[Lnc-business] DRAFT RESOLUTION on the use of "Big Data"

[Caryn Ann Harlos]

Yes I agree with Ken.  I enthusiastically love the better sales ads.  I
would actually like better political ads to issues I actually care about.

It is a tool - for good and for evil.  A resolution to use ethically I
could support.

-Caryn Ann

On Thu, Jul 13, 2017 at 1:07 PM, Ken Moellman <lpky at mu-net.org> wrote:

> We're already cultivating and using "Big Data" in the broad sense.
> Professionally, I work in Enterprise Storage and Backup.  "Big Data" lives
> in my realm.  So let's define "Big Data" both technically and colloquially.
>
> Technically, "Big Data" is the ability to cross-reference disparate
> sources of data, stored in disparate formats, to make data conversion and
> extrapolation more easy. In the past, we would transform data to fit inside
> a rigid set of parameters.  Today, we can just cross-reference data across
> disparate types.   So for instance, the voter tracking system I created in
> LPKY is NOT "Big Data" because I normalized the format of all of the data
> prior to combining it into one large database.  Big Data would say that I
> should have just had data sources and had some software on top to correlate
> the data.
>
> Colloquially, "Big Data" is about data collection and retention, and use
> the data to determine certain likely behaviors or attributes.  How this is
> applied can vary.  From a private sector standpoint, this is tailored
> marketing to people. Typically, private organizations continue to be
> divorced from the individual - we don't know these people unless they
> decide to further engage with us.  However, "Big Data" from a criminal
> justice standpoint is profiling and then tracking individual actions of
> specific people without due process.  There's quite a disparity between the
> public and private aspects.
>
> As an organization, like any other private organization, the use of
> "micro-targeting" is about efficiency in marketing.  Instead of
> broadcasting general messages, we send the particular message most likely
> to convert an individual to libertarianism directly to that individual.
> There is nothing inherently wrong with micro-targeting.  We identify a
> person's hot-button issues and lead our messaging to them with that
> hot-button issue.
>
> Like a firearm, "Big Data" itself isn't inherently evil.  It's how you use
> it that determines morality.  If we're using it to doxx people, that's
> bad.  If we're using it to spy on the specifics of a person's private life,
> that's bad.  But if we're doing it just to try to lead with a successful
> marketing message, that's not evil.  If anything, it saves donor money.
>  (And in the private for-profit sector, it lowers consumer costs.)  These
> are good things.
>
>
>
> On Thu, Jul 13, 2017 at 1:41 PM, David Demarest <dprattdemarest at gmail.com>
> wrote:
>
>> Caryn Ann,
>>
>> Agreed, Big Data in private hands has tremendous potential as an
>> information service providing free data that can be voluntarily used or
>> ignored.
>>
>> However, Big Data is a huge risk in the hands of authorities and bloated
>> corporations that rely on government preferences to avoid competition and
>> are complicit in authoritarian surveillance efforts.
>>
>> Thoughts?
>>
>> On Jul 13, 2017 12:26 PM, "Caryn Ann Harlos" <carynannharlos at gmail.com>
>> wrote:
>>
>>> I am in agreement with Joshua on many points - particularly the
>>> overbroad nature of the resolution.  It may be impossible to keep it.
>>>
>>> But where I disagree:
>>>
>>> Targeted ads to me have actually been great.  I see things now I might
>>> actually buy and appreciate it.  The cutest dresses in ages have come
>>> across my FB feed.  I actually click good ads now because I want more good
>>> ads and now I rarely see things I am  not interested in, and yes, I have
>>> bought a few things (cute shoes).
>>>
>>> My opinion of Snowden remains the same.
>>>
>>> On Thu, Jul 13, 2017 at 10:01 AM, Joshua Katz <
>>> planning4liberty at gmail.com> wrote:
>>>
>>>> A few thoughts:
>>>>
>>>> 1.  I think the threats from big analytic data are oversold.  There are
>>>> benefits (yay getting coupons I actually need!) but, for the most part,
>>>> it's incredibly clumsy, even from the best in the field.  Do I really need
>>>> to see suits for days after I buy one?  If I needed another, I would have
>>>> bought it already, yet there's no ability, at least as of now, to instead
>>>> show me relevant ads.  For example - if a person buys a suit and is
>>>> unemployed, you might want to show them ads for transportation options to
>>>> get to interviews, lines of credit available to the unemployed,and
>>>> headhunters.
