#no one else an cambridge analytica again because he made sure he was first

[cloama]

I don't know what's going on on twitter but I can tell that whatever it is that Elon Musk is trying to do is far beyond subscriptions for verifications and unintentionally driving away advertisers. He's trying to sell something more valuable to people more powerful.

I don't know exactly how but now that he has no choice but to own twitter, he's gotta use it for all its potential and we've learned in the last 6 years that social media platforms' real value outside of advertising is its power as a political/election tool .

He's trying to Zuckerberg.

[checkeredcat]

Cancel Culture: Is it fair?

Project description:

Being in quarantine has definitely increased the amount of time I personally spend on social media. I tried to read, try to exercise, but ultimately I end up on Instagram or TikTok. I’ve also been posting more for the sake of it, but I realised this comes with its’ problems. The more content you put out, the more you are sharing about yourself and your opinions, which everyone might not agree with. This got me thinking about celebrities and influencers. Their every post and opinion is being scrutinised by thousands and sometimes millions of people. Alongside this, came the development of ‘Cancel Culture’. The best definition I could find for this comes from an article by Aja Romano (2019). She writes, “Cancel culture, describes a form of boycott in which someone (usually a celebrity) who has shared a questionable or unpopular opinion, or has had behaviour that is perceived to be problematic, is called out on social media”. My project will look to understand this ‘cancel culture’ more deeply whilst uncovering the dangers of the internet due to regulations, or a lack of.

Method:

The most useful method I could use to investigate ‘cancel culture’ would be a visual discourse analysis. A discourse analysis is a qualitative research method that examines the organisation of language and images. As discussed by Van Dijk (1997), any type of discourse analysis must seek to explain who, why, how and where language is being used. What I understood from this is that there is much more behind a picture or caption which is left for the audience to interpret. To conduct a successful visual discourse analysis, one would have to interpret a deeper meaning beyond the surface of a post. A caption alongside a photo is also something to break down and analyse because it is usually used to add more meaning to a photograph. Daymon and Holloway (2002) suggest that researchers who use a discourse analysis must look at three things in specific. One is the form and content of the language used, essentially what the caption means. Another is the way people use language to communicate ideas and beliefs, meaning what they want their audience to think after seeing their post. Finally, the third one is any institutional or organisational factors which may affect the way language is being used. Therefore, in order to thoroughly conduct a discourse analysis you must make sure those three stems are accounted for. I will conduct my qualitative research by collecting data from Instagram and TikToks of five celebrities who have been ‘cancelled’ for something in the last three years. I will be screenshooting information on their posts (pictures, captions and comments) and then create a coding system of similarities across the three scenarios. This will ensure that I can pick out patterns and reoccurring themes across the three events.

Discussion:

Social networking sites can be said to alter the sense of what it means to be an individual. I believe that on social media, people usually present versions of themselves that are different or ‘better’ in their eyes to their actual self. This means people may occasionally fall into the trap of posting things they do not actually believe, in order to keep a certain image of themselves alive. With controversial posts, inevitably comes controversial backlash and hate. Nakamura and Chow-White (2013) also note that this hate is propagated via different platforms. For example, Nessa Barrett is a seventeen year old TikTok star who was recently ‘cancelled’ because she posted a video dancing inappropriately to a Quran recitation. People are understandably disgusted by what she had done and went from her TikTok to her Instagram to comment their thoughts. This is an example of what Nakamura and Chow-White were explaining. However, this so called ‘cancelled culture’ may just be more apparent to us in today’s society because there are platforms to easily share your views on. It is not necessarily that society has become more sensitive, it is purely that there is now an easy way to share your view/hate on something. This is supported by Murthy and Sharma (2018). There is a problem when it comes to theorising online antagonisms. They identify that although online hate does seem to be increasing dramatically, this may reflect a change in the way we are communicating rather than an increase in the amount of hate taking place.

Over 90 million instagram posts are made in one day. Out of this unfathomable number, can you imagine how many people experience online hate because it is so easy? The internet is clearly being regulated and watched. Situations such as Cambridge Analytica where Facebook was wrongly using peoples data exposes social networking sites as trackers of our data. If they have ultimate control over social media, why do they allow such hate to continue? If they know a post is bound to bring general upset and cause offence then they should also not allow the post to be uploaded in the first place. In addition, after an offensive post is uploaded, they should be able to limit the amount of hateful comments said to someone. After reading a revised edition of Foucualt’s (1977) work, it is clear that he warns of the ‘hierarchal observation’ we are under as humans. As societies have grown and changed, the ways in which we are ‘observed’ has changed. We are now being observed by our activities online and our digital footprints. The surveillance we are under seems to only be used at the benefit of the government rather than for the protection of our mental healths. Nessa Barrett is a seventeen year old girl. Although I do not agree with what she did, the hundreds of death threats she received would be too much for anyone to handle. In this situation, I do believe that Instagram and TikTok should have at least temporarily disabled or limited her account to people. If our content is being surveilled, it makes no sense to why posts like this are able to be uploaded in the first place. I argue that the regulation of social media is weak and this leads to an inevitable cancelling culture.

