What Netflix’s ‘Great Hack’ Gets Wrong About Cambridge Analytica(thenation.com)
thenation.com
What Netflix’s ‘Great Hack’ Gets Wrong About Cambridge Analytica
https://www.thenation.com/article/cambridge-analytica-facebook-hack/
149 comments
> Sales would say anything to convince buyers (campaigns) and had no idea how the technology works. You can take any sentences uttered by them and quote it to the data scientists, their reaction would be… bow, shake their head, “Yeah, not, that’s… not it.”
This is frankly par for the course in data science. I work as a data scientist/statistician for a relatively newly established (~5 years) analytics team at a large company, and the first order of business was weaning our teams off of the snake oil that grifter consulting companies were making millions selling them. The things I've seen referred to as "machine learning" and "AI" are absolutely bonkers. The reality is that most of the analytics services being sold B2B is total garbage, and yet it thrives because most customers aren't aware of why its bad.
To be fair to these consulting companies, my impression is at least some of the time they aren't knowingly selling BS, and that often times they just have very poor analysts/data scientists who have a very surface level knowledge of what they are doing, but not enough depth to realize why they can't do/aren't doing what they think they are. And the actual sales people know literally nothing but buzzwords.
These days we've been able to largely get the company away from vendors where possible and to rely on internal analytics teams, but it is still an issue when our team will come back to business partners with an answer someone doesn't want to hear, and they have external vendors essentially promising they can solve literally any problem with AI, and magically always produce the safe answer the customer wants to hear (but they never are willing to share code, the low level details of their process, or really anything that can make their analyses reproducible).
This is frankly par for the course in data science. I work as a data scientist/statistician for a relatively newly established (~5 years) analytics team at a large company, and the first order of business was weaning our teams off of the snake oil that grifter consulting companies were making millions selling them. The things I've seen referred to as "machine learning" and "AI" are absolutely bonkers. The reality is that most of the analytics services being sold B2B is total garbage, and yet it thrives because most customers aren't aware of why its bad.
To be fair to these consulting companies, my impression is at least some of the time they aren't knowingly selling BS, and that often times they just have very poor analysts/data scientists who have a very surface level knowledge of what they are doing, but not enough depth to realize why they can't do/aren't doing what they think they are. And the actual sales people know literally nothing but buzzwords.
These days we've been able to largely get the company away from vendors where possible and to rely on internal analytics teams, but it is still an issue when our team will come back to business partners with an answer someone doesn't want to hear, and they have external vendors essentially promising they can solve literally any problem with AI, and magically always produce the safe answer the customer wants to hear (but they never are willing to share code, the low level details of their process, or really anything that can make their analyses reproducible).
Relevant quote from TFA: Dave Karpf, who has written two books on the use of data in modern campaigns, calls Cambridge Analytica “the Theranos of political data.” Eight GOP political consultants told Ad Age’s Kate Kaye that the company was “all hat and no cattle.”
Maybe it's because I'm from Texas but "all hat and no cattle" is about as damning an insult as they come. It's the equivalent of "full of shit".
Maybe it's because I'm from Texas but "all hat and no cattle" is about as damning an insult as they come. It's the equivalent of "full of shit".
Or as they would say in Cambridge, "all mouth and no trousers"
Or as they say in Yorkshire: all fur coat and no knickers
Apparently they would be more likely to say "all mouth and trousers", which is believed to be a corruption of the more logical but less commonly heard "all mouth and no trousers" [1].
[1] https://www.phrases.org.uk/bulletin_board/19/messages/511.ht...
[1] https://www.phrases.org.uk/bulletin_board/19/messages/511.ht...
Never heard that saying once in Cambridge, lived here 20 yrs
Lol, well you must never have run into me either between 1990-93 or again 1999-2002
Michael Lewis' Podcast `Against the rules` did a good job in bringing a different perspective of the entire thing Kogan did with data was not significant yet he was made a scapegoat by journalists https://atrpodcast.com/episodes/the-alex-kogan-experience-s1...
Ignoring the unrelated 30-min digression about grammar (sic), I’m not tempted to excuse him: he shared personal-level data, including names, with a company that was openly Orwellian. They didn’t hide what they were doing. People started paying attention when they went from sowing division and crafting racist campaign in South-East Asia and Africa to Western countries, but they did not hide their methods before or after. I guess the podcast is making a good case that he’s awkward and naive but that shouldn’t prevent him from seeing the consequence of his sharing his research data.
The biased story seems to ignore that Facebook did ask CA to delete the data as soon as they knew about the sale. I can’t imagine that Kogan didn’t hear about that. On that, I wouldn’t be able to say anything more relevant than the last sentence of the podcast on “creating your own reality”.
Kogan’s avoiding public opinion and his self-excuses are blocking the entire research on social networks. Now, Facebook PR expects that any similar academic collaboration will end badly — and I’m not surprised that those are stalled.
The biased story seems to ignore that Facebook did ask CA to delete the data as soon as they knew about the sale. I can’t imagine that Kogan didn’t hear about that. On that, I wouldn’t be able to say anything more relevant than the last sentence of the podcast on “creating your own reality”.
Kogan’s avoiding public opinion and his self-excuses are blocking the entire research on social networks. Now, Facebook PR expects that any similar academic collaboration will end badly — and I’m not surprised that those are stalled.
That is indeed a very interesting perspective
> There was a moat between the operations/sales team... and the technical team.
It's one thing to claim two teams _don't_ work together regularly; it's another to say there's a moat between them, indicating it was difficult or impossible for the teams to interact due to an external factor designed into the organization's structure. What does this moat mean practically, and why is this claimed division pertinent to the points the documentary makes?
It's one thing to claim two teams _don't_ work together regularly; it's another to say there's a moat between them, indicating it was difficult or impossible for the teams to interact due to an external factor designed into the organization's structure. What does this moat mean practically, and why is this claimed division pertinent to the points the documentary makes?
Intellectual moat: the sales team refused to acknowledge that over-selling was going to hurt them in the long run; the technical team regularly asked them to re-phrase copy on sales material that was not technically true, the sales would say yes and not do it, or change the written statement but make the false claim, verbatim, in front of cameras. Numbers in their presentations didn’t add up, they confused information and inferences, interpolation, models and individual data, etc.
there’s an open-source model for parsing Google Street View, classifying the car parked and making precinct-level predictions
Mind blown. The lengths campaigns will go to for the win. Can you share any more stories like that?
Mind blown. The lengths campaigns will go to for the win. Can you share any more stories like that?
> The lengths campaigns will go to for the win.
In general, if there's enough money to use for a specific goal, humans will go to great lengths to win. Look at finance companies building microwave towers to lower trade latency, hiring the top minds for salaries in the millions, building in-house supercomputers, etc...
Obama famously used technology in his campaign, why people are surprised that the other side is using it is beyond me.
Also, while individuals can make unique decisions, in general humans are very predictable, which is why fields like economics and sociology are even able to exist.
In general, if there's enough money to use for a specific goal, humans will go to great lengths to win. Look at finance companies building microwave towers to lower trade latency, hiring the top minds for salaries in the millions, building in-house supercomputers, etc...
Obama famously used technology in his campaign, why people are surprised that the other side is using it is beyond me.
Also, while individuals can make unique decisions, in general humans are very predictable, which is why fields like economics and sociology are even able to exist.
> Obama famously used technology in his campaign, why people are surprised that the other side is using it is beyond me.
I suspect a lot of the difference in judgement is less about the tools and more about the messaging that it allowed: What CA did, quite effectively under the brand SCL Election, was dog-whistling and demotivation campaign, like “Do So” in Trinidad presented in the Big Hack.
If you can tell which one of your voters are racist, you can be a lot more blunt about what you mean by “revisit immigration policies”. People suspect that targetting allowed Trump to talk as if no one else was in the room — although, it’s not like he was very respectful in public.
One the other hand, people are likely to assume that Obama’s analytics, even if they were more detailed, where about pointing potential voters are the relevant part of his program: you are a teacher? Let’s put the promises about increasing the budget for education in bold. Veteran? Talk about red-tape at the VA. Everybody can see those, but people might not care as much. This is still targeting, probably more effective than cloak-and-dagger messaging, but it doesn’t come off as problematic.
Of course, a lot of the tools are similar: scraping Facebook Graph should be frowned upon in both cases, it wasn’t in 2008, 2012; it was in 2016, although it’s hard to see if that’s more awareness, and from whom, or partisanship.
I do think that the distinction is key, and why Facebook’s main visible effort was to make all political ads publicly visible: it avoided to let the argument about secret offensive ads fester. That might have some unintended consequences, though.
I suspect a lot of the difference in judgement is less about the tools and more about the messaging that it allowed: What CA did, quite effectively under the brand SCL Election, was dog-whistling and demotivation campaign, like “Do So” in Trinidad presented in the Big Hack.
If you can tell which one of your voters are racist, you can be a lot more blunt about what you mean by “revisit immigration policies”. People suspect that targetting allowed Trump to talk as if no one else was in the room — although, it’s not like he was very respectful in public.
One the other hand, people are likely to assume that Obama’s analytics, even if they were more detailed, where about pointing potential voters are the relevant part of his program: you are a teacher? Let’s put the promises about increasing the budget for education in bold. Veteran? Talk about red-tape at the VA. Everybody can see those, but people might not care as much. This is still targeting, probably more effective than cloak-and-dagger messaging, but it doesn’t come off as problematic.
Of course, a lot of the tools are similar: scraping Facebook Graph should be frowned upon in both cases, it wasn’t in 2008, 2012; it was in 2016, although it’s hard to see if that’s more awareness, and from whom, or partisanship.
I do think that the distinction is key, and why Facebook’s main visible effort was to make all political ads publicly visible: it avoided to let the argument about secret offensive ads fester. That might have some unintended consequences, though.
I read your supposed differences and see none. Both Democrats and Republicans harvest information voters thought was private to microtarget their message to people. The only difference seems to be you dislike the message that was then presented. But that isn't a problem with the methodology, thats a problem with the message. If your point is that Trump ran on a campaign of racism and division, fine, I'm with you on that. But the idea that the Trump campaign utilization of Cambridge Analytica was scandalous and the Obama campaign's analytic efforts that do the exact same thing is somehow above water is ridiculous.
Either harvesting people's data and using it to message to them is a problem or it isn't. The message being sent is a distinct issue.
Either harvesting people's data and using it to message to them is a problem or it isn't. The message being sent is a distinct issue.
You are correct the message being sent is the issue.
- Do you tell population a and population b contradictory things?
- Do you spread what you know is misinformation?
- Do you attempt to manipulate someone into working against their own interests. For example tricking a population whose interests and preference can best be expressed as A over B over C into voting for A so that C can win.
- Is your messaging a net harm to society? Deliberately playing up racial tensions to both sides determent for votes seems to fit the bill.
- Are you actual intents hidden because your interests are actually at odds with your target and they would act materially different if they understood your actual motivation?
The democratic usage of data appears to be primarily based on figuring out who could effectively message and the republican usage seems to be figuring out who they could manipulate and harm.
It's not that hard to see the difference.
- Do you tell population a and population b contradictory things?
- Do you spread what you know is misinformation?
- Do you attempt to manipulate someone into working against their own interests. For example tricking a population whose interests and preference can best be expressed as A over B over C into voting for A so that C can win.
- Is your messaging a net harm to society? Deliberately playing up racial tensions to both sides determent for votes seems to fit the bill.
- Are you actual intents hidden because your interests are actually at odds with your target and they would act materially different if they understood your actual motivation?
The democratic usage of data appears to be primarily based on figuring out who could effectively message and the republican usage seems to be figuring out who they could manipulate and harm.
It's not that hard to see the difference.
> If your point is that Trump ran on a campaign of racism and division, fine, I'm with you on that.
What I find rather funny, were you to ask a Trump voter you'd likely hear them say the Democrats are the ones running divisive, racist campaigns, and that they've previously pioneered digital advertising in the political space only shows their pot-kettle policies in regards to the successful Trump campaign.
What I find rather funny, were you to ask a Trump voter you'd likely hear them say the Democrats are the ones running divisive, racist campaigns, and that they've previously pioneered digital advertising in the political space only shows their pot-kettle policies in regards to the successful Trump campaign.
Your counterpoint is finely drawn. The problem is that many people say "Obama did it too!" when they're in favor of the content of Trump's messaging. The act of using finely targeted data to drive racism, hate, and falsehood is the issue - you are opposed to that, but others aren't.
For the car to politics:
https://news.stanford.edu/2017/11/28/neighborhoods-cars-indi...
For unexpected findings… without giving details, it’s fairly easy to stumble on religion and practice from super-market data. Interestingly, having religious data is banned in continental Europe. Cue to an embarrassing moment when consultants back out of a big project with retailers.