>>>>
>>>> 2.  I think the benefits of big analytic data are oversold.  In my
>>>> view, yes, campaigns are using it, and it will become a part of the
>>>> landscape - but I think it will shrink from its current 'fad' status.
>>>> Since campaigns do not use only one tool at a time, I think data is getting
>>>> credit better reserved for other tactics, such as better efforts to find
>>>> and exploit fat tails - which does not require heavy use of analytic data.
>>>> I don't think it's going away, but I think it will fade from being seen as
>>>> the pinnacle of smart campaigning.  I do not think we should copy these
>>>> techniques, in which we cannot compete.  We should adopt the basic forms
>>>> that are providing 90% of the benefit - say, good use of registration and
>>>> turnout data in a seamless database like NB - where I can make a list of
>>>> those who like a certain post, for instance, then send out an email on that
>>>> topic - but nothing more.
>>>>
>>>> 3.  My opinion of Snowden, while I do not want him prosecuted, has
>>>> chilled over the last year or so.  I'm less inclined to praise him in these
>>>> terms than I was in the past.
>>>>
>>>> 4.  I think, to the extent such "spiderwebs" exist, that they will be a
>>>> part of the landscape, even outside government, and we should learn how to
>>>> live with them (hello Torrent) and not fight a fruitless war.  I suggested
>>>> in a speech many years ago that our society was having a war about
>>>> information, with some wanting to lock it up and others wanting to free
>>>> it.  Some, like FB, want it both ways - people provide it for free, yet FB
>>>> monetizes and privatizes it.  We can win that war, I think, by pushing for
>>>> openness, but with that comes loss of privacy.  Fighting against openness,
>>>> on the other hand, means shifting power to the few with access to the
>>>> information.  I think the trade-off works better if we lower our privacy
>>>> expectations.  Think of it this way, to use a trivial example:  if 100
>>>> people apply for a job, and you find a picture of one of them with a lamp
>>>> on their head, they will probably not be hired.  If you find pictures of
>>>> all 100 with lamps on their heads, things level out.
>>>>
>>>> 5.  I would support a limited motion against big data, if it focused on
>>>> what we do (the Resolved) portion, without all the Whereas.  I think the
>>>> Resolved here, though, is too broad and unclear.  I'm not sure what it
>>>> prohibits, and that's a problem - it's a bigger problem if staff is
>>>> unclear.  Does it prohibit buying lists of registered Libertarians from
>>>> Secretaries of State?  Buying lists of "(Reason subscribers OR GOA members
>>>> OR NRA members OR homeschoolers) AND registered voters"?
>>>>
>>>> Joshua A. Katz
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> On Thu, Jul 13, 2017 at 11:44 AM, Starchild <realreform at earthlink.net>
>>>> wrote:
>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>> Ever heard the following observation about George Orwell's dystopian
>>>>> novel: "*1984* was not an instruction manual"?
>>>>>
>>>>> I much appreciated that dark witticism when I first heard it, and
>>>>> still do. But lately it occurs to me that *1984 *actually *is* a kind
>>>>> of an instruction manual. Not in the sense the original observation intends
>>>>> to warn us against, of would-be totalitarian leaders using it as a
>>>>> blueprint for imposing control, but in the sense of instructing the rest of
>>>>> us about what kinds of developments to be on guard against; what kinds of
>>>>> conditions we must not allow to come into being.