Contribution:

As mentioned earlier, I undertook a visual discourse analysis of five celebrity instances which demonstrate ‘cancel culture’. The first one was of Nessa Barrett’s comment section after dancing to the Quran and then making a public apology saying she did not know what she was dancing to. The post was obviously deleted but people still commented on all of her other content to express themselves. One comment that stood out in particular was “Filthy rat. You should not be on this earth.” It would be almost impossible for Nessa to block every person who left a hate comment and there were many more like these. Another celebrity who was cancelled in 2018 was Logan Paul. Whilst visiting a Japanese suicide forest, Logan Paul filmed a dead body whilst vlogging for his Youtube channel. This also caused outrage on Instagram and Twitter as it was trending for 3 days. Most of his comments read “That should be you lying there dead.” I accumulated some of the worst comments I saw across five situations like these, and identified the pattern that usually when a group of people like a religion or culture feel attacked by a post, the ‘cancel culture’ is heightened. Death threats are entirely too common on these posts which worries me because influencers are usually young and impressionable. This is dangerous and the internet should do a better job at regulating these comments. I think it is fair for people to stop watching your content if you have offended them, but I argue that trolls who send death threats are just as bad. Online culture has become so hateful nowadays simply due to the fact that we do not see the consequences of our actions. My findings of the visual analysis were shocking because seeing the amount of people so comfortable telling someone to “kill yourself” online was disturbing. Cancel culture is definitely concerning for society because it exists to drive hate against one person at a time until someone else makes a mistake.

Whilst I do not agree with cancel culture, I do not think it has a direct impact for long. For example, both Nessa Barrett and Logan Paul still have over one million followers online. If people were really ‘boycotting’ their content, their following would have dramatically decreased. The fact that people still follow them after supposedly being disgusted by them emphasises how ‘cancel culture’ does not actually lead to people being “cancelled” completely, but rather “cancelled” until there is someone else to hate on. Then again, once something is on the internet, it is very difficult to have it fully erased forever, so your mistakes might come back to haunt you again one day. This is also unfair, because people may drag up your past after you have grown and changed. Do we deserved to be cancelled over something we immaturely posted 10 years ago?

[news-mashable-yahoopartner-blog]

A decade of dicks: How NSFW internet pics changed the world for the worse

Has Jeff Bezos' impressive exposure of Pecker finally broken the curse of Weiner? 

Oh yes, we all laugh at the double entendres in the news that the Amazon founder has accused the National Enquirer's owner of blackmailing him over compromising selfies. But it's a grim gallows chuckle, because we live in the decade of the dick pic — an age where one man's inability to keep it in his pants, and the technology that enabled him, literally changed the course of history by helping elevate Donald Trump to the White House.

That man's name, of course, was Anthony Weiner. The disgraced former congressman was not the first man to ever text a picture of his penis; we don't know who that was, but it probably happened about five seconds after the first camera-enabled cellphone went on sale in Japan in 2000. 

SEE ALSO: A survival guide to dick pics (both solicited and unsolicited)

Rather, Weiner was the first politician ever to accidentally tweet a picture of his package, way back in 2011. The junk-filled photo was supposed to be a Twitter direct message to a student in Seattle he was corresponding with, unbeknownst to his wife, top Hillary Clinton aide Huma Abedin. 

This DM fail heard 'round the world was the first in the three-act story of Weiner's downfall, and it was clearly a comedy — with Weiner's old buddy, Jon Stewart, leading the charge on The Daily Show. How innocent the jokes seem now; how little clue we had of what was to come. 

Then came the second act, when Weiner ran for mayor of New York, and another couple of Weiner's correspondents decided to reveal their own dick pics from the congressman. 

Everything about this scandal was captured by a film crew with full access, and you can see the result in the documentary Weiner, now streaming on Hulu. It's funny, but only in the sense of the most cringeworthy Office-style embarrassment comedy. Weiner emerges as a passionate politician paralyzed by his own self-destructive behavior. We watch his marriage to Abedin begin to disintegrate in a series of tense conversations and withering looks.

One of the most telling parts of the Weiner story was that he never met his correspondents. Usually they would reach out via Twitter or Facebook, Weiner would take things to DM or Messenger, and everything unfolded consensually — and digitally — from there. On election night, he literally runs away to avoid meeting one of his correspondents, 23-year-old Sydney Leathers, who had been egged on to confront Weiner by Howard Stern. 

Here was the worst of our social media age in a nutshell: the sad sexting with anyone who would indulge him; the tragic, grainy pictures shared in chat windows by an older man who should have known better; a viral media frenzy sparked again and again by sheer titillation, exposing our baser instincts. 

And then came the third act, where no one was laughing anymore. Weiner was caught in the summer of 2016 sexting with a 15-year-old, an act for which he was later jailed. Because he had sent some messages on a laptop he'd shared with Abedin, the FBI decided it couldn't ignore Abedin's emails on the same device. That led to the infamous Comey letters, re-opening and re-closing the Clinton email investigation a week before the 2016 presidential election.

