Want to know if Facebook let Cambridge Analytica steal your person information? here's the company's form to check, but you'll need a Facebook login, so it won't work if you've already done the right thing (that is, #DeleteFacebook). (Image:
hobvias sudoneighm, CC-BY) (via The Verge)

2016 wasn't Cambridge Analytica's first rodeo; in 2014, they worked for Republicans in races across the country.

Facebook admitted Wednesday that 87 million users' data was harvested by Cambridge Analytica–about 74% more than previously disclosed.

The new figure sharply increased the company's previous estimate of how many users' information was harvested by Cambridge Analytica. For weeks, Facebook had said that the data of about 50 million users was at issue.

Facebook CTO Mike Schroepfer buried the news that Cambridge Analytica's total body-count was probably 87,000,000 (not 50,000,000 as previously recorded) at the end of a long-winded, mealy-mouthed update on the Facebook/Cambridge Analytica scandal. He offered no explanation for the discrepancy.

Cambridge Analytica claimed that it could sway elections thanks to the devastating power of psychometric profiling, and they may have even believed it, but those claims should be read with a critical eye, because they're marketing hype aimed at people whom Cambridge Analytica was pitching as client; and because Cambridge Analytica is not a scientific enterprise, but a secretive corporation whose researchers never had to subject their experiments and results to critical, peer-reviewed scrutiny, opening up endless possibilities for self-deception and truth-shading.

Palantir is the surveillance company founded by authoritarian "libertarian" Peter Thiel; their business-development employee Alfredas Chmieliauskas was part of a cohort of Palantir employees who worked closely — if informally — with Cambridge Analytica as they hatched their plan to harvest 50,000,000 Facebook profiles with a deceptive "personality quiz" app.

The London offices of soi-dissant Facebook mind-control sorcerers Cambridge Analytica were raided by the UK Information Commissioner's Office, after a judge issued a search warrant for material related to the illegal acquisition of 50,000,000 Facebook profiles by the company.

After interviewing Cambridge Analytica whistleblower Christopher Wylie and other CA sources and reviewing leaked documents, the Washington Post has pieced together the story of how the dirty-tricking electioneers worked their way Republican political circles, as billionaire founder Robert Mercer opened doors for them with other notorious GOP billionaire backers, with an able assist from newly minted national security adviser John Bolton, a notorious war-criminal with close ties to terrorist groups like MEK.

Writing for Bloomberg Businessweek, Paul Ford says Facebook's "not-a-breach" of personal information on 50 millions of its users is just the latest example of why it's time for a digital protection agency.

Facebook's recent debacle is illustrative. It turns out that the company let a researcher spider through its social network to gather information on 50 million people.

ABC News reports that sources have told it that the special counsel investigating Russia-Trump collusion in the 2016 election has turned its attention to Trump campaign ties to Cambridge Analytica.

Cambridge Analytica was brought on by then-Trump campaign digital advisor Brad Parscale in early June 2016, after the data science firm pitched him on its services, sources told ABC News.

Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg broke his silence on the Cambridge Analytica scandal. He admitted the social media company made mistakes, and pledged "to protect your data." — Read the rest

Chances are, your ISP has been repeatedly caught sucking up all your clicks, and also chances are that it's a de facto arm of the US spy network, making bank selling your data to the NSA; AT&T has proposed charging you hundreds of dollars extra a year not to spy on you; Comcast wants to do the same.

The Cambridge Analytica scandal devouring Facebook may not have been a 'breach' of data, but it was a breach of trust. — Read the rest

Unilever founder John Wanamaker famously said, "I know that half the money I spend on advertising is wasted. My only problem is that I don't know which half." It's an odd testament to the power of advertising, an industry whose executives are incredibly effective at selling their services to other executives, even if they can't prove they're any good at selling their customers' products to the public.

Executives at Cambridge Analytica, the data mining firm that worked with Facebook to develop a microtargeted propaganda campaign that helped Trump get in office, were secretly recorded boasting about entrapping politicians through the use of bribes and blackmail involving prostitutes.

From the UK's Channel 4:

In an undercover investigation by Channel 4 News, the company's chief executive Alexander Nix said the British firm secretly campaigns in elections across the world.

Yesterday's bombshell article in the Guardian about the way that Cambridge Analytica was able to extract tens of millions of Facebook users' data without their consent was preceded by plenty of damage control on Facebook's part: they repeatedly threatened to sue news outlets if they reported on the story and fired the whistleblower who came forward with the story.

The headline says it all there folks: Fall Out Boy, the Chicago-based pop-punk band featuring that guy who used to be fat*, plus Ashlee Simpson's ex-husband and Colin Powell's grand-nephew whose parents literally met because of Joe Biden, just released a cover of Billy Joel's famous anthem, "We Didn't Start The Fire." — Read the rest

On Twitter, Jason Kint shares that a massive and damning lawsuit was filed in Deleware last month against Facebook, and many of its executives, and board members relating to what they knew, hid, and lied to congress about relating the Cambridge Analytica "hack." — Read the rest

Cory Doctorow's new short book, How to Destroy Surveillance Capitalism, was just published in its entirety on OneZero. Below is Cory's Twitter thread that summarizes his argument that the problem with surveillance capitalism isn't that it big tech has AI-enhanced power to brainwash people, the problem is that big tech uses its monopoly power in ways that lead to totalitarian control over our lives. — Read the rest

• Trump did not know Britain was a nuclear power, asked if Finland was part of Russia, Bolton writes.
• Intelligence briefings were a waste of time, "since much of the time was spent listening to Trump, rather than Trump listening to the briefers." — Read the rest