Cambridge Analytica

[Kizzy]

Who understands this?

I thought the govt were shoveling money into AI....Isn't that what this is?
Voters were targeted by both parties during the election due to their comments and groups on FB ...
Now they're pleading ignorance to harvested facebook data and such :/

Theresa May has said she expects Cambridge Analytica and Facebook to “cooperate fully” with the Information Commissioner’s investigation of allegations that users’ personal data was taken without their consent.

Allegations that Facebook users’ profiles were mined for data used to produce micro-targeted political adverts without their knowledge “are clearly very concerning”, Ms May said.

“It is essential that people can have confidence that their personal data will be protected and used in an appropriate way,” the Prime Minister’s spokesman said on Monday.


https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/theresa-may-cambridge-analytica-facebook-personal-data-consent-investigation-information-a8263171.html

[Beso]

Can you explain it kizzy please so i can join in.

[Kizzy]

Can you explain it kizzy please so i can join in.

Well no, I'm wanting someone to explain it to me! :joker:

[Crimson Dynamo]

i expect its all about mining cryptocoins

I gather that all the younger ones eat

no wonder they stay up so late

:conf2:

[bots]

Data protection rules are changing in europe from May. Part of these changes means that companies can only collect data for a specific purpose, for a specific duration and the person providing the information has to actively opt in to providing it, a record kept of them giving permission, and clear method of them being able to opt out

More details can be found here https://ico.org.uk/for-organisations/guide-to-the-general-data-protection-regulation-gdpr/

Basically, facebook weren't happy that the information collected by CA was not being subsequently re-used for other purposes

[Twosugars]

my understanding is that ca offered a personality test and the info that profiles (and address books) would be harvested for other things was buried in t&c

[Kizzy]

_4sLMwdpF9U

[Kizzy]

We already know that AI can be used to manipulate public opinion. Massive swarms of political bots were used in the 2017 general election in the UK to spread misinformation and fake news on social media. The same happened during the US presidential election in 2016 and several other key political elections around the world.

These bots are autonomous accounts that are programmed to aggressively spread one-sided political messages to manufacture the illusion of public support. This is an increasingly widespread tactic that attempts to shape public discourse and distort political sentiment.

Typically disguised as ordinary human accounts, bots spread misinformation and contribute to an acrimonious political climate on sites like Twitter and Facebook. They can be used to highlight negative social media messages about a candidate to a demographic group more likely to vote for them, the idea being to discourage them from turning out on election day.

http://theconversation.com/how-artificial-intelligence-conquered-democracy-77675

[Kizzy]

Particularly revealing was a Sky News report on 16 May 2017 focusing on comments by Will Critchlow, chief executive of digital consultancy Distilled. Concerned about the UK’s lack of oversight on digital campaigning (for instance, parties are not required to publically record all their spending on social media), Critchlow warned about Facebook’s hyper-targeted, hyper-local messages that, due to their nature, are invisible to most people (including journalists). Other techniques are: (a) creation of fake pages to attract opponents, using this to plant cookies in their browsers and then delivering attack adverts; (b) rankslurs – namely, creating damaging websites designed to appear in Google’s search rankings for your opponents; and (c) impersonation – namely pretending to be a candidate’s aide on Twitter, then expressing plausible but damaging opinions.

Whether done by bots or human influencers, that people may be surreptitiously emotionally engaged in online debates is deeply worrying. There are precedents for such targeting of sentiment and feelings, not least the Facebook Mood study that revealed evidence of emotional contagion. This showed that exposure to a particular type of emotional content in users’ Facebook news feeds stimulates posting behaviour that reflects the emotional charge of that content. In other words, change the informational context and you can change behaviour.

http://www.electionanalysis.uk/uk-election-analysis-2017/section-5-the-digital-campaign/was-it-ai-wot-won-it-hyper-targeting-and-profiling-emotions-online/

[arista]

Ch4HD news has secret filming tonight

watch on +1

[AnnieK]

