Forget Cambridge Analytica. Zuck could use FB data for his own presidential run

http://noblackmirrorthanks.blogspot.com/2018/03/forget-cambridge-analytica-heres-how.html

by hn_hn_hn • 8 years ago

115 40 8 years ago

noblackmirrorthanks.blogspot.com

greenyoda• 8 years ago

Would it be legal for Mark Zuckerberg to use person-level insights gleaned from his enormous data trove to fuel his own run for office?

It's not his data trove, it belongs to a corporate entity called "Facebook". If Facebook gave his campaign access to user data or ad targeting, it would probably be considered a campaign contribution, valued at whatever price the same data or ads would fetch if they were sold to any another political campaign. Such a contribution would need to be publicly disclosed, and it would get heavily scrutinized and criticized.

But at this point, I think Zuckerberg can lay to rest any hope of ever running for office. His opponents now have a lot of material they can cite to show his ethical shortcomings. And the media is going to keep digging for more dirt on Facebook, since it's something that the public can relate to, the majority of them being Facebook users. This issue isn't just going to go away.

notoriousjpg• 8 years ago

But at this point, I think Zuckerberg can lay to rest any hope of ever running for office. His opponents now have a lot of material they can cite to show his ethical shortcomings. And the media is going to keep digging for more dirt on Facebook, since it's something that the public can relate to, the majority of them being Facebook users. This issue isn't just going to go away.

I wish this were true. If it were would we have a reality TV star with multiple scandals under his belt? Sad state of affairs. If he did have access to this kind of data, it would give him an unprecedented level of access to private conversations, secrets etc. In a darker timeline, imagine the blackmail/extortion/'leverage' opportunities.

rs86• 8 years ago

Some really scary prospects there...

partiallypro2• 8 years ago

Facebook worked in conjunction with the Obama campaign in 2012, allowing them access to more data than their API allowed, so it wouldn't be unheard of. Oddly, no one complained then.

ydt• 8 years ago

No one complained because they acquired user consent to use the data.

http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/opinion/page/ct-perspec-p...

jnbiche2• 8 years ago

Exactly. Big difference between:

1) asking a user who had signed up for the Obama campaign if the campaign could contact their friends Johnny and Sue (discovered via their Facebook API) to ask them to support the Obama campaign.

2) Obtaining Facebook data by a professor for an academic study, who then turns around and sells said data to Cambridge Analytica, who uses it for targeted fake news propaganda. All of this without any consent from any user.

Add to this the fact that CA was also self-admittedly conducting political blackmail and bribery, and allegedly hacking election results, and you have a pretty ugly picture.

partiallypro2• 8 years ago

Not exactly, they obtained data of friends of people who consented. That doesn't mean the friends consented. That is almost the same as Cambridge Analytica did with their quiz. I don't see much of a difference.

MrGando• 8 years ago

Yep, you get it.

uptown• 8 years ago

Probably. But Mark seems so uncomfortable in his own skin that I doubt he’d have any degree of political success. Dustin Curtis put it well:

“Watching Mark Zuckerberg speak publicly has always made me feel deeply uncomfortable in a way that is very difficult to articulate.

He’s improved a lot over the years, but I still have an urge to look away when he speaks. Not great for crisis management communication.”

https://twitter.com/dcurtis/status/976627812999118848

TheSpiceIsLife• 8 years ago

Watching Donald Trump speak has always made me feel deeply uncomfortable in a way that is very difficult to articulate.

But here we are.

Edited to add: in my opinion Mark Zuckerberg as US President would probably be a huge improvement over the incumbent.

Houshalter• 8 years ago

My impression was most people found him much more charismatic than Clinton. Charisma plays a huge role in elections: From Influence: Science and Practice

a study of the 1974 Canadian federal elections found that attractive candidates received more than two and a half times as many votes as unattractive candidates (Efran & Patterson, 1976). Despite such evidence of favoritism toward handsome politicians, follow-up research demonstrated that voters did not realize their bias. In fact, 73 percent of Canadian voters surveyed denied in the strongest possible terms that their votes had been influenced by physical appearance; only 14 percent even allowed for the possibility of such influence (Efran & Patterson, 1976). Voters can deny the impact of attractiveness on electability all they want, but evidence has continued to confirm its troubling presence (Budesheim & DePaola, 1994).

Yay representative democracy.

anonytrary• 8 years ago

The point he was getting at was about the charisma of the speaker, not really about the content of their words, which is irrelevant. Whether or not you agree with Trump is orthogonal to whether or not he has actionable charisma.

It is fairly evident that Zuckerberg does not inspire with his words; they feel contrived in a way that makes you wonder if he really believes what he is saying. On the other hand, Trump has conviction, even if his point of view is not something you agree with.

Zuckerberg has no conviction in his speech at all, and that makes him difficult to trust. One cannot reasonably trust a man who appears to have no trust in himself.

zimpenfish2• 8 years ago

in my opinion Mark Zuckerberg as US President would probably be a huge improvement over the incumbent.

