Did Facebook’s ‘favors’ for the Obama campaign constitute a violation of federal law?

[FakeNews]

Controversy continues to swirl around how the consulting firm Cambridge Analytica obtained personal data from over 50 million Facebook users without their knowledge and used it to target ads to individuals in an effort to help Donald Trump be elected president in 2016.

But a more serious case of apparent misconduct involves Facebook data going to a different presidential campaign – this time in 2012. In this case, which is getting far less attention, Facebook reportedly voluntarily provided data on millions of its users to the re-election campaign of President Obama.

According to Carol Davidsen, the former media director for Obama for America, Facebook gave the 2012 Obama campaign direct access to the personal data of Facebook users in violation of its internal rules, making a special exception for the campaign. The Daily Mail, a British newspaper, reported that Davidsen said on Twitter March 18 that Facebook employees came to the campaign office and “were very candid that they allowed us to do things they wouldn’t have allowed someone else to do because they were on our side.”

So if Facebook gave the Obama campaign free access to this type of data when it normally does not do so for other entities – or usually charges for such access – then Facebook would appear to have violated the federal ban on in-kind contributions by a corporation. And the Obama campaign may have violated the law by accepting such a corporate contribution.

http://www.foxnews.com/opinion/2018...ampaign-constitute-violation-federal-law.html

 

[bellisarius]

Aside from any violation of the law I find it interesting that after having found out the Trump campaign made use of the same data a segment of the population is going bat shit crazy. And I doubt that anybody is going to be charged with anything.

That being said, Facebook and Zuckerberg deserve everything coming their way. They used the world population as lab rats for their own little experiments. Both Facebook and Google have willingly colluded with the Chinese government, and God only knows how many others, to provide said governments with their citizens (and others?) personal data as well as engaging in censorship. A pox on all their houses.

 

[BBX3]

Aside from any violation of the law I find it interesting that after having found out the Trump campaign made use of the same data a segment of the population is going bat shit crazy. And I doubt that anybody is going to be charged with anything.

That being said, Facebook and Zuckerberg deserve everything coming their way. They used the world population as lab rats for their own little experiments. Both Facebook and Google have willingly colluded with the Chinese government, and God only knows how many others, to provide said governments with their citizens (and others?) personal data as well as engaging in censorship. A pox on all their houses.

they didnt