Facebook is again having to account for its role in 2016 election

[LauraTXNM]

And, that says a lot about the persecutionprosecution and the coverage thereof, doesn't it?

@Sanguine, I disagree.  Collusion is the outward sign or symptom of the greater corruption, if it exists.  Investigating collusion is the top layer.

[LauraTXNM]

Ex-Obama Campaign Director Drops Bombshell Claim on Facebook: 'They Were on Our Side'
JASON HOWERTON | MAR 19, 2018 | 12:00 PM

A former Obama campaign official is claiming that Facebook knowingly allowed them to mine massive amounts of Facebook data — more than they would’ve allowed someone else to do — because they were supportive of the campaign.

In a Sunday tweet thread, Carol Davidson, former director of integration and media analytics for Obama for America, said the 2012 campaign led Facebook to “suck out the whole social graph” and target potential voters. They would then use that data to do things like append their email lists.  ...  More at IJR

@mountaineer That is really interesting, if true.  I'm glad you found this!

[Sanguine]

@Sanguine, I disagree.  Collusion is the outward sign or symptom of the greater corruption, if it exists.  Investigating collusion is the top layer.

Laura, if they can't even name a crime that they are looking for, they don't have an investigation; they have a witchhunt. 

[Cyber Liberty]

Condaleeza Rice and several other previous officials did the same thing.  Some of Trump's officials also started out doing it, and they certainly should have known better by now.  We can't *know* what any of these people's motives were, but I think it's at least partly tech illiteracy.

I don't think it was the law when Rice did it.  No excuse for Trump people who evaded the Open Records law by using private emails, assuming that happened (I really don't know).  There may be technical illiteracy at play, but to me that's not an excuse because these people are supposed to have a staff of techies to keep things on the up and up.  Trump ran a large business.  I work in another large business and we are not sloppy with our email, so I expect the same rigor from his people.

The part I see as damning about Trump's joke about the Clinton emails, was the timeline and indications he *knew* the Russians were about to release them when he made the comment.  Trump adviser Roger Stone knew this was about to happen --> Trump "coincidentally" asked the Russians to release them --> they almost immediately came out.  It's like an early example of Trump being too cute for his own good, speaking/hinting/gloating about something when he'd be better served just keeping his mouth shut.

All of that is as valid as my supposition Clinton did it to hide stuff from the public (although by astonishing coinky dink that's what it did, which we found out when most of the emails turned up on the child predator's laptop).  Draw.  I'll agree to your points when you show me that Trump did all that on purpose. 

[Cyber Liberty]

@Sanguine, I disagree.  Collusion is the outward sign or symptom of the greater corruption, if it exists.  Investigating collusion is the top layer.

Is that from the "Where there's smoke there's fire" School of Investigation? 

[mountaineer]

By Red Pill  |  03-19-2018   News
Obama Admin Official: Facebook Allowed Us To Datamine Because “They Were On Our Side”

As if you needed any further confirmation that the likes of “Big Tech,” Google’s YouTube, Dorsey at Twitter, Spez at Reddit, or Zuckerberg at Facebook had a bias that supported the voters for Barack Hussein Obama, Hillary Clinton, and the Democratic Party - there is now confirmation from an Obama official that the behemoth platform in social media worked on behalf of Obama.  ...

“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,” Davidsen said, inferring that Facebook supported Obama enough to essentially interfere in the Democratic Elections of our Constitutional Republic.

“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,” Davidsen sent in a tweet.   ... More

[mountaineer]

by Major Garrett
 CBS News
 March 18, 2018, 4:52 PM
Trump campaign phased out use of Cambridge Analytica data before election


Cambridge Analytica, a data vendor for the Trump campaign, was phased out during the general election, CBS News reports. The firm is now at the center of reports that it exploited Facebook data and harvested millions of U.S. voter profiles  without user authorization during the 2016 presidential campaign.  ...  CBS News

The Trump campaign never used the psychographic data at the heart of a whistleblower who once worked to help acquire the data's reporting -- principally because it was relatively new and of suspect quality and value. The profiling approach utilized by Cambridge Analytica allowed it to predict the voting likelihoods of individual people based on personality, the firm claimed.

[mountaineer]

PACIFIC for March 19: Data exploitation isn't a bug at Facebook, it's a feature.
by Dylan Byers   @CNNTech March 19, 2018: 1:55 PM ET

Facebook is facing an existential crisis. After the Cambridge Analytica scandal, Facebook sources tell me it will take a Herculean effort to restore public trust in the company's commitment to privacy and data protection. Regulation feels imminent, other Silicon Valley sources say, and yet Mark Zuckerberg appears missing in action.

