Yep, the Trump supporting billionaire Peter Thiel is connected is to the scandal involving Facebook and Cambridge Analytica, the shady data firm that harvested personal data to create geo-targeted bogus news items for the Trump campaign. As it turns out, an employee at Thiel’s firm Palantir gave a helping hand to Cambridge Analytica at a crucial point in the firm’s data collection development. Why are we not surprised? No word on whether Thiel had any idea this was going down.
According to The New York Times, Alfredas Chmieliauskas, a Palantir employee, suggested to Cambridge Analytica that it build a simple app that would allow it to gain access to Facebook users’ friends networks. The suggested app was deceptively benign: a phone-based personality test. But the app would allow Cambridge Analytica to get all kinds of information to use for political purposes. Ultimately, Cambridge Analytica followed that approach.
At first, Palantir issued a statement that it had no connections to Cambridge Analytica. But it quickly had to backtrack, saying that Chmieliauskas was not acting as a Palantir employee.
Related: Peter Thiel may be leaving San Francisco for the American heartland: Hollywood
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But he may not have been alone. According to testimony to British lawmakers by Christopher Wylie, the gay former Cambridge Analytica employee who blew the whistle on the firm’s shenanigans, multiple Palantir employees helped Cambridge Analytica.
“There were senior Palantir employees that were also working on the Facebook data,” Wylie told a parliamentary committee on Tuesday. “There were Palantir staff who would come into the office and work on the data.”
Palantir’s expertise would come in handy. The firm specializes in big data analysis, and its clients include the U.S. government, for whom it does counter-terrorism work. Yes, the libertarian Thiel’s company depends on federal, taxpayer-funded, contracts. Peter better hope Trump does not drain the swamp of contractors, too.
There’s no indication that Thiel knew anything about the connection between Palantir, which he co-founded, and Cambridge Analytica. But the news does connect him to a complex web of relationships and adds a complicating layer of intrigue to his narrative.
Thiel famously supported Trump in 2016, speaking out for him at the RNC convention. Cambridge Analytica was founded by Robert Mercer, who helped bankroll Steve Bannon and Milo Yiannopoulos. The firm apparently used subterfuge to gain access to personal information on 50 million Facebook users, and then turned around to create fake narratives for targeted audiences promoting Trump or dissing Clinton.
But it’s not just Thiel’s connection to the Trump campaign that matters. More important is his investment in Facebook, which has been increasingly under fire for its cavalier attitude toward the privacy of its users. Thiel was an early backer of the social media giant and is a founding member of its board.
He’s also been quick to dismiss criticisms that Facebook could have done more to intervene with the promotion of fake news on the site, particularly from Russian hackers.
“Remember when Trump said the election was going to be rigged? People said that was crazy — ‘How dare you question the integrity of the electoral process?’ That was the view of most of the people working at Facebook, too,” Thiel told The New York Times recently. “They did not think things were so hackable. It was a mistake, but an understandable mistake.”
Of course, when Trump said the election was going to be rigged, what he meant was that he would legitimately lose and not be willing to admit it. As for Facebook not knowing what was happening under its own nose–there’s a big difference between a mistake and willful ignorance. As more news emerges about the role Palantir had to play in the Cambridge Analytica scandal, we will get to see whether a firm as sophisticated as Palantir can credibly plead it was all just a mistake.
Related: Is Peter Thiel gunning to become the even more right-wing version of Roger Ailes?
ChrisK
Damn. Need to delete my facebook accounts. I don’t use them as is.
Thiel reminds me of a gay arch villain. The guy is shady as they come.
DCguy
Thiel reminds me of the guy in a movie who is secretly selling information about all of his family and friends to the villain and profiting off of his friends death or pain.
tnguy222
Humans are a resource like oil, timber, and gold.
Sure, dealing in humans is regulated by constitutions, labor laws, and holy scripture, but fundamentally humans are a resource to be used to construct wonders, establish political systems, and even to drive individual profit.
The social contract was broken between Facebook and its users, but its users, refusing to pay for the service, inevitably became the product to be sold and a resource to be used.
mhoffman953
Why are people only concerned about Facebook’s handling of user information now?
ChrisK
Probably started with the hacking by the Russians.
mhoffman953
But that response doesn’t answer my initial question. There was hacking before as well in prior elections from 2000 up until 2012 from China, Israel, Saudi Arabia, and others. The US was even caught hacking and spying on other countries such as spying on Canada, Mexico, and Germany as well as attempting to influence elections in Israel and the UK.
I wondered why there is suddenly outrage now and not all of those other times
Heywood Jablowme
You know why. Because Trump wouldn’t have “won” without Facebook and Russia. But anytime someone suggests that, you guys scream like little girls.
