From what is known publicly from statements by a whistleblower and thorough investigative reports from the New York Times, the Guardian and Observer and a documentary series by Britain’s Channel 4, attempts to paint the Obama campaign’s digital efforts as equal in scope and nefariousness minimize the apparent rule-breaking and potential criminality of what Cambridge Analytica is accused of doing.
Although the Obama campaign in 2012 did target potential voters using information gathered from Facebook profiles, there were key differences. The Obama for America organization accessed voters’ Facebook information when they logged on to the campaign web site via Facebook. Obama supporters were given a permission screen in which they could approve or deny the request, which clearly came from the Obama campaign.
Although Obama for America did collect data on users’ friends, it was at the time in line with Facebook policy. A Facebook spokesperson told us both candidates Obama and Republican Mitt Romney had access to the same tools. In 2015, Facebook changed the rules so that apps could no longer target the friends of users who downloaded them. https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/obama-campaign-use-tactics-cambridge-analytica/
Too bad you, as so many other conservatives are not interested in looking at things in detail, or in context.
Further, nwsun, Russian meddling was also on the radar before your hero won.
In August 2016, Obama received a briefing that said Vladimir Putin was directly involved in a campaign to hurt Hillary Clinton and help Trump win the election. He had his aides assess the safety of the American voting system, he had the head of Homeland Security Jeh Johnson work with states to shore up security, and he had John Brennan contact the head of the Russia security agency.
But Obama did not make the information public, as Democrats on the Hill wanted. Republicans argued it should stay under wraps. According to then-Vice President Joe Biden, Mitch McConnell questioned the findings themselves, and others argued it would only help Russians to release it, or make it look like the Obama administration was stepping into the election to directly oppose Donald Trump. https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2018/2/22/17025628/trumps-obama-russia-scandal-white-house
If Hillary had won Russian meddling would still be being talked about, though in a different context. Clinton people did not have deep ties with Russian as so many Trump people had.
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