Facebook and Cambridge Analytics roles in Russian meddling in the 2016 US election
What a fucking mess! The US far-right (in the form of the wealthy Mercer family) is increasingly seen as having aided the Russians in "gaming" our democracy. They backed the ostensibly British data-miners, Cambridge Analytica (CA), in stealing a staggering 50 million Facebook members' personal data (see below). No less a Trumpie than Steve Bannon RAN the UK firm from its 2014 founding up to his becoming Trump's campaign manager in August 2016. (Dates reported on his Federal financial disclosure form last year.)
Facebook has "egg" on its, well, "face," since it clearly failed to protect the data of zillions of members -- which CA set about stealing, or so FB claims. (FB has a consent decree with our Federal Trade Commission, stemming from a 2011 case -- requiring it to more adequately protect its members' personal info -- and FTC now says it is following up.)
FB's "boy genius" Mark Zuckerberg, today made a shit-eating starement "apologizing" for its failures.
That self-serving effort was harshly condemned by Zuckerberg's onetime mentor and early investor, Roger MacNamee, in appearances on MSNBC shows last night and again tonight. (I note he has mounted quite a campaign criticizing Facebook's greed and ineptitude --
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2018/mar/19/facebook-data-cambridge-analytica-privacy-breach)
One thing he said tonight caught my attention: "Both Analytica AND Facebook had [several] staff working directly with the Republican campaign" to assist in managing the manipulated data from Facebook.
MSNBC's Lawrence O'Donnell didn't pick up on MacNamee's statement -- but it seems likely that details of this stealthy collaboration of CA and FB with the Repub campaign (and with the Russians??) will emerge in coming days. It surely will confound Zuckerberg, on the one hand, and various campaign hands, including Bannon, on the other.
I eagerly await the next shoes (or Faces) to drop.
Facebook has "egg" on its, well, "face," since it clearly failed to protect the data of zillions of members -- which CA set about stealing, or so FB claims. (FB has a consent decree with our Federal Trade Commission, stemming from a 2011 case -- requiring it to more adequately protect its members' personal info -- and FTC now says it is following up.)
FB's "boy genius" Mark Zuckerberg, today made a shit-eating starement "apologizing" for its failures.
That self-serving effort was harshly condemned by Zuckerberg's onetime mentor and early investor, Roger MacNamee, in appearances on MSNBC shows last night and again tonight. (I note he has mounted quite a campaign criticizing Facebook's greed and ineptitude --
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2018/mar/19/facebook-data-cambridge-analytica-privacy-breach)
One thing he said tonight caught my attention: "Both Analytica AND Facebook had [several] staff working directly with the Republican campaign" to assist in managing the manipulated data from Facebook.
MSNBC's Lawrence O'Donnell didn't pick up on MacNamee's statement -- but it seems likely that details of this stealthy collaboration of CA and FB with the Repub campaign (and with the Russians??) will emerge in coming days. It surely will confound Zuckerberg, on the one hand, and various campaign hands, including Bannon, on the other.
I eagerly await the next shoes (or Faces) to drop.