But I’ll agree with your point (in the unlikely case you’re serious). Everyone should have caught on to Facebook’s unethical depravity long ago.
mhoffman953
@HeywoodJablowme
I am serious about Facebook. People have known for years that Facebook spies on users in numerous ways and shares that data with everyone under the sun, including the CIA at times. Only now there seems to be hysteria.
However, to say that Trump “wouldn’t have “won” without Facebook and Russia” is false. Because if that were true, he would’ve won the popular vote. Additionally, the Trump campaign didn’t use the Cambridge Analytica data during the general election according to many news outlets because the information proved to be inaccurate many times. The data was used during the primaries when the RNC refused to cooperate with the Trump campaign and share the data (this was when the RNC was hoping an establishment Republican would’ve won). The Trump campaign then shifted to data provided by the RNC during the general election when the RNC came around to backing Trump after the Republican National Convention. Regarding Russia’s usage of Facebook, Russia ran ads supporting all candidates and even ran a Black Lives Matter page, Muslims for Hillary, and LGBTQ’s for Bernie page as well.
Heywood Jablowme
@mhoffman953: “to say that Trump “wouldn’t have “won” without Facebook and Russia” is false. Because if that were true, he would’ve won the popular vote.”
um… what? How would he have won the popular vote in that case? I’m referring to Facebook/Russia swaying less than 100,000 votes in 3 states. You’re saying Facebook/Russia, if they’d tried, would’ve got him over 3.5 million votes overall? Really?
(But I thought the Trump/Fox talking point about all this was essentially that “advertising doesn’t really work” – a an anti-capitalist theory that would come as news to the advertising industry.)
mhoffman953
@DCguy
Where did I defend Facebook? I pointed out that they unethically steal users’ information and sell it without user consent. Not sure where you see that as a glowing statement about Facebook. You might want to reread what I wrote
@HeywoodJablowme
I’m saying that if your allegation is Facebook and Russia swayed the election in Trump’s favor, they did a poor job of it. If Facebook / Russia did so, wouldn’t they have won him the popular vote because of the mass appeal outreach of Facebook?
Are you alleging that only 100,000 voters in 3 states were targeted on Facebook? Who were these 100,000 voters? How did Trump / Russia / Facebook know to target only these 100,000 voters in only these 3 states? Are you saying that Trump / Russia / Facebook only targeted Pennsylvania, Michigan, and ______ (I’m not sure which is the 3rd state you allege was targeted). What about Wisconsin, North Carolina, Florida, and others. Were they targeted too?
Last questions, how were they targeted? What ad did they see that supposedly turned them into mindless zombies not wanting to vote for Hillary Clinton?
You’re making a lot of assumptions with your blanket statements that cannot be verified and seem extremely illogical. I live in Pennsylvania. Are you saying I was one of these 100,000 people targeted by Facebook / Russia to vote for Trump? Seems hard to do when I don’t have a Facebook….
Heywood Jablowme
@mhoffman953: The third state was indeed Wisconsin. Everybody knows that, or at least I thought they did. (The fact you don’t even know that hardly inspires confidence in anything else you say.) I’m referring simply to the actual margin of Trump voters in his victory in those three states.
“How many” voters were “targeted”? – well, it’s impossible to know such a thing. I doubt if they had an actual target number in mind. If they did we’ll never know. Did they target voters in other states too? Probably, it makes sense that they would, although I don’t see what difference that makes.
Maybe they “targeted” several millions more than 100,000, but in the end only affected the votes of less than 100,000 – or, say, 300,000 if we include Hillary-leaners who stayed home, Johnson & Stein voters, etc. They probably didn’t anticipate EXACTLY the result they got – but so what? Why are you hung up on inane trivia like that? How would anybody (including the Russians) know exactly how effective it would be? This is all a relatively new thing after all – like 19th century advertising, not yet much background to it.
mhoffman953
@HeywoodJablowme
““How many” voters were “targeted”? – well, it’s impossible to know such a thing.”
Um…no it’s not. First, if you’re the one making the claim, you have to back it up with evidence. You can’t make a claim and then say it’s true but impossible to prove. Secondly, it most certainly is possible to know such a thing. I run several web based businesses and with Google Analytics, I can view data on my visitors such as their age, location, what OS they’re using, their city, the time they visited my site, what site they were on before they came to my site, etc. By saying that such a thing is impossible to know shows your lack of understanding on the subject. I’m merely stating that if your claim is true, present the evidence for it.
Then when you say, “but so what? Why are you hung up on inane trivia like that? ”
It’s not inane trivia considering many people feel this supposed voter targeting influenced the election. The only issue is that when someone like myself asks for specifics or details, those making the claims can never provide succinct details as to how voters were targeted, which voters were targeted, and what targeted them. Can you link me to the specific ads or links which voters saw that made them unequivocally decide to vote for Trump and explain why that only affected users in Pennsylvania, Michigan, and Wisconsin? How many actual voters from those states saw this supposed ad in question? I mean, if this matter is being investigated by the FBI, I wouldn’t say its inane trivia. I think it would matter to the American people.