I’ve seen more fun stuff with betting and pay-day — some betting website have a score per football team, how much of their fans are salaried monthly, weekly, receive State-stipend, etc.
Overall, findings like those (say, parking occupancy and revenue) are generally done at Edge-funds so they are not known until long after the fact.
For unexpected findings… without giving details, it’s fairly easy to stumble on religion and practice from super-market data. Interestingly, having religious data is banned in continental Europe. Cue to an embarrassing moment when consultants back out of a big project with retailers.
I’ve seen more fun stuff with betting and pay-day — some betting website have a score per football team, how much of their fans are salaried monthly, weekly, receive State-stipend, etc.
Overall, findings like those (say, parking occupancy and revenue) are generally done at Edge-funds so they are not known until long after the fact.
> there’s an open-source model for parsing Google Street View, classifying the car parked and making precinct-level predictions.
I tried searching for this but wasn't able to come up with anything. Does anybody know what this is referring to?
Edit: Found this in another comment https://news.stanford.edu/2017/11/28/neighborhoods-cars-indi...
I tried searching for this but wasn't able to come up with anything. Does anybody know what this is referring to?
Edit: Found this in another comment https://news.stanford.edu/2017/11/28/neighborhoods-cars-indi...
As an outsider to me the worst was targeting people that were paranoid (also not in some technical psychological sense, again as an outsider) while violating agreements and exploiting that for elections.
That would be the worst if it happened.
I don’t think that Cambridge Analytica had the ability to do that.
I don’t think that Cambridge Analytica had the ability to do that.
I appreciate your POV, thanks. I do think psychographic profiling was pretty roundly proven by reporting and testimony at this point though. You might be interested in this piece from today though, it takes a bigger view outside CA as well:
"It was somewhat surprising that Facebook succeeded in hogging the limelight in a field so rich with villains. The bigger picture…was the way in which the Cambridge Analytica story opened a window onto a new constellation of international billionaires, corrupt politicians, and war profiteers who were apparently amassing enormous power. That story isn’t only about technology, data, and psychographic profiling; it’s also, at root, a story about the consequences of entrenched economic inequality, the privatization of essential public assets and government functions, including even national security, and the challenge to conventional foreign policy posed by the bargains being struck between international kleptocrats…"
https://www.nybooks.com/daily/2019/08/27/the-oligarch-threat...
"It was somewhat surprising that Facebook succeeded in hogging the limelight in a field so rich with villains. The bigger picture…was the way in which the Cambridge Analytica story opened a window onto a new constellation of international billionaires, corrupt politicians, and war profiteers who were apparently amassing enormous power. That story isn’t only about technology, data, and psychographic profiling; it’s also, at root, a story about the consequences of entrenched economic inequality, the privatization of essential public assets and government functions, including even national security, and the challenge to conventional foreign policy posed by the bargains being struck between international kleptocrats…"
https://www.nybooks.com/daily/2019/08/27/the-oligarch-threat...
I took up issue with "Great Hack" as well. At some of my previous companies, we evaluated purchasing data from a lot of these vendors for a data hydration purposes, Cambridge Analytica included. They didn't offer to sell but we did have conversations around leveraging their platform to create insights.
What was funny to me in the whole process was that CA was the LEAST of what worried me. We were talking to Acxiom as well in which I could buy 500-1500 data points on 300M Americans for $250k-$500k. This included info like types of bank accounts, types of CC rewards, mortgages left, restaurant chain preferences, etc. They also had their own methods for creating data (the ML sauce) which created psychographic profiles.
The other thing the general public doesn't realize about profile data is that it suffers from sporadic and episodic contributions, making accurate high-resolution profiles difficult to obtain. There's lots of deduplication, profile merging, etc. that needs to be there.
Sure, CA had some shady shit going on. But from my perspective, they were tame relative to some of the other big players.
What was funny to me in the whole process was that CA was the LEAST of what worried me. We were talking to Acxiom as well in which I could buy 500-1500 data points on 300M Americans for $250k-$500k. This included info like types of bank accounts, types of CC rewards, mortgages left, restaurant chain preferences, etc. They also had their own methods for creating data (the ML sauce) which created psychographic profiles.
The other thing the general public doesn't realize about profile data is that it suffers from sporadic and episodic contributions, making accurate high-resolution profiles difficult to obtain. There's lots of deduplication, profile merging, etc. that needs to be there.
Sure, CA had some shady shit going on. But from my perspective, they were tame relative to some of the other big players.
Finally, someone else talking about Acxiom!
You want a bad guy, with no regard for privacy, making crazy inferences (and getting a lot wrong)? That’s your guy.
You want a bad guy, with no regard for privacy, making crazy inferences (and getting a lot wrong)? That’s your guy.
Yep! I was shocked when I got the data packet. I had no idea that I could get that much data on individuals.
Some other notes about the data: you can get additional hydrations 2-4x/yr @ $50k per pull. The data can be passed via API but they expressed to me that MOST data is doing via SFTP in Excel spreadsheets. They purchase data from any and all vendors possible.
Another insane data provide is Datalogix by Oracle. They were some of the first to have a deep relationship with Facebook. They do identity merges across all the Oracle touch points. This includes POS data, auto data (including sensitive data), and their overall marketing cloud.
It's insane to me that these other guys are not front and center in this debate.
Some other notes about the data: you can get additional hydrations 2-4x/yr @ $50k per pull. The data can be passed via API but they expressed to me that MOST data is doing via SFTP in Excel spreadsheets. They purchase data from any and all vendors possible.
Another insane data provide is Datalogix by Oracle. They were some of the first to have a deep relationship with Facebook. They do identity merges across all the Oracle touch points. This includes POS data, auto data (including sensitive data), and their overall marketing cloud.
It's insane to me that these other guys are not front and center in this debate.
I'm still undecided if the most shocking part of all that is how bad their data is, dedup-wise; how ancient is their tech; how unethical it all is; or how much every journalist or researcher working on AI and Ethics could not care less about this.
What sucks is that I get the reason why the researchers don't care or gloss over it. It's why I initially got into the space: there's something magical about working on massive data sets and unlocking possibilities with it.
I worked on the largest social data set available from the major providers (~20PB or so) and it was super cool (from a PM perspective) to unlock the possibilities around analyzing the data set.
The idea that I can unlock insights and change behaviors is an alluring concept until it is used improperly or inappropriately. That was ultimately why I left the data/marketing world.
I worked on the largest social data set available from the major providers (~20PB or so) and it was super cool (from a PM perspective) to unlock the possibilities around analyzing the data set.
The idea that I can unlock insights and change behaviors is an alluring concept until it is used improperly or inappropriately. That was ultimately why I left the data/marketing world.
When is using data on people to manipulate their behaviors _not_ inappropriate? That's straight up evil.
When they opt in. Going to the gym more, stopping smoking (or other bad habits), driving safer, cutting down on media consumption.
Unfortunately positive change is harder to elicit than negative change.
Unfortunately positive change is harder to elicit than negative change.
There’s are companies trying to help you lose bad habits that let you program alerts, set budgets, etc.
- Freedom, RescueTime do that for your web-use;
- my bank (Monzo) and a stealth company by alumni thereof do it for your spending.
There have also been a lot of efforts at Facebook to show you content that would lead you to have more positive interactions, like posting similar things yourself rather than be a passive spectator.
I’m involved in several of those projects.
- Freedom, RescueTime do that for your web-use;
- my bank (Monzo) and a stealth company by alumni thereof do it for your spending.
There have also been a lot of efforts at Facebook to show you content that would lead you to have more positive interactions, like posting similar things yourself rather than be a passive spectator.
I’m involved in several of those projects.
> There have also been a lot of efforts at Facebook to show you content that would lead you to have more positive interactions, like posting similar things yourself rather than be a passive spectator.
The other examples are decent (if you explicitly opt-in, not just mindlessly click a checkbox), but that Facebook one...seriously? It is extremely disappointing to see someone use that as an example of "good manipulation" on a site like this non-sarcastically. How could it be good for a corporation to hire psychologists to manipulate customers into spending more time on their product? Especially a product that is known to negatively affect mental health. It's hardly any different from Joe Camel trying to push kids to smoke.
The other examples are decent (if you explicitly opt-in, not just mindlessly click a checkbox), but that Facebook one...seriously? It is extremely disappointing to see someone use that as an example of "good manipulation" on a site like this non-sarcastically. How could it be good for a corporation to hire psychologists to manipulate customers into spending more time on their product? Especially a product that is known to negatively affect mental health. It's hardly any different from Joe Camel trying to push kids to smoke.
> How could it be good for a corporation to hire psychologists to manipulate customers into spending more time on their product?
The effort was precisely to offer a different objective than time spent on the site, that is a reasonable first approximation for usability and relevance, but not a good self-referential objective. There is evidence that mirroring content has a positive psychological impact.
The effort was precisely to offer a different objective than time spent on the site, that is a reasonable first approximation for usability and relevance, but not a good self-referential objective. There is evidence that mirroring content has a positive psychological impact.
If I used data to find people who were starting to lean into anti-vax conspiracies and provided them with accurate information about vaccines to change the behaviour of some parents - is that straight up evil?
How about identifying people who are likely to fall for a scam (e.g. whose friends have just invested in a Ponzi scheme) and give them info on how to avoid a scam?
Straight up evil is massively overplaying it.
How about identifying people who are likely to fall for a scam (e.g. whose friends have just invested in a Ponzi scheme) and give them info on how to avoid a scam?
Straight up evil is massively overplaying it.
Yes. Someone failed you.
What's evil about providing life saving, accurate information to people at a time they most need it?
Slightly different but I'm worried about Pilgrim by FourSquare which is now being used in increasingly large apps such as SnapChat
Thanks. As someone who isn't familiar with the ads industry, who are / were other bigger players apart from Acxiom?
The ones I'm most familiar with are: Acxiom, Datalogix, DataSift, Equifax, Full Contact, and Experian. There's always Twitter as well but they are mostly abstracted data and you can't just waltz in and get their firehose.
Most of these are pay to play. IIRC, when Facebook was creating their ads platform in like 06' or 07', they did a deep partnership with DataLogix where DL was effectively powering their targeting/user classification. That's largely why you still see dumb ad classifications (eg. Farmers vs. Non-Farmers) in the FB ads platform. DataLogix started out as a CPG play since they powered the "put your phone number in for groceries" platform that everyone used in the mid 2000's. They then started doing tons of data aggregations and purchased a whole bunch. DL become way more powerful when they were bought by Oracle in 14' since they could do identity resolution across their cloud. Eg. when you go buy a car, you are likely using the Oracle Auto suite which includes credit checks.
Most of these are pay to play. IIRC, when Facebook was creating their ads platform in like 06' or 07', they did a deep partnership with DataLogix where DL was effectively powering their targeting/user classification. That's largely why you still see dumb ad classifications (eg. Farmers vs. Non-Farmers) in the FB ads platform. DataLogix started out as a CPG play since they powered the "put your phone number in for groceries" platform that everyone used in the mid 2000's. They then started doing tons of data aggregations and purchased a whole bunch. DL become way more powerful when they were bought by Oracle in 14' since they could do identity resolution across their cloud. Eg. when you go buy a car, you are likely using the Oracle Auto suite which includes credit checks.
Exactly. For example, there are also persistent rumours that somebody is selling about 1% of total credit card transactions to hedge funds, for stock trading purposes - which seems like a major issue on all sorts of levels.
1%? Deidentified transaction data from banks is routinely sold https://www.abc.net.au/news/2019-03-05/sportsbet-documents-r...
If it's in aggregate and applied well, it can be immensely valuable. Some Capital One fraud researchers used similar data to get 1800% ROI a few years back:
https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2015-01-23/capita...
https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2015-01-23/capita...
Everyone with a credit card agreed to it. It's in the fine print. Don't want to be tracked shopping? Use cash and keep your cell phone turned off. And no modern cars with wireless comms either.
This brings up a broader subject (not specific to this particular documentary): it's getting where I just don't like watching documentaries anymore because a lot of them are wrong.
The experience I want is to enjoy spending some time watching an interesting documentary and walk away with my mind enriched with some new facts and analysis. Instead, a lot of the time, it's interesting, but I walk away believing something that isn't true because whoever made the documentary was too lazy to fact-check, was unconsciously biased, or was even intentionally leaving out part of the story because they have an agenda.
Not all documentaries are this way, of course. Some are accurate and objective. The problem is I can't easily tell before watching. As a workaround, I can do a bunch of my own research after watching, but that's a bit of a pain, and maybe I'm better off just skipping the documentary and going straight to the research.
