Tech Tuesday: Miscellaneous Musings on Facebook, Cambridge Analytica and the Current Database Scandal

"Today in the United States we have somewhere close to four or five thousand data points on every individual... so we model the personality of every adult across the United States, some 230 million people."
--Cambridge Analytica CEO Alexander Nix, October 2016

As anyone paying attention already knows, Facebook and Cambridge Analytica have been on the hotseat this past week. Initially the focus was on the President's use of private information gather through clandestine means. But as I pointed out last week in my blog post about the social media giant, this is just the way social media works. You give them your information, and they use it to generate profits by selling (or licensing or sharing, or whatever) with marketers who generate precise messaging for their target prospects. It's what they do.

To quote CEO Nix again, "It’s about understanding what matters most to that person - what they care about, what they worry about..."  (Telegraph, Nov. 2016)

* * * *
Using the latest digital technology for political purposes is nothing new. Both POTUS and Hillary were campaigning in the virtual sim world Second Life in 2016. And I recall that President Obama was active on social media during his 2012 campaign.

What I do not recall is any coverage by major media of the Obama campaigns alleged indiscretions when it came to using illicit means harvesting data on Facebook users in 2012. According to this Investors Business Daily editorial opinion the Dems "encouraged supporters to download an Obama 2012 Facebook app that, when activated, let the campaign collect Facebook data both on users and their friends." oh the games people play.

Some people have been jumping all over Cambridge Analytica for breaking the rules FB establishes to protect our privacy, but as marketing people (listen to Ad Contrarian Bob Hoffman) pretty well know, the data is out of the bag. What torques a few folk on some of the forums I've visited is that the Obama campaign not only did the same thing, they even bragged about it. (MIT Technology Review, Dec. 2012)

Here's another 2016 article in MIT Review regarding how Facebook learns about your Offline life, by acquiring info about your from other sources that you were unaware of.

There's so much background noise these days that stories like this tend to get lost in the wind. Until now. It's a mob driven soap opera, and you never can tell how a mob is going to behave.

*Funny, When Obama Harvested Facebook Data On Millions Of Users To Win In 2012, Everyone Cheered; IBD, 3-19-2018
In the interest of airing both sides, there is plenty of forum fodder being widely distributed in all directions, and who knows what the baloney is really made of, but I suspect that at the end of the day everybody knows more about everybody than anybody ever imagined was possible.

"Don't follow leaders, watch the parking meters." --Bob Dylan

Bogus Tweet Reminds Us To Be Skeptical

DON'T BELIEVE EVERYTHING YOU READ DEPT.

This past week a bogus tweet reminded us again  of the old adage, "Don't believe everything you see." In an already tense week of terror news the AP Twitter account was hacked and someone tweeted that there had been explosions in the White House and President Obama was injured. The stock market immediately responded. It went down. A few seconds later the Associated Press tweeted that it was bogus. Their account had been hacked.

What's interesting in this Ad Age story is that people took action on what they saw and read. The market sank 1% in seconds. If what we believe impacts how people behave, we need to take extra care with regard to the ideas we embrace and our sources of information.

Nine years ago the subject of man's walk on the moon came up in our department at work. To my great surprise our web assistant at that time stated that he did not believe Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin walked on the moon, that it was a hoax. I was somewhat chagrined. I've always known there were people who thought that way, but to meet one in person was a surprise. For me it's like stating that there is no such place as England or that Northern Lights are a hoax. These are simply facts.

But what happens when an apparently credible source makes a statement as fact that isn't a fact?

One survey in the early 1980's found that nearly 90% of all Americans believed that the government's account on the Kennedy Assassination, which determined that Lee Harvey Oswald acted alone, was false. Though distrust of our government did not begin with the Warren Commission, this was a fairly good indicator of the times. What's disturbing is not just what people won't believe, it is amazing the things people do believe. Some people who do not believe the "lone gunman" theory are ready to believe that not only were there more gunmen, but also that the CIA, FBI, mafia and half the State of Texas including Vice President Johnson were involved.

AN AGE OF DOUBT AND DISTRUST

How strange our world is today. Modern people have been trained to question everything, yet they believe the most foolish things. Yes, I can understand why someone might not believe the moon walk. We live in an age of falsification. Images, stories, urban legends, and cleverly devised myths abound, along with photos that have been doctored, stories that have no basis in fact. It is an era of deliberate obfuscation, an age of spin, of falsifying perceptions.

"Don't believe everything you see," is advice given wisely, but at the same time it can also unsettle us. Uncertainty makes us anxious. We like things to be firm, solid.

Uncertainty undermines confidence and leaves us feeling confused. When there are things at stake, we want to know what is true. But sometimes we simply can't know. We hear both sides of an issue and we don't know whom to trust.

This is even more the case in our internet age. Sometimes it's good to doubt. Then again, sometimes decisions need to be made and we have to make choices.

In the meantime... life goes on all around you. Enjoy the weekend, wherever you are. Be refreshed, and thrive!

One More Thing To Worry About

"My definition of an expert in any field is a person who knows enough about what's really going on to be scared." ~ P. J. Plauger

In late May North Korea tested a nuclear device.

A May 31 story by Time journalist Robert Baer began, "It's not what we know about rogue states and their nuclear bombs that should scare us — it's what we don't know. North Korea's test of a nuclear device on Monday may not have come as a surprise to Washington, but only in the sense that Washington knew Pyongyang was defiant enough to set one off. Beyond that, truth be told, Washington is completely in the dark about North Korea's intentions. It can only expect the worse and hope for the better."

Then there's the nuclear activity in Iran. In recent speeches President Obama has defended the right of Iran to have nuclear power, despite fears in some camps that they are simultaneously developing nuclear weapons. Some paint this picture with very dark pigments as if it were something new, but remember that it was the U.S. that helped the Shah develop nuclear power during its "Atoms For Peace" program in the 1950's. This was long before the Ayatollah threw out the Western blasphemers during the Carter era.

I do not know what to think about the North Korea news. The news that did scare me last week was that the Taliban army was approaching Pakistan's nuclear arsenal. It's hard, from this distance to know what these news accounts mean. Pakistan's President, Mr Asif Ali Zardari states that it is a real threat only if the West does not help Pakistan keep democracy stable over there.*

In other words, send money. Are we being extorted? Is this a bribe? "Help our country and you will be able to sleep better at night." That's what it sounds like to me.

Then there are those Pakistanis who are still bitter that they lost their three wars with India. Most Americans don't even remember those wars because two (1965 and 1971) were during our own Viet Nam distraction. Today both nations are armed with nukes. And with the Taliban army apparently eyeballing the Pakistan arsenal, there really might be something here to worry about.

For now, I have plenty of other things on my plate, and there's nothing I can do about it anyways. It kind of makes you wonder how many other threats there are out there that we don't have a clue about.

* "Nukes could fall into hands of Taliban if democracy fails" HinduTimes Online