The real scandal? Data exploitation isn't a bug at Facebook, it's a feature.

Facebook is in the data exploitation business: They make money by harvesting your data and selling it to app developers and advertisers. Indeed, the most alarming aspect of Cambridge Analytica's "breach" of 50 million users' data is that it wasn't a breach at all. It happened almost entirely above board and in line with Facebook policy.  ... CNN

[Sanguine]

by Major Garrett
 CBS News
 March 18, 2018, 4:52 PM
Trump campaign phased out use of Cambridge Analytica data before election


Cambridge Analytica, a data vendor for the Trump campaign, was phased out during the general election, CBS News reports. The firm is now at the center of reports that it exploited Facebook data and harvested millions of U.S. voter profiles  without user authorization during the 2016 presidential campaign.  ...  CBS News

The Trump campaign never used the psychographic data at the heart of a whistleblower who once worked to help acquire the data's reporting -- principally because it was relatively new and of suspect quality and value. The profiling approach utilized by Cambridge Analytica allowed it to predict the voting likelihoods of individual people based on personality, the firm claimed.

Thanks for tracking that down.  I thought Cambridge Analytica was associated with 0bama/Clinton but in the last few days it was all related to Trump.  This explains it.

[LauraTXNM]

Laura, if they can't even name a crime that they are looking for, they don't have an investigation; they have a witchhunt.

Collusion would be the topnote of treason, influence peddling, bribery, etc. 

In this case, the investigation was launched to investigate "Russian interference in the 2016 election and issues arising therefrom."  I don't know why everyone focuses on collusion.  Obstruction, conflict of interest, yadda yadda yadda -- how many ways are there to interfere in an election?

Ken Starr started out investigating Whitewater; look where that went.

[LauraTXNM]

I don't think it was the law when Rice did it.  No excuse for Trump people who evaded the Open Records law by using private emails, assuming that happened (I really don't know).  There may be technical illiteracy at play, but to me that's not an excuse because these people are supposed to have a staff of techies to keep things on the up and up.  Trump ran a large business.  I work in another large business and we are not sloppy with our email, so I expect the same rigor from his people.

I agree with you!  I think all these people have been inexcusably sloppy.  I also think tech has changed so much from Bush to Trump, eg. the rise of smartphones, that organizations of any kind had trouble keeping up.  Not an excuse, but a reason.

All of that is as valid as my supposition Clinton did it to hide stuff from the public (although by astonishing coinky dink that's what it did, which we found out when most of the emails turned up on the child predator's laptop).  Draw.  I'll agree to your points when you show me that Trump did all that on purpose.

I think both are totally possible -- Clinton and/or Trump were hiding stuff or being sloppy and arrogant.  Neither one of them is very likeable or honest, hunh?  I think both of them are corrupt, maybe in different ways.  I happen to think Manafort, Roger Stone, Julian Assange are skankier than the Clinton-Obama people who come to mind, but YMMV ;).  Either way, they're all skanky.

The Russia thing really bothers me and is so much larger than our last election ;(. 

[Sanguine]

Collusion would be the topnote of treason, influence peddling, bribery, etc. 

In this case, the investigation was launched to investigate "Russian interference in the 2016 election and issues arising therefrom."  I don't know why everyone focuses on collusion.  Obstruction, conflict of interest, yadda yadda yadda -- how many ways are there to interfere in an election?

Ken Starr started out investigating Whitewater; look where that went.

Or, it could be that "collusion" being a nebulous and ill-defined term, it is better suited to be used by the feds and media. 

[LauraTXNM]

Is that from the "Where there's smoke there's fire" School of Investigation?

@Cyber Liberty  It's from both the "Russian interference" and "Whitewater" investigations ;).

[LauraTXNM]

PACIFIC for March 19: Data exploitation isn't a bug at Facebook, it's a feature.
by Dylan Byers   @CNNTech March 19, 2018: 1:55 PM ET

Facebook is facing an existential crisis. After the Cambridge Analytica scandal, Facebook sources tell me it will take a Herculean effort to restore public trust in the company's commitment to privacy and data protection. Regulation feels imminent, other Silicon Valley sources say, and yet Mark Zuckerberg appears missing in action.

The real scandal? Data exploitation isn't a bug at Facebook, it's a feature.

