6 ms·

I find it remarkable that people don't understand there's a non-subtle difference between signing up voluntarily on the Obama website using Facebook and consent

by LukaAl 8y ago

I find it remarkable that people don't understand there's a non-subtle difference between signing up voluntarily on the Obama website using Facebook and consenting to the information collection vs. signing up for a quiz from an unrelated company and having that data used by the Trump campaign. If you don't understand the difference, it is the same difference between having consensual sex with your girlfriend and raping your neighbor girlfriend because she consented to have sex with him... Now, this metaphor is imperfect, but from what we could see the Obama campaign was within the boundary allowed by Facebook TOS and what disclosed to the user. Did they push this to the limit? Yes. To the point that FB didn't think it was feasible. But legit according to the rule. Maybe having consensual extreme BSDM sex with your girlfriend vs. raping your neighbor's GF? Quiz, which one is legal and which one is not?

dominotw 8y ago
horrible metaphors.
mistermann 8y ago
The world would be a much better place if people weren't so utterly ignorant of their personal bias.
- vanilla_nut 8y ago
  I fail to see how this comment is at all constructive to the situation at hand. What personal bias are you talking about here? Would it really be that hard to elaborate? Instead of acting like you're better than the grandparent poster, it would be far better to either a) engage him in a conversation or b) not comment at all.
  - mistermann 8y ago
    Constructive conversation on certain topics is sometimes not possible when in a forum that leans too far to the right or the left. There is a common mentality among many people where they know they are right, such that no response to differing opinions is even necessary, a downvote will do (which is doubly useful, because it censors the downvoted person for some period of time). And if you do not support the narrative, you will be downvoted. Respect is a two way street, or at least it used to be. I'm happy to engage in a debate any time, finding someone else willing to participate is a problem when everyone is only interested in discussing the nuances of how they agree with each other. I'll also disagree that it's not better to comment at all - voices of dissent are valuable in a democracy, silencing them is the actually dangerous path to take, but that seems to be the path that's been chosen, so we'll see how it works out.
    - icebraining 8y ago
      The problem with your previous comment is that it's not even clear from what are you dissenting.
      - mistermann 8y ago
        Fair enough, but it wouldn't have made any difference. Disagreement with this particular aspect of the local culture will get you a downvote, not a discussion. Any discussion, if you're lucky to get one, would be better described as a re-education lecture, to teach you the "facts" of "how things are". Jonathan Haidt has studied this psychological phenomenon quite extensively and in my opinion it does a good job of explaining the recent unusual behavior of the public, it's a shame no one's interested. The moral roots of liberals and conservatives https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vs41JrnGaxc https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vs41JrnGaxc
        grzm 8y ago
        I've found Haidt's work very useful. One of the things I've taken from Haidt is how important both sides of the communication are. Blaming everything on "the other side" as you are doing here ("ny discussion, if you're lucky to get one, would be better described as a re-education lecture" and "it's a shame no one's interested") does exactly the opposite, regardless of how accurate you might feel the description is. If you're looking for nuance and constructive discussion, it's crucial to put that foot forward yourself. And understanding, given the climate, that it's likely going to be a lot of work, as you're working against built-in human psychological biases that are unfortunately being reinforced by many trends in media, both traditional and online. Loading your discourse with the phrases you do here are working against that. I'm glad that you've found Haidt interesting in some way. Step up and work the problem, rather than contribute to it. There's no quick fix.
        mistermann 8y ago
        I mostly agree, however: > Blaming everything on "the other side" as you are doing here > Step up and work the problem, rather than contribute to it. My argument is that HN is increasingly becoming a ~"progressive, illiberal echo chamber", where dissenting ideas are not welcome or open for discussion, and censored (to the degree that people like me often have to wait up to several hours or until the next day (in which case the discussion is effectively over) to post a comment as I am almost always in the penalty box, for the reasons being discussed here). If that's true, should the onus be only on the censored side to fix the situation? If you believe my claim isn't true: - do you believe that it is possible for any community to be like this? - do you believe HN has any imperfections at all in this respect?
vanilla_nut 8y ago
I believe the Obama campaign used Facebook friend connections to target individual voters [1] ("Online, the get-out-the-vote effort continued with a first-ever attempt at using Facebook on a mass scale to replicate the door-knocking efforts of field organizers. In the final weeks of the campaign, people who had downloaded an app were sent messages with pictures of their friends in swing states. They were told to click a button to automatically urge those targeted voters to take certain actions, such as registering to vote, voting early or getting to the polls.") Note that I specifically picked an article from 2012 because the past 48 hours has seen quite a few articles discussing the Obama Facebook campaign -- articles which I'd argue are likely subject to a taint of bias, given the recent CA events (I'd guess that journalists are digging for a story, which tends to skew perspectives). Anyway, this kind of targeting is, in hindsight, not really OK with me -- but I think the line here is that the Obama campaign collected information and asked your friends (who supported the campaign) to pitch in by asking particular friends to vote. This year's election was much more subtle, since instead targeted voters were treated to a slew of biased ads and propaganda stories. At least, that's how I see it. Also, while I don't disagree with your analogy, anything involving sexual assault is probably going to hurt rather than help your arguments with most crowds. I don't think it's something we should ignore, of course, but we should keep in mind that it's a strong metaphor -- akin to calling someone "literally Hitler" -- so you might want to reconsider that in the future. Not trying to be a jerk, just trying to be helpful, so feel free to ignore my unsolicited advice. [1] https://www.cnn.com/2012/11/07/tech/web/obama-campaign-tech-team/index.html https://www.cnn.com/2012/11/07/tech/web/obama-campaign-tech-...
rdtsc 8y ago
> signing up voluntarily on the Obama website using Facebook So the whole social graph signed up to Obama's website? Because that's exactly what was happening. https://www.theguardian.com/world/2012/feb/17/obama-digital-data-machine-facebook-election https://www.theguardian.com/world/2012/feb/17/obama-digital-... --- Every time an individual volunteers to help out – for instance by offering to host a fundraising party for the president – he or she will be asked to log onto the re-election website with their Facebook credentials. That in turn will engage Facebook Connect, the digital interface that shares a user's personal information with a third party. Consciously or otherwise, the individual volunteer will be injecting all the information they store publicly on their Facebook page – home location, date of birth, interests and, crucially, network of friends – directly into the central Obama database. --- > it is the same difference between having consensual sex with your girlfriend and raping your neighbor girlfriend because she consented to have sex with him... Really, rape, that's the best metaphor to reach for...
thousandautumns 8y ago
You are right, that is non-subtle difference and should be noted. But I feel like the most egregious aspect of the process was being able to gather data on unsuspecting users by getting their friends to use the app. That's entirely legal, but definitely is the part that I think most people take the biggest offense to, and that is something that was done by both the Trump and Obama teams.

