Probably the most useful takeaway from CA's approach is that it's useful to realize how malleable opinions are of large swaths of "independent" voters. Ad experts and entertainment companies have known this for decades, but I get the sense the average American citizen still thinks of themselves as a free and independent thinker and not a product of their environment.<p>Problem is, even if they are a free and independent thinker, voting populations are large enough that the "average is the outcome" phenomenon comes into play, and voters are on average demonstrably vulnerable to coercion. Not enough to flip people's opinions 180 degrees, but enough to, say, get a reality TV star elected over a politician with a checkered history (that has itself been subject to decades of effort and millions spent to make said history checkered).
One thing I notice often gets glossed over when Cambridge Analytica comes up is that they didn't really shut down at all. While CA ceased trading, a company called Emerdata was created around that time by the same directors [0]. Their Company's House filing documents can be seen here: [1].<p>I'm not yelling 'conspiracy!' or anything, but it's notable that this isn't more widely reported. I'll be watching them with interest.<p>[0] - <a href="https://www.newsweek.com/what-emerdata-scl-group-executives-flee-new-firm-and-its-registered-office-909334" rel="nofollow">https://www.newsweek.com/what-emerdata-scl-group-executives-...</a><p>[1] - <a href="https://beta.companieshouse.gov.uk/company/10911848/officers" rel="nofollow">https://beta.companieshouse.gov.uk/company/10911848/officers</a>
After having seen The Great Hack <a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt9358204/" rel="nofollow">https://www.imdb.com/title/tt9358204/</a> over the weekend, it's hard to imagine how the scope expanded again. They used the developing countries all over the world as practice for UK brexit and US's 2016 elections.
I remain unconvinced that Cambridge Analytica had any material impact on the election. Please give me some hard evidence to the contrary. This whole scandal seems like a red herring onto which people project their a) anger about their losing candidate or b) their personal and often unsubstantiated beliefs about the "harm" they <i>could</i> experience due to "big data".
Yes, FB & CA should be hold accountable for abusing user privacy, but real elephant in the room is about the legislation of political campaigns, specifically:<p>- amount of $ campaign may collect and spend<p>- granularity of users segment campaign may target
In politics , the best manipulation campaign is to have a vision that moves people. Why are american Dems stirring again the CA pot? It s frankly bad publicity at this moment to blame everything to the evil bad actors. It may appeal to a small part of their voter base, but conspiracies usually alienate moderate/undecided ppl
the actual files: <a href="https://twitter.com/HindsightFiles/status/1214039510859825153" rel="nofollow">https://twitter.com/HindsightFiles/status/121403951085982515...</a>
I think that people who are whistle blowers and release information like this are hero’s and deserve as much protection as civil society can offer them.<p>Off topic, but I feel like saying it: here in the USA, the administrations of presidents Obama and Trump have really tried to stomp out valid whistle blowing efforts. I hope that history is very harsh on both presidents in this issue in the future when people start to ask how democracies got so subverted by corporate/elite interests.
The story incorrectly reports the company was hired for the trump campaign to do data work.
As per <a href="https://youtu.be/yjn6wK01cqk?t=1878" rel="nofollow">https://youtu.be/yjn6wK01cqk?t=1878</a> only staff were hired.<p>edit: provide link, and clarify.