Unfortunately, for a documentary to succeed commercially as entertainment, it's not necessary for the audience to actually learn. They just have to feel like they learned something.
The experience I want is to enjoy spending some time watching an interesting documentary and walk away with my mind enriched with some new facts and analysis. Instead, a lot of the time, it's interesting, but I walk away believing something that isn't true because whoever made the documentary was too lazy to fact-check, was unconsciously biased, or was even intentionally leaving out part of the story because they have an agenda.
Not all documentaries are this way, of course. Some are accurate and objective. The problem is I can't easily tell before watching. As a workaround, I can do a bunch of my own research after watching, but that's a bit of a pain, and maybe I'm better off just skipping the documentary and going straight to the research.
Unfortunately, for a documentary to succeed commercially as entertainment, it's not necessary for the audience to actually learn. They just have to feel like they learned something.
What do you think of Enron: The Smartest Guys in the Room[0]? It's one of my favorite documentaries. I've watched it about a dozen times probably. Dirty Money[1] shares a creator (Alex Gibney) [2] with Smartest Guys, and I also really like that.
Over the weekend I watched American Factory[3]. It may be my new favorite. I don't know if I will watch it as much as Smartest Guys, just because of the storytelling in that.
I like these because they clearly represent different viewpoints. Most documentaries feel like propaganda, and these don't feel that way to me.
0: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Enron:_The_Smartest_Guys_in_th...
1: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dirty_Money_(2018_TV_series)
2: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alex_Gibney
3: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_Factory
Over the weekend I watched American Factory[3]. It may be my new favorite. I don't know if I will watch it as much as Smartest Guys, just because of the storytelling in that.
I like these because they clearly represent different viewpoints. Most documentaries feel like propaganda, and these don't feel that way to me.
0: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Enron:_The_Smartest_Guys_in_th...
1: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dirty_Money_(2018_TV_series)
2: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alex_Gibney
3: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_Factory
Did you know the girl from 'Great Hack's mother was an Enron employee that left before the fall?
I watched American Factory last week and was pleasantly surprised with how unopinionated it was.
It didn't have a narrator, which pleasantly surprised me, but was it unopinionated?
IMO I don't know.
Almost all docos are at face value garbage, David Attenborough for instance never turns the camera around to the human rubbish or half a town behind them and never shows the true brutality of animals. When you get to docos on humans things really fall apart.
American Factory pushes the divide between Chinese and Americans, but humour and brashness gets lost translation, not sure it existed as much as it implied.
What was interesting was American Unions which was eye opening how illegal behaviour in most of the West was so normalised.
But to be honest the biggest morsel was the 3 broken microwaves in the break room. WTF. One, understandable, but to get to three means a systematic break down in the supply chain looking after your workers.
IMO I don't know.
Almost all docos are at face value garbage, David Attenborough for instance never turns the camera around to the human rubbish or half a town behind them and never shows the true brutality of animals. When you get to docos on humans things really fall apart.
American Factory pushes the divide between Chinese and Americans, but humour and brashness gets lost translation, not sure it existed as much as it implied.
What was interesting was American Unions which was eye opening how illegal behaviour in most of the West was so normalised.
But to be honest the biggest morsel was the 3 broken microwaves in the break room. WTF. One, understandable, but to get to three means a systematic break down in the supply chain looking after your workers.
There is certainly opinion whenever you choose to point a camera at something instead of something else, but I think in this instance the choice of no narration left the viewer with a bit more space to make their own interpretation than many documentaries do, which was refreshing.
I vouched for your comment. It doesn't seem to be excessively strident or controversial.
3 broken microwaves to me indicates either a strict cost control approach, or potentially sabotage. Worker sabotage is sometimes mentioned, but rarely pursued.
3 broken microwaves to me indicates either a strict cost control approach, or potentially sabotage. Worker sabotage is sometimes mentioned, but rarely pursued.
I've noticed this a lot too lately, and the more I thought about it, the more I find Netflix to be the main culprit here. They fund these "documentaries" which are beautifully done and paint a wonderful narrative, but are ultimately empty of any meaningful analysis or content. Don't think they are doing this on purpose though, it's more likely just a side-effect of their content dump. PBS, BBC, and NatGeo documentaries are still interesting and relevant, imo.
This one started with the producers lawsuit against FB in the UK for his profile. Netflix probably picked it up later in the process.
I've entirely cut out documentaries out of my intellectual diet, because they've got too much access to manipulative techniques to engage emotions independent of the actual value of the content.
Non-documentaries can do it to, like books or magazine articles, but nowhere near as strongly. Non-documentary video content can do it too, but usually without such a strong veneer of factuality. (Counterexample: An evening news program, which are probably even worse than documentaries, but are at least more limited in scope.)
I might make an exception in the future for something with no effective political or scientific content, but that's about it. Most documentaries are just more dangerous than can be justified.
Non-documentaries can do it to, like books or magazine articles, but nowhere near as strongly. Non-documentary video content can do it too, but usually without such a strong veneer of factuality. (Counterexample: An evening news program, which are probably even worse than documentaries, but are at least more limited in scope.)
I might make an exception in the future for something with no effective political or scientific content, but that's about it. Most documentaries are just more dangerous than can be justified.
Good point, which I wholeheartedly agree of. I personally take documentaries as leads to certain things which I may or may not want to explore more deeply later.
Unfortunately director has to keep the audience entertained, which is much more important for production than actual factuality.
Unfortunately director has to keep the audience entertained, which is much more important for production than actual factuality.
As a joke I want to make a documentary on Mister Rogers quoting everything he says out of context and using all the documentary cliches to make everything look Orwellian.
"But who is this man, and what is this much-vaunted 'magic kingdom' he peddles to children?"
"But who is this man, and what is this much-vaunted 'magic kingdom' he peddles to children?"
As funny as this is, the idea of Mr. Rogers being #metoo'd is sad.
Pretty sure the abuse is what happens to the victims, not the perpetrators.
(Not any sort of implication about whoever Mr Rogers is [I'm not an American], but man the phrasing of this sentence stuck at me.)
(Not any sort of implication about whoever Mr Rogers is [I'm not an American], but man the phrasing of this sentence stuck at me.)
Fred McFeely Rogers (March 20, 1928 – February 27, 2003) was an American television personality, musician, puppeteer, writer, producer, and Presbyterian minister.
His work in children's television has been widely lauded, and he received over 40 honorary degrees and several awards, including the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 2002 and a Lifetime Achievement Emmy in 1997. He was inducted into the Television Hall of Fame in 1999. Rogers influenced many writers and producers of children's television shows, and served as a source of comfort during tragic events, even decades after his death.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fred_Rogers
For a long time, I didn't know he was a minister. I think most people probably didn't know. He's an example of a sincere Christian who "prayed in his closet" and walked the walk. He poured his values into his life's work.
I've never heard of any scandal attached to his name.
His work in children's television has been widely lauded, and he received over 40 honorary degrees and several awards, including the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 2002 and a Lifetime Achievement Emmy in 1997. He was inducted into the Television Hall of Fame in 1999. Rogers influenced many writers and producers of children's television shows, and served as a source of comfort during tragic events, even decades after his death.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fred_Rogers
For a long time, I didn't know he was a minister. I think most people probably didn't know. He's an example of a sincere Christian who "prayed in his closet" and walked the walk. He poured his values into his life's work.
I've never heard of any scandal attached to his name.
This reminded me of 'Out of Context Joffrey Baratheon'[0].
[0] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OUePZZDLPrE
[0] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OUePZZDLPrE
Fundamentally a documentary is trying to sell a narrative using documentary cinematic style.
Now sometimes this is mostly benign or even "good." Such as detailing an event in a in-depth matter-of-fact style. Works such as the early Planet Earth series are simply trying to capture and show the wonder of life around the planet! And maybe hopefully encourage you to try and protect them as a secondary upshot. As time has gone on, they've produced works are that much more blatant with their "save the environment" messaging.
However, most of the most popular ones have a significant editorial bias. Heck, one of the first landmark pieces, Nanook of the North, was almost completely fabricated! Often quite easy to spot as well. Some are very up front about their bias, such as Michael Moore's work. Some less so, such as the editorial narrative in features like Forks over Knives or Blackfish. And some it's quite subtle. The recent Making of a Murderer comes to mind where certain facts weren't presented and it's framed in a very sympathetic light towards the defendants. Sure they have a lot of true facts within them. And often you learn quite a bit! But they are often presented in a particular fashion or certain points are talked up while others are ignored or not presented.
It's an unfortunate thing, but even the most innocuous of documentaries have some small bias. And it's up to the user to try and understand how much is narrative editorializing and how much is "truth." It's all part of making the documentary feel more true and tap into our need for a strong narrative arc via romanticizing the story we see unfold.
Now sometimes this is mostly benign or even "good." Such as detailing an event in a in-depth matter-of-fact style. Works such as the early Planet Earth series are simply trying to capture and show the wonder of life around the planet! And maybe hopefully encourage you to try and protect them as a secondary upshot. As time has gone on, they've produced works are that much more blatant with their "save the environment" messaging.
However, most of the most popular ones have a significant editorial bias. Heck, one of the first landmark pieces, Nanook of the North, was almost completely fabricated! Often quite easy to spot as well. Some are very up front about their bias, such as Michael Moore's work. Some less so, such as the editorial narrative in features like Forks over Knives or Blackfish. And some it's quite subtle. The recent Making of a Murderer comes to mind where certain facts weren't presented and it's framed in a very sympathetic light towards the defendants. Sure they have a lot of true facts within them. And often you learn quite a bit! But they are often presented in a particular fashion or certain points are talked up while others are ignored or not presented.
It's an unfortunate thing, but even the most innocuous of documentaries have some small bias. And it's up to the user to try and understand how much is narrative editorializing and how much is "truth." It's all part of making the documentary feel more true and tap into our need for a strong narrative arc via romanticizing the story we see unfold.
for a documentary to succeed commercially as entertainment, it's not necessary for the audience to actually learn. They just have to feel like they learned something.
It would seem then that documentaries might be an effective form of propaganda for those with the resources to produce them and a public perception to change.
It would seem then that documentaries might be an effective form of propaganda for those with the resources to produce them and a public perception to change.
There is no "wrong". Theses are big,complicated subjects with a lot of nuance, and any attempt at telling the story will include bias and subjectivity. This is true of everything you read or watch.
Maybe the documentaries on educationally focused services like Magellan TV or Curiosity Stream are of a higher standard than what you get on Netflix. I see advertisements for them but have not checked into them yet.
I find it's very hard to watch anything Netflix-related without a grain of salt.
> When it comes to voters’ decisions about their choice of candidate, most forms of paid political persuasion, including TV ads, online ads, mailers, phone calls, and door knocking, have no discernible effect in terms of changing people’s minds.
So the billions spent on campaign advertising essentially has no effect? I don't buy that for a second, otherwise it wouldn't be a billion dollar industry.
We know that advertising has a psychological effect on people, and advertisers know how to exploit this in susceptible individuals to sell their product.
We also know that the winning margin of the 2016 election was only 79,316 votes[1]. So Cambridge Analytica didn't need to influence millions of people to succeed, as long as they managed to sway some who were already on the fence to not vote for Clinton.
This article attempts to discredit the documentary by focusing on whether CA succeeded or not, when the real issue is private data collection, user profiling and tracking, and the usual evils of advertising, which they conveniently choose to ignore.
[1]: https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2016/12/hillary-clinton-marg...
So the billions spent on campaign advertising essentially has no effect? I don't buy that for a second, otherwise it wouldn't be a billion dollar industry.
We know that advertising has a psychological effect on people, and advertisers know how to exploit this in susceptible individuals to sell their product.
We also know that the winning margin of the 2016 election was only 79,316 votes[1]. So Cambridge Analytica didn't need to influence millions of people to succeed, as long as they managed to sway some who were already on the fence to not vote for Clinton.
This article attempts to discredit the documentary by focusing on whether CA succeeded or not, when the real issue is private data collection, user profiling and tracking, and the usual evils of advertising, which they conveniently choose to ignore.
[1]: https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2016/12/hillary-clinton-marg...
Politics is full of lucrative side-hustles that are demonstrably ineffective. Talk to any insurgent Congressional campaign about consultants to see how bad it is. I have no trouble believing that people are making tens of millions of dollars selling snake-oil "data" products.
Markets in general are also chock full of unproductive Red Queens Races; you don't have to constrain yourself to politics to see how organizations can spend billions of dollars only to leave themselves in exactly the place they started. Look for instance at public outreach marketing expenses, writ large. Lots of these things turn out to be self-justifying; people spend money on them because money is generally spent on them.
You can also just read the meta-analysis study this piece cites, "Minimal Persuasive Effect Of Campaign Contact In General Elections".
