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Post by Admin on Mar 29, 2018 12:59:08 GMT
Nick Newman is the admin this week  Original Posts by Thursday 11:59pm Two thoughtful peer posts by Monday |
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Post by nick newman on Apr 2, 2018 0:59:16 GMT
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Post by Alex Aspinall on Apr 2, 2018 20:44:59 GMT
If you wanna call a company trying to keep underdeveloped nations from electing madmen colonialism, they sure, this is colonialism. truly though the big deal is that they weren't digging for the right people. if this company had been biding for more left wing candidates or to stay with the EU then none of these news sources would have a problem with it. the fact is however that the company took information that is in no way private and advertised according to it, they wouldn't have swayed anything, merely bolstered the people's beliefs. Countries should put no such laws in place. the government should stay away from the internet and keep their hands off advertisers as long as they aren't spreading false information.
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Post by Derek VanDyke on Apr 3, 2018 15:51:24 GMT
To me the internet is the internet. What I mean is that it should be a place of free expression. The internet is worldwide which means no one should have control over it. It is the jobs of the people who go on the internet to know the things they will see and it is also their jobs to educate themselves on any election. They are calling it data theft but I do not see how it can be data theft when the people of the internet put their information out there. That is a basic rule for all users of the internet and it is the peoples choice and problem to know that what they make public is now there for anyone. It might not seem fair but if anyone does not like it then they should not be using social media on the internet. If you think logically about it they call it "social media" for a reason. It is supposed to be social so therefore I view Christopher Wylie's argument as invalid.
Social media is supposed to be social. So is Cambridge Analytica in the wrong for taking PUBLIC information even if it is personal?
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Post by Wolinski on Apr 5, 2018 2:23:05 GMT
What is sort of confusing about this whole situation is why this is such a big deal in the first place. When you go online to shop for clothes or anything, you can almost certainly expect to find ads on either social media or on other websites. These little ads usually only garner enough attention to make you say “wow, that’s kinda odd, I was just shopping at American Eagle for those jeans”. Companies like Google and Yahoo do these things all the time to provide you with more relevant ads and, for the most part, without much of your consent. So what is truly different when it comes to social media and political campaigns? Is it the fact of money being involved? Politicians pay for ad space on television, radio, social media, and billboards so it should not be a surprise when they use companies such as Cambridge Analytica to spread the reach of these campaigns. Okay then is it the part about the company taking “private” information? Well as Derek stated in his response that we cannot call this, “data theft when the people of the internet put their information out there.” I personally could go on to your Twitter account, see if you are following either a majority of Republicans or Democrats and assume which one you are. This is essentially all these data companies are doing and there is absolutely nothing wrong or illegal about it. If you don’t want these sorts of things happening to you, simply put your account on private and all your problems will go away.
Are these companies really doing anything wrong or are they just digging harder than most people would?
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Post by Wolinski on Apr 5, 2018 2:26:01 GMT
@derek I completely agree with what you are saying. We willing use social media and know our information is out there for the world to see. If we start to say all social media activity should be private, it would in fact be a lot less social.
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Post by Shumaker on Apr 5, 2018 15:24:00 GMT
When we first signed up for social media, we knew what we were getting into. Posting pictures and statuses that easily accessible by anyone in the world. Cambridge Analytica was not really doing anything wrong. Private information is fair game if you're putting it all over the internet. However, through the years, ads on social media are beginning to pop up more frequently. The programs or sites become more familiar with your likes and dislikes thus providing you with ads that cater to you specifically. Using personal data in order to gain more votes wouldn't really be much different then the ads Trump was using during his campaign. As far as the ads provided by Trump's administration throughout the campaign, he was trying to get votes. After searching the demographic, statista.com states that 81% of people use social media. Using social media to get votes was smart on his part because of the large amount of people that are on social media everyday. No one country owns the internet so trying to create laws to stop this cannot happen. That's like trying to put laws on the moon. No singular country owns the moon, so it would be ineffective.
Was the Trump administration in the wrong for trying to sway votes, or was it justified?
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Post by Derek VanDyke on Apr 5, 2018 15:26:46 GMT
@chase I agree with you that they are just simply digging harder than most people for our personal information. It is a common rule to learn that what ever goes on the internet is no longer able to be brought back it is always going to be there somewhere.
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Post by Shumaker on Apr 5, 2018 15:27:23 GMT
@derek I totally agree with your response. To answer your question, I don't think they did anything wrong. They were using public information that is accessible to anyone. It's social media so trying to keep it all private is unrealistic.
@chase They probably are just looking deeper than the average person would. They're using social media to their advantage so they aren't doing anything wrong.
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Post by Derek VanDyke on Apr 5, 2018 15:33:31 GMT
@sarah I totally agree that trying to control the internet beings it is worldwide seems impossible.
