It appears all the bragging done by Obama advisors about their cozy relationship with Facebook is about to bite the social media giant in the behind.
Washington Free Beacon reports:
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Missouri’s Republican attorney general Josh Hawley delivered an investigative subpoena to Facebook’s Menlo Park offices on Monday, demanding a wide-ranging group of documents related to the social media giant’s handling of user data.
The civil investigative demand, which was provided by the attorney general’s office and can be viewed here, comes a week after a group of 37 state attorneys general sent a letter asking for answers on how user data was shared with third party groups such as Cambridge Analytica. Hawley decided to follow-up on the letter with the subpoena to give Facebook a “legal consequence for failing to respond” by May 29, his office said.
The probe aims to determine whether Facebook exercised “appropriate care and protection over private consumer data” and whether the site’s terms and conditions “accurately and adequately explained how consumers’ data would be used.”
Obama campaign manager Jim Messina once touted the former president’s 2012 campaign’s use of Facebook, claiming it used “targeted sharing” on the social network to persuade undecided friends and family to support Obama.
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FLASHBACK: Obama campaign manager Jim Messina touts 2012 campaign used "targeted sharing" on Facebook to use supporters to persuade undecided friends & family to support Obama. pic.twitter.com/zmGqrx4xrv
— Joshua Dov Caplan (@joshdcaplan) March 21, 2018
“We built this thing called targeted sharing … It allowed us to use Facebook to persuade people,” Messina said.
“We spent a billion dollars to figure out a simple truth: What your friends and family and neighbors say is more important to your consumer decisions and your political decisions than anything else because you’re getting so much data thrown at you.”
“So the final six days of the campaign, six million people logged onto Facebook through BarackObama.com, and they saw a 20-second Michelle Obama video, because everyone loves Michelle Obama,” Messina told the crowd.
“And at the end of the 20 seconds, we had matched our data with their data, and we gave them five of their best friends who are undecided voters, and said, ‘Click here to send them a video, click here to send them information.'”
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“Of those people, 78 percent of them voted for Barack Obama.”
Earlier this month, a former Obama campaign official admitted that Facebook allowed the Obama campaign to mine data from the social media giant because “they were on our side.”
Independent Journal Review reported:
In a Sunday tweet thread, Carol Davidson, former director of integration and media analytics for Obama for America, said the 2012 campaign led Facebook to “suck out the whole social graph” and target potential voters. They would then use that data to do things like append their email lists.
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