tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3272054900018746845.post3941589238745891807..comments2024-01-01T17:21:52.555+00:00Comments on Is the BBC biased?: A Tale of Two StoriesCraighttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08741318067991857821noreply@blogger.comBlogger1125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3272054900018746845.post-70219289644834288872018-03-19T16:18:56.945+00:002018-03-19T16:18:56.945+00:00"Obama, Facebook and the power of friendship:..."Obama, Facebook and the power of friendship: the 2012 data election"<br /><br />https://www.theguardian.com/world/2012/feb/17/obama-digital-data-machine-facebook-election<br /><br />'At the core is a single beating heart – a unified computer database that gathers and refines information on millions of committed and potential Obama voters. The database will allow staff and volunteers at all levels of the campaign – from the top strategists answering directly to Obama's campaign manager Jim Messina to the lowliest canvasser on the doorsteps of Ohio – to unlock knowledge about individual voters and use it to target personalised messages that they hope will mobilise voters where it counts most.<br /><br />Every time an individual volunteers to help out – for instance by offering to host a fundraising party for the president – he or she will be asked to log onto the re-election website with their Facebook credentials. That in turn will engage Facebook Connect, the digital interface that shares a user's personal information with a third party.<br /><br />Consciously or otherwise, the individual volunteer will be injecting all the information they store publicly on their Facebook page – home location, date of birth, interests and, crucially, network of friends – directly into the central Obama database.<br /><br />"If you log in with Facebook, now the campaign has connected you with all your relationships," a digital campaign organiser who has worked on behalf of Obama says.'<br /><br />Hmmmm...so this apparently is "The power of friendship".<br /><br />Note particularly the use of 'consciously or otherwise'.<br /><br />Is this so different to the method of data collection so condemned by Cambridge Analytica?<br /><br />'Prof Kogan is said to have created an app called “thisisyourdigitallife”. It was accessed by approximately 270,000 people, Facebook said.<br /><br />"In so doing, they gave their consent for [Prof] Kogan to access information such as the city they set on their profile, or content they had liked, as well as more limited information about friends who had their privacy settings set to allow it.”'<br /><br />Seems to me the only clear distinction is that Obama was the guy the Grauniad wanted to win, thus it's the 'power of friendship', whereas with Cambridge Analytica it was on behalf of the guy the BBC wanted to lose, so they are 'controversial'.RobNottsnoreply@blogger.com