Data protection rules are changing in europe from May. Part of these changes means that companies can only collect data for a specific purpose, for a specific duration and the person providing the information has to actively opt in to providing it, a record kept of them giving permission, and clear method of them being able to opt out

More details can be found here https://ico.org.uk/for-organisations/guide-to-the-general-data-protection-regulation-gdpr/

Basically, facebook weren't happy that the information collected by CA was not being subsequently re-used for other purposes

Urghhh...GDPR. I have somehow "volunteered" to be data controller for my company and this is now basically the biggest headache in my job. The other major change is people now have the right to be forgotten and all information erased which a lot of companies apparently didnt used to do and retained personal information for years. The penalties are steep for breeches and so a lot of companies, organisations and even government departments are flapping to change procedures to ensure they are compliant.

[Maru]

Decentralized Web ftw. I run my own email server (although it's a serious pain) and am about to move off Twitter as well since I've been depending on it too heavily for my news. There's almost no creative or entertainment value to Twitter or social networking anymore... it's all political postings and a vast majority of it, quite tribal. Better off just running an RSS server off my cloud and keeping up my news through there. Honestly, to nuke any of those services... most people are better off without them in their lives, as the only real "net" usage is as a data collection service :laugh:

I haven't had a Facebook in years. They could give two ****s about privacy. None of this is at all news... I remember when they added some privacy setting, then nuked it later on during an update... it dumped a lot of people's information onto the public-facing side of FB and exposed their data to Google cache. Was there any real pushback? Nope... people will continue their social media addiction.

Honestly, no site, no matter how well run or what perfect nuns are in charge of it can be 100% trusted for data security. Way too easy to break into them. Old PHP installs, SQL injection loopholes, lack of updated security, etc... all it takes is one little misstep and ****--the false sense of privacy is gone. I don't mind so much if it's things I intentionally in my footprint... kind of part of living at this point, everything we do is pretty much documented and recorded in some fashion. But we should be paying attention to how much we depend on tech... for example, maybe not everything should be done through tech. Some things are better to maybe deliver by hand, like particularly private details, etc... even some govt business probably gets handled this way, as digital proxies are too tasty to hackers.

Google does track quite a bit through Android. I remember when I flew from MD to TX... looked in my location history and it showed up that I took a flight, what time, etc... there's a rumor also that YT employees are using search histories as well to track certain user's postings and they flag videos/demonetize accordingly in order to clean up their service so that it fits their agenda... but yeah... that's the inevitable future, and it's their private service, so not exactly illegal... same with app permissions. People don't care what they accept, they just hit "OK"... so not exactly FB/YT/Google's fault for creating the product if people are using it without doing any sort of research into what they're actually contributing to those services...

[Maru]

Anyway the summary is, the apps that people can create on FB use their API (Application programming Interface)... when you make an app, you have to tell FB what permissions you desire in order to accommodate the full functionality of said app. Which can be whatever. I don't know if it those types of apps requires an approval process similar to Apple Store, for example, because I only use it for pulling data for use on company websites. It supposedly required a lot of permissions, but people said OK to them without really reading their requirements... and so probably granted far more than they thought they were granting.

Supposedly it paid you to participate in some kind of "survey"(??) Well, the permissions also allowed it to collect data from your friend's profile as well... so they used it to spider the site essentially, in a roundabout way, the more users that installed the app... similar to a search engine bot... whatever it could get access to.

And they used the data collected to target advertising to people as well as to influence specific elections... apparently. (edit)

(Edit)
For example... whatever your permissions are on your profile... say you have access to a 1,000 people and they let you into their darkest corners of the interwebs... just like you have permission to view their data, imagine if the code from an app said "Hey I want those permissions too" and you hit OK... it can pull with code all that data and essentially be downloaded very quickly... that's Graph API. So if I wanted to make a Facebook alternative app, or some sort of internal app that requires a huge set of permissions, kinda like Tapatalk for this forum, or Tweetdeck for Twitter... it would need all those permissions to access if it were just about me using the defacto FB site itself... well, that's essentially how this "survey" behaved on a permissions level (I would imagine) to have mined that much data so quickly...