Markets in general are also chock full of unproductive Red Queens Races; you don't have to constrain yourself to politics to see how organizations can spend billions of dollars only to leave themselves in exactly the place they started. Look for instance at public outreach marketing expenses, writ large. Lots of these things turn out to be self-justifying; people spend money on them because money is generally spent on them.
You can also just read the meta-analysis study this piece cites, "Minimal Persuasive Effect Of Campaign Contact In General Elections".
> We also know that the winning margin of the 2016 election was only 79,316 votes[1].
The smaller the number, the less clearly one can point at a single cause though, right? I mean, to an extreme, say it had been a 1 vote difference. There's millions of factors that can make a vote happen or not (that one voter could've slept in because their alarm broke, that one voter could've gotten sick that day, etc). One vote is an extreme case, but for 80k I can think of a lot of factors that would normally be "small" but suddenly play a sizable amount of importance.
- That's 80k Democrats who didn't go to vote. - That's well within the territory of gerrymandering. - That's a tiny fraction of the African American population, where Hillary was notoriously weak. - That's well within the viewership of many Fox News shows and segments. - As the article stated, you could fit these people in a mid-sized football stadium. That's within the territory of having a weak last month of campaign touring, or aggressively getting more rallies done.
Just to mention a few. And yes, also means it COULD have been CA— perhaps they weren't as influential as they claimed but 80k is not a large number, they perhaps could've influenced that many people.
I'm just wondering if there's a lot of attention being put on this factor, vs other factors that at this scale could've feasibly swayed in the election.
The smaller the number, the less clearly one can point at a single cause though, right? I mean, to an extreme, say it had been a 1 vote difference. There's millions of factors that can make a vote happen or not (that one voter could've slept in because their alarm broke, that one voter could've gotten sick that day, etc). One vote is an extreme case, but for 80k I can think of a lot of factors that would normally be "small" but suddenly play a sizable amount of importance.
- That's 80k Democrats who didn't go to vote. - That's well within the territory of gerrymandering. - That's a tiny fraction of the African American population, where Hillary was notoriously weak. - That's well within the viewership of many Fox News shows and segments. - As the article stated, you could fit these people in a mid-sized football stadium. That's within the territory of having a weak last month of campaign touring, or aggressively getting more rallies done.
Just to mention a few. And yes, also means it COULD have been CA— perhaps they weren't as influential as they claimed but 80k is not a large number, they perhaps could've influenced that many people.
I'm just wondering if there's a lot of attention being put on this factor, vs other factors that at this scale could've feasibly swayed in the election.
“That's 80k Democrats who didn't go to vote. - That's well within the territory of gerrymandering”
FYI gerrymandering doesn’t directly affect presidential or senatorial races except for two minor exceptions, Maine and Nebraska, which allocate electoral votes based on CD winners.
Every other state including the decisive Midwest “blue wall” states has a winner take all allocation method which means Gerrymandering has no effect (unless you consider 19th century state borders to be gerrymandering!)
FYI gerrymandering doesn’t directly affect presidential or senatorial races except for two minor exceptions, Maine and Nebraska, which allocate electoral votes based on CD winners.
Every other state including the decisive Midwest “blue wall” states has a winner take all allocation method which means Gerrymandering has no effect (unless you consider 19th century state borders to be gerrymandering!)
Gerrymandering is far more useful as a form of voter disenfranchisement. Voting districts can be messed with in subtle ways like having far more voting booths per capita in whiter areas, they can make people not show up to vote for president since their vote is legitimately not worth anything for everything downballot, etc.
The best gerrymandering nowadays is to make people not bother to vote anymore.
The best gerrymandering nowadays is to make people not bother to vote anymore.
Many factors can influence an outcome. But it's reasonable to focus on the illegal (or just shady) ones.
For instance, if a team loses a sporting event by 1 point, and their Gatorade was poisoned, it would be understandable to call out the Gatorade poisoning. Of course, many other things could have swung the outcome as well (random variance, wind, poor effort, etc).
For instance, if a team loses a sporting event by 1 point, and their Gatorade was poisoned, it would be understandable to call out the Gatorade poisoning. Of course, many other things could have swung the outcome as well (random variance, wind, poor effort, etc).
> Many factors can influence an outcome. But it's reasonable to focus on the illegal (or just shady) ones.
I disagree, let me illustrate with examples. The electoral college is a very legal and established process, but it has costed the US two out of the three latest presidential elections (not counting reelections), where the popular vote hasn't matched the result. As a foreigner it's crazy to think the fate of the country is essentially dependent on some random states.
This also applies to other problems. Climate change— there's scandals like the Volkswagen emissions fiasco, but legal pollution far outweighs any other type of pollution. Drugs— cocaine and heroin are probably a big problem, but cigarettes and opioids cause more net deaths. Etc, etc.
Sketchy issues will make flashier headlines, anger people more, and in general be more straightforward to digest as a problem. It is often the institutionalized factors that have broader impact although unfortunately they will also escape the public eye, precisely because everyone is just "used" to them.
Back to this— if the electoral college didn't exist, the US wouldn't even be having this conversation! Trump did lose the popular vote! All of his tactics, misinformation, fear-mongering, etc. did not work in convincing most people in the US that he was a good option for president. He failed. Yet, it's crazy that that doesn't matter, and he could get the presidency even if he lost.
Isn't it crazy that that hasn't yet been brought up? That we are here, trying to figure out if this micro-targeting could be to blame for influencing 80k people in 3 random states because these crazy rules say these people's vote matters disproportionally more than the majority vote in the country, instead of talking about the fact these are even the rules in the first place?
I disagree, let me illustrate with examples. The electoral college is a very legal and established process, but it has costed the US two out of the three latest presidential elections (not counting reelections), where the popular vote hasn't matched the result. As a foreigner it's crazy to think the fate of the country is essentially dependent on some random states.
This also applies to other problems. Climate change— there's scandals like the Volkswagen emissions fiasco, but legal pollution far outweighs any other type of pollution. Drugs— cocaine and heroin are probably a big problem, but cigarettes and opioids cause more net deaths. Etc, etc.
Sketchy issues will make flashier headlines, anger people more, and in general be more straightforward to digest as a problem. It is often the institutionalized factors that have broader impact although unfortunately they will also escape the public eye, precisely because everyone is just "used" to them.
Back to this— if the electoral college didn't exist, the US wouldn't even be having this conversation! Trump did lose the popular vote! All of his tactics, misinformation, fear-mongering, etc. did not work in convincing most people in the US that he was a good option for president. He failed. Yet, it's crazy that that doesn't matter, and he could get the presidency even if he lost.
Isn't it crazy that that hasn't yet been brought up? That we are here, trying to figure out if this micro-targeting could be to blame for influencing 80k people in 3 random states because these crazy rules say these people's vote matters disproportionally more than the majority vote in the country, instead of talking about the fact these are even the rules in the first place?
> Isn't it crazy that that hasn't yet been brought up?
I can guarantee you, as an American, that the topic of the electoral college has in fact been brought up. Many, many, many times. Here is a massive thread on HN within the past week on the subject: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20760649
I can guarantee you, as an American, that the topic of the electoral college has in fact been brought up. Many, many, many times. Here is a massive thread on HN within the past week on the subject: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20760649
Good to hear (:
How many/which countries use direct democracy/popular vote at the national level?
vs
How many/which countries use a proxy votes/delegates at the national level that don't necessarily reflect the popular vote?
vs
How many/which countries use a proxy votes/delegates at the national level that don't necessarily reflect the popular vote?
> when the real issue is private data collection, user profiling and tracking, and the usual evils of advertising, which they conveniently choose to ignore.
To many, the “real issue” is losing the election. This is what the piece focuses on, and why it draws the conclusion that focusing on blaming CA for losing the election is not helpful for the purpose of trying to win future elections.
To many, the “real issue” is losing the election. This is what the piece focuses on, and why it draws the conclusion that focusing on blaming CA for losing the election is not helpful for the purpose of trying to win future elections.
Honestly, I believe it to an extent. I have done lots of work analyzing marketing campaigns in a data scientist role, and generally I've found that they are pretty ineffective, or at the very least, much less effective than is being purported by many data vendors, digital advertisers, and analytics firms. Big data, AI, and analytics are the buzzwords of the day, and my guess is that at least 60% of the dollars companies are using on their analytics is going to marketing. No one wants to be the dinosaur stuck in the past, and everyone wants to be "data driven". On the other hand, some of the biggest companies in the world (Google, Facebook, Twitter) are in the ad business, which creates a bit of an "appeal to authority" fallacy to the mix.
Meanwhile, in my experience, statistical understanding and the general skills required to understand why an analysis would or would not be valid is virtually non-existent for most people. Also, the majority of parties involved have a vested interest in the story of the effectiveness of marketing being perpetuated. Data vendors and advertisers, including giants like Google and Facebook, no longer have a product if it isn't. Consulting companies and internal analytics teams do ton of work solely focused on marketing. That all goes away if people realize its a useless exercise. The companies buying the advertising, who one would think would absolutely be interested in knowing if their dollars are going to waste, are filled with people whose jobs are contingent on the idea that marketing is driving business.
I'm not convinced marketing does nothing. But I think the effect is greatly overstated. And I think its becoming less effective over time. I can't remember the last time I clicked on an advertised result on Google, or a banner ad. Perhaps they were useful at one point years ago, but I think people are increasingly learning to tune them out over time, the same way one would acclimate to a noisy environment. Coincidentally, I remember seeing a link here on HN relatively recently about how the New York Times completely dropped their targeted marketing efforts, and found that their subscription growth remained unchanged. I think that were more companies to follow suit, many would see similar results.
Meanwhile, in my experience, statistical understanding and the general skills required to understand why an analysis would or would not be valid is virtually non-existent for most people. Also, the majority of parties involved have a vested interest in the story of the effectiveness of marketing being perpetuated. Data vendors and advertisers, including giants like Google and Facebook, no longer have a product if it isn't. Consulting companies and internal analytics teams do ton of work solely focused on marketing. That all goes away if people realize its a useless exercise. The companies buying the advertising, who one would think would absolutely be interested in knowing if their dollars are going to waste, are filled with people whose jobs are contingent on the idea that marketing is driving business.
I'm not convinced marketing does nothing. But I think the effect is greatly overstated. And I think its becoming less effective over time. I can't remember the last time I clicked on an advertised result on Google, or a banner ad. Perhaps they were useful at one point years ago, but I think people are increasingly learning to tune them out over time, the same way one would acclimate to a noisy environment. Coincidentally, I remember seeing a link here on HN relatively recently about how the New York Times completely dropped their targeted marketing efforts, and found that their subscription growth remained unchanged. I think that were more companies to follow suit, many would see similar results.
Thank you for that. That was really interesting.
Have you seen any data on conversion rates for native podcast ads? They may not be targeted but given the amount of money being thrown at podcasters these days I wonder if there's a particularly strong advertising rationale for supporting them.
Have you seen any data on conversion rates for native podcast ads? They may not be targeted but given the amount of money being thrown at podcasters these days I wonder if there's a particularly strong advertising rationale for supporting them.
I haven't. I've never worked with podcasts. You bring up a good point however: advertising is a pretty broad brush that describes a whole host of activities. While I think advertising, and in particular "targeted" advertising, is overstated in its effect, there are probably particular subtypes or avenues that are quite powerful.
> So the billions spent on campaign advertising essentially has no effect? I don't buy that for a second, otherwise it wouldn't be a billion dollar industry.
So, it's not just about flipping voters.
It's also about encouraging people who agree your politics to head to the polls & discouraging the dissenters.
I didn't find their use of the data for marketing particularly novel but using that to create a campaign to discourage black youth in Trinidad from voting seems extremely unethical to me.
So, it's not just about flipping voters.
It's also about encouraging people who agree your politics to head to the polls & discouraging the dissenters.
I didn't find their use of the data for marketing particularly novel but using that to create a campaign to discourage black youth in Trinidad from voting seems extremely unethical to me.
I watched the documentary and had two major issues:
- CA was said to be able to identify swing voters, and then swing them. I thought about this a bit. How would you even collect data about this? Do you just assume that people who have voted both ways are swing voters for this election? Ok, so suppose that's what a swing voter is and you somehow have a dataset of people who've done this. You have the labels, what are the features? Postcode? Age? Race? Gender? Income? (scary shit that you have this btw). But aren't those things going to tend towards well known facts already? As in old white male in the countryside, like Rep? What are you really getting that isn't already well documented? Anyway supposed you then write a nice RF or similar model that is good at finding swing voters. What do you even show them to make them swing your way? How will you ever know if that actually worked? It simply seems like a stretch to think CA provided anything useful.
