. Imprisoning whistle-blowers is legal. Interfering in other nations elections is legal. Torturing people is legal. Blowing people to bits with drones is legal. Denying poor people adequate health care is legal. Empire is legal. The CIA is legal.
Drenching people in propaganda is legal.I dont even know what ‘legal’ means in a Corporotacracy, BT.
Carry on, Billy. I’m nuthin but dark-matter, i know 🙂
You be the light.
w
vWe both agree on the obscenity of that list of yours. We both want it to stop and that it’s a horror show. But in a world where the vast majority of things are never exposed, when so few even try to expose them, shouldn’t leftists support the rare cases of sunlight when they do occur?
All those things you list — yes, it goes without saying that the rich and corporate America and international capitalism get away with endless crimes against humanity and the planet, and all of that is profoundly wrong and should not stand. None of it. Not one iota of it.
But a tiny sliver of this is being brought to light in the Trump era, in a weird way, in an incredibly ironic way, because he made himself rich and powerful through playing the media, through marketing, through using images and slogans and marketing campaigns to fake it until he made it, and it may well bring him down. The proverbial sword that cuts two ways. The NDAs that cut two ways.
I think he’s guilty of major financial crimes, endless bullying, threats of violence against women, sexual assault against women, stirring up hatred against minorities, plus emboldening white supremacists, neo-nazis, neo-fascists . . . and his policies destroy the poor and the planet. He’s the head of a political party which is much more aggressive about doing those things than the other major party, which is also guilty of crimes against humanity and the planet. He deserves to be in jail for what he’s done, and America has the right to know the entire story.Leftist principles sync up perfectly well with the desire to see all of this brought to light. As mentioned before, if Trump does go down, it’s not a vindication of Clinton, or the Dems, or anyone else. It’s just about Trump and his crime family. Just them. Clinton was a terrible candidate and none of that changes, either way. IMO, leftists make a mistake if they fear supporting these investigations due to side issues like that. It’s just not relevant.
March 20, 2018 at 11:47 pm #84345Billy_TParticipantPS — this is really the only part of that post that I was interested in: “…is that SCL, CA’s parent company used to work for MI6 (or be run by them) and this technology was used by them in god knows what elections around the world for the good of the empire…”
——————————–This is just another drop in the vast ocean-of-lies that make up “the West” now.
This is my mantra, BT. (until i become obsessed with a different mantra 🙂 )
Did you know that CA’s parent company worked for the brit-lie-factory? I didnt. Most people dont. What does it mean? I dunno. We dont get to know.
In a land of lies, we dont get to know. What can we trust anymore? What information can we trust in the West? Or the East.
Thats the situation one finds oneself in, in a factory-of-Lies.
And the people are so dummed-down now (not their fault) by the factory-of-lies, that they have…no…clue. They are not ‘citizens’ in any meaningful sense.
There are no citizens in a factory-of-lies.
Just how i see it now. Not tryin to persuade anyone.
w
vWell, WV, just as we all should be skeptical of reports from the MSM, the same skepticism, at least, is warranted when anonymous posters say that X company is tied to X spy agency. How do we know the poster is telling the truth?
It may well be the case. But I need more to go on that just the poster’s word, and he/she got a lot of other things wrong in the section you posted so . . . I’m withholding judgment.
Either way, even if they did have connections, I’m not sure how that alters the exposure of their business practices, what they were caught on tape doing, what they bragged about doing — as in, helping Trump win the election. It doesn’t alter that FB has finally admitted that CA harvested personal information from 50 million users, and sowed disinformation using that platform. It doesn’t alter Steve Bannon’s connection with the harvesting, and the Mercer family founding the company, or the link to Wikileaks, etc.
Anyway . . . I agree with you about this land of lies. Unfortunately, posts from various Internet sites aren’t necessarily the antidote. I know you know this, but we should be wary of all of it.
Hope all is well —
March 21, 2018 at 12:49 am #84347
znModeratoris that SCL, CA’s parent company used to work for MI6 (or be run by them) and this technology was used by them in god knows what elections around the world for the good of the empire
You know? I spent years criticizing USA actions messing up the democratic process elsewhere. But I (and the many like me) didn’t screw up elections elsewhere…various “security state” style american governments did. So I (and the many like me) were both critical of AND not even a tiny bit complicit with those kinds of anti-democratic actions.
And just because a government I criticized did it does not mean I am going to happily accept anybody, from the Mayor Daley machine to republicans to Russians to British sleaze firms messing up the elections I participate in.
It is getting so I completely tune that argument out.
One of the many problems with Trump is that he is complicit with a Russian autocratic imperialist. And advanced sleazeball British manipulation firms.