[Kizzy]

I'm going to do something I never thought I would do...

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-4044728/Theresa-wants-use-army-computerised-Trump-mind-readers-help-win-Election.html

[Beso]

Is this like if you have searched for porn you get dating site adverts on fb etc?

[arista]

Ch4HD news more undercover , again


And CEO Alexander Nix has now been suspended
from Cambridge Analytica UK

[arista]

zb6-xz-geH4


The Ex Worker
the young super grass that got the story going

[Cherie]

Labour used this during the 2017 GE, didn’t some people on here get Facebook messages, I think it might have been you that said it Kizzy :laugh:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/blogs-trending-40209711

[Kizzy]

Labour used this during the 2017 GE, didn’t some people on here get Facebook messages, I think it might have been you that said it Kizzy :laugh:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/blogs-trending-40209711

'The Conservative focus seemed to be sharp, paid-for attack ads. Labour's presence was much more organic, and perhaps more effective with it.

The chatter was happening in big groups - many of them filled with Jeremy Corbyn's most dedicated supporters, and closed to the general public. It was reflected in lists of most-shared stories, which were dominated by material sympathetic to Labour and hostile towards Theresa May's Conservatives.

Of course, we can't be sure of how social media shares shape actual voting - and there isn't yet any hard evidence that what people saw on Facebook or any other social network was the decisive factor that swayed huge numbers of votes. We'll have to wait days, weeks or longer for a full analysis to emerge. But what was clear online was a distinct surge in pro-Corbyn enthusiasm, in contrast with a professional and increasingly microtargeted Conservative advertising strategy.

I did see support for Corbyn on FB yes... from people, groups and organisations not bots and spam, did you even bother to read this article?

[Kizzy]

I actually feel sorry for facebook, it was invented by kids for kids... it's been exploited as much as we have.

[Cherie]

'The Conservative focus seemed to be sharp, paid-for attack ads. Labour's presence was much more organic, and perhaps more effective with it.

The chatter was happening in big groups - many of them filled with Jeremy Corbyn's most dedicated supporters, and closed to the general public. It was reflected in lists of most-shared stories, which were dominated by material sympathetic to Labour and hostile towards Theresa May's Conservatives.

Of course, we can't be sure of how social media shares shape actual voting - and there isn't yet any hard evidence that what people saw on Facebook or any other social network was the decisive factor that swayed huge numbers of votes. We'll have to wait days, weeks or longer for a full analysis to emerge. But what was clear online was a distinct surge in pro-Corbyn enthusiasm, in contrast with a professional and increasingly microtargeted Conservative advertising strategy.

I did see support for Corbyn on FB yes... from people, groups and organisations not bots and spam, did you even bother to read this article?

No I didn't, what I don't get is why people are so surprised that their politcal leanings are being harvested and not just by one party

[arista]

I actually feel sorry for facebook, it was invented by kids for kids... it's been exploited as much as we have.


Yes around 1 in 3
around the World on Facebook.

Of Course last night he (Mark Zuckerberg) said "Sorry"
on a interview on CNN.
(Edits shown today on every TV and radio news)
He also said No more Cambridge Analytica

https://e3.365dm.com/18/03/750x563/skynews-cnn-facebook-zuckerberg_4261493.jpg?bypass-service-worker&20180322014122


https://news.sky.com/story/facebook-boss-open-to-testifying-before-congress-11299538

[Kizzy]

No I didn't, what I don't get is why people are so surprised that their politcal leanings are being harvested and not just by one party

Cherie you are not understanding, the methodology is different.. harvesting data via mining posts and personal information is different from setting up a facebook group to discuss your disillusionment of the current govt and support of a candidate in a GE.

[Livia]

Facebook sucks. I only have an account to sign in to other places.