by LukaAl 8y ago

dominotw 8y ago

horrible metaphors.

mistermann 8y ago

The world would be a much better place if people weren't so utterly ignorant of their personal bias.

vanilla_nut 8y ago
I fail to see how this comment is at all constructive to the situation at hand. What personal bias are you talking about here? Would it really be that hard to elaborate? Instead of acting like you're better than the grandparent poster, it would be far better to either a) engage him in a conversation or b) not comment at all.
- mistermann 8y ago
  Constructive conversation on certain topics is sometimes not possible when in a forum that leans too far to the right or the left. There is a common mentality among many people where they know they are right, such that no response to differing opinions is even necessary, a downvote will do (which is doubly useful, because it censors the downvoted person for some period of time). And if you do not support the narrative, you will be downvoted. Respect is a two way street, or at least it used to be. I'm happy to engage in a debate any time, finding someone else willing to participate is a problem when everyone is only interested in discussing the nuances of how they agree with each other. I'll also disagree that it's not better to comment at all - voices of dissent are valuable in a democracy, silencing them is the actually dangerous path to take, but that seems to be the path that's been chosen, so we'll see how it works out.
  - icebraining 8y ago
    The problem with your previous comment is that it's not even clear from what are you dissenting.
    - mistermann 8y ago
      Fair enough, but it wouldn't have made any difference. Disagreement with this particular aspect of the local culture will get you a downvote, not a discussion. Any discussion, if you're lucky to get one, would be better described as a re-education lecture, to teach you the "facts" of "how things are". Jonathan Haidt has studied this psychological phenomenon quite extensively and in my opinion it does a good job of explaining the recent unusual behavior of the public, it's a shame no one's interested. The moral roots of liberals and conservatives https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vs41JrnGaxc https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vs41JrnGaxc
      - grzm 8y ago
        I've found Haidt's work very useful. One of the things I've taken from Haidt is how important both sides of the communication are. Blaming everything on "the other side" as you are doing here ("ny discussion, if you're lucky to get one, would be better described as a re-education lecture" and "it's a shame no one's interested") does exactly the opposite, regardless of how accurate you might feel the description is. If you're looking for nuance and constructive discussion, it's crucial to put that foot forward yourself. And understanding, given the climate, that it's likely going to be a lot of work, as you're working against built-in human psychological biases that are unfortunately being reinforced by many trends in media, both traditional and online. Loading your discourse with the phrases you do here are working against that. I'm glad that you've found Haidt interesting in some way. Step up and work the problem, rather than contribute to it. There's no quick fix.
        mistermann 8y ago
        I mostly agree, however: > Blaming everything on "the other side" as you are doing here > Step up and work the problem, rather than contribute to it. My argument is that HN is increasingly becoming a ~"progressive, illiberal echo chamber", where dissenting ideas are not welcome or open for discussion, and censored (to the degree that people like me often have to wait up to several hours or until the next day (in which case the discussion is effectively over) to post a comment as I am almost always in the penalty box, for the reasons being discussed here). If that's true, should the onus be only on the censored side to fix the situation? If you believe my claim isn't true: - do you believe that it is possible for any community to be like this? - do you believe HN has any imperfections at all in this respect?