>>>>>
>>>>> In the spirit of trusting you my colleagues to grasp the implications
>>>>> of this material enough to read it as a *pro-freedom* and not an
>>>>> *anti-freedom* instruction manual, the following Newsweek story from
>>>>> June 8 addresses a topic that I believe demands our attention as a
>>>>> political party:
>>>>>
>>>>> *http://www.newsweek.com/2017/06/16/big-data-mines-personal-info-manipulate-voters-623131.html
>>>>> <http://www.newsweek.com/2017/06/16/big-data-mines-personal-info-manipulate-voters-623131.html>*
>>>>>
>>>>> A couple excerpts (much more at the link, and well worth a read):
>>>>>
>>>>> *The speaker, Alexander Nix, an Eton man, was very much among his own
>>>>> kind—global elites with names like Buffett, Soros, Brokaw, Pickens,
>>>>> Petraeus and Blair. Trouble was indeed on the way for some of the attendees
>>>>> at the annual summit of policymakers and philanthropists whose world order
>>>>> was about to be wrecked by the American election. But for Nix, chief
>>>>> executive officer of a company working for the Trump campaign, that mayhem
>>>>> was a very good thing.*
>>>>>
>>>>> *He didn’t mention it that day, but his company, Cambridge Analytica,
>>>>> had been selling its services to the Trump campaign, which was building a
>>>>> massive database of information on Americans. The company’s capabilities
>>>>> included, among other things, “psychographic profiling” of the electorate.
>>>>> And while Trump’s win was in no way assured on that afternoon, Nix was
>>>>> there to give a cocky sales pitch for his cool new product.*
>>>>>
>>>>> *“It’s my privilege to speak to you today about the power of Big Data
>>>>> and psychographics in the electoral process,” he began. As he clicked
>>>>> through slides, he explained how Cambridge Analytica can appeal directly to
>>>>> people’s emotions, bypassing cognitive roadblocks, thanks to the oceans of
>>>>> data it can access on every man and woman in the country...*
>>>>>
>>>>> *To illustrate, he walked the audience through what he called “a
>>>>> real-life example <https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n8Dd5aVXLCc>” taken from
>>>>> the company’s data on the American electorate, starting with a large
>>>>> anonymous group with a general set of personality types and moving down to
>>>>> the most specific—one man, it turned out, who was easily identifiable.*
>>>>>
>>>>> *Nix started with a group of 45,000 likely Republican Iowa caucusgoers
>>>>> who needed a little push—what he calls a “persuasion message”—to get out
>>>>> and vote for Ted Cruz (who used Cambridge Analytica early in the 2016
>>>>> primaries). That group’s specifics had been fished out of the data stream
>>>>> by an algorithm sifting the thousands of digital data points of their
>>>>> lives. Nix was focusing on a personality subset the company’s algorithms
>>>>> determined to be “very low in neuroticism, quite low in openness and
>>>>> slightly conscientious.”*
>>>>>
>>>>> *Click. A screen of graphs and pie charts.*
>>>>>
>>>>> *“But we can segment further. We can look at what issue they care
>>>>> about. Gun rights I’ve selected. That narrows the field slightly more.”*
>>>>>
>>>>> *Click. Another screen of graphs and pie charts, but with some circled
>>>>> specifics.*
>>>>>
>>>>> *“And now we know we need a message on gun rights. It needs to be a
>>>>> persuasion message, and it needs to be nuanced according to the certain
>>>>> personality type we are interested in.”*
>>>>>
>>>>> *Click. Another screen, the state of Iowa dotted with tiny reds and
>>>>> blues—individual voters.*
>>>>>
>>>>> *“If we wanted to drill down further, we could resolve the data to an
>>>>> individual level, where we have somewhere close to 4- or 5,000 data points
>>>>> on every adult in the United States.”*
>>>>>
>>>>> *Click. Another screenshot with a single circled name—Jeffrey Jay
>>>>> Ruest, gender: male, and his GPS coordinates.*
>>>>>
>>>>> *The American voter whose psychological tendencies Nix had just
>>>>> paraded before global elites like a zoo animal was easy to find. Cambridge
>>>>> researchers would have known much more about him than his address. They
>>>>> probably had access to his Facebook likes—heavy metal band Iron Maiden, a
>>>>> news site called eHot Rods and Guns, and membership in Facebook groups
>>>>> called My Daily Carry Gun and Mopar Drag Racing.*
>>>>>
>>>>> *“Likes” like those are sine qua non of the psychographic profile.*
>>>>>
>>>>> *And like every other one of the hundreds of millions of Americans now
>>>>> caught in Cambridge Analytica’s slicing and dicing machine, Ruest was never
>>>>> asked if he wanted a large swath of his most personal data scrutinized so
>>>>> that he might receive a message tailored just for him from Trump.*
>>>>> *Big Data, artificial intelligence and algorithms designed and
>>>>> manipulated by strategists like the folks at Cambridge have turned our
>>>>> world into a Panopticon, the 19th-century circular prison designed so that
>>>>> guards, without moving, could observe every inmate every minute of every
>>>>> day. *
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>> The choice for us seems clear: Will we emulate Alexander Nix, or side
>>>>> with Jeffrey Jay Ruest? Do we get on the big data bandwagon and attempt to
>>>>> beat the authoritarians at their game by being cleverer at manipulating
>>>>> people's personal information than they are, or do we condemn the practice
>>>>> and put our trust in the public to appreciate those who refuse to engage in
>>>>> such methods? Be manipulators, or speak out against manipulation?