Surely, those voters weren’t persuaded because Hillary Clinton decided to not campaign there and then only decided to show up once before the election when polls said she was losing favror, right? No, it must’ve been these Facebook ads that you can’t provide evidence of that swayed voters…
You’re the one making these claims, I’m just probing for more information to back up your claims.
Heywood Jablowme
“Can you link me to the specific ads or links which voters saw that made them unequivocally decide to vote for Trump…”
“Unequivocally”???? – You’re asking me to READ THE MINDS of 100,000 or more people? How could anyone possibly know a thing like that?
And as I already said, nobody is claiming that everyone targeted voted for Trump. They may have been Hillary-leaners who stayed home, or decided on Stein or Johnson at the last minute, or blanked the prez race, etc. There is no possible way to know. Some of them may not even remember.
mhoffman953
@HeywoodJablowme
“You’re asking me to READ THE MINDS of 100,000 or more people? How could anyone possibly know a thing like that? And as I already said, nobody is claiming that everyone targeted voted for Trump. ”
But you previously stated that Trump wouldn’t have won without the help of Facebook and more specifically you clarified that you meant were “referring to Facebook/Russia swaying less than 100,000 votes in 3 states”.
My question again is a simple one that challenges your assertion. You claim that Facebook / Russia were the sole cause of swaying less than 100,000 votes in 3 states. My question is, how were these votes 100,000 votes swayed through Facebook? Please provide what these 100,000 people saw on Facebook that swayed their vote.
Remember, you said “swayed” votes. That means by definition that these voters were on the fence or previously were voting for another candidate until something happened on Facebook. I’m merely asking you to show me what you allege happened on Facebook to sway these votes. Show me the ad that did this.
So far you have not provided anything
Heywood Jablowme
@mhoffman953: Talk about changing the goalposts! I was answering your original question: “Why are people only concerned about Facebook’s handling of user information now?” Then you keep adding on unanswerable question after unanswerable question about 2016. (And yet, in the process of doing that you declared that Facebook’s handling of user information has been a problem for over a decade, and you gave previous examples that are apparently sufficient for you because you’re upset about THEM – but not about 2016, for some mysterious reason.)
Here’s an analogy: an advertising agency runs an ad campaign for Toothpaste X. Sales of Toothpaste X go up somewhat. In the ad industry this is generally considered a success. It’s not exactly provable but it’s a success. That’s how it works. But for some reason you don’t believe – or rather, for some reason you PRETEND not to believe – that Ad A, Ad B and Ad C were responsible for this. You demand “proof” that consumers directly changed their toothpaste choices because of Ad A, Ad B or Ad C.
Ridiculous.
Donald Trump has said that was “an election they [Democrats] should have won.”
“Should have won”? That’s certainly a very… odd way to put it. Why, it’s almost as if he knew in advance what was going on. It’s almost like he’s a traitor or something!
mhoffman953
@HeywoodJablowme
No moving of the goal posts here. I’m still trying to get you to back up your original assertion that “Trump wouldn’t have “won” without Facebook and Russia” with evidence that we can see to verify that claim. You had since your original post on April 1st to prove that and you haven’t.
“Then you keep adding on unanswerable question after unanswerable question about 2016. (And yet, in the process of doing that you declared that Facebook’s handling of user information has been a problem for over a decade…”
Its only unanswerable for you because there is no evidence to back up your assertion. That’s why you can’t answer it. I was able to just briefly explain HOW Facebook mishandled user data which you acknowledge I did. However, you seem unable to explain HOW the Trump campaign and supposedly Russia used data to “sway” voters.
Then you get into some bizarre toothpaste analogy that doesn’t pertain to this. Your toothpaste analogy pertains to running ad campaigns. Both candidates ran ad campaigns. I’m merely asking, what was the ad campaign you allege Russians ran on Facebook to sway the 100,000 voters you claim “it” swayed.
Your claim is contradictory to what the FBI and intelligence community has discovered. They discovered that there were Facebook groups (not ads) run by Russians but the groups didn’t favor any one candidate but instead focused on all candidates and a multitude of issues from the left and right. Plus, none of those groups ever had more than 100 users at most in them (not sure how that reaches the 100,000 you allege).
“Donald Trump has said that was “an election they [Democrats] should have won.” “Should have won”? That’s certainly a very… odd way to put it. Why, it’s almost as if he knew in advance what was going on. It’s almost like he’s a traitor or something!”
