Page 24 - ARUBA TODAY

A24 TECHNOLOGY
Tuesday 20 March 2018
How Facebook likes could profile voters for manipulation

By BARBARA ORTUTAY and 2014, said the firm used at one point employed Ste-
ANICK JESDANUN such techniques to learn phen Bannon — later Presi-
AP Technology Writers about individuals and cre- dent Donald Trump's cam-
NEW YORK (AP) — Face- ate an information cocoon paign chairman and White
book likes can tell a lot to change their percep- House adviser — as a vice
about a person. Maybe tions. In doing so, he said, president. The Trump cam-
even enough to fuel a vot- the firm "took fake news to paign paid Cambridge
er-manipulation effort like the next level." roughly $6 million, accord-
the one a Trump-affiliated "This is based on an idea ing to federal election re-
data-mining firm stands called 'informational domi- cords, although officials
accused of — and which nance,' which is the idea have more recently played
Facebook may have en- that if you can capture down that work.
abled. every channel of informa- The type of data mining
The social network is now tion around a person and reportedly used by Cam-
then inject content around bridge Analytica is fairly
This Jan. 17, 2017, file photo shows a Facebook logo being dis- them, you can change common, but is typically
played in a start-up companies gathering at Paris' Station F, in their perception of what's used to sell diapers and
Paris. actually happening," Wy- other products. Netflix, for
Associated Press lie said Monday on NBC's instance, provides indi-
under fire after The New EU and the U.S. sought an- "Today." It's not yet clear vidualized recommenda-
York Times and The Guard- swers, while Britain's infor- exactly how the firm might tions based on how a per-
ian newspaper reported mation commissioner said have attempted to do that. son's viewing behaviors fit
that former Trump cam- she will seek a warrant to Late Friday, Facebook said with what other customers
paign consultant Cam- access Cambridge Ana- Cambridge improperly ob- watch.
bridge Analytica used lytica's servers because tained information from But that common tech-
data, including user likes, the British firm had been 270,000 people who down- nique can take on an omi-
inappropriately obtained "uncooperative" in her in- loaded an app described nous cast if it's connected
from roughly 50 million vestigation. After two years as a personality test. Those to possible elections med-
Facebook users to try to in- of failing to disclose the people agreed to share dling, said Robert Ricci, a
fluence elections. harvesting, Facebook said data with the app for re- marketing director at Blue
Facebook's stock plunged Monday that it hired an search — not for political Fountain Media.
7 percent Monday in its outside firm to audit Cam- targeting. And the data in- Wylie said Cambridge An-
worst one-day decline bridge. cluded who their Facebook alytica aimed to "explore
since 2014. Officials in the Researchers in a 2013 study friends were and what they mental vulnerabilities of
found that Facebook likes liked — even though those people." He said the firm
on hobbies, interests and friends hadn't downloaded "works on creating a web
other attributes can predict the app or given explicit of disinformation online so
personal attributes such as consent. people start going down
sexual orientation and po- Cambridge got limited in- the rabbit hole of clicking
litical affiliation. Computers formation on the friends, on blogs, websites etc. that
analyze such data to look but machines can use de- make them think things are
for patterns that might not tailed answers from smaller happening that may not
be obvious, such as a link groups to make good infer- be."
between a preference for ences on the rest, said Ken- Wylie told "Today" that
curly fries and higher intel- neth Sanford of the data while political ads are also
ligence. science company Dataiku. targeted at specific vot-
Chris Wylie, a Cambridge Cambridge was backed ers, the Cambridge effort
co-founder who left in by the conservative billion- aimed to make sure people
aire Richard Mercer, and wouldn't know they were
getting messages aimed at
influencing their views.
The Trump campaign has
denied using Cambridge's
data. The firm itself denies
wrongdoing, and says it
didn't retain any of the
data pulled from Face-
book and didn't use it in its
2016 campaign work.
Yet Cambridge boasted of
its work after another client,
Texas Republican Sen. Ted
Cruz, won the Iowa caucus
in 2016.
Cambridge helped differ-
entiate Cruz from similarly
minded Republican rivals
by identifying automated
red light cameras as an is-
sue of importance to resi-
dents upset with govern-
ment intrusion. q