Thread

1. cm2012 · 1790392207 · focus · HN ↗

   Standard PSA: Cambridge Analytica electing Trump is not a true story. Cambridge Analytica absolutely broke Facebook's terms of service with its personality quiz scheme but it did not affect the 2016 election.

   I'm an advertiser who has managed hundreds of millions of dollars for small startups and big corporations, brands, as well as a few small political campaigns.

   Even at the time of the Trump election, the kind of ad targeting that Cambridge Analytica says they were offering through the personality quizzes was absolute garbage. There is a reason why the official response from Boz doesn't even mention the personality quiz stuff, because it was essentially irrelevant to the Trump campaign's performance on paid advertising on Meta. And I would go further to say that, except for his success in fundraising, all of his Meta advertising probably didn't move that many votes.

   Cambridge Analytica, the organization, of course, loves to claim that they're the dark evil viziers behind the Trump campaign and they've advertised themselves as such to dictators all over the world. But that's just like Edward Bernays writing "Propaganda" back in the day, it is a way to sell their services. Trump digital director Brad Parscale said the campaign did not even use Cambridge Analytica’s controversial psychographic targeting.

   Not to mention, the only reason that Cambridge Analytica had that open graph information available is because communities like Hacker News begged again and again for Facebook to open the graph and not have a walled web. After that they cut off that graph access.

   1. jibal · 1790393482 · focus · HN ↗

      > it did not affect the 2016 election.

      This is false.

      > all of his Meta advertising

      You don't appear to have any understanding of how Cambridge Analytica affected the election.

      <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;en.wikipedia.org&#x2F;wiki&#x2F;Cambridge_Analytica" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;en.wikipedia.org&#x2F;wiki&#x2F;Cambridge_Analytica

      1. blululu · 1790401165 · focus · HN ↗

         That’s just a link to full Wikipedia page for the company. I must admit that I would be personally interested in seeing a vaguely scientific analysis of the effect they had. For all the talk on the subject I have yet to see any real analysis backed by data on the subject.

         1. jibal · 1790402121 · focus · HN ↗

            I know what it is. One can read it and see that CA&#x27;s effect wasn&#x27;t just &quot;all of [Trump&#x27;s] Meta advertising&quot;.

            1. blululu · 1790440404 · focus · HN ↗

               Well please share. CA sold a service to anyone who would pay. The world of advertising is full of expensive solutions that don’t really do anything. In many ways politics is harder than selling an actual product since everyone already knows their options and the choice costs them nothing. For all the hype I have yet to see anyone contest the null hypothesis that it was yet another waste of marketing spend.

Unofficial Hacker News client; not affiliated with Y Combinator.