Meanwhile, In London

at

Evening Standard reports:

Police have sealed off the roads surrounding Cambridge Analytica’s offices in central London while a suspect package is investigated.

Officers rushed to the scene in New Oxford Street and placed the road on lockdown shortly before 1.30pm on Thursday

The building has been evacuated, Scotland Yard confirmed.

Witnesses have described how police shouted “get back” as they descended on the busy road.

New Oxford Street incident: Cambridge Analytica’s London HQ on lockdown as police investigate suspect package (Evening Standard)

Meanwhile…

Via Carole Cadwalladr

Related: Cambridge Analytica: search of London HQ delayed by wait for warrant (The Guardian)

Top pic: Jonny Scrafton

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34 thoughts on “Meanwhile, In London”

    1. some old queen

      Now dear there is a lot more to AI than mining, although I am wondering if there is more to this crowd than we are being told.

        1. some old queen

          If you believe that targeted streams of disinformation for political manipulation is just fantasy then what was analytica paid to do exactly?

        1. Nigel

          Yeah, whatever that’s supposed to mean. If the name of the billionaire attached to this was Soros rather than Mercer you’d be having paroxysms. But it’s only the creepy wealthy racist who funds the white nationalist site Breitbart and the far right white nationalist Bannon and who owns CA, whose CEO referred to black clients using the n-word, so all good.

  3. Bull Duggan

    Remember the good old days when Obama,Corbyn etc were lauded for their superb use of social media data to fight elections …

    1. Rep

      Everybody, stop looking a these lads caught on camera being idiots, instead look at this thing over here instead!

      1. Andrew

        No, look at that thing over there and apply the same standards to both. Don’t pretend to be impartial when you’re not.

        1. Rep

          Firstly, I am not really a fan of either. Secondly, I am going to presume with that, since so many people were trying to find a reason to discredit Obama at the time, his app and general social media use were looked at for some reason to attack him but nothing was found.

          As for Corbyn, unless I am wrong here, does not have an app like that and momentum, who seems to push that side of things, is lauded for getting their message out through social media, not illegally harvesting data.

          So your whole argument seems to be using social media is the same as illegally harvesting peoples data because something. As I said, everyone look over there —>

        2. DeKloot

          I’ve avoided all the nonsense here for the past week or so as it’s just getting grimier and grimier. Urg.

          You keep pushing this strawman that what Obama’s did to obtain election in 2012 is somehow analogous to 2016. It’s not. Not even close. Obama’s use of data was nowhere near as sophisticated let alone pernicious as it was four year later. Why? (data) Science, biotch….

          I’ll leave it at that. But you keep up with your strawman.

          1. jusayinlike

            “Obama’s use of data was nowhere near as sophisticated..”

            Thank you for admitting that his camp used these common techniques, now can you provide a link to support your assertion that it was far less sophisticated?

          2. DeKloot

            The dogs on the streets know the Obama campaign used data to profile and target their base. The one key difference between the campaigns is this – those running Obama’s campaign asked people permission to share their information – as well as their friend’s information – with the campaign. Obviously people did not understand what they were being asked, but they were asked none the less. CA did not expressly ask. They stated it was for academic research and ONLY academic research. This is why it’s blown up for them and is now acting as a wakeup call for billions that their valuable personal data was and continues to be hawked for nothing more than a handful of stale beans (poxy cat videos and the likes). ‘likes’ heh…

            Now regarding the sophistication question – don’t confuse what I said with impactful. As Obama’s campaign was massivly impactful. But 4/5 years is an awful long time in the realms of data science and the compute power needed for complex data mining/AI and all that guff is exponentially greater today than it was in 2016 let alone four odd years earlier in 2011/2.

          3. f_lawless

            Dekloot if you’re going to take a condescending tone and portray yourself as someone with superior knowledge on the story, you need to back it up with some substance to be taken seriously.. I’m not claiming to be an expert on this by any means, but when I read this Washington Post article by a journalist who specialises in big data and AI-related stories, it makes me wonder if you really know what you’re talking about.. (as an aside, the Washington Post has a clear track record of being anti-Trump)
            https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/economy/facebooks-rules-for-accessing-user-data-lured-more-than-just-cambridge-analytica/2018/03/19/31f6979c-658e-43d6-a71f-afdd8bf1308b_story.html?utm_term=.bc014a8dd05d
            Quote:
            ”
            In 2011, Carol Davidsen, director of data integration and media analytics for Obama for America, built a database of every American voter using the same Facebook developer tool used by Cambridge, known as the social graph API. Any time people used Facebook’s log-in button to sign on to the campaign’s website, the Obama data scientists were able to access their profile as well as their friends’ information. That allowed them to chart the closeness of people’s relationships and make estimates about which people would be most likely to influence other people in their network to vote.

            “We ingested the entire U.S. social graph,” Davidsen said in an interview. “We would ask permission to basically scrape your profile, and also scrape your friends, basically anything that was available to scrape. We scraped it all.”
            ”
            Ingesting the entire US social graph is not even close to being analogous you say? Hrrrmmm

          4. DeKloot

            Flawless, there’s nothing superior about it. I honestly don’t know where you’re coming from. It’s actually really simple. Obama’s campaign asked for permission. Under the eula all Facebook users ascribe to, it was fair game once permission was given. CA did not seek permission and broke the terms of the Eula and whatever else they had in place with Facebook. Given their relationship with the Trump campaign – which is very unpopular in many quarters you’ll be astonished to hear- their jugular was attacked and lots of other unsavoury stuff has bubbled up. And as a result it seems that the public at large has now finally cottoned on to the madness of selling your private life on social media for pox all. It’s an old trope by now but on Facebook et al you are the product not the customer.

            On the other side of it – and it it is something I do actually think about for a living – the sophistication and evolution of data science and analytics is significantly greater today than it was 6 years ago. Clearly. Therefore the sophistication of the knowledge gleaned from all raw data is greater.

            So take out of that what you will.

          5. Nigel

            Um, nobody’s disputing that the Obama campaign was heavily data driven? ‘Ingesting the entire social graph’ is a colourful phrase but it’s not exactly a detailed technical comparison of the two campaigns. For a start, and this seems crucial, they didn’t steal the data.

            (Having said that HOW can it be legal for a person to give permission for anyone to access their friend’s data? That’s seriously messed up.)

          7. Nigel

            Owned by Robert Mercer who is a big Trump donor and owns Breitbart run by Bannon – a big wodge of white supremacists. Just so we know where all this is coming from and who is doing this.

          8. some old queen

            @ f_lawless Why should any of this be surprising?

            Hillary Hillary Hillary being repeated 14 months after she is no longer relevant because, well, nobody really knows, including those doing the repeating. AI analysis is one thing but neuro-linguistic programming is another and that is the core reason for profiling in the first place.

        3. realPolithicks

          I haven’t read any reports indicating that the Obama campaign engaged in this kind of behavior.

  6. Gabby

    Some people are so paranoid that they remove bathroom mirrors to prevent them from keeping a regular watch on themselves.

    1. Janet, I ate my Avatar

      just because you’re paranoid
      don’t mean they’re not after youuuuuu
      name that song

  7. Shayna

    I’ve just deleted/disengaged from Facebook, I’m pretty sure it will be entirely impactful on The World.

    1. Lush

      Given they own Instagram and WhatsApp as well, it is probably a futile gesture, but I salute you.

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