The impact of Cambridge Analytica is so overstated that it crosses into hyperbole. They were a bunch of clowns with minimal impact that got magnified to a status of super-villain because you could use them to club Trump over the head with. And let's not lose sight of the big picture, namely before Trump accidentally won (yes, accidentally and barely), the Trump campaign was seen (correctly) as a total disorganized disaster and one of the biggest clown-shows in modern political campaigns ... and yet they were at the same time these nefarious puppet masters using modern high-tech technology to manipulate voters and ultimately skew the election.
They aren't the only ones doing it. I get what you are saying, but is your (more general) argument that CA was bad, or that precise, hidden information targeting based on a persons characteristics cannot be used in nefarious ways? Because if you aren't arguing the latter, I don't think its worth calling OP out on CA specifically.
> but is your (more general) argument that CA was bad, or that precise, hidden information targeting based on a persons characteristics cannot be used in nefarious ways?
The only argument I made was that the impact of CA was overblown for political reasons. I don't have a well-formed opinion on targetted political messaging, except maybe that it is a reality and we should just get used to it - perhaps having some regulations may make sense (the way lobbyists are regulated) so that the entire industry doesn't go underground.
>Because if you aren't arguing the latter, I don't think its worth calling OP out on CA specifically.
OP was making a political point - that CA was uniquely bad or an example of the problems of the industry because they were tied to Trump's joke of a campaign. If you actually read what they did, they were clearly clowns and shysters - as in, they siphoned consulting money from the campaign by promising the moon, and couldn't actually deliver. Ironically, their promises were taken at face value after Trump's election.
Exactly. Not just that, when the Obama used social media targeted advertising to its advantage it was fawned over in the media.
Cambridge Analytica was targeted purely because they were on the wrong political side, it's as simple as that. Does anyone really think they would have gotten any attention if they were working for Hillary?
Yes, I think they would have been screamed about from every Republican supporting media outlet there is. And I think they were targeted because of the underhanded way they went about collecting data, and for violating FB ToS.
But the real reason that I think they were targeted? I think they leaned into it as a submarine PR coverage tactic. "We're so effective that it's a national scandal" was a great marketing tactic in the (hopefully bygone) era when amorality had no consequences.
The impact of Cambridge Analytica is so overstated that it crosses into hyperbole. They were a bunch of clowns with minimal impact that got magnified to a status of super-villain because you could use them to club Trump over the head with. And let's not lose sight of the big picture, namely before Trump accidentally won (yes, accidentally and barely), the Trump campaign was seen (correctly) as a total disorganized disaster and one of the biggest clown-shows in modern political campaigns ... and yet they were at the same time these nefarious puppet masters using modern high-tech technology to manipulate voters and ultimately skew the election.