That's such a low bar that even I would be a huge improvement over the incumbent and I have the political acumen of a small horsefly.

fiatpandas• 8 years ago

The quote hits it on the head. I’ve thought about it briefly before, and I think zuck makes me uncomfortable because he is emotionless while speaking, barely moving his head, and not blinking. His face is in a kind of paralysis while speaking.

qwerty456127• 8 years ago

Wouldn't it be a way too much? Wouldn't the people get the clue immediately in such a scenario?

pksadiq• 8 years ago

Zuck could use FB data for his own presidential run

Well. It could be true for Google CEO, and many others. Technically, there are too many bad things that can happen. Laws are what that's preventing those.

My computer can phone home with my every keystroke or technically it's possible for a modern air conditioning system to release its refrigerant gas into the room with certain key combination on its remote. But until those are proven to happen, it's just a conspiracy.

In short, there are so many bad things that can happen, doesn't actually mean that will happen. At least - for many cases - that's better way to think, so that we don't have to live a fearful life. And in the cases we can, be in the safe side, like not using Facebook, using completely free software OS, putting a tape on camera, etc.

Edit: On a side note, it would be nice if HN team change http urls to https if the site supports it, and discourage links that requires javascript with no added value.

madez• 8 years ago

Pointing out risks is not a conspiracy. A conspiracy would be a claim that it happened without evidence. The risk here is real, however, and must taken care of, just like we do with so many other risks.

fiblye• 8 years ago

When it comes to tech like this, it's good to not just ask "can it happen", but "why wouldn't it happen".

Pressing a button to fill your room full of gas is doesn't strike me as serving any good purpose. It doesn't benefit anyone. Computers can phone home with your every keystroke, and the NSA does indeed track loads of people for "security" purposes. Zuckerberg could potentially track everyone, and why wouldn't he? It'd get him loads of valuable info for campaigning and material to use against his opponents. Once he gets into office, he can grab the entire legislative and judicial branches by the balls with the info he harvests about them (if they're married and ever used Tinder or followed a porn star on Instagram, they wouldn't want those secrets out in the open). The NSA and FBI wouldn't have any reason to publicly oppose one of their most valuable surveillance and 4th-Amendment-dodging farms.

If it's easy to do and has a potential to benefit someone, it's good to assume that someone is taking advantage of it. Zuckerberg would be honestly incredibly stupid to not use Facebook for his political gain. Even if the media reported on it, the average person won't understand why it's bad and won't really care.

tehwebguy• 8 years ago

Forget Zuck. Every ad network knows what porn you watch.

JonasJSchreiber• 8 years ago

Have you seen this guy on TV? He is not a polished speaker

newnewpdro• 8 years ago

That's very fixable, just look at John Carmack's talks over the years - and he had to overcome a legitimate nervous tick.

joshjdr• 8 years ago

How fast can I kill all my karma by pointing out that the 3 of the top 4 articles on HN are some realization that Facebook does not give an ef about anybody's privacy?

asfasgasg3• 8 years ago

The most damage you'll do is -4 points per instance of this comment. So, not that fast.

I do think the hysteria is getting to be a bit much, though. We get it. Also, Zuck is not going to run for President. I really doubt he ever was.

Yetanfou2• 8 years ago

Need I remind you the same was said about Trump when people mentioned he might run for president? How about Reagan?

Any US-born citizen can run for president, claiming that someone in his position never will is at best wishful thinking, at worst self-delusion. As to whether he'd stand a chance mostly depends on who he'd be running against, there have been plenty of candidates where it would not be inconceivable for people to vote for him as being the least bad of the set.

rando444• 8 years ago

I would think pretty fast since you don't seem to be attempting to make a point or argument of any kind.

jsemrau• 8 years ago

I wrote about this exact problem roughly 2 years back [1]. Tech can be very influential since you already have captured highly dedicated attention from a clearly defined market segment. Looks like we have now reached that point where someone has weaponized this politically.

[1] https://medium.com/@thisTenqyuLife/uber-and-lift-set-a-very-...

paulie_a• 8 years ago

Zuckerberg running for president is delusional at best.

Rjevski• 8 years ago

I hate Facebook and Zuckerberg but I'd still take him over the garbage we currently have.

jaclaz2• 8 years ago

Maybe it is just myself, but I see a lot of people actually believing that there is a simple equation:

I have your data=I can make you do whatever I want

Maybe I am too optimistic, but I would believe that - once set aside what the data/campaigns organizers say (to sell their services) - it is not like millions of people are so easily tricked into voting for this or that candidate.

If this is what happens, the big issue seems to me more about educating the seemingly way too gullible people, before and besides removing "fake news" and "targeted advertising".

marci• 8 years ago

It's optimistic to believe it mostly affects gullible people (whatever gullible means to you).

https://www.nytimes.com/2014/06/30/technology/facebook-tinke...

jaclaz2• 8 years ago

Well, from the article you cited:

Mr. Kramer wrote that changing the emotional makeup of the news feeds had a minimal impact, prompting users to produce an average of one fewer emotional word per thousand words over the following week.

What I am saying is that I find unlikely that they can change the voting preference, if not that of really gullible (or if you prefer "very easy to manipulate") people.

romanovcode• 8 years ago

A pigeon has more charisma than Mark Zuckerberg.

He could be a grey cardinal but I highly doubt that he could win an actual presidential campaign, no matter how much data he has.

Forget Cambridge Analytica. Zuck could use FB data for his own presidential run

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