Since the margin of Trump's electoral college victory was so slim — roughly 77,000 votes total in Wisconsin, Michigan, and Pennsylvania — we've been having heated arguments ever since about why it happened. Russian propaganda on Facebook was a factor. So was Clinton's lack of campaigning in Wisconsin. So was GOP voter suppression. 

But the reopening of the email investigation is the only event where we see a clear drop for Clinton in the polls. In a post-election study, FiveThirtyEight found the net effect was a four-point swing to Trump — enough to put those three key states in the GOP column by less than a point. (The polls were, in fact, more accurate than we remember.)

There are so many if onlys here. If only we'd known what Cambridge Analytica and Wikileaks were really doing behind the scenes. If only Comey had told us that Trump's campaign was also under FBI investigation. If only Abedin had dumped Weiner after the first scandal broke. However, the ultimate "if only" is tied to Weiner himself: If only he hadn't been so tragically compelled to send dick pics, and/or been more open with his wife, the world would be a very different place.

It's a compulsion that, we now know, the world's richest man shares. But Bezos, thus far, seems smarter than Weiner. He didn't deny the story; in fact, he got so far ahead of it that his Medium post may well be taught in PR classes someday. He stood up to a bully with humor, grace, and full disclosure. All of which generated what seems otherwise impossible in 2019: sympathy for a billionaire.

And while Weiner's weiner brought us Trump, Pecker's pecker-related threats may help to bury him. We know that the National Enquirer was Trump's enabler in helping him to bury the threat of adult-film star Stormy Daniels' story of their affair before the election; we know that Pecker and Trump have both been unusually tight with the Saudi regime. 

Bezos claims Pecker was trying to get him to disavow any connection along those lines. Bezos' security expert Gavin de Becker reportedly believes that Bezos' texts were intercepted via a government agency, but he hasn't said which one. He could mean the Saudis, the Russians, one of Trump's own agencies, or something else entirely. 

It's early days yet, but we may be looking at the first ever geopolitical weaponization of a sext. 

If the battle of Bezos’ pants turns out to be the Watergate of the 2010s, I’m officially quitting news https://t.co/vetUlqO1NN

— Chris Taylor (@FutureBoy) February 8, 2019

And there may be worse to come before the decade is out. According to the ongoing lawsuit filed to extricate her from a nondisclosure agreement with Trump, Stormy Daniels has "certain still images and/or text messages" sent by Trump. If she were to be released from the NDA, she could in theory release them to the highest bidder.

We don't know what that means exactly, but speculation has centered on the most horrific option: that Daniels has Trump's dick pics. Which would certainly explain why he was so keen to keep her quiet. As the sex writer Dan Savage noted with horror last year, Trump could break yet another norm by effectively providing the first presidential dick pic. 

Of course, if that were to be released, it would be without the man's consent. Which would at least be a neat reversal of the usual patriarchal power play that unsolicited dick pics represent. But it would also mark a new low in public discourse — one that made the Black Mirror episode "The National Anthem" look like a cheery story about farm animals. One from which the intersection of technology and politics may never recover. 

One thing's for sure — we're a world away from what the makers of those early camera phones would have ever expected. If they had, perhaps they would have paraphrased what Robert Oppenheimer said when he first saw his atom bomb in action: Now I am become dick pic, destroyer of worlds. 

WATCH: Facebook leaks private photos of nearly 7 million accounts

[endenogatai]

Cambridge Analytica email chain with Facebook sheds new light on data misuse scandal

Cambridge Analytica whistleblower Brittany Kaiser has released new documents today that suggest Facebook accepted only a simple acknowledgment on email from the firm that it had deleted data associated with 87 million Facebook users’ profiles.

The data was improperly obtained in 2014 by researchers with access to Facebook’s developer platform who were being paid by Cambridge Analytica to obtain and process social media users’ information for the purpose of targeting political ads.

In December 2015 a Guardian article about Cambridge academic Dr Aleksandr Spectre (Kogan) outlined how he had acquired the Facebook profiles for research, and that Cambridge Analytica had improperly acquired that data.

In subsequent Washington Senate hearings into the scandal, Mark Zuckerburg apologized for having failed to check that Cambridge Analytica had deleted the information.

At the time he said: “When we heard back from Cambridge Analytica that they had told us that they weren’t using the data and deleted it, we considered it a closed case. In retrospect, that was clearly a mistake. We shouldn’t have taken their word for it. We’ve updated our policy to make sure we don’t make that mistake again.”

Instead, Facebook let the political consultancy self-certify that it had destroyed the records, which it said had been acquired in violation of the social network’s rules.

Furthermore, for example, in a submission to the UK Parliament, Facebook CTO Mike Schroepfer said: “In late 2015, when we learned Kogan had shared the data, we immediately banned TIYDL [the personality quiz app used to harvest data] from our platform and demanded that he delete all data he obtained from that app. We also demanded deletion from everyone that Kogan identified as having been passed some data, including Cambridge Analytica, and certification from all parties that the deletion had been completed.”

The information Kaiser releases today appears to show a difference between Schroepfer’s account and what the emails actually say – with Facebook only requesting by email that CA delete the data — and only asking the company to “provide us with confirmation” [i.e. of deletion], with no mention of a specific process of ‘certification’, as Schroepfer later told the UK parliament.

