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posted by janrinok on Tuesday March 27 2018, @07:36PM   Printer-friendly
from the legal-but-immoral dept.

Companies learning to flip elections perfected their tactics in smaller or emerging countries, such as Latvia, Trinidad, or Nigeria, before turning to markets involving elections in developed nations. Paul Mason suggests that while at the moment there is a lot of angst from people being reminded of how their harvested data is used, it is really the union of private espionage, cracking, and "black ops" capabilities that should be setting off alarms.

Disturbingly, both CA and SCL have high-level contracts with governments, giving them access to secret intelligence both in the US and the UK. SCL is on List X, which allows it to hold British secret intelligence at its facilities.

It now appears that techniques they used in Ukraine and Eastern Europe to counteract Russian influence, and against Islamist terrorism in the Middle East, were then used to influence elections in the heart of Western democracy itself.

Let's be clear about what we're facing. A mixture of free market dogmatism plus constraints imposed by the rule of law has led, over the past decades, to the creation of an alternative, private, secret state.

When it was only focused on the enemies and rivals of the West, or hapless politicians in the global south, nobody minded. Now it is being used as a weapon to tear apart democracy in Britain and the US we care — and rightly so.

From New Statesman: We need to destroy the election-rigging industry before it destroys us


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  • (Score: 1) by khallow on Tuesday March 27 2018, @11:57PM (4 children)

    by khallow (3766) Subscriber Badge on Tuesday March 27 2018, @11:57PM (#659233) Journal

    I don't know, I would have to guess the libertarians would like their privacy rights unalienable, so that there's no psychological data to analyse and manipulate to begin with.

    Not feeling it here. Remember Facebookers voluntarily gave that up. Then CA didn't do much with what they supposedly had, except talk a great game. It's not one of those things you'd expect libertarians to rally around because it's not so clear cut as it sounds in your head neither the privacy right or the harm from exploiting said privacy right.

    Is this too common-sensical for a rational idea nowadays?

    This may well be an ideological blind spot for libertarianism, but I don't see any acknowledgement of slinches's point here. A lot of the problems with outlawing such things, is that it then becomes the purview of governments. If we need to run a database on a zillion people, say to find urgent medical conditions like unfolding epidemics, then we just made the government the monopoly provider.

  • (Score: 2) by c0lo on Wednesday March 28 2018, @12:23AM (3 children)

    by c0lo (156) Subscriber Badge on Wednesday March 28 2018, @12:23AM (#659243) Journal

    It's not one of those things you'd expect libertarians to rally around because it's not so clear cut as it sounds in your head neither the privacy right or the harm from exploiting said privacy right.

    Their loss, then.
    I mean, if they choose not to insist that the ToS at the sign-up should, as a contract be applicable for the entire period of interaction or be amendable with the consent of both parties or the deal is off.
    As it is right now, FB has the liberty to unilaterally alter the deal as they see fit.

    --
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
    • (Score: 1) by khallow on Wednesday March 28 2018, @01:35AM (2 children)

      by khallow (3766) Subscriber Badge on Wednesday March 28 2018, @01:35AM (#659277) Journal

      As it is right now, FB has the liberty to unilaterally alter the deal as they see fit.

      And the user has the liberty to just stop using FB at any time without telling FB a thing.

      • (Score: 2) by c0lo on Wednesday March 28 2018, @02:30AM

        by c0lo (156) Subscriber Badge on Wednesday March 28 2018, @02:30AM (#659297) Journal

        And the user has the liberty to just stop using FB at any time without telling FB a thing.

        How about the private information already accumulated by FB under a different agreement, now usable by FB under an agreement no longer suitable for the interests of user?
        You reckon that bait-and-switch practices are a thing that libertarians should be Ok with?

        --
        https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
      • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday March 28 2018, @10:22AM

        by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday March 28 2018, @10:22AM (#659423)

        You think just because you don't use FB means that FB has no information on you? Dream on.