vanilla_nut 8y ago

I believe the Obama campaign used Facebook friend connections to target individual voters [1] ("Online, the get-out-the-vote effort continued with a first-ever attempt at using Facebook on a mass scale to replicate the door-knocking efforts of field organizers. In the final weeks of the campaign, people who had downloaded an app were sent messages with pictures of their friends in swing states. They were told to click a button to automatically urge those targeted voters to take certain actions, such as registering to vote, voting early or getting to the polls.") Note that I specifically picked an article from 2012 because the past 48 hours has seen quite a few articles discussing the Obama Facebook campaign -- articles which I'd argue are likely subject to a taint of bias, given the recent CA events (I'd guess that journalists are digging for a story, which tends to skew perspectives). Anyway, this kind of targeting is, in hindsight, not really OK with me -- but I think the line here is that the Obama campaign collected information and asked your friends (who supported the campaign) to pitch in by asking particular friends to vote. This year's election was much more subtle, since instead targeted voters were treated to a slew of biased ads and propaganda stories. At least, that's how I see it. Also, while I don't disagree with your analogy, anything involving sexual assault is probably going to hurt rather than help your arguments with most crowds. I don't think it's something we should ignore, of course, but we should keep in mind that it's a strong metaphor -- akin to calling someone "literally Hitler" -- so you might want to reconsider that in the future. Not trying to be a jerk, just trying to be helpful, so feel free to ignore my unsolicited advice. [1] https://www.cnn.com/2012/11/07/tech/web/obama-campaign-tech-team/index.html https://www.cnn.com/2012/11/07/tech/web/obama-campaign-tech-...

rdtsc 8y ago

> signing up voluntarily on the Obama website using Facebook So the whole social graph signed up to Obama's website? Because that's exactly what was happening. https://www.theguardian.com/world/2012/feb/17/obama-digital-data-machine-facebook-election https://www.theguardian.com/world/2012/feb/17/obama-digital-... --- Every time an individual volunteers to help out – for instance by offering to host a fundraising party for the president – he or she will be asked to log onto the re-election website with their Facebook credentials. That in turn will engage Facebook Connect, the digital interface that shares a user's personal information with a third party. Consciously or otherwise, the individual volunteer will be injecting all the information they store publicly on their Facebook page – home location, date of birth, interests and, crucially, network of friends – directly into the central Obama database. --- > it is the same difference between having consensual sex with your girlfriend and raping your neighbor girlfriend because she consented to have sex with him... Really, rape, that's the best metaphor to reach for...

thousandautumns 8y ago

You are right, that is non-subtle difference and should be noted. But I feel like the most egregious aspect of the process was being able to gather data on unsuspecting users by getting their friends to use the app. That's entirely legal, but definitely is the part that I think most people take the biggest offense to, and that is something that was done by both the Trump and Obama teams.