Today Kaiser revealed exclusively to TechCrunch on stage at the WorldWebForum conference in Zurich that the only acknowledgment from Facebook had come in a simple email exchange with Cambridge Analytica executives.

This ’email exchange’ – which TechCrunch has not been able to independently verify at this point – as never previously been published. Kaiser released to TechCrunch what she claims is a copy of the exchange. We have reached out to Facebook for comment.

According to the document passed to us, writing on Dec 17, 2015, Alex Tayler, Chief Data Officer for Cambridge Analytica, allegedly wrote to Facebook executive Allison Hendrix saying:

“I wanted to confirm that following your inquiry, that Facebook is satisfied that CA has not breached it’s terms of service or stolen data on non-consenting individuals. If you are satisfied this matter is resolved, would it please be possible for us to have a statement from Facebook to disseminate through our PR agency? We are still finding some articles repeating the initial false allegations made by the Guardian, and would like to be able to firmly refute them in order to prevent any further reputational damage to our company. Alternatively, if Facebook would like to issue a joint press release, we would welcome the opportunity to do so.”

A day later on 18 December 2015, Hendrix replied:

“Thank you again for taking the time to speak with me last week and providing additional information into Dr. Kogan’s development of the GSR app which was funded by Cambridge Analytica (via SCL Elections). As discussed, we don’t allow any information obtained from Facebook to be purchased or sold, and we have strict friend data policies that prohibit using friend data for any purpose other than improving a person’s experience in your app. From our conversations, it is clear that these policies have been violated.

“You have told us that you received personality score data from Dr. Kogan that was derived from Facebook data, and that those scores were assigned to individuals included in lists that you maintained. Because that data was improperly derived from data obtained from the Facebook Platform, and then transferred to Cambridge Analytica in violation of our terms, we need you to take any and all steps necessary to completely and thoroughly delete that information as well as any data derived from such data, and to provide us with confirmation of the same.

“We need additional information to complete our review. As an initial matter, did you transfer any data you received from Dr. Kogan to any person or entity other than Ted Cruz’s team? Have you made any other use of the data from Dr. Kogan? If there is any additional information of which you think we should be aware, we thank you in advance for providing us with that information and for your help resolving these issues.

“Please respond at your earliest opportunity confirming when you can complete the above request to delete all data (and any derivative data), and providing the additional information I’ve requested above. As mentioned above, our review is not complete; accordingly, we may have additional questions, requests, or requirements going forward, and this email should not be construed as a waiver of any of Facebook’s rights.”

On December 19, 2015, Tayler replied:

“Dear Allison, There are several incorrect statements in your email. First and foremost, Cambridge Analytica has not transferred the data we received from Dr Kogan to Cruz for President, nor to any other party. The only data we share with our clients are lists of contact information, perhaps with a few tags attached, for target audiences we identify for them (e.g. likely donors, persuadable voters), and models that we have produced under their direction. Secondly, Cambridge Analytica did not fund the development of Dr. Kogan’s app. We did not pay GSR for their time or technology, but rather paid the third party (e.g. survey vendor) costs for the surveys they ran. Please note that GSR was contractually obliged to us to carry out this research with the consent of the survey respondents and in line with the terms of service of their vendors.

“Having made that clear, the model we received from Dr Kogan wasn’t very accurate (in validation experiments we ran, we found his predictions only slightly better than random). For our goal of extrapolating personality scores across our whole database, his model was simply not accurate enough to use as a training set, or to apply it commercially in any other way.

“Nevertheless, we still considered the project a success in that it provided us with a proof of concept for the personality research we have since undertaken internally (which is in no way connected with Facebook). It is these data that we have collected independently of GSR about which we have built our current business offering. For this reason, and in the spirit of the good-faith relationship we would like to maintain with Facebook, we will comply with your request to delete all data we received from Dr Kogan.

“Please let me know what else you require from us as soon as possible. It is a matter of urgency that we make it clear that Cambridge Analytica has not done anything wrong.”

There was then a time-lag probably due to the break for the holidays. On 5 January 2016, Hendrix replied:

“Thank you for your timely and detailed response, and for agreeing to delete any and all data that was derived from the Facebook Platform. Can you let me know how you were storing the data and what you did to delete it?”

On January 6, 2016, Tayler replied, copying in CA CEO Alexander Nix, saying:

“To be clear, we have not yet deleted the data we received from Dr Kogan, but will be happy to do so once Facebook confirms that this will resolve the matter. We are currently storing the data as csv files in an encrypted directory on our file server. When we delete the data we will simply rm -rf the directory.”

Six days later on 12 January, Hendrix:

“As a reminder, you received the data inappropriately and are obligated to delete it. You’ve indicated that you would like to maintain a positive relationship with us. Having one will require deletion of the data. In addition to deleting the data from the directory, can you check to see whether your server has any backups which also contain the data? While we don’t anticipate further issues at this time, we reserve our rights and can make no guarantees.”

