It's hilarious. Just like Facebook privacy issues only blew up when it might have benefited Trump, but it was fine when Obama used that data (on a much larger scale), it's funny that NYT is suddenly paying attention to this coordinated reporting campaign when they and the national TV media parrot Media Matters all day, every day. It's easy to find a dozen examples of national TV talking heads all using the same phrases and vocabulary to report on some pro-left or anti-right issue.
The data that the Obama campaign used, and the one that the Trump campaign may have used (it is clear they had it, unclear that they used it) were very different both in collection and in scope. The Obama campaign asked supporters which of their FaceBook contacts they thought were likely to be receptive to messages from the team, and only collected the FaceBook handles. The information shared with the Trump campaign was collected (not by the Trump campaign) was far more reaching than just the FaceBook name, including a lot of personal information both about the people who installed the "personality test" app, and the personal information of all of their FaceBook "friends".
Trying to equate these two is just not honest.
Separately I would expect the same phrasing and vocabulary to emerge in the media. They are all talking to the same general pool of sources, and listening to each other. What I do not expect (and smacks of authoritarianism) is for them to all be reading from the exact same script.
MIT technology review, July 2012 on Obama app implies that it could've collected more than just 'facebook handles', where does that information come from?
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The app’s avowed task is to give people a quick and easy way to access the volunteering and organizing functions that worked so well for Obama in 2008. But the permission screen that comes with the app makes clear that it has another purpose as well. When I installed the app, I noticed that it said it would grab information about my friends: their birthdates, locations, and “likes.”
"