>>>>>
>>>>> The Newsweek piece discusses how big data analytics has advanced, and
>>>>> will likely continue to advance at a rate such that by 2020, the analytics
>>>>> used in the 2016 campaign will look like "horse and buggy" technology.
>>>>> Already, writes author Nina Burleigh,* "On any given day, Team Trump
>>>>> was placing up to 70,000 ad variants, and around the third debate with
>>>>> Hillary Clinton, it pumped out 175,000 ad variants."*
>>>>>
>>>>> Of course it wasn't just the Trump campaign. According to the article, *"The
>>>>> Democratic National Committee has used Catalist <https://www.catalist.us/>,
>>>>> a 240 million–strong storehouse of voter data, containing hundreds of
>>>>> points of data per person, pulled from commercial and public records."
>>>>>  Further on, Bureigh tells us:*
>>>>>
>>>>> *Democratic strategists say Facebook’s microtargeting abilities,
>>>>> behavioral science and the stores of data held by other social media
>>>>> platforms like Twitter and Snapchat are tools that won’t go back inside
>>>>> Pandora’s box. They, of course, insist they won’t be looking for
>>>>> low-cognition voters high in neuroticism who are susceptible to fear-based
>>>>> messages. But Big Data plus behavioral science plus Facebook plus
>>>>> microtargeting is the political formula to beat. They will use it, and they
>>>>> won't talk about how they will refine and improve it.*
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>> Panopticon be damned, if the temptations to a candidate, or a party,
>>>>> of going down Nix's road aren't already obvious, read the article and I
>>>>> think they will be. The dangers likewise. I hope it's no mystery which side
>>>>> I come down on. I think we should listen to Edward Snowden, whose point of
>>>>> view Burleigh's piece describes thus:
>>>>>
>>>>> *Speaking to a Big Data industry conference in Washington May 15,
>>>>> fugitive National Security Agency whistleblower Edward Snowden implored his
>>>>> audience to consider how the mass collection and preservation of records on
>>>>> every online interaction and activity threatens our society. “When we have
>>>>> people that can be tracked and no way to live outside this chain of
>>>>> records,” he said, “what we have become is a quantified spiderweb. That is
>>>>> a very negative thing for a free and open society.”*
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>> With all this in mind, I offer the following resolution. Does anyone
>>>>> have any suggested changes in wording before I ask for co-sponsors?