On Jan 18, 2016 Tayler replied:

“I can confirm that we have now deleted from our file-server the data we received from Dr Kogan in good faith that this resolves our obligation to Facebook. I also confirm that I have checked that the server contains no backups of that data. Our having deleted the data and cooperated in this matter should not be construed as an admission of any kind of wrongdoing on our part.”

On January 18, 2016, Hendrix replied:

“Thank you, Alex. I will let you know if we have any follow up questions, and please don’t hesitate to reach out if you or your team have any questions on your end. Thanks again. – Ali”

This entire exchange was then forwarded by executives from the N6A PR agency to Cambridge Analytica executives and was, in turn, obtained by Kaiser on 23 January 2016.

from RSSMix.com Mix ID 8204425 https://ift.tt/2RmsVPy via IFTTT

[lindyhunt]

I Downloaded My Facebook Data and It Got Weird Fast

When I found out I could download my entire Facebook data file, the first thing I felt was fear.

How far does it go back? What does it contain? Who has access to it? Will it make me feel old?

The idea popped into my head among mounting headlines around the alleged misuse of personal Facebook user data by analytics firm Cambridge Analytica. I wanted to know what, exactly, those potentially in possession of my data might know about me -- so despite the trepidation, I downloaded it anyway.

The results were not exactly encouraging.

This file had everything -- I mean, everything -- from personal contact records that I don't even have stored on my iPhone anymore, to every single image I had sent someone over Messenger. As the title suggests: Things got weird, fast.

And if you're understandably hesitant about downloading your own data, or just considering it, here's what you can expect -- and what the results mean.

I Downloaded My Facebook Data and Things Got Weird

A Snapshot

When you first download a copy of your data archive and unzip it the compressed file (here's a quick how-to), it'll look something like this:

Open the general "index.htm," and you'll see a quick snapshot of all the data available on you, ranging from your general profile to advertisers who have your contact information. Here's what the "profile" section of mine looks like, with a few sections removed for the sake of -- this old thing -- privacy.

Granted, what was available on this page was largely information I voluntarily supplied to Facebook by way of putting it on my profile, like where I went to school or my birthday.

But it was in the other sections and file folders where things started to get weird -- and where I started wondering what potential advertisers or others might be doing with it. 

The 'Ads' Section

The "Ads" section of my data index file largely consists of an exhaustive list of ad topics that would be of interest to me. Some of them made sense, as they were brands whose Pages I already Liked.

But some of the topics were downright irrelevant and, therefore, befuddling -- like "fishing bait" and "organic compound."

But there was also a section for advertisers with my contact information, many of whom were brands and musical artists whose Pages I hadn't Liked.

I had to wonder, why do the Smashing Pumpkins and Beck have my contact information? I hadn't listened to either, really, since my first year of college when -- at risk of dating myself -- Facebook didn't exist yet.

It raises questions about just how accessible this information is, and how widespread the availability of our data might be. While likely a bad actor, I'm inclined to believe that Cambridge Analytica isn't alone in the way it allegedly synthesized Facebook user data to get to the root of what sort of promoted content and messaging would resonate most with people.

It's also unclear how to selectively remove that data, if at all -- which could be a valuable next step for Facebook, says HubSpot Product Lead Daria Marmer.

"Facebook now needs to take the next step and make data deletion from its platform as easy as data access," she explains. "After all, shouldn't it be at least as easy to remove your history/personal information as it is for advertisers to access it?"

Messenger Records

That became particularly salient when I discovered that my Facebook data includes a transcript of every Messenger interaction I've had, replete with any photo or video files I may have shared in those conversations. 

Again, this might not be new. In an April 2014 earnings call, Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg noted that as part of the social network's ongoing efforts to personalize any content seen by a given user, it would take "a couple of different approaches towards more private content as well."

In the context of the full remarks, it would appear that Zuckerberg was referring to content promotion in these private conversations -- namely, those taking place on Messenger and WhatsApp (also owned by Facebook).

Those plans are increasingly coming to fruition as of late, by way of in-app ads on Messenger (see below image) and the proposed Messenger Broadcast feature.

At the time, Facebook COO Sheryl Sandberg positioned these efforts as going strictly toward displaying Facebook content that users would be "genuinely happy to see."

But to this day, and among recent events, it remains unclear as to which data is, was, or would be used to help target the "private content" Zuckerberg alluded to. However, some believe that any user data authorization, including the kind that eventually led to the alleged misuse by Cambridge Analytica, would include Messenger data and files, too.

This personal revelation comes among recent allegations that, on Android devices, Facebook may have been scraping data on calls made and text messages sent from users' mobile devices -- through the device itself, not the Messenger platform.

Here's what that logged activity looked like for one Android user who discovered this record in his own data file:

Source: Ars Technica

Facebook's response to this allegation is that users must explicitly opt into allowing Messenger to access contacts and, it seems, log call and text activity. According to a statement published Sunday:

"When you sign up for Messenger or Facebook Lite on Android, or log into Messenger on an Android device, you are given the option to continuously upload your contacts as well as your call and text history. For Messenger, you can either turn it on, choose ‘learn more’ or ‘not now’."

