The left turns up the heat on Zuckerberg

There seems to be a very real danger that Facebook, powerful as it is, may decide that it needs to protect itself, and start doing political deals.

I assume there's no need to spell out how dangerous this would be.

https://www.commondreams.org/news/2018/05/18/alarming-facebo...

And yet when Obama used facebook to do the exact same thing, it was lauded as the future of campaigns. The only difference I see is that after Obama won the election, Facebook conveniently decided to change that policy. How do we know that Facebook didn't intentionally leave that policy open to give Obama an edge over what was and was assumed to be at the time going to be a very close election?

http://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/statements/2018/mar/... (also as I explain latter, i think the "half truth" rating on this link is half truth. Nobody who downloaded the Obama app, knew that their friend list could be used in a way to identify potential voters, especially not in a way that would have raised ethical concerns in the supposed party that "cares" about fair elections)

But of course the left needs to punish Facebook for not properly covering their asses and assuring this weapon could never be used against them.

By the way, what's to say that Hillary Clinton didn't have direct access to the Obama campaign's data as well? I mean considering the fact people's political affiliations very rarely ever change and therefore data mined in 2012 is just as relevant today as it was then, why wouldn't Hillary Clinton and Obama do everything in their power to ensure the left maintains control of the WH; when they essentially wrote the textbook on this kind of thing? (it's also worth pointing out that the cambridge analytica data was mined at the same period in time.)

The very fact that the policy was changed--right after--the election seems to suggest that Facebook had every intention of giving the left all the data they would ever need to get the competitive edge over the right and win future elections.

Put it this way, Facebook HAD to know how it's data was being mined from the Obama app the second it started happening. Why wouldn't they be paying special attention to the behavior of the President's app and it's users?

They also HAD to know the amount of power that data could have when influencing people since that is the very reason why their business is marketable.

And lastly, they HAD to know that putting a plug in it would stop future campaigns from doing the same and the consequences that might ultimately yield on the outcomes of future elections.

I mean we are talking about a company where some of their founders, Sean Parker and Chamath Palihapitiya, talk about how they would have meetings and discuss how they could manipulate their users into becoming addicted to their app. And that is when and where they coined the phrase "dopamine feedback loops".

Which also means we are talking about a company whose primary goal is to design technology that doesn't just try to understand people psychologically, but trying to understand how they can manipulate people psychologically as well.

And we are supposed to just believe Mark Zuckerburg when he says if you asked him 10 years ago if he thought he would be building an app that could one day influence elections, he isn't just full of shit? I wish the senate would have asked him if he knew--6 years--ago that facebook could influence elections...

Also I wish the Senate would have asked him how can he confirm the Obama 2012 Campaign erased their data like they were supposed to, if he couldn't even confirm that Cambridge Analytica did. And then I would want to ask him, in theory is it possible that if the Obama campaign still had access to that data, could it be given to a new campaign. In other words, is it not only possible but strategically likely, that Trump didn't actually even have a competitive edge? and in fact without the Cambridge Analytica data, he would have been at a strict disadvantage considering your policy changed and therefore wasn't able to just take a page out of Obama's book, create his own app, and ultimately receive the same benefits Obama (and potentially HRC) did during their campaigns?

And one last thing, when a user downloads an app on your platform they have a permissions dialog that specifically states what information a user consents to give to the app developer in exchange for using their app. The controversy with Cambridge Analytica's app was that it was misleading users and exposing their friend list's without permission? Can you please explain exactly how Obama's app asked for user's permissions and how Cambridge Analytica didn't? And when asking, did the Obama campaign explain exactly how they intended to use their user's data? When a user consents to give any app (not just facebook) permission to access their info do the user's have the capability to ask why the app is requesting that information exactly?

Can we get comprehensive answers to questions such as,

"Why--exactly--does this app--need--to access my contacts?",

"Why--exactly--does this app--need--to access my friend list?",

"Why--exactly--does this app--need--access to my mic?"

Also is there an internal vetting process in place that ensures app developers are being honest when stating the nature of their intent with regards to permission requests and what they intend to do with the data once it is received? And ultimately why not? Do you believe users deserve--real--transparency with regards to how their data is being used/abused?

Because ultimately at the end of the day, that is how you go about fixing the core issue we have. User's aren't actually being asked cordially for their permission, they are being given just a more "in your face" terms of service without an explanation and the right to negotiate. What if I want to use facebook's app, but i don't want them to be able to access to my mic as they see fit and im okay with the fact that I can't use the 2 features that require it because I only ever use the 500 that never need to use my mic anyways?

What I am ultimately trying to point out here, is that the permissions not actually being permissions issue isn't just facebook's problem. It's an industry wide issue, and the current permission system only seems to exist in the first place to exempt company's from all the legal problems they smell brewing down the road. Something they'd only ever anticipate and institute knowing all along the malicious nature that is underlying their intent. (I mean steve jobs was the pioneer of this shit. Does anybody really think he cares more about us than Apple's profitability.)

I just think it's so sad that we live in a world now where all mainstream apps are essentially malware and its terrifying to realize that nobody really understands that bad software isn't just the kind of software that opens nonstop porn ads on your desktop and thus make your computer run slow.