I didn’t stand up for elections elsewhere to be so cavalier about elections I myself participate in.
….
March 21, 2018 at 6:36 am #84357Billy_TParticipantis that SCL, CA’s parent company used to work for MI6 (or be run by them) and this technology was used by them in god knows what elections around the world for the good of the empire
You know? I spent years criticizing USA actions messing up the democratic process elsewhere. But I (and the many like me) didn’t screw up elections elsewhere…various “security state” style american governments did. So I (and the many like me) were both critical of AND not even a tiny bit complicit with those kinds of anti-democratic actions.
And just because a government I criticized did it does not mean I am going to happily accept anybody, from the Mayor Daley machine to republicans to Russians to British sleaze firms messing up the elections I participate in.
It is getting so I completely tune that argument out.
One of the many problems with Trump is that he is complicit with a Russian autocratic imperialist. And advanced sleazeball British manipulation firms.
I didn’t stand up for elections elsewhere to be so cavalier about elections I myself participate in.
….
Hey, ZN. You mixed up the quotes. That originally came from WV’s post, not mine.
Anyway, I think you make a good point. Aside from the old adage, Two wrongs don’t make a right, 99.99% of the country wasn’t involved in the actions of our clandestine services around the world — from the top down to the bottom. It doesn’t make any real sense that we should feel guilty enough to make us accept having our own elections tampered with by other nations and their clandestine services. It’s not an eye for an eye, when it comes to the vast, vast majority of the country. It’s not even logical on the barbaric grounds of the Old Testament, or the more enlightened grounds of metaphor.
Oh, and if Cambridge Analytica really did have a history with various clandestine services, isn’t that all the more reason to want to see all of this come out in the wash, including the Trump connection(s)? Britain’s Channel Four seems rather unafraid of blow back from MI6 at this point, it would appear . . .
March 21, 2018 at 7:12 am #84359wvParticipantGreg Palast on the Psy-ops-propaganda thing. Fwiw
GP:https://mailchi.mp/gregpalast/cambridge-analytica-aint-nuthin-look-out-for-i360?e=3c62b43786
Cambridge Analytica Ain’t Nuthin:
Look out for i360 and DataTrust
By Greg PalastThe story is that Cambridge Analytica, once directed by Steve Bannon, by shoplifting Facebook profiles to bend your brain, is some unique “bad apple” of the cyber world.
That’s a dangerously narrow view. In fact, the dark art of dynamic psychometric manipulation in politics was not pioneered by Cambridge Analytica for Trump, but by i360 Themis, the operation founded by… no points for guessing… the Brothers Koch.
Mark Swedlund, himself an expert in these tools, explained in film The Best Democracy Money Can Buy, that i360 dynamically tracks you on 1800 behaviors, or as Swedlund graphically puts it [see clip above],
“They know the last time you downloaded porn and
whether you ordered Chinese food before you voted.”Swedlund adds his expert conclusion: “I think that’s creepy.”
The Koch operation and its competitor, DataTrust, use your credit card purchases, cable TV choices and other personal info — which is far more revealing about your inner life than the BS you put on your Facebook profile. Don’t trust DataTrust: This cyber-monster is operated by Karl Rove, “Bush’s Brain,” who is principally funded by Paul Singer, the far Right financier better known as The Vulture.
Way too much is made of the importance of Cambridge Analytica stealing data through a phony app. If you’ve ever filled out an online survey, Swedlund told me, they’ve got you — legally.
The second danger is to forget that the GOP has been using computer power to erase the voting rights of Black and Hispanic voters for years — by “caging,” “Crosscheck,” citizenship challenges based on last name (Garcia? Not American!!), the list goes on — a far more effective use of cyberpower than manipulating your behavior through Facebook ads.
Just last week, Kris Kobach, Secretary of State of Kansas and Trump’s chief voting law advisor, defended his method of hunting alleged “aliens” on voter rolls against a legal challenge by the ALCU. Kobach’s expert, Jessie Richman, uses a computer algorithm that can locate “foreign” names on voter rolls. He identified, for example, one “Carlos Murguia” as a potential alien voter. Murguia is a Kansas-born judge who presides in a nearby courtroom.
It would be a joke, except that Kobach’s “alien” hunt has blocked one in seven new (i.e. young) voters from registering in the state. If Kobach wins, it will, like his Crosscheck purge program and voter ID laws, almost certainly spread to other GOP controlled states. This could ultimately block one million new voters, exactly what Trump had in mind by pushing the alien-voter hysteria.
Become A Kobach Litigation Supporter
Help us fund our mass litigation operation against Kris Kobach (Trump’s Vote-Thief-in-Chief). For now, details must remain confidential.
