[thinkersilver]

Bear in mind, I'm from the U.K so I don't have an American perspective on this.

This is a bit closer to the truth when you read or listen to what analysis they were doing.

I think what they were doing and it's association with Trump conflated how bad it was.

I'd seen in some places that mining of Facebook data in the pre-trump era, was quite prolific by both parties.

[filoleg]

Not just seems, it was a bragging point, because back then it was fine in the eyes of public, since the previous administration was a bit more likable. I recall an interview back from 2012, where our previous president was talking about it as an innovative technique for his campaign.[1]

[1] https://www.technologyreview.com/s/509026/how-obamas-team-us...