[simonh]

Overall I agree. The left was ecstatic about Obama’s ground breaking use of social media and analytics in his first presidential campaign, but now are crying foul because the right has caught up and even pulled ahead. I’m not entirely happy about the tactics due to the privacy implications, but that’s a separate issue.

What does worry me is that the messaging being targeted in this way is often disingenuous. Parties will target one message at one demographic and a contradictory message at another demographic. So if a consistent message is simply being targeted effectively that’s fine, but deceptively tailoring the message to the target is a legitimate concern.

[zapita]

You’re making a false equivalence. The Obama campaign hired savvy analysts and marketers to run a modern web and email campaign. A lot of what they did was pioneer what is now standard in almost every campaign: heavy use of email follow-ups to keep supporters engaged; recruiting and coordinating canvassing teams nationwide; using social media as a primary channel of communication rather than a gadget.

What the Trump campaign did was go to Paul Manafort, the guy who fixed Ukrainian campaign using black ops disinformation campaigns on behalf of Putin, and hire him to run his campaign!

The only thing those campaigns had in common is that they used the Internet efficiently. But they used them very differently to achieve different goals. To compare them as equivalent is irresponsible.

[darawk]

You keep implying differences, while not actually stating them. Who was hired is not a salient difference, in this context. The tactics employed by each are essentially the same: Heavy internet advertising with effective, outcome-based targeting. For all of Cambridge Analytica's marketing puff pieces, I see no evidence they were doing anything fundamentally different.

[zapita]

Just to be clear, you are willing to say on the record that the Obama campaign and Manaford, a convicted criminal who is known to have worked for a mass murdering autocratic regime as their expert electoral fixer, are “essentially the same” in their use of the Internet?

If so, you’ll have to find someone else to engage in debate with you. If you are capable of believing such a thing, we simply don’t have enough moral common ground to have a productive conversation.

I will say for the benefit of others who might read this, that how successful Cambridge Analytica actually was in manipulating US voters in 2016 is irrelevant to whether or not A) mass disinformation is a real threat to elections everywhere (it is) and B) the Trump campaign employed Cambridge Analytica to manipulate US voters using mass disinformation (they did).

[darawk]

> Just to be clear, you are willing to say on the record that the Obama campaign and Manaford, a convicted criminal who is known to have worked for a mass murdering autocratic regime as their expert electoral fixer, are “essentially the same” in their use of the Internet?

In their use of the internet in relation to their respective presidential campaigns, yes. Do you have specific evidence to the contrary?

> If so, you’ll have to find someone else to engage in debate with you. If you are capable of believing such a thing, we simply don’t have enough moral common ground to have a productive conversation.

So, just to be clear, at the first sight of a challenge and request for literally any supporting evidence at all, you're backing away, while pretending to do so out of contempt?

It's become quite clear that you don't actually have any evidence to back up your claims here. Though feel free to prove me wrong.