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Post by Autumn Painter on Apr 6, 2018 2:18:14 GMT
In the New York Times article, authors Doshi and Gowen, mention that Cambridge Analytica was accused of acquiring private information from millions of Facebook users. I think this issue is a little insubstantial. In today’s day and age, many people often forget that anything you do online is not private. Therefore, accusations about gaining access to private information can not stand. Technology still continues to advance, and it honestly is a little worrisome to think about the powerful and ongoing technological advancements. The Washington Post then discusses the accusations relating to the election in India. The government formally asked the company if they used their citizens’ personal data to affect the outcome of the elections in India. Which in my opinion, I don’t understand why it would be a big deal if they did use personal data. There are no regulations against it. When a person creates an account, they usually have to check a box that says they agree to the sites terms and conditions. By checking that box, you are ultimately saying, “Here ya go… I give you permission to have access to anything and everything I do.” No one actually sits down and reads all of the terms and agreements when creating an account, who knows what could even be in there. Technology expert, Nikhil Pahwa, contends that, “The data of 50 million Facebook users was harvested and used to build a powerful software program to predict and influence choices at the ballot box.” This was pretty interesting, because it seems that it is like a new form of persuasion.
Considering Pahwa’s statement, do you think the act of using data to influence choices is a modern way of persuasion?
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Post by Mr. Williams on Apr 6, 2018 2:40:15 GMT
The internet is us meaning the internet is what makes up this world. The internet is a world wide thing allowing anyone to know anything at anytime which may cause problems. The internet consists of anything we put on it including private information that you don’t want anyone to know about. For example, a problem that happened recently was that the company Cambridge Analytica that was funded by a Robert Mercer was Donald trump’s expert advice professional and they were accused of giving out his private information by millions of facebook users and giving its clients access to the data. Also according to Derek and Ravi Shankar Prasad, the country’s information technology minister Cambridge was accused of data theft which is confusing because anything on the internet if basically free game that’s why you have to beware on what you put on the internet. I personally don’t think that what these companies are doing are right or wrong but they are doing anything bad like illegal so there’s nothing you can do about it but think before you do.
What really are companies doing wrong? If so what is it or if not why aren’t they doing wrong?
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Post by Erin Reimers on Apr 6, 2018 3:14:53 GMT
The Internet being described as a safe place for anyone to keep their information private is entirely false. Once someone signs up or registers for a media application or other internet accounts a person’s information can be spread across the web, by legal or non-legal means. This information can be quite useful to many businesses in the terms of marketing themselves. By knowing what the consumer enjoys, a company can then cater their product to that type of individual. Cambridge Analytica has recently fallen into a controversy after being accused of illegally collecting data from millions of Facebook users and using it to help in swaying political elections and voting decisions. On their website they claim to help in doing small tasks like helping local businesses market themselves and so on. The way that Cambridge Analytica was able to obtain the data of the Facebook users was through an application that the users would register with and input their data. The data was then transferred through the application to Cambridge Analytica itself. However once it was pointed out that the way the application obtains data from Facebook users is illegal, Cambridge Analytica cut off from the application but still kept the data obtained previously. Many people feel this is an obstruction to their rights for privacy and have felt less trusting in putting their data on the internet. People have started to claim that this a version of modern day colonialism, however that statement is a but much as to compare it to colonialism. With the companies help in swaying elections in the client’s favor it could be seen as a very influential aspect in changing the way people think towards politics on the internet. Laws should not necessarily be put against a company that is trying to market a so-called “product” to a reasonable audience but the way it markets in obtaining data from unknowing Facebook users should have restrictions put upon it so as to not completely polarize people from using these sites.
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Post by nick newman on Apr 6, 2018 3:34:26 GMT
Looking at it as a whole, the internet has done great things for mankind. It has done things like give the public more of a voice, increase the spread of information, and allowed the creation of companies like Facebook. Although the internet has done a ton of great things, it also has some drawbacks. Cambridge Analytica is a British political consulting firm which combines data mining, data brokerage, and data analysis with strategic communication for the electoral process. They have boasted that they have affected more than 100 elections in over 30 countries and have a global influence. Basically, what Cambridge Analytica is doing is taking public information from the internet and is putting it to use, and because the information that they are taking is public I do not think what they are doing is illegal. If they were tapping into people's person emails or other personal information that would be a different story. In my opinion, they are a great resource and it would be in politicians best interest to use a source like this. Somehow, Donald Trump and his team made a move and decided to use Cambridge Analytica to put out pro-Trump ads on Facebook. The company is suspended because they violated their terms of service for using personal data. With the misuse of a third party app made by Aleksandr Kogan, people signed in using their Facebook accounts and it took information like location, education, what groups you liked and were apart of, and where they worked. Instead of using the information for personal use like Kogan had claimed, he gave it to Cambridge Analytica. This, I feel like is foul play. Although people willingly gave up this information, it should not be used for something like this. This whole situation is very complex because how can somebody or some company be punished for a crime like this. For this specific case, i feel like Aleksandr Kogan should receive some type of punishment, but Cambridge Analytica should not. They were just doing what they were hired to do.
How much is Facebook at fault for allowing the personal data of 83 million people to be used against their knowledge.
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Post by nick newman on Apr 6, 2018 3:37:38 GMT
@derek
I do not think cambridge analytica is in the wrong for taking public data. They are a comapany designed to take data like that and put it to use
@chase
I do not think these companies are doing anything wrong. They are going the extra mile are using the information right in front of them to their advantage
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