[Vision2020] Cambridge Analytical Facebook Data: Psychological Profiling to Politically Manipulate Voters

[Ted Moffett]

Vision2020 Post: Ted Moffett
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The 2016 presidential election electoral college win for Trump was decided
by 77, 744 votes in three key swing states, though I have seen other
estimates that vary from this number, that still are under 100,000 votes:
http://www.weeklystandard.com/the-election-came-down-to-77744-votes-in-pennsylvania-wisconsin-and-michigan-updated/article/2005323

H. Clinton's nearly 3 million popular vote lead over Trump is not relevant
regarding whether or not Cambridge Analytica's input to the Trump campaign
influenced the small vote margins in these three key states.  Of course a
propaganda model to win the electoral college would target voters in key
electoral college swing states, and not focus on states like California,
which had a too large vote margin for H. Clinton to overcome.  The same can
be said about Russian social media influence over the election of Trump.

Cambridge Analytica could have influenced the election by targeting
psychographic profiles derived from Facebook data that was obtained
"legally,' though given Facebook's profit driven exploitation of personal
data voluntarily handed over by users, it is difficult to know what "legal"
exactly means.

Ironically, as I sit laughing my head off, I just pasted the following
quote from Facebook:
https://www.facebook.com/newshour/posts/10156332321863675
“Fundamentally, Facebook is a surveillance machine. They get as much data
as they can, and they promise advertisers that they're able to manipulate
us…” -Tim Wu, Columbia Law School

Facebook has publicly admitted that they were "deceived," which sheds
serious doubt on the quote you offered that "Cambridge probably didn't use
illicit Facebook data..."  If they deceived Facebook, what do you call the
data thus obtained by deceit?

http://www.dw.com/en/facebooks-mark-zuckerberg-admits-mistakes-in-cambridge-analytica-scandal/a-43059502

"We should not have trusted Cambridge Analytica's certification, and we are
not going to make that mistake again," Zuckerberg said.

In a statement cited by US media late on Tuesday, the social media network
said: "The entire company is outraged that we were deceived," in a
reference to the UK-based political research firm at the center of the
scandal.
Maybe Cambridge Analytica's methods are doubtful, but just as with the
Russian cyber social media influence, it is difficult to quantify whether a
mere 77,744 votes could or not have been influenced by these propaganda
methods.
What quantitative data do you have to support your doubtful position about
social media propaganda influence over the Trump win in Pennsylvania,
Wisconsin and Michigan?

On Wed, Mar 21, 2018 at 1:57 PM, Scott Dredge <scooterd408 at hotmail.com>
wrote:

It's doubtful to me that this had any significant effect on the election.
> Hillary received nearly 3 million more votes than Trump.
>
> From the article:
> "Cambridge probably didn’t use illicit Facebook data to help Trump"
> And,
>
> "While Cambridge got a lot of press coverage—both before the 2016 election
> and after it—post-election reporting has cast doubt on the effectiveness of
> Cambridge Analytica's methods."
>
>
>
> On Tuesday, March 20, 2018, 9:48:20 PM PDT, Ted Moffett <
> starbliss at gmail.com> wrote:
>
>
> Vision2020 Post: Ted Moffett
> ***** Original material contained herein is Copyright 2000 through life
> plus 70 years, Ted Moffett.  Do not copy, forward, excerpt, or reproduce
> outside the Vision2020.Moscow.com <http://vision2020.moscow.com/> forum
> without the express written permission of the author.*****
> ------------------------------ -----
>
> Why would anyone be surprised at this revelation currently in the news?
> That the Internet has become a tool of manipulation of the psychology of
> the public for numerous agendas, both political and commercial, is more
> than obvious.  The fact that millions of people are voluntarily exposing
> intimate details of their personal lives, especially on Facebook, to vast
> data mining for the purposes of deep "psychographic" profiling, is naïve
> beyond belief.
>
> Read in this article that conservative hedge fund billionaire Robert
> Mercer, who was connected to Steve Bannon and Brietbart, was also linked to
> funding Cambridge Analytical, which may have assisted in advertising
> propaganda to elect Trump:
>
> Facebook's Cambridge Analytical Scandal Explained
>
> Trump Operatives Got Private Data from 50 Million Facebook Users
>
> https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2018/03/facebooks-
> cambridge-analytica-scandal-explained/
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