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The Cambridge Analytica story was first reported by The Guardian and Observer in 2015. Did we listen? Did any US paper carry the story the British paper worked on for years? So, my first reaction reading this story was nostalgia — for the time when I was a reporter with The Guardian and Observer investigations team. We could spend a year digging deep into complex stories, working with crazy insiders. There, in 2000, I uncovered another cyber-crime: Using database matching to purge felons from Florida voter rolls. (None, in fact, were felons; most were Democrats.)I moved back to America, but found I had to give up any hope of doing true, deep investigative reports for newspapers in my own country. US papers will sometimes re-report Guardian news, but American media almost never initiates deep investigation. And THAT, fear of the cost, difficulty and risk in digging out the truth, is a greater threat to America than Steve Bannon.
March 21, 2018 at 7:45 am #84362Billy_TParticipantMost of Palast’s article is really good, and that usually the case for him. He’s an intrepid reporting in the old school sense. But his opening, to me, is surprisingly clunky, and he engages in classic “whataboutism” and a straw man or two:
The story is that Cambridge Analytica, once directed by Steve Bannon, by shoplifting Facebook profiles to bend your brain, is some unique “bad apple” of the cyber world.
That’s a dangerously narrow view. In fact, the dark art of dynamic psychometric manipulation in politics was not pioneered by Cambridge Analytica for Trump, but by i360 Themis, the operation founded by… no points for guessing… the Brothers Koch.
Mark Swedlund, himself an expert in these tools, explained in film The Best Democracy Money Can Buy, that i360 dynamically tracks you on 1800 behaviors, or as Swedlund graphically puts it [see clip above],
First off, no one is saying Cambridge is a uniquely bad apple. They’re reporting on its sleazy business practices, and the more that comes out about them, the worse it sounds. None of this prevents other reporters from going after what Palast would consider bigger fish. None of this stops any other reporter from going after the Kochs or whomever. But Palast seems to be saying, at least until near the end of the article, that we should ignore this because other stories are much more important.
To me, that’s like saying we shouldn’t worry about a chemical spill that killed a few hundred people, cuz much worse spills are on the way.
Also, no one is saying that Cambridge invented psychometric manipulation. It’s not even a part of the discussion. They’re just saying CA used this to harvest 50 million FB users without their permission.
It’s still a puzzle to me why some public lefties appear to be expending so much energy trying to dismiss stories involving Trump. Why? Especially when, in a case like this, folks like Palast can pursue their view of bigger fish regardless. Though I’m also puzzled why a president isn’t considered a pretty big fish. Anyway, no report on CA blocks him or anyone else from that, and it’s only recently become a story here.
It’s as if they’re telling us it can only be one or the other, not both/and. It can always be both/and.
March 21, 2018 at 7:44 pm #84378wvParticipanta little more on the C.A. thing:https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2018/mar/21/mod-cambridge-analytica-parent-company-scl-group-list-x
MoD granted ‘List X’ status to Cambridge Analytica parent companyMPs call for investigation into concerns over SCL Group and its access to secret documents
March 21, 2018 at 7:51 pm #84379znModeratorHey, ZN. You mixed up the quotes. That originally came from WV’s post, not mine.
Thanks BT, I fixed it (in my post).
It will never ever happen again.
March 21, 2018 at 8:32 pm #84380Billy_TParticipantMarch 21, 2018 at 8:42 pm #84381znModeratorThanks.
I’m guessing we all have done the same thing. No worries.
You didn’t see the joke. Look again.
March 21, 2018 at 8:45 pm #84382Billy_TParticipanta little more on the C.A. thing:https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2018/mar/21/mod-cambridge-analytica-parent-company-scl-group-list-x
MoD granted ‘List X’ status to Cambridge Analytica parent companyMPs call for investigation into concerns over SCL Group and its access to secret documents
Hey, WV, hope I haven’t been too argumentative on these topics. It’s never personal if and when it does happen. External stuff I should never let bug me, and I’m working on that. Getting back into Buddhism the last coupla days, starting with a reread of the Dhammapada.
Anyway, as a way to kinda sorta wrap up this thread from my end:
If Cambridge’s parent company is tied to various secret services, and has engaged in the kind of sleazy stuff that’s coming out, isn’t that all the more reason to investigate further? If it’s anything from a remote connection, all the way to an actual front company, I’d say that just adds more urgency, etc.
Bring ’em down. Bring ’em all down.
March 21, 2018 at 8:47 pm #84383Billy_TParticipantThanks.
I’m guessing we all have done the same thing. No worries.
You didn’t see the joke. Look again.
Oh, man!! I DID miss it!!
Good one, Billy T!!
;>)
March 21, 2018 at 8:57 pm #84387wvParticipant -
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