But according to Ars Technica writer and editor Sean Gallagher, that's not the experience shared by all Android Users.

Even though he never installed Messenger on the Android devices he's used, Gallagher says that after installing Facebook on his Nexus tablet and Blackphone 2 in 2015, his own archive includes call data from between 2015 and 2016. That's after, he says, never receiving "an explicit message requesting access to phone call and SMS data." 

Where We Go From Here

If nothing else, it seems that no one is quite sure how, exactly, personal Facebook user data is being leveraged, in whose possession it might be, and how much information those who have it might be privy to. 

"Tech companies have access to an insane amount of our data -- you can even see for yourself on Facebook and Google exactly what they collect," says Henry Franco, HubSpot's social campaign strategy associate. "My guess is there are a ton of Cambridge Analyticas out there, and people would be horrified to realize how many companies are using their data to gently nudge their decision-making processes."

This is why Facebook's own investigations might not be enough.

After several days of silence on the initial Cambridge Analytica data misuse allegations, Zuckerberg finally issued a statement on the matter last Thursday, and has been on an active interview and apology circuit since then.

Case in point: Full-page mea culpa ads in the Sunday editions of the New York Times, Washington Post, and Observer (which is published by Guardian, an outlet Facebook threatened to sue before it first reported on the Cambridge Analytica scandal).

Facebook took out full page ads in the NYT, WSJ, WashPost, and 6 UK papers today https://t.co/kMA822kTpU pic.twitter.com/CUEYwyWuTT

— Brian Stelter (@brianstelter) March 25, 2018

But there have been a few key, repetitive themes underlying Zuckerberg's remarks. The first is an emphasis on the words "I'm sorry," which were notably absent from his official written statement released last week.

The second is Zuckerberg's suggested willingness to appear before lawmakers and other authorities to testify on user data and privacy -- if, as he told Recode, he's "the person who has the most knowledge on it."

And because the Federal Trade Commission confirmed today that it is non-publicly investigating Facebook among its "substantial concerns about the privacy practices," Zuckerberg should be prepared to testify -- especially since he's been called upon to do so by members of the Senate Judiciary Committee (along with the CEOs of Google and Twitter).

Statement by the Acting Director of @FTC’s Bureau of Consumer Protection regarding reported concerns about @Facebook's #privacy practices: https://t.co/n0eMCspNzO pic.twitter.com/WTjXz0YTGR

— FTC (@FTC) March 26, 2018

It all leads to an increasingly likely outcome: that Facebook and its big tech counterparts will have to bow to the external regulation that it's been visibly dodging for some time.

For example, after allegations first came to light that Facebook was weaponized by foreign agents to influence the 2016 U.S. presidential election, many wondered if the network instituted its own onslaught of new rules to avoid facing those from lawmakers.

Zuckerberg says he's not entirely opposed to that outcome, saying in an interview with CNN last week that "I’m not sure we shouldn’t be regulated." But if that is the end result, Facebook likely won't be alone in facing that new level of oversight, as implied by the aforementioned invitation to appear before lawmakers alongside executives from Google and Twitter.

And where such regulation is going to have the greatest ripple effect, according to HubSpot Director of Strategic Partnerships Kevin Raheja, is advertising.

"Facebook, Twitter, and Google will be subjected to, and also adjust to the regulations, likely at the expense of some revenue," he says. "They will likely have to be selective with advertisers, particularly politically-charged messaging ... not just to protect users, but also their own integrity and their own perceptions."

The timing also closely aligns with the GDPR coming into force in May. "With Zuckerberg being asked to testify in front of Congress," says Franco, "one could wonder if we'll see similar data regulation in the U.S."

This is a developing story that I'll monitoring as it unfolds. Questions? Feel free to weigh in on Twitter.

[cepmurphy]

