Cambridge Analytica: From election manipulation to murdering babies

They took a data set and then removed long haired vertically challenged lefties

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I don’t think it’s CA that is the real target. It’s Facebook, and by extension, social media in general. You can expect the traditional media to be massive cheerleaders for CA’s and FB’s destruction.

If they get to reverse a couple of recent decisions off the back of it, all the better, or so they think.

If the basic premise of their arguments around polls is sound, that people are massive fuckwits that believe everything they read, then that’s more worrying than any clandestine operators, who lets face it, didn’t spring up with social media.

Personally I think the premise is bollocks, and that it would be more accurate to say that people don’t believe the shit that is broadcast.

Damian Collins just probably missed the memo.

Wonder no longer. At PMQs today there was an interesting question to May from Ian Blackford, the leader of the SNP. He started," Does the Prime Minister agree that subverting the democratic political process in any country is totally unacceptable"? May, immediately starting to look a bit shifty, said she backed free and fair elections. Blackford went on, “Can i point out that the parent company of Cambridge Analytica, Strategic Communications Laboratory, has been run by a chairman of Oxford Conservative Association, it’s founding chairman was a former Conservative MP, a director appears to have donated over 700,000 pounds to the Conservative Party, a former Conservative Party Chairman is a shareholder. We know about the links to the Conservative Party, they go on and on”. May, looking flustered, said the government had no links to Cambridge Analytica or it’s parent company. Which amounts to a bare faced lie.

This tells you all you need to know. Could you do the honours with the link please. The people of this country are being led down a very dangerous path by an out of control, undemocratic elite. God knows what their agenda is, it doesn’t really bear thinking about.

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there you go

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See the video I posted above of the supplementak question.

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Also, note the semantics of May’s reply.

She confirms the government has no contracts with them.

She does not confirm the Tory party has no contracts.

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Having read a bit about this, I came across an app which people kept mentioning called Ghostery. It seems it is a way of preventing cookies being downloaded onto your computer or other device, thereby, effectively blinding advertisers to your browsing habits.

I’m sure the techbods on here ( @saintbletch and @pap , I’m looking at you) can confirm or refute the veracity of this bit of software but it also got me thinking about the whole business model of the internet. If everyone downloaded ad blockers like Ghostery, the internet would become far less valuable as an advertising medium. We basically get everything on the net for free as it is all paid for by advertisers who, in turn, pay for their advertising through products and services they might sell to consumers attracted by their ads. Get rid of that and the whole business model of the internet becomes untenable.

That bit did make me laugh. What has been done by CA isn’t technically subverting the democratic process, it’s basically targetted advertising and goes on day in day out on the internet.

Subverting the democratic process would be vote rigging, assasination of a candidate etc. etc.

How many people actually click on the ads on web sites? I know I don’t, ever.

I guess plenty of people must do or it wouldn’t be worth their while to advertise this way. And aren’t facebook, google etc ‘paid per click’?

The only one i know is my Mrs and she has been told not to do it but still does :lou_facepalm_2:

When I had a fully functioning website I carried “Google Ads” as a way of paying for the website hosting. It was easy you just pasted the supplied html code into you pages and waited for the free money to be paid into your account. Even for my niche website with a low footfall it would pay about £75 every 3 months.

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Great idea. Pap should look into this.

That’d just about pay for a Sotonians curry evening…

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Yep you can arrange it that only those unregistered get to see the ads. If you’re signed in you don’t see them.

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Paranoid conspiracy train is in full steam.

Me? I’m still shocked that so many people DIDN’T know this went on.

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https://www.esquire.com/uk/latest-news/a19490586/mark-zuckerberg-called-people-who-handed-over-their-data-dumb-f/

Nothing has changed from Harvard.

I have no problem advertising to lurkers :smiley:

Marvellous

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