I find it remarkable that when Obama did something similar in 2012, it was hailed as a major strength of his campaign and nobody had any problems with FB.
The data & privacy abuse by the Obama campaign was in fact dramatically worse. As an opinion piece at TheHill.com noted today:
> The former Obama director of integration and media analytics stated that, during the 2012 campaign, Facebook allowed the Obama team to “suck out the whole social graph”; 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.” She added, “They came to [the] 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.”
It's universally understood why the media wasn't interested in turning that story into a scandal. When it's your team, you look the other way for the perceived greater good.
> It's universally understood why the media wasn't interested in turning that story into a scandal.
I agree that it's bad (not just looks bad), but you can't blame the media for something they didn't know about. Fox News went on for years about Benghazi. So in 2018, you can't complain about media being too friendly to democrats.
Also, the piece links to a tweet[1] in 2018, not an article from 2012.
That's interesting but it's also just television. I'd ask what the rural/urban split is on television versus Internet syndication, and then see what comes out on top.
The Trump case complicates "dramatically worse," since the issue is that the data was sold to third parties who ultimately affected the election with it.
The whole point of gathering data on voters is so that you can affect the election with it. The whole point of campaigning is affecting elections. Elections are not some input-free, side-effect free process performed in a vacuum. If they were, campaigning would be illegal.
This leak was not the biggest, or even the most detailed source of voter information controlled by the Republican party.
What Facebook did is a disservice to it's users - not to the democratic process. Framing it is as such is nothing but sour grapes.
the issue is that the data was sold to third parties
Afaik, there has been no allegation that Facebook sold this data. Rather, someone created an innocuous looking quiz app that then used its access tokens to gather data on people through the Facebook Graph API. The app was called "thisisyourdigitallife".
who ultimately affected the election with it.
I've seen zero evidence that any of the psychobabble being touted by CA had any effect on the election (and I've been scouring the internet for such proof). As much as it may pain Democrats to hear, it's possible that Hillary just lost because she was unpalatable to a large percentage of voters, and not because of Russian conspiracies/Facebook/CA. She had more than her share of baggage.
This is more of an aside, but given that Clinton lost by so little, _very many things_ caused her to lose. Because of such a small margin, for almost any X: "X had little effect" and "X caused Clinton to lose" can be simultaneously true.
If you lose by only one vote, then every vote caused you to lose.
(Of course if you're running a campaign, going after things that are bigger issues is more useful, but when we're talking about billion dollar operations, you can go after everything in theory)
She did lose by quite a bit, though. 74 electoral votes out of 538. And that’s after rigging the primaries and spending twice as much as Trump did. Not even 1.2 billion could make this albatross fly.
It sounds like a lot, but it ends up not being much. It was, of course, 40k votes over 3 states. But most Presidential elections the winner carries more than 320 electoral votes. Bush 2 had pretty slim margins, of course. Before that, you need to go back to Carter to get 297 electoral votes.
It's not the tightest margin, but it's among the lowest margin of victories in the electoral college. Not that it matters, because you either win or lose. And we all know the rules of the game before we start playing
Electoral votes are a terrible way to measure the closeness of an election though. You could win every state by a single vote, and according to the electoral votes it would look like a blowout, but in reality it would have been the closest election in modern history.
I find it remarkable that people don't understand there's a non-subtle difference between signing up voluntarily on the Obama website using Facebook and consenting to the information collection vs. signing up for a quiz from an unrelated company and having that data used by the Trump campaign.
If you don't understand the difference, it is the same difference between having consensual sex with your girlfriend and raping your neighbor girlfriend because she consented to have sex with him...
Now, this metaphor is imperfect, but from what we could see the Obama campaign was within the boundary allowed by Facebook TOS and what disclosed to the user. Did they push this to the limit? Yes. To the point that FB didn't think it was feasible. But legit according to the rule. Maybe having consensual extreme BSDM sex with your girlfriend vs. raping your neighbor's GF? Quiz, which one is legal and which one is not?
I believe the Obama campaign used Facebook friend connections to target individual voters [1]
("Online, the get-out-the-vote effort continued with a first-ever attempt at using Facebook on a mass scale to replicate the door-knocking efforts of field organizers. In the final weeks of the campaign, people who had downloaded an app were sent messages with pictures of their friends in swing states. They were told to click a button to automatically urge those targeted voters to take certain actions, such as registering to vote, voting early or getting to the polls.")