20 Elections - 20 Notes

During the general election, I wrote twenty different alternate history shorts. Here’s the thinking and points of diversion behind them: (SPOILERS) #1: You Won’t Get Me, I’m Part Of The Union This one, you can tell it was written when Le Pen was clearly going to make it Round 2 of the 2017 French elections. (Banks is in UKIP financier Aaron Banks) The title is from a hit song in the 70s about trade unions. Famously, a desperate French President Reynaud in 1940 proposed a vaguely defined “Anglo-French Union” in the hope of keeping his government going and France fighting. Any such union would, of course, stick together only in conflict. Of the other three union members, Ireland was secretly offered Northern Ireland back if it joined the war effort in 1943 and Gabon did hold a referendum on independence or remaining part of France. Britain was lucky in that it’s the only European empire to have escaped decolonisation without a long, bloody war (for us rather than the locals) to retain colonies that we then lost anyway. France fought two such wars in Algeria and Vietnam - if we were bonded to them, we wouldn’t be so lucky as real life. #2: A Popular Mandate The title is a mean dig at pro-Brexit’s talk of mandates but the story is based on Erdogan’s increasingly autocracy in Turkey. (And he too held a referendum) The POD is another famous one: the coup plots against Harold Wilson by a few idiots in MI5 and press magnate Cecil King, with Lord Mountbatten intended as the interim leader. In real life it was a damp squib but if it had happened, then the door would be opened for more coups - the spell that we call “peaceful exchange of power” would be shattered and, like a few other countries, we might never get it back. Dimbleby as in David Dimbleby, the BBC’s undying election night host. #3: These Colours Don’t Run IRON MAIDEN!!! One of their many songs about war and armies, of course. The Iraq War was a hugely defining event, the two of the one-two punch that started with September 11. It hangs over every foreign military engagement for a dozen countries and makes people leery of any big involvement. And the Iraq War happened solely because George Bush and his chums won, and were given an opening by 9/11 - so you just need the votes in Florida to change and then, we just have a string of successful, “cheap” interventions from Falklands on (or so we’d remember them). Is that notoriously gobby Jess Philips as Labour leader, battling against notoriously urg-not-HIM Liam Fox? I can’t possible comment. #4: Carry On As in “keep calm and”, written not so long after a terrorist attack. A statement had to be made. #5: Meet The New Bosses This one comes from two things: the unprecedented success of Macron in France and the collapse of the big parties that allowed it, and the many, many fluctuating polls in our election. Labour and the Tories seem like stable, unstoppable forces but such certainties can change - as seen by the obliteration of the Lib Dems and SNP eating all other parties in 2015, as well as France. All it would take is a bit of time and both parties screwing up - the wrong leaders at the wrong time, rather than the zeitgeist-nabbing Blair and Cameron. (Danzcuk was exposed as a creepy sexter after seeming like a righteous campaigner so imagine if he’d got power...) Cole from story #1 is back but in a different role due to the different timeline. That comes from Kim Newman’s Life’s Lottery, where the same cast appear over and over in different roles & personalities depending on what choice the reader makes. (Vince as in Cable, Abbott as in Diane) Why Dundee? Cos the Beano, home of Roger the Dodger, is from there. The Yorkshire Party is actually real but has never won a thing. The BNP hasn’t either, but here they benefit from UKIP never supplanting them and stand as the Front National standins. #6: Status Quo Statistically, it’s weird that we not only have had only two women PM’s who were the only two female party leaders at UK level and so few women seriously run for the job. I wonder what could ever be the reason for that. I wonder. All female leaders mentioned are real prominent politicians, some more than others. Davidson is Ruth Davidson, Scottish Tory leader and at the time of writing, I didn’t expect her to be the Tory’s shining light in 2017, the one gaining them seats without loss. Maybe she will be a potential PM soon.... #7: The Old Familiar Stain The title comes from the song Hurt, by NIN and then Johnny Cash. A recurring claim in Britain is the Empire wasn’t so bad and we brought civilisation to the heathens, even if we know not to say White Man’s Burden now - this even as we hear time and again about atrocities we glossed over at the time. (Kenyans who were tortured during the Mau Mau uprising did go to the High Court a few years ago) Surely we’d not think that if we’d been good socialists, right? Politicians mentioned are all key Labour people through history - including party founder Keir Hardie - with “Uncle Arthur” a nickname for Arthur Henderson. Only Ramsay Macdonald got to be PM in real life, and in difficult circumstances. #8: The Big Society Title is, of course, a mean dig at a Cameron slogan. A bunch of alternate history and sci-fi stories have multinational megastates and power blocks. Council elections are often meagre because they’re considered to not really be powerful - why wouldn’t that happen in a hypothetical ‘megastate’? The POD here is no American Revolution, leading to increasingly powerful dominions within empire, leading to here. Philadelphia was America’s prime city before the revolution and temporarily a capital. #9: A Sense of Proportion I was in a defiantly optimistic mood for this one. Back in 2011, we decided not to move to a different electoral system - alternative vote rather than this timeline’s single transferable - but stick with first-past-the-post instead. Voting models show this would prevent a majority Tory government and lead to UKIP's 4m voter surge giving them more than one seat. That would not have been sustainable, hence the early election after all. Ed Miliband really has had a change of reputation in certain circles: once he was no longer party leader, he started to be quite funny and play social media like a fiddle. That, it seems, was the real Ed all along and he was covering it up. Once you take fear away... #10: Special Relationships You can all tell what this one’s about. Ruth Davidson returns, this time with Louise Mensch, former MP and major Trump & Putin hater. Having her be in Cabinet is a stretch but hey, narrative. Operation Sea Lion is the famous Nazi plan to invade Britain - and in violation of alternate history, most historians are pretty sure Sea Lion would have failed. If that had happened, you alter the shape of World War Two. The barbed comments about America “being late” for the war are still made now, after we were allies together, and if America had never shown up at all (and without Pearl Harbor it may not have) then all we ‘know’ about transatlanic relations is out the window. #11: The Great Blue Hope Popularly, the Falklands was what saved Thatcher’s first term. A divisive government, high unemployment, and an eyecatching new opposition party in the SDP could have nobbled her without the war - and the war could have easily gone against us. And once you’re a failed party, you can be a failed party for a generation. The many annoying answers to door-knocking are all things that I’ve seen or heard canvassers & politicians mention. It’s a right slog.