- What is it about CA's methods that were so effective? Would there not be some team on the other side of both the presidential and Brexit campaigns using exactly the same methods to the same end? Wouldn't there be Hilary and Remainer people who could buy/collect the same data, identify the same voters, and then send them something to push the other way? Why didn't the journalist look for someone like that? After all someone had to do something similar for Obama.
- CA was said to be able to identify swing voters, and then swing them. I thought about this a bit. How would you even collect data about this? Do you just assume that people who have voted both ways are swing voters for this election? Ok, so suppose that's what a swing voter is and you somehow have a dataset of people who've done this. You have the labels, what are the features? Postcode? Age? Race? Gender? Income? (scary shit that you have this btw). But aren't those things going to tend towards well known facts already? As in old white male in the countryside, like Rep? What are you really getting that isn't already well documented? Anyway supposed you then write a nice RF or similar model that is good at finding swing voters. What do you even show them to make them swing your way? How will you ever know if that actually worked? It simply seems like a stretch to think CA provided anything useful.
- What is it about CA's methods that were so effective? Would there not be some team on the other side of both the presidential and Brexit campaigns using exactly the same methods to the same end? Wouldn't there be Hilary and Remainer people who could buy/collect the same data, identify the same voters, and then send them something to push the other way? Why didn't the journalist look for someone like that? After all someone had to do something similar for Obama.
> How would you even collect data about this?
You gather the data required to make a good probability prediction for voter preference ((soft) labels for this easier to find than swing voter labels). Then when the model is uncertain, those are your swing voters / on the fence voters.
> Postcode? Age? Race? Gender? Income?
When it is found to be cost-effective: All and everything that is allowed by law and then some. In its pitch deck, Facebook boasted about its advertisers being able to target and identify: university, degree, concentration, course history, class year, housing/dormitory, age, gender, sexual orientation, zip (home and university/work), relationship status, dating interests, personal interests, club membership, jobs, political bent, friend graph, site usage/addiction level.
Likes make this very easy (with a little luck, you can deduce all of zip, age, race, gender, income from a list of Likes).
> What is it about CA's methods that were so effective?
Hillary Clinton: “The real question is how did the Russians know how to target their messages so precisely to undecided voters in Wisconsin or Michigan or Pennsylvania – that is really the nub of the question. So if they were getting advice from say Cambridge Analytica, or someone else, about ‘OK here are the 12 voters in this town in Wisconsin – that’s whose Facebook pages you need to be on to send these messages’ that indeed would be very disturbing.”
FBI: Using those techniques in June 2016, “the GRU compromised the computer network of the Illinois State Board of Elections by exploiting a vulnerability in the SBOE's website,” the report said. “The GRU then gained access to a database containing information on millions of registered Illinois voters, and extracted data related to thousands of U.S. voters before the malicious activity was identified. Similarly, in November 2016, the GRU sent spearphishing emails to over 120 email accounts used by Florida county officials responsible for administering the 2016 U.S. election,” the report said. “The spearphishing emails contained an attached Word document coded with malicious software (commonly referred to as a Trojan) that permitted the GRU to access the infected computer.”
> After all someone had to do something similar for Obama.
Obama's digital campaign was very successful, but the above seems to indicate that Kushner's campaign was way more aggressive and less scrupulous (and may have had connections with - or help from foreign adversaries).
It may also be that propaganda and smears works better depending on your political preference and level of education and neurosis: Even if Hillary had spent the same amount of money and energy (some reports indicate that Hillary's digital campaign was a waste of money and displayed poor management), efficiently, it may be easier to sway a voter to vote Republican, if you can target their fears of immigrants, religious beliefs, distrust in gun regulation from the government, and conspiracy theories. Surely, the many wolf cries about fake news, and retweeting of conspiracy theories, has set up the Trump base for easier manipulation (you can simply create a meme to counter a story in a respected journal or keep them guessing on the alternative truth of it).
You gather the data required to make a good probability prediction for voter preference ((soft) labels for this easier to find than swing voter labels). Then when the model is uncertain, those are your swing voters / on the fence voters.
> Postcode? Age? Race? Gender? Income?
When it is found to be cost-effective: All and everything that is allowed by law and then some. In its pitch deck, Facebook boasted about its advertisers being able to target and identify: university, degree, concentration, course history, class year, housing/dormitory, age, gender, sexual orientation, zip (home and university/work), relationship status, dating interests, personal interests, club membership, jobs, political bent, friend graph, site usage/addiction level.
Likes make this very easy (with a little luck, you can deduce all of zip, age, race, gender, income from a list of Likes).
> What is it about CA's methods that were so effective?
Hillary Clinton: “The real question is how did the Russians know how to target their messages so precisely to undecided voters in Wisconsin or Michigan or Pennsylvania – that is really the nub of the question. So if they were getting advice from say Cambridge Analytica, or someone else, about ‘OK here are the 12 voters in this town in Wisconsin – that’s whose Facebook pages you need to be on to send these messages’ that indeed would be very disturbing.”
FBI: Using those techniques in June 2016, “the GRU compromised the computer network of the Illinois State Board of Elections by exploiting a vulnerability in the SBOE's website,” the report said. “The GRU then gained access to a database containing information on millions of registered Illinois voters, and extracted data related to thousands of U.S. voters before the malicious activity was identified. Similarly, in November 2016, the GRU sent spearphishing emails to over 120 email accounts used by Florida county officials responsible for administering the 2016 U.S. election,” the report said. “The spearphishing emails contained an attached Word document coded with malicious software (commonly referred to as a Trojan) that permitted the GRU to access the infected computer.”
> After all someone had to do something similar for Obama.
Obama's digital campaign was very successful, but the above seems to indicate that Kushner's campaign was way more aggressive and less scrupulous (and may have had connections with - or help from foreign adversaries).
It may also be that propaganda and smears works better depending on your political preference and level of education and neurosis: Even if Hillary had spent the same amount of money and energy (some reports indicate that Hillary's digital campaign was a waste of money and displayed poor management), efficiently, it may be easier to sway a voter to vote Republican, if you can target their fears of immigrants, religious beliefs, distrust in gun regulation from the government, and conspiracy theories. Surely, the many wolf cries about fake news, and retweeting of conspiracy theories, has set up the Trump base for easier manipulation (you can simply create a meme to counter a story in a respected journal or keep them guessing on the alternative truth of it).
How successful was Obama's digital campaign? From what sources are we deriving that conclusion?
Two countervailing arguments:
First, the narrative about Obama's digital success is itself extraordinarily powerful and was used throughout the marketing industry to sell marketing services and products to commercial organizations; many of the obvious Google searches about Obama's campaign effectiveness will turn up a first SERP filled mostly with appeals to social media programs.
Second, people have written that the impact of digital marketing on Obama's campaign might be overblown. Here's an example: https://harvardpolitics.com/united-states/just-good-obama-ca...
Two countervailing arguments:
First, the narrative about Obama's digital success is itself extraordinarily powerful and was used throughout the marketing industry to sell marketing services and products to commercial organizations; many of the obvious Google searches about Obama's campaign effectiveness will turn up a first SERP filled mostly with appeals to social media programs.
Second, people have written that the impact of digital marketing on Obama's campaign might be overblown. Here's an example: https://harvardpolitics.com/united-states/just-good-obama-ca...
> How successful was Obama's digital campaign? From what sources are we deriving that conclusion?
I'd agree that it may have been overblown (just like the Russian interference may have been overblown). Also, of course the marketeers ran with it and turned it into a sales pitch.
But that detracts just a little from the effectiveness of Obama's digital campaign. As it was the first of its kind, relative to other campaigns that lacked a modern digital strategy, it gave a significant edge. Your argument seems of the form: "Hercules is strong. Some say he is really really strong. Ergo, Hercules was not strong".
2008: > The key technological innovation that brought Barack Obama to the White House wasn’t his tweets or a smartphone app. It was the Obama campaign’s novel integration of e-mail, cell phones, and websites. The young, technology-savvy staffers didn’t just use the web to convey the candidate’s message; they also enabled supporters to connect and self-organize, pioneering the ways grassroots movements would adapt and adopt platforms in the campaign cycles to come.
> but a network of supporters who used a distributed model of phone banking to organize and get out the vote, helped raise a record-breaking $600 million, and created all manner of media clips that were viewed millions of times. It was an online movement that begot offline behavior, including producing youth voter turnout that may have supplied the margin of victory.
> All of the Obama supporters who traded their personal information for a ticket to a rally or an e-mail alert about the vice presidential choice, or opted in on Facebook or MyBarackObama can now be mass e-mailed at a cost of close to zero.
2012: > Once again, the Obama campaign built a dream team of nerds to create the software that drove many aspects of the campaign. From messaging to fund-raising to canvassing to organizing to targeting resources to key districts and media buys, the reelection effort took the political application of data science to unprecedented heights. The Obama team created sophisticated analytic models that personalized social and e-mail messaging using data generated by social-media activity.
> The Republican side, too, tried to create smarter tools, but it botched them. The Romney campaign’s “Orca,” a platform for marshaling volunteers to get out the vote on election day, suffered severe technical problems, becoming a cautionary tale of how not to manage a large IT project. For the moment, the technology gap between Democrats and Republicans remained wide.
https://www.nytimes.com/2008/11/10/business/media/10carr.htm...
https://www.technologyreview.com/s/611823/us-election-campai...
I'd agree that it may have been overblown (just like the Russian interference may have been overblown). Also, of course the marketeers ran with it and turned it into a sales pitch.
But that detracts just a little from the effectiveness of Obama's digital campaign. As it was the first of its kind, relative to other campaigns that lacked a modern digital strategy, it gave a significant edge. Your argument seems of the form: "Hercules is strong. Some say he is really really strong. Ergo, Hercules was not strong".
2008: > The key technological innovation that brought Barack Obama to the White House wasn’t his tweets or a smartphone app. It was the Obama campaign’s novel integration of e-mail, cell phones, and websites. The young, technology-savvy staffers didn’t just use the web to convey the candidate’s message; they also enabled supporters to connect and self-organize, pioneering the ways grassroots movements would adapt and adopt platforms in the campaign cycles to come.
> but a network of supporters who used a distributed model of phone banking to organize and get out the vote, helped raise a record-breaking $600 million, and created all manner of media clips that were viewed millions of times. It was an online movement that begot offline behavior, including producing youth voter turnout that may have supplied the margin of victory.
> All of the Obama supporters who traded their personal information for a ticket to a rally or an e-mail alert about the vice presidential choice, or opted in on Facebook or MyBarackObama can now be mass e-mailed at a cost of close to zero.
2012: > Once again, the Obama campaign built a dream team of nerds to create the software that drove many aspects of the campaign. From messaging to fund-raising to canvassing to organizing to targeting resources to key districts and media buys, the reelection effort took the political application of data science to unprecedented heights. The Obama team created sophisticated analytic models that personalized social and e-mail messaging using data generated by social-media activity.
> The Republican side, too, tried to create smarter tools, but it botched them. The Romney campaign’s “Orca,” a platform for marshaling volunteers to get out the vote on election day, suffered severe technical problems, becoming a cautionary tale of how not to manage a large IT project. For the moment, the technology gap between Democrats and Republicans remained wide.
https://www.nytimes.com/2008/11/10/business/media/10carr.htm...
https://www.technologyreview.com/s/611823/us-election-campai...
Neither of these sources cite any social science up to back their conclusions. I guess I'm interested in the fact that David Carr believed Obama's digital campaign was important, because I sort of generally liked David Carr. But this is color commentary, not analysis.
It is difficult to provide a counterfactual here (would Obama have won if his campaign hadn't put any effort in digital?), so I am not sure if you are requiring that.
For factual analysis of the effects and strategies employed by Obama (on a casual glance, most of which support the statement that Obama's campaign was highly successful), do a search on Google Scholar. Here are a few highly cited political science sources I was able to pull (need to get back to work now).
> Digital media in the Obama campaigns of 2008 and 2012: Adaptation to the personalized political communication environment
> This essay provides a descriptive interpretation of the role of digital media in the campaigns of Barack Obama in 2008 and 2012 with a focus on two themes: personalized political communication and the commodification of digital media as tools. The essay covers campaign finance strategy, voter mobilization on the ground, innovation in social media, and data analytics, and why the Obama organizations were more innovative than those of his opponents. The essay provides a point of contrast for the other articles in this special issue, which describe sometimes quite different campaign practices in recent elections across Europe.