[Cherie]

Cherie you are not understanding, the methodology is different.. harvesting data via mining posts and personal information is different from setting up a facebook group to discuss your disillusionment of the current govt and support of a candidate in a GE.

what are you talking about? I never mentioned anything about facebook groups

[Kizzy]

wtf?

https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/cambridge-analytica-uk-party-personal-voter-data-facebook-breach-conservatives-labour-a8269021.html

[Kizzy]

what are you talking about? I never mentioned anything about facebook groups

You posted the article you said referred to the point you were making.... nowhere in that article does it substantiate what you inferred, that Labour targeted voters via data mining :/

[Beso]

Has anyone deleted fb over this?

[smudgie]

Has anyone deleted fb over this?

No.
It’s pretty obvious when you join that they collect your data.
Nothing they collect from me bothers me:shrug:

[Kizzy]

No, half of me thinks this is a rouse to ruin fb, it's not working for the right wing it's being used as a galvanising tool for the left and they hate that. Society are pooling against all manner of injustice that exposes them as they hack away at resources for schools, kids, housing, while all the while feathering their nest with raises fiddling expenses turning blind eyes to tax dodging not dong enough on minimum wage dodgers, siphoning money out of the country with hairbrained schemes like the garden bridge while selling off anything and everything else.

They tried to make social media work for them but it hasn't so now it must go.

Smudgie made a good point most sites you go on are accessible, your info is gathered isn't that how ads are targeted? I look for a holiday and then for the next 3 months jet2, and other travel company ads show on pages I visit :/

[Cherie]

I actually feel sorry for facebook, it was invented by kids for kids... it's been exploited as much as we have.

No, half of me thinks this is a rouse to ruin fb, it's not working for the right wing it's being used as a galvanising tool for the left and they hate that. Society are pooling against all manner of injustice that exposes them as they hack away at resources for schools, kids, housing, while all the while feathering their nest with raises fiddling expenses turning blind eyes to tax dodging not dong enough on minimum wage dodgers, siphoning money out of the country with hairbrained schemes like the garden bridge while selling off anything and everything else.

They tried to make social media work for them but it hasn't so now it must go.

Smudgie made a good point most sites you go on are accessible, your info is gathered isn't that how ads are targeted? I look for a holiday and then for the next 3 months jet2, and other travel company ads show on pages I visit :/


that's an about turn ... so when you thought fb was working for the right it was exploitation but now it appears it is actually working for the left, the right want to scrap it :laugh:

[Kizzy]

that's an about turn ... so when you thought fb was working for the right it was exploitation but now it appears it is actually working for the left, the right want to scrap it :laugh:

Are you deliberately misunderstanding things?

The right as stated in your article were extracting data from facebook, not engaging with it or having their party engaged with in any meaningful way.

My point today was that seeing as their attempts to engage failed, they cannot connect to the public as it's clear they have nothing but soundbites to offer and any page was dominated with angry people wanting to know why they were doing what they were doing on everything from HS2 to brexit to fracking to ATOS to universal credit. They had nothing to say to allay any fears.

Labour on the other hand and Corbyn in particular were gaining massive support via social media and it was a force to be reckoned with in the respect that it galvanised communities and gave hope to those suffering due to government cuts and caps.


Their extrapolation of data is now thwarted due to the whistleblower, so my point today is they now no longer have any use for facebook which is why I believe they will want it ended.

[jaxie]

I hate the idea of any of them spying on us but unfortunately that is the age we live in. You've only got to search something on Google and ads for the thing you looked at pop up all over the place. We are being watched probably much more than we realize.

