Hey friends. So I went a conference of election regulators/protectors/defenders in Philly. Asked about why Cambridge Analytica embeds on incorrect visas seems like no big deal even tho it seems insane to me and they were like oh yeah there’s so much more illegal stuff than that.
So the fact that illegal immigration took place deep within the data operation of the trump campaign is the literally the least important concern for the professionals who do this for a living. It’s that bad.
I attended a session on election day war games by Colorado. This state has been leading the way in running simulations to train elexops for chaos. Highest midterm turnout was in Colorado. Didn’t even have a Senate race. Astonishing. Added 600,000 to previous cycle’s 1M voters.
There was a strong case made that Colorado’s success at instilling confidence in the electoral process helped increase turnout. The press coverage of these war games simulations were high quality, favorable, and pervasive in Colorado approaching the midterms.
Basically if all states ran customized war games simulations and let the media cover it (while strategically protecting vulnerabilities) it could increase voter turnout and counteract foreign interference seeking to disrupt electoral confidence.
I say customized war games simulations because I asked about how to deal with states like Ohio that post the voter files for download on the Secretary of State’s website (which I believe is fucking insane) and Colorado responded every state does it their own way. LOL.
Not suggesting this be mounted as a domestic propaganda operation to counteract foreign cyberoperations. I’m saying Colorado may have shown us that Americans are worried about this. Would competing to be a state with the highest confidence in elections resiliance drive turnout?
An entire country in Colorado lost both Internet and Telephone on midterm election day. The workers were so well trained by the war games simulations put on by the state that the press coverage was favorable. They handled it. Americans are awesome. We often love our democracy.
Companies like Cambridge Analytica degrade our faith in our democracy. I was on a panel with Dem operative who spent about $100K on dark ads for Alabama to elect Doug Jones on dark money LLC. Using a control group he proved his Facebook ads swung that election evading regulation.
Same guy readily says the whole thing is a corrupt and monstrous international organized crime racket. Basically did it to prove how cheap and easy it was to achieve. An Alabama senate seat is only $100K of Facebook dark ads if your opponent is a southern paedo.
Surveillance capitalist Reid Hoffman wants to save the DNC from its privacy-forward instincts and instead copy the GOP’s data strategy which is probably illegal and a terrible idea actually politico.com/story/2018/12/…