> From Networked Nominee to Networked Nation: Examining the Impact of Web 2.0 and Social Media on Political Participation and Civic Engagement in the 2008 Obama Campaign
> This article explores the uses of Web 2.0 and social media by the 2008 Obama presidential campaign and asks three primary questions: (1) What techniques allowed the Obama campaign to translate online activity to on-the-ground activism? (2) What sociotechnical factors enabled the Obama campaign to generate so many campaign contributions? (3) Did the Obama campaign facilitate the development of an ongoing social movement that will influence his administration and governance? Qualitative data were collected from social media tools used by the Obama ‘08 campaign (e.g., Obama ‘08 Web site, Twitter, Facebook, MySpace, e-mails, iPhone application, and the Change.gov site created by the Obama-Biden Transition Team) and public information. The authors find that the Obama ‘08 campaign created a nationwide virtual organization that motivated 3.1 million individual contributors and mobilized a grassroots movement of more than 5 million volunteers. Clearly, the Obama campaign utilized these tools to go beyond educating the public and raising money to mobilizing the ground game, enhancing political participation, and getting out the vote. The use of these tools also raised significant national security and privacy considerations. Finally, the Obama-Biden transition and administration utilized many of the same strategies in their attempt to transform political participation and civic engagement.
> The Internet's Role in Campaign 2008
> A majority of American adults went online in 2008 to keep informed about political developments and to get involved with the election.
For factual analysis of the effects and strategies employed by Obama (on a casual glance, most of which support the statement that Obama's campaign was highly successful), do a search on Google Scholar. Here are a few highly cited political science sources I was able to pull (need to get back to work now).
> Digital media in the Obama campaigns of 2008 and 2012: Adaptation to the personalized political communication environment
> This essay provides a descriptive interpretation of the role of digital media in the campaigns of Barack Obama in 2008 and 2012 with a focus on two themes: personalized political communication and the commodification of digital media as tools. The essay covers campaign finance strategy, voter mobilization on the ground, innovation in social media, and data analytics, and why the Obama organizations were more innovative than those of his opponents. The essay provides a point of contrast for the other articles in this special issue, which describe sometimes quite different campaign practices in recent elections across Europe.
> From Networked Nominee to Networked Nation: Examining the Impact of Web 2.0 and Social Media on Political Participation and Civic Engagement in the 2008 Obama Campaign
> This article explores the uses of Web 2.0 and social media by the 2008 Obama presidential campaign and asks three primary questions: (1) What techniques allowed the Obama campaign to translate online activity to on-the-ground activism? (2) What sociotechnical factors enabled the Obama campaign to generate so many campaign contributions? (3) Did the Obama campaign facilitate the development of an ongoing social movement that will influence his administration and governance? Qualitative data were collected from social media tools used by the Obama ‘08 campaign (e.g., Obama ‘08 Web site, Twitter, Facebook, MySpace, e-mails, iPhone application, and the Change.gov site created by the Obama-Biden Transition Team) and public information. The authors find that the Obama ‘08 campaign created a nationwide virtual organization that motivated 3.1 million individual contributors and mobilized a grassroots movement of more than 5 million volunteers. Clearly, the Obama campaign utilized these tools to go beyond educating the public and raising money to mobilizing the ground game, enhancing political participation, and getting out the vote. The use of these tools also raised significant national security and privacy considerations. Finally, the Obama-Biden transition and administration utilized many of the same strategies in their attempt to transform political participation and civic engagement.
> The Internet's Role in Campaign 2008
> A majority of American adults went online in 2008 to keep informed about political developments and to get involved with the election.
Additional context for the last paragraph - Hillary's campaign did spend a lot more money on analytics and advertising, and a lot more energy (60 in-house mathematicians and analysts).
https://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2016/09/hillary-clin...
Overall, the Clinton campaign spent $1.184 billion dollars compared to $616 million by the Trump campaign.
https://www.bloomberg.com/politics/graphics/2016-presidentia...
https://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2016/09/hillary-clin...
Overall, the Clinton campaign spent $1.184 billion dollars compared to $616 million by the Trump campaign.
https://www.bloomberg.com/politics/graphics/2016-presidentia...
Swing voters would be those who voted for a democrat (e.g. Obama) in a previous election vs a republican in the next.
So you predict if they have a general mild preference for the Democrats, then mine if they once reacted strongly on certain triggers: gun control, weak leadership, immigrants, drug addiction, patriotism, racism, elitism, religion & conspiracy. Then you personalize the message for them: Hillary will take away all guns, Hillary is ill and frail, The Democrats let copkillers enter the USA, China ships fentanyl to American youth, and wants to steal your steel workers' money, look at these violent BLM protesters and one snippet of Clinton talking about superpredators, there is a deep state which let Obama play pingpong in the basement of a pizza place, we have a non-crooked Christian Vice President and Hillary smells of sulfur.
Well unless you can get definitive evidence of the swing (e.g. say bumper stickers on the car) it will be based on probabilities.
Michael Lewis (of the Moneyball and The Big Short fame) talks about Cambridge Analytica in his podcast https://atrpodcast.com/episodes/the-alex-kogan-experience-s1.... Long story short: the CA scandal was way overblown. They could barely identify 1% of the population with all that data.
> They could barely identify 1% of the population with all that data.
1% of what population? 1% of Facebook users? 1% of the American population? Both of those are pretty staggeringly large numbers of people...
1% of what population? 1% of Facebook users? 1% of the American population? Both of those are pretty staggeringly large numbers of people...
By their own admission in pitch decks the CA system was no better resolving an individual accurately than existing ways.
The main architect of the system's only previous experience was trying (and apparently failing) to model fashion forecasting.
To say then CA situation was overblown in terms of scope and insight is an understatement imo. The irony is their sales pitch was so good it caused an international incident.
To say then CA situation was overblown in terms of scope and insight is an understatement imo. The irony is their sales pitch was so good it caused an international incident.
> The irony is their sales pitch was so good it caused an international incident.
As a non American, I find the "it's not so bad, it wasn't very effective" arguments I'm seeing in these comments a bit strange.
I personally don't really care about the effectiveness of their analysis versus them (and others) having access to and collecting all that data in the first place. Once all the data is out there and the lack of privacy is normalised/accepted there will be all kinds of other attempts to use it in the future.
Americans on the whole seem quite nonchalant about their privacy.
As a non American, I find the "it's not so bad, it wasn't very effective" arguments I'm seeing in these comments a bit strange.
I personally don't really care about the effectiveness of their analysis versus them (and others) having access to and collecting all that data in the first place. Once all the data is out there and the lack of privacy is normalised/accepted there will be all kinds of other attempts to use it in the future.
Americans on the whole seem quite nonchalant about their privacy.
>Americans on the whole seem quite nonchalant about their privacy
I disagree, and let me elaborate. The CA scandal started two different conversations, which people get mixed up a lot.
The primary one was about how shit Facebook's privacy settings are, and how all your data has been easily available for a few bucks. This stirred up a LOT of privacy concerns in the US, causing a whole bunch of people to quit Facebook. Zuckerberg was on the cover of magazines, for all the wrong reason. That conversation is still going on.
The secondary conversation was ok now that we know the data was out there, how effective was it? Did it help swing the election? This documentary wants you to convince that it is true, that CA was the reason why Trump got elected. And as the article and Michael Lewis' podcast lays out, that's just not the case.
tldr: We're talking about two different things. Talking about secondary concerns does not negate the primary ones.
I disagree, and let me elaborate. The CA scandal started two different conversations, which people get mixed up a lot.
The primary one was about how shit Facebook's privacy settings are, and how all your data has been easily available for a few bucks. This stirred up a LOT of privacy concerns in the US, causing a whole bunch of people to quit Facebook. Zuckerberg was on the cover of magazines, for all the wrong reason. That conversation is still going on.
The secondary conversation was ok now that we know the data was out there, how effective was it? Did it help swing the election? This documentary wants you to convince that it is true, that CA was the reason why Trump got elected. And as the article and Michael Lewis' podcast lays out, that's just not the case.
tldr: We're talking about two different things. Talking about secondary concerns does not negate the primary ones.
Yeah fair point.
I suppose for non Americans like myself, we would naturally put far less weight on the secondary discussion. Also I hadn't watched the documentary in question, so wasn't referring to its arguments directly.
I do have some vague hopes that California's upcoming privacy regulations (the ones that from the outside look a little GDPR like) will prod the tech giants enough to take this shit seriously.
And I hope you're right about what this has stirred up in the US. I'm hoping that my view (ie the apparent nonchalance) from the outside is inaccurate. For the rest of the world, we rely on American sentiment to influence these companies.
I suppose for non Americans like myself, we would naturally put far less weight on the secondary discussion. Also I hadn't watched the documentary in question, so wasn't referring to its arguments directly.
I do have some vague hopes that California's upcoming privacy regulations (the ones that from the outside look a little GDPR like) will prod the tech giants enough to take this shit seriously.
And I hope you're right about what this has stirred up in the US. I'm hoping that my view (ie the apparent nonchalance) from the outside is inaccurate. For the rest of the world, we rely on American sentiment to influence these companies.
1% of the testing population.
Yes, you are rightly identifying a staggering large number of people, but the flipside is you're misidentifying an even larger number of people. Which is why the scandal was way overblown.
Yes, you are rightly identifying a staggering large number of people, but the flipside is you're misidentifying an even larger number of people. Which is why the scandal was way overblown.
That sample size is better than most or all main stream polls.
1% match is more than enough to build lookalike models in the Facebook ad platform.
Agree with the article's criticism of the heavy focus on Brittany Kaiser. It felt like the filmmakers were trying to put her into Snowden or Assange type circumstances, and then use those circumstances to manufacture credibility and heighten suspense. I have difficulty with the scene about a news article breaking that mentions her. Shes groaning about her career being over, but you can tell shes really excited to be in the spotlight. Assange comes off equally self-centered in the Poitras documentary, but in that case the magnitude of circumstances had already been established, along with his central role in those circumstances. The filmmakers behind 'Great Hack' never reached those levels of clarity regarding involvement, and as a result their decision to use Kaiser as primary subject felt misleading.
I finished watching the documentary. It was on my list, and this thread here got me to watch it during my commute.
> It felt like the filmmakers were trying to put her into Snowden or Assange type circumstances
Given they clearly showed the quote by the data analyst that she was not a whistleblower and given they clearly showed her questionable morals, I disagree. She seems to me like the classic spoiled narcissist American woman, but then again Nix is also from an upper class family. She even admitted she was in it for the money, with a sob story about her family (as if that justifies it). No, this woman wasn't portrayed as a heroine. The documentary quite explicitly described her flawed character.
A realization I had is that Trump becoming president is just a 4-year thing. The UK leaving the EU is going to have a stronger effect on the long term.
I found it a good documentary which ultimately describes an example of where it went wrong (in many elections). It also clearly describes the long-term worries.
> It felt like the filmmakers were trying to put her into Snowden or Assange type circumstances
Given they clearly showed the quote by the data analyst that she was not a whistleblower and given they clearly showed her questionable morals, I disagree. She seems to me like the classic spoiled narcissist American woman, but then again Nix is also from an upper class family. She even admitted she was in it for the money, with a sob story about her family (as if that justifies it). No, this woman wasn't portrayed as a heroine. The documentary quite explicitly described her flawed character.
A realization I had is that Trump becoming president is just a 4-year thing. The UK leaving the EU is going to have a stronger effect on the long term.
I found it a good documentary which ultimately describes an example of where it went wrong (in many elections). It also clearly describes the long-term worries.
Very handy wavy editorial with almost no substance.
What exactly did they get wrong and why did they get it wrong, sources? Why do they dismiss someone with a PhD and a ton of experience as a "young staffer"?
What exactly did they get wrong and why did they get it wrong, sources? Why do they dismiss someone with a PhD and a ton of experience as a "young staffer"?
It cites reviews of the documentary, goes into some depth about the background of the primary source of the documentary, including the author's own firsthand contact with that source, provides the alternate case study of Ted Cruz's poor experience with CA, cites David Karpf, and culminates with a paragraph-long citation to a well-known peer-reviewed study about the effectiveness of political campaign marketing.
By the standards of these kinds of articles, it is the opposite of what you said it is.
That doesn't make it right, but does refute the one criticism you managed to marshal.
By the standards of these kinds of articles, it is the opposite of what you said it is.
That doesn't make it right, but does refute the one criticism you managed to marshal.
It's cites a single review and for no other purpose than quoting the reviewer. The rest is hearsay, at best.
> Unfortunately, the Cambridge Analytica/Facebook scandal also has renewed a very old and disabling fable embraced by many well-meaning people on the left, which is that Americans (and others overseas) keep voting for right-wing authoritarians because they are being manipulated by the media.
This sets the precedent of the entire article, and avoids mentioning the circumstances around the Bush Al Gore election of 2000.
