From "The Cambridge Analytica Files/‘I made Steve Bannon’s psychological warfare tool’: meet the data war whistleblower/For more than a year we’ve been investigating Cambridge Analytica and its links to the Brexit Leave campaign in the UK and Team Trump in the US presidential election. Now, 28-year-old Christopher Wylie goes on the record to discuss his role in hijacking the profiles of millions of Facebook users in order to target the US electorate" (by Carole Cadwalladr in The Guardian).
Obviously from that title, there's a lot more to that article that the candy that jumped out at me. I invite you to think about this nefarious predation on the sweet gathering place that is Facebook.
There's also this about Wylie meeting Rebekah Mercer:
“She loved me. She was like, ‘Oh we need more of your type on our side!’”I'm not sure if I ever took the myPersonality quiz, but I did once take a quiz based on those 5 personality traits that purported to tell you which U.S. President you're most like. Meade took it too. Both of us were most like Barack Obama, even though we had different results on 4 of the 5 qualities. I called bullshit on the test. But maybe things like this really are valuable and politicians could target their communications more squarely at people who would be receptive to them. Is that more frightening that the terribly crude sorting of people by political party? I've been favoring things that break up the old partisan boundaries, perhaps because I'm "above average on openness."
Your type?
“The gays. She loved the gays. So did Steve [Bannon]. He saw us as early adopters. He figured, if you can get the gays on board, everyone else will follow. It’s why he was so into the whole Milo [Yiannopoulos] thing.”
IN THE COMMENTS: Kevin says:
You don't need an accurate result to get people to hand over their data. In fact, the two results most likely for you to repost and ensnare others are probably the one that gives you smug satisfaction and the one you cannot believe could be true.But only 40% of those who took the myPersonality test gave access to their Facebook profiles, so inspiring trust that this was a serious scholarly endeavor (connected to Cambridge University) was a crucial step in getting to the data. I don't think Facebook opens up the profiles routinely.
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32 comments:
Facebook knows far more about psychology than academia. Facebook has data. Instead of studies with n=24 college undergrads, Facebook can access enormous amounts of data from real people. No offense to undergrads (much), but they aren't representative.
Both of us were most like Barack Obama, even though we had different results on 4 of the 5 qualities.
You don't need an accurate result to get people to hand over their data. In fact, the two results most likely for you to repost and ensnare others are probably the one that gives you smug satisfaction and the one you cannot believe could be true.
On the internet nobody knows you're a dog.
A famous quote made by Dwight Eisenhower said, " Hitler should beware the fury of an aroused democracy." This use of FaceBook's gathered statistics is a play on the use of what arouses people.
But Scott Adams has already explained that 100 times over. Master persuaders arouse people in a democracy.And under DJT, the Hitler reduxes are going down again. In fact, D-Day may be next week.
They don’t let you delete your account either. And if it hadn’t have been for the Trump connection, we would never had heard about this. Trump is the “light bringer.”
On the internet nobody knows you’re a dog.
As Hemingway said, “Isn’t it pretty to think so.”
his PhD in fashion forecasting
LOL. What a clown.
"data war"
War!
"hijacking"
Hijacking!
"target"
Target!
"I made Steve Bannon’s psychological warfare tool"
"Psychological warfare" is a funny term for a marketing campaign.
I suppose that misuse was meant to imply that Trump's election was invalid.
I found the article almost impossibly boring to read, so perhaps that's why I couldn't figure out:
To what nefarious use, if any, did they put this data?
If they used it for something, was it any different than Safeway correlating buying diapers with buying baby food?
tim in vermont said...
They don’t let you delete your account either. And if it hadn’t have been for the Trump connection, we would never had heard about this.
This has been known for a long time.
Fernandistein said...
"Psychological warfare" is a funny term for a marketing campaign.
The marketing for cigarettes certainly falls into this category.
The article seemed a bit hysterical to me. The public certainly can be badly manipulated, such as being convinced that an addictive, cancer causing drug is good for your health, but this bit of misinformation had the unusual advantage of being reinforced with a powerfully addictive drug. Political views are more labile, as Chuck reminds us on a regular basis.
his has been known for a long time.
It’s been “assumed” for a long time by anybody with a room temperature IQ. Zuckerberg seems to think that the revelation is still worth obfuscating.
Because it was a GOP associated firm, it’s the end of the world.
Democrats are doing the same type of thing, but with one central database.
The ubiquity of data mining has caused me to change my habits in ways that may actually be salutary. For example, I've stopped killing whores. Some may lament this modification in behavior as surrendering to political correctness and sacrificing my autonomy at the altar of Big Data. I choose to think of it as a small accommodation to evolving mores. As they say, the arc of history is long but it bends toward not killing whores.
