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Ex-Obama Campaign Director Drops Bombshell Claim on Facebook: 'They Were on Our Side' |
2018-03-19 |
[IJR] A former Obama campaign official is claiming that Facebook knowingly allowed them to mine massive amounts of Facebook data ‐ more than they would’ve allowed someone else to do ‐ because they were supportive of the campaign. In a Sunday tweet thread, Carol Davidson, former director of integration and media analytics for Obama for America, said the 2012 campaign led Facebook to "suck out the whole social graph" and target potential voters. They would then use that data to do things like append their email lists. When Facebook found out what they were doing, they were "surprised," she said. But she also claimed they didn’t stop them once they found out: "They came to office in the days following election recruiting & were very candid that they allowed us to do things they wouldn’t have allowed someone else to do because they were on our side," Davidson tweeted. She added that she believes Facebook also recruits people "on the other side" too: Davidsen began the tweet thread with a link to a Time article outlining the Obama campaign's Facebook targeting campaign, which she said was codenamed "Project Taargus": That’s because the more than 1 million Obama backers who signed up for the [Facebook-based app] gave the campaign permission to look at their Facebook friend lists. In an instant, the campaign had a way to see the hidden young voters. Roughly 85% of those without a listed phone number could be found in the uploaded friend lists. What’s more, Facebook offered an ideal way to reach them. "People don’t trust campaigns. They don’t even trust media organizations," says Goff. "Who do they trust? Their friends." Facebook did not immediately respond to IJR's request for comment. IJR has also reached out to Davidsen as well as current and former Mitt Romney campaign officials for comment. I'll bet they didn't. > Share on Facebook < Heh. A little FB humor there, I guess. |
Posted by:gorb |
#7 I still get mail all the time with blank padding issues in the name and address block. I wrote code to handle that when I was 19 years old... |
Posted by: M. Murcek 2018-03-19 23:16 |
#6 My business related interactions with today's generation of IT people is they are sub-par in everything. They are 180 degrees different from the pioneers of the Information Technology revolution. Poor judgment, lazy, say what you want to hear then do nothing, full of excuses why they can't accomplish anything worthwhile and conniving. Pretty much sums up our younger generation in total. |
Posted by: Ulaigum Ebbineng7056 2018-03-19 16:57 |
#5 Thank you for bringing your expertise to bear on my little question, Raj. ;-) Sock Puppet of Doom, thank you for adding your memory to mine. |
Posted by: trailing wife 2018-03-19 15:55 |
#4 TW - I think the IRS Manual says in-kind contributions amongst Democrats are not a high priority audit item. |
Posted by: Raj 2018-03-19 15:41 |
#3 My understanding is that Google did the same thing only unsolicited...to curry favor with Zero. |
Posted by: Sock Puppet of Doom 2018-03-19 15:00 |
#2 The Obama cwmoaign boasted in 2008 as well as in 2012 that they had help from Progressive-led internet companies like Facebook in finding and targetting various groups of potential voters, claiming that was why their turnout was so high. Nice to see it being confirmed by those who contributed. Incidentally, oughtn’t that count as “in kind” political contributions, which very likely exceeded legal contribution limits? It would be interesting to see the IRS get involved, if so... |
Posted by: trailing wife 2018-03-19 14:41 |
#1 I guess I forgot to mention that you have to click the link to see images of the tweets involved. |
Posted by: gorb 2018-03-19 13:39 |