It’s not hard to understand what Donald Trump meant by that. He merely meant that Hillary Clinton had everyone on her side in the election and it should’ve been an easy win. She had every living President endorse her, CNN, NBC, ABC, MSNBC, and nearly all of Hollywood came out to support her, major tech companies helped her, an organization called Correct the Record was paid to promote her online on forums daily, NeverTrump and neocon / war hungry Republicans supported her, the Bush family endorsed her, Black Lives Matter and feminists endorsed her, she had major money rolling into her campaign from multinationals and major corporations allowing her to outspend Trump 10:1 in campaign spending, her odd health problems were covered up, the supposed accurate polls favored her to discourage Trump voters, CNN was giving her debate questions, Fox News even predicted her to win, nearly every major newspaper endorsed her and shilled for her daily. The media hated Trump during the election and Hillary had everyone on her side which is why Trump said that. Isn’t hard to figure out and isn’t odd to say. Do you dispute any of what I wrote above? She just didn’t have working class America on her side.
Plus, to label President Trump a traitor to the United States is laughable when he has one of the most nationalist platforms of any candidate in modern history. If he ran on a globalist platform then you might have a point, but that was the other candidate who lost.
Heywood Jablowme
@mhoffman953: Yes yes yes, Hillary ran an overconfident, bad campaign. I certainly noticed that.
Essentially you are demanding that I personally interview 100,000 or so Trump voters, and/or Stein & Johnson & disaffected, previously HRC-leaning voters who stayed home, etc. (self-identified) in Pennsylvania, Michigan and Wisconsin, and inquire of them exactly what they saw on Facebook that influenced their votes (or non-votes) back in 2016.
Robert Mueller isn’t finished yet. He’s a lifelong Republican. If he determines that Pres. Spanky is deeply in debt to Russians (for instance), will you change your tune?
mhoffman953
@HeywoodJablowme
If you can provide evidence, I’ll be sure to review the accuracy, veracity, and truthfulness of it and if it holds up then I’ll believe it. However, you haven’t done any of that to back up your initial claim which again was, “Trump wouldn’t have “won” without Facebook and Russia”
I could easily give examples of how Twitter conspired in support of the Clinton campaign by the fact that they would purposely use their algorithm to hide very popular, trending hashtags which were negative towards her OR how TV networks did their best to help her with specific examples. I’m just asking for your example(s) of how Facebook helped Trump win and you still haven’t given a single one
I’m just asking for facts because facts matter and you haven’t given any facts to support your opinionated statements which are in contradiction to what the FBI has actually discovered
mhoffman953
@HeywoodJablowme
If you can provide evidence that is true, then I’ll surely agree with it. If you provide information that I can verify the veracity, truthfulness, and accuracy of, then I’ll gladly look at it
I’m just asking for you to provide an example to back up your original claim that “Trump wouldn’t have “won” without Facebook”. I can provide numerous examples of how Twitter as well as Reddit (and even Facebook) helped the Clinton campaign by using their algorithms to hide or block trending hashtags which were unfavorable to Hillary Clinton. I can also provide numerous examples of how the news conspired with her like when Chris Cuomo of CNN told the public that it’s “illegal” to read Wikileaks unless you’re a news person.
Facts matter and you can’t seem to provide one fact or example to back up your claims that “Trump wouldn’t have won without Facebook” and then when you said “I’m referring to Facebook/Russia swaying less than 100,000 votes in 3 states”. I’m just asking you how they did it
KaiserVonScheiss
Isn’t selling private info how these ‘social media’ companies make money?
Targeting political ad campaigns with this info isn’t really that surprising, and I doubt it’s that new. Facebook and the like have been around for a while now.
And from what I’ve seen, the Russians who were on Facebook were pretty much a joke. I think they did that one image with Jesus and Satan on it. I remember when it first came out. Everyone laughed at the stupidity of it. Only later was it connected to Russians.
ChrisK
I kind of thought it was about advertisers being able to sell on your platform. You know all those annoying ads when you log into your account.
Many do but I don’t think to this extent though. Selling off your personal info such as your likes, friends, affiliations, etc. Most just do it by tracking your purchases.
KaiserVonScheiss
@Chrisk
Depends on the site how much advertising plays into it. Also, the data gathered is what’s used to establish a target audience for advertising, particularly to Facebook.
With Facebook, ad prices are based on clicks. Those wanting to advertise want the ads to hit the right target, and Facebook wants clicks so they can get money. If you’re a Trump advertiser, you don’t want your ads being shown to hardcore Democrats (or vice versa).
I remember in the 2012 primary days, those of us who supported Ron Paul would intentionally click on Romney ads just so the Romney people would have to pay for it.
Pneumatikon
The Obama campaign was datamining Facebook so hard they were setting off alarms all the time back in 2012.
Kangol
They were not working with a company linked to a hostile foreign power. But hey, good try!
Heywood Jablowme
Btw – thanks, Queerty, for telling us that Christopher Wylie is gay. I really wasn’t sure, considering the pink hair, nose ring and “gay accent”!
But then again, he’s British so you never know, I guess.