Comment by cryptoz | Hacker News Reader

Comment by cryptoz | Hacker News Reader

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> When Obama did it, no one cared

When Obama did what? Nothing here even remotely resembles the methods used by Obama's campaign.

"No, Obama Didn’t Employ the Same Strategies as Cambridge Analytica"

https://washingtonmonthly.com/2018/03/21/no-obama-didnt-empl...

HN is so full of already-debunked right-wing talking points, it has to stop. This place is full of as much disinformation as anywhere else. Everything in your post is a straight lie, a specific intent to deceive readers and create a false narrative about balance.

Edit: Dang, the flamebait here is the lie, disinformation and chaos created in the statement "When Obama did it, no one cared" which I was responding to. The cause of the flamebait frequently on HN is the frequently-upvoted lies and falsehoods, not my responses. My responses are entirely factual and do not contain lies or disinformation, unlike the flamebait I was responding to. I'm not allowed to reply to you directly because your software won't let me.

Would you please stop posting ideological and political flamebait to HN? This question is being discussed elsewhere in the thread, and in other threads, without quite so much of that. They're pretty low-quality discussions, but comments like this one make lower the quality a significant notch further. That we can at least avoid.

Your response only talks about 2008. The 2012 campaign admitted that it sucked data out of facebook. 'The entire social network' in the united states.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=1129&v=LGiiQUMaS...

"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."

https://twitter.com/cld276/status/975568208886484997

So Obama's campaign violated the Facebook terms of service and illegally used the data they obtained, combined with funds illegally collected from a hostile foreign power, and used the user data to spread disinformation and lies about US politics?

Is that what you're saying? Because otherwise, the two cases are completely different.

> So Obama's campaign violated the Facebook terms of service and illegally used the data they obtained

By a campaign staffer’s admission, Facebook personally told them that what they were doing was not OK so... yes?

> combined with funds illegally collected from a hostile foreign power

Is this a new talking point? Russia financed the Trump campaign now?

It's not new, now literally everything to do with anyone or anything that's not left-wing SJW is now RUSSIAN!

>combined with funds illegally collected from a hostile foreign power

If you can prove it, Mueller is all ears.

Seriously, do you think Mueller is immediately publicizing every finding? Do you not see the pattern of indictments?

Alright, while we wait for physical evidence to be public, I will take the assumption that if it walks like a duck and talks like a duck it is probably a duck.

With so many Russians already indicted over this and clear money flows recorded from investigative journalism, I think it is quite clear what happened with foreign funds being used from Russia -> NRA, Trump orgs, etc prior to, during and after the election.

Edit: I have been banned again from replying to HN comments, I do not understand why but I guess it has to do with a lot of people downvoting me quickly. I don't know. Anyway, here is my reply to the comment below.

> CNN

I don't understand what the entertainment company CNN is doing in this conversation. They have nothing to do with this?

> FUD

I am not spreading FUD. I am merely talking about recent news articles in the New York Times and Washington Post. I'm not sure what you mean by FUD here, but surely if there is FUD about it is the FUD that Trump is the legitimate president and that no outsiders or illegal actors had any influence on democracy in the last number of years. That would be the real FUD of the situation.

Exuse me sir, but this approach is well known as "Fear, Uncertainty and Doubt", or FUD in short.

It definitely works, meaning it shifts the public opinion, and quite effectively so, but I would rather examine the facts and form my own opinion after such examination. If I ever want to go to the second step without first one, I can always watch some CNN.

Nice goal post moving!

> Nice goal post moving!

I'm not moving any goal posts. User sverige and everyone else has declined to even mention which "it" is being referred to in this whataboutism of "Obama did it too" stuff. My point is and has always been that there is no comparison to be made here, the usage and methods taken by Obama's campaign are totally simple and small and legal compared to the methods taken by Cambridge Analytica/Facebook/Trump et al. recently.

And at the end of the day, all that matters is avoiding an adult conversation over our absurd campaign finance policies.

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