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

[Ted Moffett]

Vision2020 Post: Ted Moffett
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You stated first "It's doubtful to me that this had any significant effect
on the election."  Not that you doubted that Cambridge Analytical flipped
77,744 votes.  Cambridge Analytica was not the only propaganda player in
the social media sphere.

To have a "significant effect on the election" Cambridge Analytica's
input might only have resulted in flipping 30,000 votes, let
us speculate, and Russian social media propaganda flipped some thousands
more.  This could have changed the very close election outcome in the 3
electoral college swing states.

Given billionaire hedge fund conservative Robert Mercer and Steve Bannon
were involved in Cambridge Analytica's input to the Trump propaganda
machine, I think it naïve to dismiss these tactics as ineffectual.

As far as I have discovered, there has been no probable quantitative
determination of the impact of social media propaganda and fake news, from
Russian sources, or Cambridge Analytica, on how many votes were flipped.by
these methods.

This does not mean we should shrug our shoulders and declare the evidence
that social media as a tool of political propaganda is massively being
deployed, is not a threat to democracy.

It remains possible that Russian social media propaganda, combined with
Cambridge Analytica's input, did influence 77, 744 votes... I think we
simply do not know for sure one way or the other...

But I'll simply quote the Columbia Law School source once more, to
emphasize the importance of the issue of social media spread fake new and
psychographic propaganda:

https://www.pbs.org/newshour/show/mark-zuckerberg-promises-
change-but-facebook-has-failed-to-follow-through-in-the-past

-Tim Wu, Columbia Law School

"... they need to start rethinking these business models, because they have
really reached an intolerable level for American society. And it’s starting
to threaten American democracy and other values we hold dear."

“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…”


On Wed, Mar 21, 2018 at 11:28 PM, Scott Dredge <scooterd408 at hotmail.com>
wrote:

> "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?"
> Why is the burden of proof on me to provide convincing evidence that
> something didn't happen?  I'd actually be quite impressed if Cambridge
> Analytica actually pulled off with precision accuracy the flipping of
> Hillary 77,744 voters in three targeted states.   That's brilliance and
> much more difficult to pull off than the tactic that conservatives always
> complain about when democrats win (illegals voting, votes from dead people,
> liberals voting more than once, etc.)
>
>
> On Wednesday, March 21, 2018, 9:23:25 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.*****
> ------------------------------ -----
>
> 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/
> <https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2018/03/facebooks-cambridge-analytica-scandal-explained/>
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