Obama's Former Campaign Director Makes Bombshell Claim: Facebook Was "On Our Side"

[Frank Cannon]

https://www.zerohedge.com/news/2018-03-19/obamas-former-campaign-director-makes-bombshell-facebook-claim-they-were-our-side

Carol Davidsen, who served as Obama's director of integration and media analytics during his 2012 campaign (in her LinkedIn profile she says she was responsible for "The Optimizer" & "Narwhal" big data analytics platforms), claims - with evidence, that Facebook found out about a massive data-mining operation they were conducting to "suck out the whole social graph" in order to target potential voters. After Facebook found out, they knowingly allowed them to continue doing it because they were supportive of the campaign.

"[M]ore than 1 million Obama backers who signed up for the [Facebook-based app] gave the campaign permission to look at their Facebook friend lists. In an instant, the campaign had a way to see the hidden young voters. Roughly 85% of those without a listed phone number could be found in the uploaded friend lists. What’s more, Facebook offered an ideal way to reach them," reads an article Davidsen posted as a prelude to her postings.

In a series of Sunday night tweets, Davidsen explained how the Obama campaign was able to use Facebook data to "append to our email lists."

When Facebook found out about the data mining for political purposes - the same thing they just banned Cambridge Analytica for doing, they "didn't stop us."

Facebook even "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." 

[LauraTXNM]

I asked my husband about this, and he said, "Boy, someone bought the sales pitch."  You have to remember, in 2012 FB really wanted to show how important they could be to campaigns.  They had teams working with BOTH Romney and Obama, doing what this woman described and more.   FB wanted to prove their usefulness.  FB has veered between being more than a social platform, to now returning to just a social platform.  They grabbed the tiger by the tail.  I don't know if it was more naïveté or cluelessness.

Obama's 2008 organization pioneered the use of social data.  In 2012 it was like the Wild West, with everyone trying to test the limits.  Data people were warning about this stuff then. Now it's escalated to a whole new level.

[Frank Cannon]

Now it's escalated to a whole new level.

Well considering that all the data being discussed with the Trump campaign came from years ago, nothing has escalated. It's pretty much the same as the Obama campaign.

[LauraTXNM]

Well considering that all the data being discussed with the Trump campaign came from years ago, nothing has escalated. It's pretty much the same as the Obama campaign.

The Cambridge A work began in 2014 and continued through 2016.  Not really ancient history.

[Night Hides Not]

In other news, water is wet.

[mountaineer]

Andrew Marcus
‏ @ImAndrewMarcus
50m50 minutes ago

Shouldn’t this be considered an in-kind campaign contribution? Shouldn’t Facebook execs and DNC execs go to jail for breaking campaign finance laws for failing to report the contribution?