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by downandout 2979 days ago
You obviously feel very passionate about this subject, so there is no point in attempting to convincing you to change your opinion, other than to reiterate that it is not a commonly held opinion.

I did want to respond directly to one of your points that is dead wrong. With regard to this statement:

>Secondly, that information is used to influence you. Cambridge Analytica still proudly proclaims, on their home page, that they "[use] data to change audience behavior." Ads on Facebook are being used by different groups to inflame political tensions

There has been no scientific evidence that CA, the Russians, or anyone else was actually successful in their efforts to use Facebook to influence the election or "inflate political tensions". In fact, CA's own customers say that it didn't work [1]. This whole thing was a manufactured controversy.

[1] http://www.businessinsider.com/cambridge-analytica-facebook-...

1 comments

You confused my statements regarding CA with a separate issue regarding political ads on Facebook, covered in the Reuters article I cited (which didn't mention CA at all).

If CA were a "manufactured controversy", I think HN would've cottoned on to that quite a while ago, rather than the various comments (among thousands on the topic now) expressing surprise that people are suddenly paying attention to this:

50M Facebook profiles harvested for Cambridge Analytica in major data breach: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16606924

Zuckerberg on Cambridge Analytica situation: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16641550

How Cambridge Analytica’s Facebook targeting model really worked: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16719403

Leaked email shows how Cambridge Analytica and Facebook first responded in 2015: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16667805

The Cambridge Analytica scandal isn’t a scandal: this is how Facebook works: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16621885 (solid top comment on that thread)

Palantir worked with Cambridge Analytica on the Facebook data it acquired: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16690721

Users Abandon Facebook After Cambridge Analytica Findings: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16644067

I'm not, by the way, providing any of these links in my comments to try to change your mind. I realized several comments ago that you've got an entrenched and unmovable opinion that pervasive user tracking on the internet is no big deal. I've been providing these links for anyone else reading who might be interested in the topic.