ICYMI: 3 Senate Hopefuls Denounce Big Tech. They Also Have Deep Ties to It. [New York Times]

Blake Masters, J.D. Vance and Mehmet Oz, all Republicans, have a history with the industry that involves uses of consumer data they now criticize.

*** IN CASE YOU MISSED IT ***

A new report from the New York Times details how three GOP Senate candidates (Mehmet Oz, Blake Masters, and J.D. Vance) are railing against Big Tech in their campaigns — despite having “deep ties to the industry, either as investors, promoters or employees.”  Even more troubling, “their work involved some of the questionable uses of consumer data that they now criticize” on the trail:

• Mehmet Oz claims that he’s “gone to battle with Big Tech.” But he co-founded a medical data company, ShareCare, that created a tool called Real Age Test — promoted by Oz — to collect user data that it then sold to pharmaceutical companies.
• Blake Masters argues that Big Tech threatens privacy and collects personal information. But Masters helped fund Peter Thiel’s Palantir, a surveillance technology that tracks ordinary citizens as part of its business.
• J.D. Vance pledges to “break up the big tech companies” and “reduce their power in our economy and our politics.” But he invested in Hallow, a prayer app that shares user data with business partners for targeted advertising.

See for yourself:

New York Times: 3 Senate Hopefuls Denounce Big Tech. They Also Have Deep Ties to It.

Blake Masters, J.D. Vance and Mehmet Oz, all Republicans, have a history with the industry that involves uses of consumer data they now criticize.

By Jonathan Weisman

July 27, 2022

Key Points:

• [F]or three candidates in some of the hottest races of 2022 — Blake Masters, J.D. Vance and Mehmet Oz — the denunciations [of Big Tech] come with a complication: They have deep ties to the industry, either as investors, promoters or employees.
  • What’s more, their work involved some of the questionable uses of consumer data that they now criticize.
• Masters and Mr. Vance have embraced the contradictions […] But some technology activists simply aren’t buying it, especially not from two political newcomers whose Senate runs have been bankrolled by Peter Thiel, the first outside investor in Facebook and a longtime board member of the tech giant.
• Technology experts on the left say candidates like Mr. Masters and Mr. Vance are Trojan horses, taking popular stances to win federal office with no intention of pursuing those positions in the Senate.

BLAKE MASTERS

• SHOT: “‘These companies take this data and sell precisely targeted ads so effective they verge on predatory,’ Mr. Masters wrote in an opinion article last year in The Wall Street Journal. ‘They then optimize their platforms to keep you online to receive ever more ads.’”
  • “In a gauzy video posted in July 2021, Mr. Masters says, ‘The internet, which was supposed to give us an awesome future, is instead being used to shut us up.’”
• CHASER: “Mr. Masters, a protégé of Mr. Thiel’s and the former chief operating officer of Mr. Thiel’s venture capital firm, oversaw investments in Palantir and pressed to spread its technology, which analyzes mountains of raw data to detect patterns that can be used by customers.”
  • “Palantir’s initial seed money came from the C.I.A., but its technology was adopted widely by the military and even the Los Angeles Police Department.”
  • “Mr. Masters and Mr. Thiel personally pressed the director of the National Institutes of Health to buy into it.”

MEHMET OZ

• SHOT: “In a December video appearance soon after he announced his campaign, Dr. Oz proclaimed, ‘I’ve taken on Big Pharma, I’ve gone to battle with Big Tech, I’ve gone up against agrochem companies, big ones, and I’ve got scars to prove it.’”
• CHASER: “Dr. Oz, the Republican nominee for an open Senate seat in Pennsylvania, was part of a consortium of investors that founded Sharecare, a website that offered users the chance to ask questions about health and wellness — and allowed marketers from the health care industry the chance to answer them.”
  • “A feature of Sharecare, RealAge Test, quizzed tens of millions of users on their health attributes, ostensibly to help shave years off their age, then released the test results to paying customers in the pharmaceutical industry.”

J.D. VANCE

• SHOT: “Mr. Vance, in a campaign Facebook video, suggested that Congress make data collection illegal — or at least mandate disclosure — before technology companies ‘harvest our data and then sell it back to us in the form of targeted advertising.’”
• CHASER: “ Vance, the Republican nominee in Ohio and another Thiel pupil, used Mr. Thiel’s money to form his venture capital firm, Narya Capital, which helped fund Hallow, a Catholic prayer and meditation app whose privacy policies allow it to share some user data for targeted advertising.”

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