Note that I specifically picked an article from 2012 because the past 48 hours has seen quite a few articles discussing the Obama Facebook campaign -- articles which I'd argue are likely subject to a taint of bias, given the recent CA events (I'd guess that journalists are digging for a story, which tends to skew perspectives). Anyway, this kind of targeting is, in hindsight, not really OK with me -- but I think the line here is that the Obama campaign collected information and asked your friends (who supported the campaign) to pitch in by asking particular friends to vote. This year's election was much more subtle, since instead targeted voters were treated to a slew of biased ads and propaganda stories. At least, that's how I see it.
Also, while I don't disagree with your analogy, anything involving sexual assault is probably going to hurt rather than help your arguments with most crowds. I don't think it's something we should ignore, of course, but we should keep in mind that it's a strong metaphor -- akin to calling someone "literally Hitler" -- so you might want to reconsider that in the future. Not trying to be a jerk, just trying to be helpful, so feel free to ignore my unsolicited advice.
Every time an individual volunteers to help out – for instance by offering to host a fundraising party for the president – he or she will be asked to log onto the re-election website with their Facebook credentials. That in turn will engage Facebook Connect, the digital interface that shares a user's personal information with a third party.
Consciously or otherwise, the individual volunteer will be injecting all the information they store publicly on their Facebook page – home location, date of birth, interests and, crucially, network of friends – directly into the central Obama database.
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> it is the same difference between having consensual sex with your girlfriend and raping your neighbor girlfriend because she consented to have sex with him...
Really, rape, that's the best metaphor to reach for...
You are right, that is non-subtle difference and should be noted. But I feel like the most egregious aspect of the process was being able to gather data on unsuspecting users by getting their friends to use the app. That's entirely legal, but definitely is the part that I think most people take the biggest offense to, and that is something that was done by both the Trump and Obama teams.
I fail to see how this comment is at all constructive to the situation at hand. What personal bias are you talking about here? Would it really be that hard to elaborate? Instead of acting like you're better than the grandparent poster, it would be far better to either a) engage him in a conversation or b) not comment at all.
Constructive conversation on certain topics is sometimes not possible when in a forum that leans too far to the right or the left. There is a common mentality among many people where they know they are right, such that no response to differing opinions is even necessary, a downvote will do (which is doubly useful, because it censors the downvoted person for some period of time). And if you do not support the narrative, you will be downvoted. Respect is a two way street, or at least it used to be.
I'm happy to engage in a debate any time, finding someone else willing to participate is a problem when everyone is only interested in discussing the nuances of how they agree with each other.
I'll also disagree that it's not better to comment at all - voices of dissent are valuable in a democracy, silencing them is the actually dangerous path to take, but that seems to be the path that's been chosen, so we'll see how it works out.
I agree that constructive conversation is sometimes very very difficult depending on biases in participants. You make a good point that people sometimes simply dismiss differing ideas because "they're wrong" with little basis -- these kind of shortcuts are generally necessary in life (you'd never get anything done if you didn't sometimes use heuristics to assess the value of an argument) but also reinforce biases since your heuristics tend to favor arguments with which you agree.
However, I'd just like to say that your previous comment didn't give me much of an impression that you're happy to engage in a debate -- how on earth can I participate in a conversation with you when your comment is 18 words, and I have no clue what you're trying to express? That is why I responded: because I had no clue what you were trying to say, but I was curious.
My point about "not commenting at all" wasn't so much in regard to democracy (on a political platform, most discussion is good, because you need to consider the needs of many different people), but rather just a guide to good behaviour, a la "if you don't have anything nice to say, don't say anything at all." I think HN is made a better place by dissenting opinions (I dislike echo chambers in general) but one-off dismissive comments do not a constructive conversation make. You need to give reasoning and explain your arguments.
I also noticed that you seem a little preoccupied with downvotes. Personally, I don't think you should sweat them too much, as long as you feel like you're having constructive conversations and behaving civilly (in this comment thread, I'm happy to report that you made a lot of good points, and did a lot better than that first comment I responded to). If somebody downvotes you simply for having a different opinion, they're breaking HN rules. Downvotes, as far as I know, are supposed to be used for limiting the visibility of off-topic/poor quality comments. So if you get downvoted, your comments might be poor quality... or you might just be off topic. This thread is awfully off-topic, but I personally believe it's good quality discussion, so if it gets downvoted, I don't mind much: I still benefited, but it might get hidden from general readers. That's OK.
