Tuesday, March 20, 2018

President Zuckerberg To Address The Nation On Cambridge Analytica

First public comment since the surprising results of the collaboration with Cambridge Analytica became public.
From The Verge:

Mark Zuckerberg is ‘working around the clock’ on the Cambridge Analytica controversy, Facebook says
After nearly four days of silence from top executives on the unfolding controversy around Cambridge Analytica’s misuse of user data, Facebook on Tuesday made a statement about what Mark Zuckerberg and Sheryl Sandberg are doing. “Mark, Sheryl and their teams are working around the clock to get all the facts and take the appropriate action moving forward, because they understand the seriousness of this issue,” Facebook told The Daily Beast. “The entire company is outraged we were deceived. We are committed to vigorously enforcing our policies to protect people’s information and will take whatever steps are required to see that this happens.”

The company’s statement is notable for three reasons. One, it escalates the emotional tone of Facebook’s response — on Friday, it called Cambridge Analytica’s actions “unacceptable”; today they are an outrage. Two, the statement frames the story as a deception in which Facebook was not the bad actor but the victim. Three, it buys the company time amid growing demands to hear from Zuckerberg himself....MORE
In another example of the power of the Facebook - Cambridge Analytica Partnership for a New World, Pan-Arabia Enquirer, March 20:

Egyptian President Sisi Tempted to Try Cambridge Analytica to Push Election Win Past 100%
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Despite having forced all other candidates to withdraw from next week’s election, Sisi says he “just wants to be sure”
Egyptian president Abdel Fattah el-Sisi has revealed that he’s considering employing the services of under-fire data analyst organisation Cambridge Analytica in order to boost his ongoing election campaign.

“Sure, I may have locked up or intimidated every other potential candidate ahead of next week’s elections....MORE