Free Beacon: "What would the media say?
Naturally the team behind it would be the "geek squad." The campaign would be celebrated for its "Big Data Brains." The media would applaud these "digital wizards" at the "forefront of campaign technology."
That, of course, was the praise heaped on Barack Obama's 2012 reelection campaign. It wasn't nefarious for Obama to have the head of Google recruiting talent, choosing technology, and coaching Obama's campaign manager. Nor for Facebook to be on their "side."
But when a consulting firm—not even the Trump campaign itself—does essentially the same thing, and a Republican wins the White House? "Launch a criminal investigation!" "Mark Zuckerberg must testify!" "Regulate social media!" "Delete your Facebook!"
While the Obama campaign had a database that was a "powerful tool," Cambridge Analytica was "harvesting" your personal info.
"Target sharing" became "data abuse."
Data went from being "crunched" to "stolen."
Facebook went from the "ideal way" to reach voters to being "weaponized."
Genius became "evil genius."
What changed? It's almost as if the media think everything Democrats do is virtuous, and everything Republicans do is nefarious.
The Obama 2012 campaign had a "massive computer database containing personal data on millions of American voters." They used "sophisticated computer programs" to mine data from social media.
"Anybody who contacted the campaign through Facebook had their friends and ‘likes' downloaded," NBC News explained, in nonjudgmental terms. "If they contacted the campaign website through mobile apps, cellphone numbers and address books were downloaded. Computer ‘cookies' captured Web browsing and online spending habits."
In fact, Obama's "geek squad" had been using cookies to track its own supporters’ online behavior since 2008.".......
David Harsanyi: "The theory goes something like this: Facebook obtained information on users who took a personality quiz with their online friends. Another outlet, Cambridge Analytica, harvested that information to brainwash a bunch of rubes, and then yada, yada, yada … Russia! Senators are now demanding executives come forth and answer questions. Investigations must be open. Democracy is under threat.
Eitan Hersh @eitanhersh: “Let’s start with fb data, use it to predict personalities, then use that to predict political views, and then use that to figure out messages and messengers and just the right time of a campaign to make a lasting persuasive impact” ...sounds like a failed PhD prospectus to me."
Yet, on the most obvious level, Cambridge Analytica is another story about double standards. The only consistent position the Left seems to take these days is that the mechanisms they use to keep power automatically transform into something nefarious and un-democratic when the opposition use them.
By constantly using the word “breach,” for instance, reporters are trying to insinuate that someone stole voter data that typically is off limits. Cambridge Analytica was allowed to pull that profile data. Facebook only changed its policy in early 2015. But then Trump campaign dropped Cambridge Analytica before the general election for the RNC data, reportedly never using the any of the “psychographic” information. According to CBS News, in Sept. 2016, it had “tested the RNC data, and it proved to be vastly more accurate.”
Even if they hadn’t, however, their efforts would have been akin to those being heralded as revolutionary when it served the interests of Democrats. Facebook, in fact, allowed the Obama campaign to data harvest in the same way that is now generating headlines and handwringing. Do you remember any outrage and trepidation over privacy and manipulation of your thoughts in 2012? If anything, there should be outrage that a massive social media company allowed one party to do things that it forbade another.".......
The Obama Campaign: "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. 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."
Fakebook--not to mention Twitter, YouTube and Google--can spy, lie, defund, de-platform, shadow-ban and censor conservatives all day long without a peep from Official Washington.
But if Trump's name is somehow connected, all of the sudden it's BEDLAM!CHAOS!DICTATORSHIP!BIG BROTHER!!!!!!!!!!!
Good. If that's what it takes to haul this smarmy crowd of internet rent-seekers, backstairs crawlers and speech-controllers before the klieg lights, I'm all for it.
Zuckerberg says he's open to regulation. That's because he sees how the regulated insurance companies are lining up before Congress for a $30 billion payout even as we speak.
While he's at it, maybe Zuckerberg can explain why he's been dumping stock like an Equifax executive. Haul all of these Internet Utility companies up there and let them defend their corrupt and biased business models.
As President Teddy Roosevelt tweeted in 1901: "There is a widespread conviction in the minds of the American people that the great corporations known as trusts are in certain of their features and tendencies hurtful to the general welfare. ...Corporations engaged in interstate commerce should be regulated if they are found to exercise a license working to the public injury. It should be as much the aim of those who seek for social- betterment to rid the business world of crimes of cunning as to rid the entire body politic of crimes of violence. Great corporations exist only because they are created and safeguarded by our institutions; and it is therefore our right and our duty to see that they work in harmony with these institutions."
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