Anyway, thank you for responding to my (probably slightly-too-critical) comment in a reasonable way where you explained your thoughts. I apologize for misjudging you based on your previous comment.
> You make a good point that people sometimes simply dismiss differing ideas because "they're wrong" with little basis -- these kind of shortcuts are generally necessary in life (you'd never get anything done if you didn't sometimes use heuristics to assess the value of an argument)
YES! The problem is, who besides you and I realize this, nowadays? As far as I can tell, and believe me I'm sincerely looking for it, I feel like people are falling into some sort of a zombie state. Reddit has been like this for quite some time now, I honestly think it is spreading to HN now, at least on any topic that has a non-technical, non-purely-objective component.
> However, I'd just like to say that your previous comment didn't give me much of an impression that you're happy to engage in a debate -- how on earth can I participate in a conversation with you when your comment is 18 words, and I have no clue what you're trying to express? That is why I responded: because I had no clue what you were trying to say, but I was curious.
That's me lashing out at you due to my frustration with the new culture of close-mindedness around here. 100% wrong on my part no doubt, but being reasonable doesn't do shit so might as well join the party and get an adrenalin shot I guess is my thinking.
> If somebody downvotes you simply for having a different opinion, they're breaking HN rules
That didn't used to be true, because there have been discussions about just that. Currently, it's not even mentioned in Guidelines or FAQ afaict. (I've been breaking a few of these lately tbh.)
> So if you get downvoted, your comments might be poor quality
My main frustration is, you can post a substantive, reasoned comment, and rather than a reasoned disagreement, just downvotes. And fast. That by itself is not so big a deal, it's the intellectual swagger (my interpretation, of course) that so many people carry, but can't piece together a decent argument. Again, this is pretty much what reddit has become, but it's sad to see even HN isn't immune.
> I apologize for misjudging you based on your previous comment.
I can be a jerk from time to time.
Thanks for replying by the way, encountering someone who actually thinks, even if it's differently than me (not that it's the case here), helps restore my faith in humanity.
Fair enough, but it wouldn't have made any difference. Disagreement with this particular aspect of the local culture will get you a downvote, not a discussion. Any discussion, if you're lucky to get one, would be better described as a re-education lecture, to teach you the "facts" of "how things are".
Jonathan Haidt has studied this psychological phenomenon quite extensively and in my opinion it does a good job of explaining the recent unusual behavior of the public, it's a shame no one's interested.
I've found Haidt's work very useful. One of the things I've taken from Haidt is how important both sides of the communication are. Blaming everything on "the other side" as you are doing here ("ny discussion, if you're lucky to get one, would be better described as a re-education lecture" and "it's a shame no one's interested") does exactly the opposite, regardless of how accurate you might feel the description is.
If you're looking for nuance and constructive discussion, it's crucial to put that foot forward yourself. And understanding, given the climate, that it's likely going to be a lot of work, as you're working against built-in human psychological biases that are unfortunately being reinforced by many trends in media, both traditional and online. Loading your discourse with the phrases you do here are working against that. I'm glad that you've found Haidt interesting in some way. Step up and work the problem, rather than contribute to it. There's no quick fix.
> Blaming everything on "the other side" as you are doing here
> Step up and work the problem, rather than contribute to it.
My argument is that HN is increasingly becoming a ~"progressive, illiberal echo chamber", where dissenting ideas are not welcome or open for discussion, and censored (to the degree that people like me often have to wait up to several hours or until the next day (in which case the discussion is effectively over) to post a comment as I am almost always in the penalty box, for the reasons being discussed here).
If that's true, should the onus be only on the censored side to fix the situation?
If you believe my claim isn't true:
- do you believe that it is possible for any community to be like this?
- do you believe HN has any imperfections at all in this respect?
If you think the problem is solely (or mostly) on one side (regardless of which side that is), then there's no point on continuing this discussion, as you're completely ignoring my opening point: that good communication requires all sides to participate in a constructive manner. You must take into account the effect your behavior and words have, beyond your intent, and beyond what you believe the content of what you're trying to convey. You need to take into account the human in general, and if you know more about the human you're engaging with, what you know of them.
If that's not something you believe, take to heart, and practice, you're part of the problem, and it's not worth my while to continue attempting to engage. This is regardless of one's ideological views, and something Haidt hammers home repeatedly.
Edit to add: Of course HN has imperfections. (And to answer your other question society has imperfections: to suggest otherwise is facile and disingenuous.) Online discourse is hard, and new, and we haven't come close to figuring out the best ways to do so. That doesn't excuse each of us taking responsibility for trying to make it the best we can.