[Beso]

No.
It’s pretty obvious when you join that they collect your data.
Nothing they collect from me bothers me:shrug:

Well ah think ah will cos FB really is a load of bollocks..its like staring at scrawlings on toilet walls being beamed directly into ma frontal lobe.....saying that ah am partial to the 'likes':joker:

[smudgie]

Well ah think ah will cos FB really is a load of bollocks..its like staring at scrawlings on toilet walls being beamed directly into ma frontal lobe.....saying that ah am partial to the 'likes':joker:

:joker::joker:
I am very selective, friends and family only....and not all of them either.:laugh:

[Maru]

Facebook says data leak hits 87 million users, widening privacy scandal
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-facebook-privacy/facebook-says-data-leak-hits-87-million-users-widening-privacy-scandal-idUSKCN1HB2CM?feedType=RSS&feedName=technologyNews&utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+reuters%2FtechnologyNews+%28R euters+Technology+News%29

Facebook says data leak hits 87 million users, widening privacy scandal

SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) - Facebook Inc (FB.O) said on Wednesday that the personal information of up to 87 million users, mostly in the United States, may have been improperly shared with political consultancy Cambridge Analytica, up from a previous news media estimate of more than 50 million.

Chief Executive Mark Zuckerberg said in a conference call with reporters that Facebook had not seen “any meaningful impact” on usage or ad sales since the scandal, although he added, “it’s not good” if people are unhappy with the company.

Shares rose more than 3 percent after the bell.

Zuckerberg told reporters that he accepted blame for the data leak, which has angered users, advertisers and lawmakers, while also saying he was still the right person to head the company he founded.

“When you’re building something like Facebook that is unprecedented in the world, there are going to be things that you mess up,” Zuckerberg said, adding that the important thing was to learn from mistakes.

He said he was not aware of any discussions on the Facebook board about him stepping down, although directors would face a challenge if they wanted to oust him because Zuckerberg is the controlling shareholder.

He said he had not fired anyone over the scandal and did not plan to. “I’m not looking to throw anyone else under the bus for mistakes that we made here,” he said.

Facebook first acknowledged last month that personal information about millions of users wrongly ended up in the hands of Cambridge Analytica.

Zuckerberg will testify about the matter next Tuesday and Wednesday during two U.S. congressional hearings.

London-based Cambridge Analytica, which has counted U.S. President Donald Trump’s 2016 campaign among its clients, disputed Facebook’s estimate of affected users. It said in a tweet on Wednesday that it received no more than 30 million records from a researcher it hired to collect data about people on Facebook.

Zuckerberg, on the call with reporters, said Facebook should have done more to audit and oversee third-party app developers like the one that Cambridge Analytica hired in 2014.

“Knowing what I know today, clearly we should have done more,” he said.

Going forward, he said, Facebook was taking steps to restrict which personal data is available to third-party app developers, and he said it might take two more years to fix Facebook's problems. (bit.ly/2Ejpktb)

“We’re broadening our view of our responsibility,” Zuckerberg said.

Most of the up to 87 million people whose data was shared with Cambridge Analytica were in the United States, Facebook Chief Technology Officer Mike Schroepfer wrote in a blog post. (Graphic: bit.ly/2q5r5pl)

Shares in Facebook closed down 0.6 percent on Wednesday to $155.10. They have tumbled more than 16 percent since the Cambridge Analytica scandal broke.

The previous estimate of more than 50 million Facebook users affected by the data leak came from two newspapers, the New York Times and London’s Observer, based on their investigations of Cambridge Analytica.

Zuckerberg said Facebook came to the higher estimate by looking at the number of people who had downloaded a personality quiz app created by Cambridge University academic Aleksandr Kogan, or about 270,000 people, and then adding in the number of friends they had.

Cambridge Analytica has said that it engaged Kogan “in good faith” to collect Facebook data in a manner similar to how other third-party app developers have harvested personal information.

The scandal has kicked off investigations by Britain’s Information Commissioner’s Office, the U.S. Federal Trade Commission and by some 37 U.S. state attorneys general.

Nigeria’s government will investigate allegations of improper involvement by Cambridge Analytica in that country’s 2007 and 2015 elections, a presidency spokesman said on Monday.

[Kizzy]

So what?... There are data leaks all the time what information do people put on FB that is so life changing anyway?

Companies have been selling info and peoples bank details obtained for years, I remember talk talk had an issue with it a few years back.

This is just a way to get social media regulated. It's just not controllable enough :/