I don’t know if anyone has yet used the term “digitalship” to describe the rising “dictatorship of the digerati”—perhaps both the term and phrase are too ungainly—but if not I’ll lay claim to it as a literary device (hat tip to Jeane Kirkpatrick, too) for pointing out the massive hypocrisy of the left over Cambridge Analytica’s use of Facebook data on behalf of the Trump campaign. Because as near as I can tell, what Cambridge Analytica did was exactly what the Obama 2012 digital campaign did with Facebook, with the active cooperation of Facebook it would seem. No one made any fuss about that at the time. But as I never tire of pointing out, if liberals didn’t have double-standards, they wouldn’t have any standards at all.
In the spring of 2013 I attended a fascinating briefing from someone—I forget the fellow’s name now—who had worked on the Obama campaign digital operation. He went through a famous Power Point presentation called “Inside the Cave” which you can still find online here (PDF file). I distinctly recall this person saying that by far the most valuable digital tool for identifying and contacting potential Obama voters was the data acquired through Facebook.
But of course that was for Obama, who Silicon Valley loved. Now that Republicans are using it too, it is suddenly a national scandal. Reminds me of how Democrats turned on the Independent Counsel statute when Ken Starr made it apparent that it could be used against Democratic presidents, too.
See also this Time article from 2012.
And a chaser, from the always reliable Iowahawk:
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