Ok, maybe I'm a complete autist, I simply can't understand where you're coming from.
> If you think the problem is solely (or mostly) on one side (regardless of which side that is), then there's no point on continuing this discussion
Literally, you are saying that unless I don't believe that the "guilt" is exactly 50/50, you won't continue the discussion? I'm communicating in good faith am I not? If not, what am I doing wrong?
Or, is the problem that I'm not agreeing with you? Because that is exactly what this feels like to me, and it is precisely the aspect of the recent HN culture that I'm complaining about.
There is no shortage of conservative science-hating idiots on forums, is that what I am? Does it seem likely that the person who first mentions Jonathan Haidt, and links to a talk very closely related to this subject, is the same type of person "who believes 100% of a communication problem is on the other side"? Political discussion is difficult, that's my point. Human beings of both political stripes suffer from the same psychological shortcomings. I am aware of this. I am pointing this out. I regularly get censored (via time-outs in the penalty box), not for posting crap (which I admittedly do on occasion, largely out of extended frustration from what I'm complaining about), but because I disagree with the general political sentiment. But then if one reads the HN guidelines, considering a downvote as a means of disagreement is correct behavior, expecting anything else is probably bordering on mentally retarded and I should just take the hint.
I suppose as a last request, I'll ask for a favor: what should I have written in my previous reply? Other than just completely agreeing with you (which I don't, and makes conversation a bit pointless), I honestly can't think of anything that would be appropriate.
Tribalism is a powerful bias, and one we need to work against if we're to have reasonable discourse with people we might not necessarily agree with. That means we must actively work against that, which includes not reinforcing "us" vs "them" dynamic, which is what you do when you continue to use language like "HN is increasingly becoming a ~"progressive, illiberal echo chamber"". Regardless of how true that may be, that might work in a long-form, thoughtful essay, but it definitely doesn't work in an online forum in short soundbites. It comes off as labelling people into groups and name calling. That's just another form of tribalism.
You also need to be charitable, which means when I bring up "If you think the problem is solely (or mostly) on one side (regardless of which side that is), then there's no point on continuing this discussion", providing examples of where you're doing this, you don't put words in my mouth such as "unless I don't believe that the "guilt" is exactly 50/50". And you certainly don't promote a constructive discussion where we're talking about how to promote better conversation by accusing me of requiring you to agree with everything I say. There's a difference between providing a framework, a set of expectations where people can usefully discuss contentious issues and requiring people to agree on those contentious issues. I don't know how to have a conversation when the focus is on blame and pointing fingers rather than on what actually move things forward, and I also know that if I don't think a conversation is worth having or continuing (for whatever reason, including that I don't know how to move forward), it's best that I leave it.
You mention "I honestly can't think of anything that would be appropriate" in considering alternative replies: there's nothing wrong with not replying at all. Sometimes that's the right choice. Another option is to look at Rapoport's rules of criticism as a guide when you feel you're stuck:
You also need to be aware of what you leave yourself open to. While you may not be one of the "conservative science-hating idiots on forums", when you use similar language ("re-education lecture"? really?), you aren't doing yourself any favors by making it easy for others to lump you into those groups. It would be nice if people were perfectly rational and able to always make such nuanced distinctions, but you know that's not the case. You need to take that into account because that's how people are.
You need to be better than those you decry. You don't get to point and say "that's not fair, look what they're doing", because that's all some will hear. You don't get to say in so many words "you need to listen to me because you're ignorant of your biases and I'm telling you the hard truths." You don't get to label people into groups. You don't get to have a chip on your shoulder, even when you see the chips on others'. Yeah, you might feel like you're fighting with a hand tied behind your back. But the point is that we're not supposed to be fighting or arguing. We're supposed to be figuring out how to work through things together.
If you think or know you're treading on sensitive topics or at (or across) the edges of the community's expectations, you need to take that into account and be even more reflective in what you say. Those that already agree with you aren't those you really need to reach; and realistically, you're not going to reach people who aren't willing to listen to you. You have a chance with those who are still open-minded enough to listen to you. You need to take advantage of that, couching what you say in ways that are going to be effective in encouraging them to believe you're reasonable and someone who's worth listening to in the future. People stop listening when they're feeling attacked and put on the defensive, so you need to endeavor not to do that (and to recognize when you have, learn from it, and likely back off). From my experience that's the same online and off.
