Facebook Sucks! (But I Still Love Your Family Pix)

Allow Buster to explain the Facebook-Cambridge Analytica scandal (and it is a scandal).

Cambridge Analytica is a British-based right-wing political research group.  It was founded by Robert Mercer, American wing-nut hedge fund billionaire.  Steve Bannon is its former V.P.  The Trump campaign used it during the 2016 campaign.  The company has ties to Russia.

Cambridge Analytica dishonestly used personal data from up to 50 million Facebook users in an attempt to sway the U.S. election.  They gathered the data with an app which purported to be a "personality quiz."  But the app culled info not only from the 270,000 FB users who dowloaded it voluntarily, but also snagged the data of all their FB friends and any page visitors.  The app did not disclose this and users did not authorize it, a clear violation of privacy rights and FB policy.

Cambridge Analytica would then "psychographically" target voters in critical areas with a FB blizzard of manipulative ads, "news" stories, websites, and other propaganda-esque info to drive the culture wars wedge.

Facebook knew about all this at least two years ago and kept it under wraps.  They did not inform their users.  They have thus far accepted no responsibility for it, nor for all the rest of the garbage they permit to be strewn across their platform.  They disengenuously claim they are merely a communications site, not a publisher.  This shaky distinction allows them (for now) to avoid liability for the actual content of their site (such as abusive trolling, personal threats, and libel).

Facebook makes their money by selling ads, and by selling their own custom data collection and marketing tools to businesses and others.  They sold those marketing tools to the 2016 Trump campaign at a deep discount.  They sold political ads to Russian companies who actually paid FB in rubles!

Just today, the CEO of Cambridge Analytica and its parent company, Strategic Communications Labs, was suspended after bragging about how he got Trump elected, about SCL/Cambridge's use of unattributed "ghost" ads on behalf of political clients, and about his strategy of using sexual blackmail, secret recordings, and entrapment on candidates.  He claimed to have influenced over 200 elections world-wide.

SCL/Cambridge Analytica is slime.  Facebook is not much better.  Some folks right now are freaking out and trying to permanently delete their FB accounts.  It's understandable, but most of us are not harmed by this so-called psycho-targeting.  For the most part, we're targeted with innocuous ads for Home Depot, iPhones and shampoo. And most of us are smart enough to not be swayed by obvious bullshit on the internet.

But too many people are not smart enough, and they spend way too much time on Facebook.  You know who I mean.  Clearly, those idiots can be influenced, have been, and will continue to be.

As for me, I should quit Facebook on principle, but dammit, I really like the photos of your kids and your pets and your vacations!