And unfortunately, it also ends with such polarizing words:
> The Great Hack wants to make its viewers care about data rights and the dangers of modern misinformation campaigns but unfortunately is itself a slick piece of misinformation that plays artfully on the prejudices and misunderstandings rife in its targeted audience. If the weaponization of misinformation was such a powerful tool for changing hearts and minds, why did the left win recent elections in Mexico and Istanbul? Why did Democrats retake the House in 2018? We aren’t losing the war for the future because of some new media masterminds. If we’re losing, it’s because our message—and messengers—aren’t connecting.
Because 'the left' isn't excluded in social media manipulation. The narrative that 'the left' (whatever that exactly is) is somehow crying wolf is quite clear, and also tells the observer who this article is trying to convince (hint: those who got manipulated)
> The film gives an inordinate amount of attention to Brittany Kaiser, a Democrat who worked for CA’s US branch as its business development director and then—after the revelations of the Facebook breach—apparently had an attack of conscience.
They're omitting the data scientist who started whistleblowing. The very same data scientist who said in a Tweet which is quoted, that Kaiser was no whistleblower.
Does Kaiser get a lot of attention in this documentary? Yes. Is it unwarranted? I don't know. Is it all positive, is she put in a positive light alone? No way. If you watch the documentary carefully, you can find examples where she is being criticized. The description of events of her 180 u-turn is not pleading her free at all.
> According to her, until CA started working for Trump in June 2016, his campaign had no data infrastructure or digital marketing apparatus and no digital strategy. The implication, never blatantly stated but simply conveyed by all the tricks of modern documentary-making—striking digital graphics meant to illustrate how our data leaks into the hands of others, ominous music, and alluring close-ups of Kaiser as she watches the scandal unfold on television—is that Trump won because Cambridge Analytica gave him a secret edge.
> All of this is garbage. Kaiser first worked in politics as an intern on the 2008 Barack Obama campaign, helping its social media team, but The Great Hack implies that she ran his whole Facebook operation.
Classic straw man, keywords being: implication, implies.
The amount of people who had to be manipulated were carefully chosen, and had to be very little amount in US thanks to the way the election system works (with the districts).
This sets the precedent of the entire article, and avoids mentioning the circumstances around the Bush Al Gore election of 2000.
And unfortunately, it also ends with such polarizing words:
> The Great Hack wants to make its viewers care about data rights and the dangers of modern misinformation campaigns but unfortunately is itself a slick piece of misinformation that plays artfully on the prejudices and misunderstandings rife in its targeted audience. If the weaponization of misinformation was such a powerful tool for changing hearts and minds, why did the left win recent elections in Mexico and Istanbul? Why did Democrats retake the House in 2018? We aren’t losing the war for the future because of some new media masterminds. If we’re losing, it’s because our message—and messengers—aren’t connecting.
Because 'the left' isn't excluded in social media manipulation. The narrative that 'the left' (whatever that exactly is) is somehow crying wolf is quite clear, and also tells the observer who this article is trying to convince (hint: those who got manipulated)
> The film gives an inordinate amount of attention to Brittany Kaiser, a Democrat who worked for CA’s US branch as its business development director and then—after the revelations of the Facebook breach—apparently had an attack of conscience.
They're omitting the data scientist who started whistleblowing. The very same data scientist who said in a Tweet which is quoted, that Kaiser was no whistleblower.
Does Kaiser get a lot of attention in this documentary? Yes. Is it unwarranted? I don't know. Is it all positive, is she put in a positive light alone? No way. If you watch the documentary carefully, you can find examples where she is being criticized. The description of events of her 180 u-turn is not pleading her free at all.
> According to her, until CA started working for Trump in June 2016, his campaign had no data infrastructure or digital marketing apparatus and no digital strategy. The implication, never blatantly stated but simply conveyed by all the tricks of modern documentary-making—striking digital graphics meant to illustrate how our data leaks into the hands of others, ominous music, and alluring close-ups of Kaiser as she watches the scandal unfold on television—is that Trump won because Cambridge Analytica gave him a secret edge.
> All of this is garbage. Kaiser first worked in politics as an intern on the 2008 Barack Obama campaign, helping its social media team, but The Great Hack implies that she ran his whole Facebook operation.
Classic straw man, keywords being: implication, implies.
The amount of people who had to be manipulated were carefully chosen, and had to be very little amount in US thanks to the way the election system works (with the districts).
There is no substantial argument here. It builds mostly on anecdata from the author meeting Kaiser and being unimpressed as well as the Ted Cruz campaign dropping CA.
Apart from that, we see a reference to a meta-study, where the only actual underlying study[0] looking at online ads (as opposed to traditional campaign methods) is from the same author as the meta-study in 2013, measuring " Recall of the ads, candidate name recognition, and candidate evaluations" for direct candidate ads. The kind of campaigns allegedly employed during the Brexit and Trump campaigns are a lot more subtle than that and I don't think any of the studies are actually relevant here. These campaigns rather work on breeding anger and pushing the values and opinions of voters towards the intended direction, rather than directly promoting parties and candidates.
I'd take this with a huge bag of salt and I am still leaning towards online campaigns having had a role in recent elections and referendums.
All that said, I still haven't watched The Great Hack - wouldn't be surprised if there are significant misrepresentations there. And I'm also sure there's more to this than only CA.
[0]: https://link.springer.com/content/pdf/10.1007%2Fs11109-013-9...
Apart from that, we see a reference to a meta-study, where the only actual underlying study[0] looking at online ads (as opposed to traditional campaign methods) is from the same author as the meta-study in 2013, measuring " Recall of the ads, candidate name recognition, and candidate evaluations" for direct candidate ads. The kind of campaigns allegedly employed during the Brexit and Trump campaigns are a lot more subtle than that and I don't think any of the studies are actually relevant here. These campaigns rather work on breeding anger and pushing the values and opinions of voters towards the intended direction, rather than directly promoting parties and candidates.
I'd take this with a huge bag of salt and I am still leaning towards online campaigns having had a role in recent elections and referendums.
All that said, I still haven't watched The Great Hack - wouldn't be surprised if there are significant misrepresentations there. And I'm also sure there's more to this than only CA.
[0]: https://link.springer.com/content/pdf/10.1007%2Fs11109-013-9...
Tangentially, I thought that Alexander Nix did a terrible job of defending himself.
I have no sympathy for him, but I don't understand why he didn't at least try to argue that CA didn't really do anything new: political campaigns have used polling and have adapted their discourses to their audiences for a long time. It's just that now they have better tools.
I have no sympathy for him, but I don't understand why he didn't at least try to argue that CA didn't really do anything new: political campaigns have used polling and have adapted their discourses to their audiences for a long time. It's just that now they have better tools.
I don't doubt we saw a very edited version of his defense.
I agree with the article's premise that CA itself was not actually that consequential to the election, however I disagree with where this article goes, with a blanket "paid political persuasion doesn't change people's minds", that's very much out of context. If you are someone who is inclined to be a bit thoughtful about issues, but unfortunately for you your whole down has turned into a mob of "LOCK HER UP!" robots fueled by daily facebook posts to this effect, that is going to have a neutralizing effect on the potential pursuit of alternate narratives within these communities. The ready availability, if not total immersion, of completely made up propaganda on the internet made it very easy for people who leaned one way or the other to ignore other perspectives that might have made them a little less likely to show up and vote the way they did.
I remember reading Politco's "Hillary Clinton’s ‘Invisible Guiding Hand’" [1] back in mid 2016. I thought, "wow, the Democratic party is way ahead of the game in data analytics", seeing as how successfully they've applied it in Obama's campaign. Here are some choice excerpts:
> Kriegel’s anodyne title is Clinton’s director of analytics, but it’s a job that makes him, and his team of more than 60 mathematicians and analysts, something of the central nervous system for the campaign: charged with sensing, even predicting, the first tinglings of electoral trouble and then sending instructions to everyone on how to respond.
> When Clinton operatives talk about their “data-based” campaign, it’s invariably Kriegel’s data, and perhaps more importantly his models interpreting that data, they are talking about. It was an algorithm from Kriegel’s shop — unreported until now — that determined, after the opening states, where almost every dollar of Clinton’s more than $60 million in television ads was spent during the primary.
> Now, with Donald Trump investing virtually nothing in data analytics during the primary and little since, Kriegel’s work isn’t just powering Clinton’s campaign, it is providing her a crucial tactical advantage in the campaign’s final stretch. It’s one of the reasons her team is confident that, even if the race tightens as November approaches, they hold a distinctive edge. As millions of phone calls are made, doors knocked and ads aired in the next nine weeks, it is far likelier the Democratic voter contacts will reach the best and most receptive audiences than the Republican ones.
When this Cambridge Analytica stuff started coming out, I thought, "huh? what's the big fuss?" It seemed like people were upset with the Republican party for doing the same kind of targeted campaigning that the Democratic party had spent more money on, had more mathematicians on the payroll, and had more and higher quality data from the Obama presidency.
[1] https://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2016/09/hillary-clin...
> Kriegel’s anodyne title is Clinton’s director of analytics, but it’s a job that makes him, and his team of more than 60 mathematicians and analysts, something of the central nervous system for the campaign: charged with sensing, even predicting, the first tinglings of electoral trouble and then sending instructions to everyone on how to respond.
> When Clinton operatives talk about their “data-based” campaign, it’s invariably Kriegel’s data, and perhaps more importantly his models interpreting that data, they are talking about. It was an algorithm from Kriegel’s shop — unreported until now — that determined, after the opening states, where almost every dollar of Clinton’s more than $60 million in television ads was spent during the primary.
> Now, with Donald Trump investing virtually nothing in data analytics during the primary and little since, Kriegel’s work isn’t just powering Clinton’s campaign, it is providing her a crucial tactical advantage in the campaign’s final stretch. It’s one of the reasons her team is confident that, even if the race tightens as November approaches, they hold a distinctive edge. As millions of phone calls are made, doors knocked and ads aired in the next nine weeks, it is far likelier the Democratic voter contacts will reach the best and most receptive audiences than the Republican ones.
When this Cambridge Analytica stuff started coming out, I thought, "huh? what's the big fuss?" It seemed like people were upset with the Republican party for doing the same kind of targeted campaigning that the Democratic party had spent more money on, had more mathematicians on the payroll, and had more and higher quality data from the Obama presidency.
[1] https://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2016/09/hillary-clin...
Yes, I had the same question. I remember big hype stories gushing about the brilliance of Obama's social media analytics that drove the youth vote his way. But, when Republicans do the same thing, it's a huge scandal.
Obama and Romney both had GOTV platforms that used data to target GOTV efforts (and had matching sea animal code names), so it's not a Republicans v Dem thing. The CA scandal coincides with a lot of doubt about trusting large tech companies, which is why it's a big deal now.
As far as I know, Romney's GOTV platform didn't scrape posts by people's Facebook friends without those friends' knowledge or consent in order to target their GOTV efforts, which is the part of Obama's 2012 campaign that is comparable to what Cambridge Analytica got in hot water for. Publications like the New York Times ran gushing articles about how brilliant Obama's team was for coming up with this and how marketers needed to learn from them.
I think you're probably reversing cause and effect. The distrust of large tech companies is the result of people being upset about Republicans being the ones who're using them to win elections now, not the cause. (Of course, the Cambridge Analytica data in question wasn't even used by Trump's campaign, whereas the Obama campaign did use questionably scraped Facebook data, but little details like that don't matter...)
I think you're probably reversing cause and effect. The distrust of large tech companies is the result of people being upset about Republicans being the ones who're using them to win elections now, not the cause. (Of course, the Cambridge Analytica data in question wasn't even used by Trump's campaign, whereas the Obama campaign did use questionably scraped Facebook data, but little details like that don't matter...)
> The CA scandal coincides with a lot of doubt about trusting large tech companies, which is why it's a big deal now.
The very same institutions pushing the CA scandal are the ones who lauded the Obama campaign for its savvy use of technology. It is easier to blame large tech companies for the election than to accept any blame.
The very same institutions pushing the CA scandal are the ones who lauded the Obama campaign for its savvy use of technology. It is easier to blame large tech companies for the election than to accept any blame.
Well, if it were a Rep v Dem thing, they obviously couldn't smack down Romney for doing something Obama was doing at the same time. So, tin foil hat speaking, hype Obama's version and ignore Romney's and then when only a Rep is doing the mining smack them down hard.
No mention of AggregateIQ ? I think CA people just actually wanted to appear shady and create some sort of mysticism around themselves. Atleast in the Brexit campaign AggIQ had realtime targeting (source : really Brexit The Uncivil War) which seems way more important than a FB data dump.
Ironically that documentary made me question whether CA were the so-called bad guys in the whole thing.