Facebook is in the data exploitation business: They make money by harvesting your data and selling it to app developers and advertisers. Indeed, the most alarming aspect of Cambridge Analytica's "breach" of 50 million users' data is that it wasn't a breach at all. It happened almost entirely above board and in line with Facebook policy.  ... CNN

@mountaineer This is actually pretty hilarious, given that it completely downplays the magnitude of the agreement that Cambridge A broke with FB.  Moreover, they knew going in that they would be in violation -- they tried to buy other people's data sets and were turned down for ethical reasons.  So they went and found their own actors with no such moral qualms.  CambridgeA has repeatedly denied using FB data, because that would be a damning admission for them.  Unfortunately for CambridgeA, there's a very clear paper trail that proves they lied.

[LauraTXNM]

Thanks for tracking that down.  I thought Cambridge Analytica was associated with 0bama/Clinton but in the last few days it was all related to Trump.  This explains it.

If you check it out, Kushner, Manafort, and the guy who's the head of the re-election campaign (and Bannon on the CA board) brought in Cambridge A in the spring.  They were using them and paid them $5M, partly because the campaign wasn't sure the RNC would share their voter data even after Trump became the nominee.  By September, they were getting the RNC data, so they no longer had to use the CA information.  If the RNC hadn't come around to support the campaign, they would have still been using CA.

[Cyber Liberty]

@Cyber Liberty  It's from both the "Russian interference" and "Whitewater" investigations ;).

Ah!  "Tit for tat," if you pardon the sort-of vulgarity.  Works for me.

[Sanguine]

Ah!  "Tit for tat," if you pardon the sort-of vulgarity.  Works for me.

Except that both of those were genuine  criminal investigations.   It's not at all clear that this is.

[Cyber Liberty]

Except that both of those were genuine  criminal investigations.   It's not at all clear that this is.

This is an explanation for why nothing ends up being uncovered in the long run.  The left can always throw accusations of equivalencies, and they well be believed by the leftist press no matter what.  This "thing," according to that source, is exactly the same as Whitewater, no different.  "Tit for tat."  It isn't, but that's the cover story.

[LauraTXNM]

Except that both of those were genuine  criminal investigations.   It's not at all clear that this is.

@Sanguine  But this is PART of the Russian interference investigation!  That is the first part of Mueller’s assignment. 

[LauraTXNM]

This is an explanation for why nothing ends up being uncovered in the long run.  The left can always throw accusations of equivalencies, and they well be believed by the leftist press no matter what.  This "thing," according to that source, is exactly the same as Whitewater, no different.  "Tit for tat."  It isn't, but that's the cover story.

Sorry, @Cyber Liberty, I meant that *collusion*, as someone said a very nebulous word,  was an original part of both the Whitewater and Russian Interference investigations.  One of these many turn out worse than the other; they both need to continue until the Special Prosecutor is satisfied. 

[Cyber Liberty]

@Sanguine  But this is PART of the Russian interference investigation!  That is the first part of Mueller’s assignment.

Can't wait for the "next part."  There's guaranteed to be one now that significant coin has been expended looking around for smoke.  The part that involves actual crime, and let's hope for Mueller's sake it's not a pile of process crimes and old crimes that occurred years and years ago. 

If Mueller ends up with a fistful of Scooter Libbies, will the left be happy?  Anybody, for that matter?

[Sanguine]

@Sanguine  But this is PART of the Russian interference investigation!  That is the first part of Mueller’s assignment.

So we know the various parts of Mueller's assignment?   Seems like he's been give free rein to investigate whatever floats his boat.

[Cyber Liberty]

Sorry, @Cyber Liberty, I meant that *collusion*, as someone said a very nebulous word,  was an original part of both the Whitewater and Russian Interference investigations.  One of these many turn out worse than the other; they both need to continue until the Special Prosecutor is satisfied.

I disagree.  When Whitewater was first being looked into, "collusion" was not what was being looked for.  "Bribery" is closer to the mark.  The players in Whitewater (the McDougals, Webster Hubbel, Hillary Clinton among others) were never accused of collusion, they were accused of out and out graft.  The cattle futures wasn't about collusion, it was about a fixed commodity trade.  Whitewater itself wasn't because people colluded, it's because people defrauded a bank (actually i think it was a S/L).

No, "collusion" was not the triggering activity for the Whitewater and other Clinton investigations.  But it is here.

[Cyber Liberty]

So we know the various parts of Mueller's assignment?   Seems like he's been give free rein to investigate whatever floats his boat.

He has.  Rowenswine did his job well, wouldn't you say?

[truth_seeker]

@Sanguine  But this is PART of the Russian interference investigation!  That is the first part of Mueller’s assignment.

When do you believe he starts interviewing Clinton campaign operatives, in connection with the election and possible (probable?) democrat collusion?