>>>>>
>>>>> ------------------------------------------------------------
>>>>> ------------------
>>>>> *Whereas a growing ability to harvest, analyze, and manipulate data
>>>>> has during the past few years increasingly enabled "microtargeting" in
>>>>> which hundreds or thousands of data points about specific individuals,
>>>>> harvested from online sources, are run through algorithms and analyzed
>>>>> using behavioral science in order to sell people products, or push
>>>>> political candidates or messages; and *
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>> *Whereas algorithms and data harvesting abilities are expected to
>>>>> continue to rapidly increase in sophistication; and*
>>>>> *Whereas our Republican and Democrat opponents in the 2016 United
>>>>> States presidential election were already cynically mining "big data" to
>>>>> employ "microtargeting" against millions of Americans without, in most
>>>>> cases, the knowledge or consent of these individuals that their personal
>>>>> data were being used to send them tailored messages different from those
>>>>> sent to other voters; and*
>>>>>
>>>>> *Whereas such practices represent a clear and present danger to
>>>>> freedom, with NSA whistleblower and libertarian hero Edward Snowden warning
>>>>> that,“When we have people that can be tracked and no way to live outside
>>>>> this chain of records, what we have become is a quantified spiderweb," and
>>>>> calling this "a very negative thing for a free and open society"; and*
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>> *Whereas we reject the top-down, authoritarian mindset underlying
>>>>> these and other unethical policies and practices of the "cartel parties"
>>>>> and the government institutions they dominate, and exist instead to defend
>>>>> the rights of the individual,*
>>>>> *We therefore hereby resolve that the Libertarian National Committee
>>>>> will not use "big data" under this or any other name, to engage in
>>>>> "microtargeting" under this or any other name, by obtaining and analyzing
>>>>> large numbers of data points about specific individuals without the
>>>>> explicit consent of those individuals in order to market, advertise, or
>>>>> promote our party or candidates to them, or to raise money from them, and
>>>>> urge all Libertarian candidates and campaigns to make a similar pledge.*
>>>>> ------------------------------------------------------------
>>>>> ------------------
>>>>>
>>>>> Love & Liberty,
>>>>>
>>>>>                                  ((( starchild )))
>>>>> At-Large Representative, Libertarian National Committee
>>>>>                         RealReform at earthlink.net
>>>>>                                 (415) 625-FREE
>>>>>                                   @StarchildSF
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>> _______________________________________________
>>>>> Lnc-business mailing list
>>>>> Lnc-business at hq.lp.org
>>>>> http://hq.lp.org/mailman/listinfo/lnc-business_hq.lp.org
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>
>>>> _______________________________________________
>>>> Lnc-business mailing list
>>>> Lnc-business at hq.lp.org
>>>> http://hq.lp.org/mailman/listinfo/lnc-business_hq.lp.org
>>>>
>>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> --
>>> *In Liberty,*
>>> *Caryn Ann Harlos*
>>> Region 1 Representative, Libertarian National Committee (Alaska,
>>> Arizona, Colorado, Hawaii, Kansas, Montana, Utah, Wyoming, Washington) - Caryn.Ann.
>>> Harlos at LP.org <Caryn.Ann.Harlos at LP.org>
>>> Communications Director, Libertarian Party of Colorado
>>> <http://www.lpcolorado.org>
>>> Colorado State Coordinator, Libertarian Party Radical Caucus
>>> <http://www.lpradicalcaucus.org>
>>> Chair, LP Historical Preservation Committee
>>>
>>> A haiku to the Statement of Principles:
>>> *We defend your rights*
>>> *And oppose the use of force*
>>> *Taxation is theft*
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> _______________________________________________
>>> Lnc-business mailing list
>>> Lnc-business at hq.lp.org
>>> http://hq.lp.org/mailman/listinfo/lnc-business_hq.lp.org
>>>
>>>
>> _______________________________________________
>> Lnc-business mailing list
>> Lnc-business at hq.lp.org
>> http://hq.lp.org/mailman/listinfo/lnc-business_hq.lp.org
>>
>>
>
> _______________________________________________
> Lnc-business mailing list
> Lnc-business at hq.lp.org
> http://hq.lp.org/mailman/listinfo/lnc-business_hq.lp.org
>
>


-- 
*In Liberty,*
*Caryn Ann Harlos*
Region 1 Representative, Libertarian National Committee (Alaska, Arizona,
Colorado, Hawaii, Kansas, Montana, Utah, Wyoming, Washington) - Caryn.Ann.
Harlos at LP.org <Caryn.Ann.Harlos at LP.org>
Communications Director, Libertarian Party of Colorado
<http://www.lpcolorado.org>
Colorado State Coordinator, Libertarian Party Radical Caucus
<http://www.lpradicalcaucus.org>
Chair, LP Historical Preservation Committee

A haiku to the Statement of Principles:
*We defend your rights*
*And oppose the use of force*
*Taxation is theft*
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://hq.lp.org/pipermail/lnc-business/attachments/20170713/fdd5c907/attachment-0002.html>