- Brittany Kaiser genuinely seemed conflicted a lot of the time
- Nobody ever provided an inkling of proof for the alleged 5,000 data points - all here-say
- MUCH of what Alex Nix alleged in those hidden cams could easily have been interpreted as "selling it" to land the deal (in my opinion)
Overall, people are way to easily baited into the circle-of-drama-vilification process - that pink haired dude was shady as heck IMO (what was his history, background, motives - etc). Nobody seemed to be questioning the guys making the accusations.
- Brittany Kaiser genuinely seemed conflicted a lot of the time
- Nobody ever provided an inkling of proof for the alleged 5,000 data points - all here-say
- MUCH of what Alex Nix alleged in those hidden cams could easily have been interpreted as "selling it" to land the deal (in my opinion)
Overall, people are way to easily baited into the circle-of-drama-vilification process - that pink haired dude was shady as heck IMO (what was his history, background, motives - etc). Nobody seemed to be questioning the guys making the accusations.
Stepping back a bit - To everyone saying CA was not that effective, over hyped, with poor data/algorithms; the documentary being the work of a bunch of disgruntled people - it is completely irrelevant.
This shouldn't happen in a functioning democracy. Democracy becomes meaningless and a sham in this scenario of mass data collection and individual targeting. Shall we wait till the data is more accurate and the algorithms become better (ironically by us).
CA may just be a lightening rod. How many companies continue to do this effectively at scale. We know the answer to that and yet ...
This shouldn't happen in a functioning democracy. Democracy becomes meaningless and a sham in this scenario of mass data collection and individual targeting. Shall we wait till the data is more accurate and the algorithms become better (ironically by us).
CA may just be a lightening rod. How many companies continue to do this effectively at scale. We know the answer to that and yet ...
This isn't new at all. Politics has always been a cesspit of lies and manipulation. Goes back thousands of years.
The simple fact that most countries put tight spending regulations on election campaigns should tell you they work and why this level of advertising focus is something we should all be concerned about.
My biggest issue with this documentary was how they glossed over CA's effect on Indian elections, and it's catastrophic failure in 2014 Indian general elections.
The documentary even has a poster of the Congress Party of India, (not sure of the time stamp). The were known to have been working with CA when the hack was publicized (probably only after Trump won).
If CA was so scary successful in altering the outcome of an election in the US, why did it fail so badly in 2014 Indian general elections?
Also, how is it [politicians using a CA to convince the voters to vote for their candidate] any different from misleading readers of newsprint or any conventional/main stream media(MSM) with fake news and winning elections?
The "feeling" I got after watching this documentary was that the MSM envied facebook's and it's ecosystem's[entities like CA] abilitiy to grab more and more campaign spend, while MSM have no valuable tool to provide (hence reduced revenues from campaign spends). So they made a documentary of it by grabbing a few angry ex-employees (they were angry because they didn't rake in as many $$$$ as the founders).
The documentary even has a poster of the Congress Party of India, (not sure of the time stamp). The were known to have been working with CA when the hack was publicized (probably only after Trump won).
If CA was so scary successful in altering the outcome of an election in the US, why did it fail so badly in 2014 Indian general elections?
Also, how is it [politicians using a CA to convince the voters to vote for their candidate] any different from misleading readers of newsprint or any conventional/main stream media(MSM) with fake news and winning elections?
The "feeling" I got after watching this documentary was that the MSM envied facebook's and it's ecosystem's[entities like CA] abilitiy to grab more and more campaign spend, while MSM have no valuable tool to provide (hence reduced revenues from campaign spends). So they made a documentary of it by grabbing a few angry ex-employees (they were angry because they didn't rake in as many $$$$ as the founders).
"collecting thousands of data points on millions of individuals and then building psychographic profiles linked to their inferred personality traits"
The truth is this shit works.
It doesn't work on every individual, and it doesn't win every campaign, but there should be no question that it can shape public opinion.
If it didn't work, how could Facebook charge $75 billion a year for it?
The truth is this shit works.
It doesn't work on every individual, and it doesn't win every campaign, but there should be no question that it can shape public opinion.
If it didn't work, how could Facebook charge $75 billion a year for it?
Your argument is essentially the same thing as the joke about the old and young economist. The young economist sees $20 on the ground and says "is that a $20 bill?" to which the old economist says "it couldn't be, someone would have picked it up by now" and they move on.
Just because something is the status quo doesn't imply that the it is the optimized reality. I work in data science and quite a bit with marketing data, and in my experience, its highly ineffective most of the time. More surprising to though, is the sheer number of people, companies, and dollars, on both sides of the marketing business, with major investments in the idea of marketing being effective.
Just because something is the status quo doesn't imply that the it is the optimized reality. I work in data science and quite a bit with marketing data, and in my experience, its highly ineffective most of the time. More surprising to though, is the sheer number of people, companies, and dollars, on both sides of the marketing business, with major investments in the idea of marketing being effective.
> If it didn't work, how could Facebook charge $75 billion a year for it?
People believing it works and failing to verify?
People believing it works and failing to verify?
> but there should be no question that it can shape public opinion.
Having worked with this technology, I question its effectiveness. Do you have any data to back up your claim that it can sway people's opinion? It seems dubious that it's more effective than traditional brand building through mass media advertising (which itself has never proven to be particularly effective).
Having worked with this technology, I question its effectiveness. Do you have any data to back up your claim that it can sway people's opinion? It seems dubious that it's more effective than traditional brand building through mass media advertising (which itself has never proven to be particularly effective).
Because people buy things that don't work all the time. Next question?
When did Facebook charge $75M? Genuine question, the claim is new to me, and Google doesn’t know either.
*$75 Billion. And that's what they generate in revenue from advertising on their platform.
Facebook advertising doesn't make billions of dollars due to psychographics. It makes billions of dollars by knowing that you've looked at 7 pairs of shoes in the past 10 days and then showing you more shoes.
The question you should ask is "how much does it work?". What percentage point gain did it give Trump, what percentage gain did it give Clinton and what was the net gain?
Saucy.
I know a few people who really swear by the "great hack" theory. I think the observation that this indicates a lack of - in effect - empathy with the "manipulated" lower classes is a very astute one. I'm also not surprised that these magic data companies aren't what they're claimed to be - it's terrifying but not in the way that's implied.
I think it's well meaning, but I see an awful lot of media-this media-that, but I think it's a cop out for one's own failing to convince (At least partly). I have literally been told (in passing) something along the lines of you seem too intelligent to disagree with me
I know a few people who really swear by the "great hack" theory. I think the observation that this indicates a lack of - in effect - empathy with the "manipulated" lower classes is a very astute one. I'm also not surprised that these magic data companies aren't what they're claimed to be - it's terrifying but not in the way that's implied.
I think it's well meaning, but I see an awful lot of media-this media-that, but I think it's a cop out for one's own failing to convince (At least partly). I have literally been told (in passing) something along the lines of you seem too intelligent to disagree with me
Probably no point in writing this but my takeaway from that movie is that falsehoods were used by both sides to persuade people on the fence.
Somehow we should try to stop that.
Also I think that the left and right worldviews and news streams are so divergent that effectively we have people living in parallel universes.
Obviously the answer is not to create a forced authoritarian "unity" of state-prescribed reality, but the parameters that structure the extreme polarization should be changed somehow. Less biased or completely false reporting and news could help but seems unlikely at this point.
Somehow we should try to stop that.
Also I think that the left and right worldviews and news streams are so divergent that effectively we have people living in parallel universes.
Obviously the answer is not to create a forced authoritarian "unity" of state-prescribed reality, but the parameters that structure the extreme polarization should be changed somehow. Less biased or completely false reporting and news could help but seems unlikely at this point.
Given Netflix's multi-year production deal with the Obamas and Susan Rice, I would expect this is just more pro-DNC propaganda. What Cambridge Analytica did was not unique or special. Facebook turned a blind eye and profited greatly from this sort of "off the books" use of their data in many other instances, including Barack Obama's 2012 campaign. It was only a problem for the pink haired whistleblower once Trump started paying the bills in 2016.
I previously worked with an individual who had been employed by Obama's 2012 campaign and she gleefully described using the same sorts of tactics that were suddenly so scandalous after Trump got elected. The problem here is the amount of data being collected and the potential for and actual instances of abuse, not who is abusing it. But apparently it's totally cool if "your side" is doing it.
I previously worked with an individual who had been employed by Obama's 2012 campaign and she gleefully described using the same sorts of tactics that were suddenly so scandalous after Trump got elected. The problem here is the amount of data being collected and the potential for and actual instances of abuse, not who is abusing it. But apparently it's totally cool if "your side" is doing it.
I can't find the article right now, but I remember reading an article many years ago on Wired about the Obama campaign and their use of targeting and "big data". Really interesting stuff about how they were buying TV spots and the Romney campaign couldn't figure out why, and how their use of technology was a massive advantage.
The White House also evaluated personalization technology to use on whitehouse.gov so that they could serve particular "stats" during major events (election season, SOTU, etc.).
The biggest difference between the two campaigns was that in the 2012 campaign these APIs were available, while in 2013-2015, Facebook shut down the friends API, with a few exceptions. The only reason CA got access to it was that it was for "research purposes".
In other words, CA lied about the intended use. From a data collection standpoint, it was the same thing Obama's campaign did in 2012 for get out the vote efforts.
In other words, CA lied about the intended use. From a data collection standpoint, it was the same thing Obama's campaign did in 2012 for get out the vote efforts.
It is a bit infuriating that there is this 'boogeyman' in CA when really if you listen to any interview with Brad Parscale he says pretty clearly it is all due to them actually using everything facebook offered them.
"Parscale said he asked the Facebook “embeds” to teach staffers everything the Clinton campaign would be told about Facebook advertising “and then some”. Parscale told CBS he was told the Clinton campaign did not use Facebook employee embeds. “I had heard that they did not accept any of [Facebook’s] offers,” he said."
So really this is all due to a complete incompetence on one campaigns digital strategy while another actually put in work.
"Parscale said he asked the Facebook “embeds” to teach staffers everything the Clinton campaign would be told about Facebook advertising “and then some”. Parscale told CBS he was told the Clinton campaign did not use Facebook employee embeds. “I had heard that they did not accept any of [Facebook’s] offers,” he said."
So really this is all due to a complete incompetence on one campaigns digital strategy while another actually put in work.
> [...] But apparently it's totally cool if "your side" is doing it.
The documentary, at the end, with the teacher in and students drawing a conclusion makes the point that this isn't just a one company thing. It makes the point that big data companies are the problem. They even quote in an interview the names Google and Facebook.
However, as someone else already replied to you, this API which was used by CA wasn't meant to be used anymore. That's a big difference.
The documentary, at the end, with the teacher in and students drawing a conclusion makes the point that this isn't just a one company thing. It makes the point that big data companies are the problem. They even quote in an interview the names Google and Facebook.
However, as someone else already replied to you, this API which was used by CA wasn't meant to be used anymore. That's a big difference.
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Incidentally, Susan Rice (on the Netflix board) was the national security advisor that spied on Trump campaign members.
https://www.cnn.com/2017/09/13/politics/susan-rice-house-inv...
https://www.cnn.com/2017/09/13/politics/susan-rice-house-inv...
TL;DR
"The film gives an inordinate amount of attention to Brittany Kaiser"
True. But still I like the movie, since it gives a great platform to discuss the issues at hand with people who are not 100% into the subject.
"The film gives an inordinate amount of attention to Brittany Kaiser"
True. But still I like the movie, since it gives a great platform to discuss the issues at hand with people who are not 100% into the subject.
- There was a moat between the operations/sales team (Alex Nix, Brittany Kaiser, etc.), the people you see on most documentaries and the technical team (Alex Taylor, etc.): Sales would say anything to convince buyers (campaigns) and had no idea how the technology works. You can take any sentences uttered by them and quote it to the data scientists, their reaction would be… bow, shake their head, “Yeah, not, that’s… not it.” Probably the worst case of over-selling I’ve heard of.
- The company kept Kogan’s data in archives (breaching their agreement with Facebook) but overall, data scientists considered it useless because it was ageing, not helpful for models. They never used it in production.
- Instead (and you can see that at the 1:00:00 mark in _The Big Hack_) they used election data (participation, name, demographic, address), which magazine people are subscribed to (name, address and the title) and credit information, notably what car they are paying back (name, address, make and model of the car). How are magazines and car helpful? Well, in their words: “guess who the driver of a Ford-150, reader of _Guns & Ammos_ vote for?” Both are a well-documented source of political insight, so much that there’s an open-source model for parsing Google Street View, classifying the car parked and making precinct-level predictions.
- Kogan data could not be used on Facebook (it was blacklisted) but they didn’t know that.