#12: Clever, Clever, Clever I Don’t Like Michael Gove: The Novelisation. Gove really did backstab Boris Johnson in the real world’s 2016 party race. Now we know that’s what Mr “I Don’t Want To Be PM” would do. We also have allegations he was at dinners with Trump allies that Cambridge Analytica set up. He was a Brexiteer - and once the Prime Minister is taking a stance, that side can no longer claim to be the anti-establishment vote. Labour and the Lib Dems going into coalition in 2010 is a recurring ‘what if’ in political thought. It’s public record how many people in Labour didn’t want to, however, and if the Lib Dems were doomed for helping Tories imagine if they’re propping up a ‘failed’ government. It’df definitel;y be Tories winning next. Liz Kendall came nowhere near winning the Labour leadership in our time but she did get brief attention for playing the Young One card - after 17 years of power and looking tired in public, Labour would want young. #13: Frankenstein Must Vote The further we get from the 80s, the dafter the “video nasties” thing seems. A bunch of horror movies, many not that bad except in production value terms, being effectively banned in the UK, that far into the 20th century? The past is another country. Hammer Horror did not, in real life, survive the mid-70s but it could have, maybe, with a bit more effort. Zepellins vs Pterodactyls really was a planned film. There’s Cole again! (And Ansari from #5, in passing) Yeovil is a penname for Kim Newman. #14: Mission Control A Newquay spaceport is a controversial idea the Tories pitched this year. Could it even work? We may find out, we may not. British space agencies have never quite worked the way we dream about them. Black Knight was almost a real rocket system but, in the end, did not happen. Money was only going to pay for so much and realistically, any UK NASA would be limited. However, it could change us despite that - as Warren Ellis once argued for Ministry in Space, our space fiction is the cry of a declining Britain, hungry to believe there was something else to do. Another big nation involved in space flight would also transform the space race, even if it sucked at it. Charles Kennedy never became PM but could - maybe should - have. #15: And I Would Make Five Hundred K The SNP once helped keep Labour in power in the 70s and in exchange, they got a referendum on devolution - one that did not succeed. If it had, it is possible independence may have happened earlier, and (for the plot to work) we’re saying Scotland was less hit by Thatcher’s policies and instead turned them into Scotland’s own. With oil and financial dealings, an independent Scotland could prosper - and would be prey to large foreign sharks. We often think of an independent Scotland as mega-left because we assume the modern SNP will run it and start it off. It’s not a hard law. Oor Wully (”Our Willy” in phoenetic) is a long-running Scottish comic strip. Trump’s mother came out of Scotland and if this was blowing up at the time his businesses were doing bad in the States, I can see him shifting. #16: The Glorious Status Quo The Glorious Revolution - named by English people as for us, it was bloodless - saw parliament call in foreign Protestant monarchs to replace a more catholic-friendly one. This was a huge influence in our politics (and killed thousands upon thousands in Scotland and Ireland) as well as global, ending the Anglo-Dutch rivalry. Catholic-Protestant divides of the time mean even if it didn’t happen, something would at some point. Now this one was a toughie because with this far back a diversion, the world needed to be as different as I could get it without being incomprehensible. The tech, the landmarks, the ethnicities (Native American immigration) all get tweaks. For Tradesman Party, read Labour.

#17: Rock The Vote One thing that keeps going around is that Tony Blair - this is honestly the truth - wanted to get into music and was part of a student rock band. It would only take a bit more success on that front and Blair could have done that for a career instead of becoming an MP. I can’t say if he’d ever be that great a musician but in New Labour’s heyday he had the charisma, the drive, and ability to connect with the common man that, if he did have talent, would make him a star.

He used to be further left in his youth but got turned off by the hard left, as he says here. Blair was one of the main people pushing for action on Kosovo so sadly without him, that’s not stopped. #18: Heard Around The World Britain did not go fascist, unlike many other European nations. If we had, it would have eventually ended - but as with #2, once you’ve opened that bottle, the genie isn’t going back in. (You could also be sure America would back a right-wing post-fascist government over a socialist one) We’ve seen time and again that when certain governments get into power in certain countries, they may not last long.

Part of the inspiration was the Gambia, where the recent election had ended in the incumbent ignoring the result and the winning party have to flee abroad to get aid from the African Union.

Paisley as in the notorious Reverend Iain Paisley, Creasy as in Labour’s Stella Creasy, and Labour heavyweight Aneurin Bevan was from Wales.

#19: Big Boy’s Rules Britain is a big nation that’s not as big as it once was and ones to be bigger again. That compulsion to be big won’t go away. As noted before, Suez was what did us in as an imperial power - and made it clear Europe was out, the US and USSR were in. But militarily, it almost worked. A bit of extra time and we’d have won. And if we’d won, we wouldn’t care about the murkiness and the morality. #20: It’ll Be Alright On The Night Writtem very shortly before the vote. Simple diversion: Brexit does not happen. Everything follows on from there. To keep things as unclear as they seemed in our time, I arranged for both Tories and Labour to have weak, unpopular leaders - both seen as shifty. In hindsight, I’ve set up Labour to be stuffed unless it gets a coalition deal and I, like many, overestimated the third party vote collapse.