Rob said...
The ubiquity of data mining has caused me to change my habits in ways that may actually be salutary.
Good for you.
I have a Facebook account which I had to open (a couple of years ago) to comment on a particular site.
But i never visit Facebook, don't have "friends" and wonder why anyone does.
I’m just so glad I never got anywhere near Facebook. I rest easier.
“I've been favoring things that break up the old partisan boundaries, perhaps because I'm "above average on openness."”
Doesn’t reflect here. With 95% right wing commentariat and an intolerance for any other point of view. Some opinion is expressed that attracts the right wing partisans to this blog.
With 95% right wing commentariat and an intolerance for any other point of view.
Ability to argue the other point of view.
When Obama made use of big data, it was lauded in the media. When Trump makes use of it, it warfare.
I like both Kit Kats and Israel.
Three points, first if you use the internet, then someone has this information on you. Google probably has more information than anyone because they can record your searches and deduce a great deal about you from that. And if you use Youtube then they than can figure out even more. Even Netflix can figure out a lot because they can see which movies you like, although they have the problem that often multiple people are using the same account.
Second, a lot of these personality polls and etcetera are poorly done. If 90% of the people taking it come out as Democrat than either they are trying to persuade you that you should vote Democrat or quite possibly the person constructing the poll has a delusional understanding of what Republicans think.
Third, Inga complains above that this is an intolerant, biased blog because 90% of the commenters are right-wing. It seems like sort of a reasonable argument until you look closer. The reality is it's very hard to find blogs where 90% of the commenters are left-wing, and 10% aren't. And the reason is that invariably when such situations arise they are temporary. The 90% left-wing majority feels compelled to eliminate and ban the 10% that is different. This is part of the reason that I say that first and foremost the left-wing is about conformity. In the United States, as is being empirically demonstrated daily, only the right-wing shows the ability to listen to and interact with contrary points of view.
“This is part of the reason that I say that first and foremost the left-wing is about conformity. In the United States, as is being empirically demonstrated daily, only the right-wing shows the ability to listen to and interact with contrary points of view.”
Because, in the culture (low or high), conservatives encounter far more opposing points of view. In large chunks of the country, Progs can live their lives with no pushback whatsoever unless they actively seek it out.
The young man — Wylie — and the reporter (and I suppose also her editor) imply and perhaps believe that Wylie/Cambridge Analytica are the only people who figured out that in 2014, when you used a third party app on Facebook, your friends and then their friends could be scooped into the third party’s database.
This is not credible and I am morally certain that it isn’t the case.
A.A.: "...the sweet gathering place that is Facebook."
Say What???!?
Eye wanna see Laslo's Facebook page.
Isn't "analytics" possibly just neo-social-marketing based on a much larger and far more detailed picture of the consumer-voter base? But still it's just a form of surveying and polling and it seems that it can be just as wrong as the old surveys. Surveys didn't detect the awful taste of the "New Coke." and analytics did not realize Trump was popular. Moreover, analytics thought it could so target messages that Hillary would become popular - the ultimate test. And maybe they still think so. I picture analytics guys explaining that "just a bit more refinement of the model and Hillary will be as popular as Oprah. We sell her as the choice of rich, unfeeling bastards and Trump as the choice of people who are sort of poor and put their clothes on backwards. Or their life. You know, religious people or they have children or they read Shakespeare. What could go wrong?"
There was no signal in the data. And then I came across a paper about how personality traits could be a precursor to political behaviour, and it suddenly made sense.
Run with that. Once thing Facebook has is enough rope.
The whole quote and the context it describes sounds like professional envy.
Inga said...
"With 95% right wing commentariat and an intolerance for any other point of view. Some opinion is expressed that attracts the right wing partisans to this blog."
Must be dog whistles. So what are you doing here, Igna? How well do you really know yourself? Is it possible that the real Igna is a racist, sexist, xenophobic, homophobic, hydrophobic Trumpist?
Nah, not a chance. You're dumb as a post.
Humans are very good at seeing patterns and correlations where none exist.
Plus these correlations exist on a non-linear scale: for example, mild democrats may like KitKat, but more extreme democrats may hate them. Of course, such informationary facts can often be ignored depending on your objectives and what is being ‘measured’.
Another aspect regarding (non)personal data being collected: aka. Metadata which, we are assured, is non personal. The reality is that if google have your meta-information, they know where you live, when you are at home, when you go to work, and when you visit that gay bar downtown.
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