You know this is tough stuff. You've said so yourself. And people make mistakes, both in speaking/writing and in listening/reading. It makes it all the more important to be unrelenting in being charitable and constructive in discourse, in working against the biases we both know are there. And very likely HN isn't the proper forum for contentious stuff. The bandwidth's too limited. Our reputations aren't on the line like they are in real social interactions. But if you intend to, I encourage you to take this stuff to heart and work on the only thing you immediately can, which is your own actions and behavior.
As the original poster who started this chain (by criticizing /u/mistermann's comment) I'd just like to say that I found this exchange both thought-provoking and civil, especially given its contentious beginnings. I'd just like to thank you for taking the time to express your opinions in a clear, respectful way. As it turns out, I'm also a fan of Jonathan Haidt -- I'm currently reading through several of his books at varied paces -- and you've clearly really taken the time to understand and convey some of his key ideas here. Sites like Hacker News are a great deal better due to commenters like you.
I am constantly on the lookout for people whose studies are related to what the f has "suddenly" gone wrong with humanity. I really think Jonathan is on to something (although at the same time, I sense he's trying to sell a lot of books, but what can you do).
I just listened to:
#03 Under The Skin with Russell Brand & Adam Curtis - Do We Really Want Change?
Adam Curtis is a documentary film maker, his most recent one is fairly famous, Hypernormalization. I haven't seen it because I thought it was a hardcore conspiracy theorist movie, but now I think that's not the case.
Very sound advice, and I'd like to extend my extremely sincere thanks for you taking the time to write it.
I think the key takeaway is that HN is simply not the forum for political discussions, so probably the best strategy for me is to not open any comments on those topics.
If you're talking about how much data siphoned through Facebook and how much help they got from Facebook. Yes I agree pretty much the same thing (although I guess CA hid it somehow(?) and Facebook just refused to block them even after discovering it)
The differences I see between CA and the Obama's own campaign.
CA was accused of, "Setting up proxy organisations to feed untraceable messages onto social media"
There's also the issue of whether they went around campaign finance laws.
"So, campaigns are normally subject to limits about how much money they can raise. Whereas outside groups can raise an unlimited amount. So the campaign will use their finite resources for things like persuasion and mobilisation and then they leave the ‘air war’ they call it, like the negative attack ads to other affiliated groups"
As sibling comment pointed they were about just as scummy on average but everyone decided to look away and pretend to not notice, even FB after they caught them siphoning all social graph data.
Well actually that's not quite accurate, some didn't look away, they were singing praises. His campaign won a major marketing award in 2008, beating Coke, Nike and Apple:
I honestly look at Obama's campaign and I look at it as something that we can all learn from as marketers [...] to see what he's done, to be able to create a social network ...
Jon Fine, marketing and media columnist for BusinessWeek, pointed to Mr. Obama's facility with engaging voters in social-media channels. "It's the fuckin' Web 2.0 thing," he said.
---
(Sorry for repeated link, I know it has been posted many times but I think it perfectly illustrates the point well).
Your comment points out something very interesting about modern marketing. I think it is still ethically questionable even if you voluntarily hand over your data and not in a sketchy let-me-mine-your-friends-data-through-this-quiz way.
I feel like you used to be able to avoid getting swindled by ignoring the swindler, ex. close the door to the saleman, or ignore the gypsy pear salesmen at the market.
Today, marketing is engineered at such a level that it is difficult to awknowledge it's influence. That, and you are constantly bombarded by ads, either explicitly or implicitly.
I don't think I am saying anything novel. I guess I am curious what this mean about society and our political systems. People with power and wealth could still be toppled when you exposed them to the truth. How in the fuck does that even come close to happening today? How do you overcome marketing that is engineered to exploit the psychological vulnerabilities you are not even aware of? How do we patch our society and governing systems from being pwned?
This isn't meant as a rant. I am curious, because to the best i can tell we don't live in a society where voting matters and we have a say in our governance.
Whataboutism isn't a defense. Folks can legitimately be outraged and push for change based on CA. Reflection on past or ongoing abuses should absolutely happen.
Whataboutism isn’t excusing; it’s deflecting. To quote from the OED:
“The technique or practice of responding to an accusation or difficult question by making a counter-accusation or raising a different issue”
While whataboutism is definitey toxic to conversation, I've noticed a lot people tend to throw accusations of whataboutism around when they are uncomfortable with their hypocrisy being pointed out.
