Did A Billionaire Harvest Big Data From Facebook To 'Hijack' Democracy? (theguardian.com) 452
Long-time Slashdot readers walterbyrd and whoever57 both submitted the same article about the mysterious data analytics company Cambridge Analytica and its activities with SCL Group, a 25-year-old military psyops company in the U.K. later bought by "secretive hedge fund billionaire" Robert Mercer. One former employee calls it "this dark, dystopian data company that gave the world Trump."
Facebook was the source of the psychological insights that enabled Cambridge Analytica to target individuals. It was also the mechanism that enabled them to be delivered on a large scale. The company also (perfectly legally) bought consumer datasets -- on everything from magazine subscriptions to airline travel -- and uniquely it appended these with the psych data to voter files... Finding "persuadable" voters is key for any campaign and with its treasure trove of data, Cambridge Analytica could target people high in neuroticism, for example, with images of immigrants "swamping" the country. The key is finding emotional triggers for each individual voter. Cambridge Analytica worked on campaigns in several key states for a Republican political action committee. Its key objective, according to a memo the Observer has seen, was "voter disengagement" and "to persuade Democrat voters to stay at home"... In the U.S., the government is bound by strict laws about what data it can collect on individuals. But, for private companies anything goes.
A branch of this company reportedly also received half the campaign budgets of four pro-Brexit campaign groups, and there's some dark talk about "military-funded technology that has been harnessed by a global plutocracy...being used to sway elections in ways that people can't even see." The article notes the two firms have plied their services in Russia as well as Lithuania and the Ukraine, and suggests that "we are in the midst of a massive land grab for power by billionaires via our data. Data which is being silently amassed, harvested and stored."
A branch of this company reportedly also received half the campaign budgets of four pro-Brexit campaign groups, and there's some dark talk about "military-funded technology that has been harnessed by a global plutocracy...being used to sway elections in ways that people can't even see." The article notes the two firms have plied their services in Russia as well as Lithuania and the Ukraine, and suggests that "we are in the midst of a massive land grab for power by billionaires via our data. Data which is being silently amassed, harvested and stored."
Just the beginning (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Just the beginning (Score:5, Insightful)
This is enough that they can identify what ads to show you to influence your opinion (Candidate X strongly supports issue Y), but more importantly they can share this info with canvassers who can target the undecided votes in a constituency and knock on their doors and say 'have you thought about [issue that we know is your number one priority], are you aware that our candidate believes [exactly what you believe]?'.
Re:Just the beginning (Score:5, Interesting)
Yup. And this isn't even the worst of it, they can also do the opposite and create targeted attack ads. "Did you know the other candidate is doing [thing that you're strongly opposed to]?" And it doesn't even need to be true because these can be masked by creating blogs on 'alternative media' and conspiracy sites with no official link to the campaign. In other words. this sort of targeting allows targeted deception of the voterbase with little to no actual consequences.
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They know all that...
But do they know that I use an adblocker? Only time I've seen an ad online this century was when I switched browsers and had to download a new adblocker for the new browser. That must have been the best part of 20 minutes when I could see ads this century....
Re:Just the beginning (Score:4, Insightful)
That must have been the best part of 20 minutes when I could see ads this century
You mean overt ads. Ads that are integrated into the content are not skipable. And we are not even talking about positive feedback loops in curated feeds.
Re:Just the beginning (Score:4, Insightful)
Indeed. The Brexit and Trump are the most stupid things voters did recently, but they are not unique. The vulnerability here are voters without a clue about reality. That one cannot easily be fixed, but throwing the staff and financiers of such companies in jail would be a start.
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The vulnerability here are voters without a clue about reality. That one cannot easily be fixed, but throwing the staff and financiers of such companies in jail would be a start.
Does that include companies like The Guardian too? They're one of the biggest culprits when it comes to trying to influence clueless voters with their version of reality. Hell, these demagogues are still peddling the "Pepe is racist hate speech" nonsense, on their frontpage no less.
Re:Just the beginning (Score:5, Insightful)
The vulnerability here are voters without a clue about reality. That one cannot easily be fixed, but throwing the staff and financiers of such companies in jail would be a start.
Does that include companies like The Guardian too? They're one of the biggest culprits when it comes to trying to influence clueless voters with their version of reality. Hell, these demagogues are still peddling the "Pepe is racist hate speech" nonsense, on their frontpage no less.
The only thing you've revealed here is that you've never even picked up a copy of the guardian.
The Daily Mail and their ilk are the biggest culprits in trying to influence clueless voters. This does not excuse the Guardian but what you wrote is completely wrong. The Guardian is trying to influence clued voters, why (and this is how we can tell you've never read the Guardian) is because the Guardian is written much more eloquently. There is a minimum education level required to understand the language used, your clueless readers end up going back to the Daily Mail or Sun to read celebrity trash and extreme right wing propaganda sandwiched between Page 3 girls. The Sun and DM target the most basest desires (which is why they're little more than soft porn these days) with the most basic language.
It's clear you're a Murdoch fanboy (Fox News/Daily Mail) as you don't even know that "front page" is two words.
Now if it were up to me, I wouldn't get rid of the DM or the Guardian. I'd simply enforce the same editorial standards as the BBC across the entire industry... And I'd tighten them up too. Get caught publishing a falsehood, a retraction must be issued on the front page. Get caught doing it deliberately, the retraction must run for 5 days.
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As in, Brexit was obviously the wrong move.
Define "wrong move" here. Please, without referring to articles explaining your point of view. In your own words, explain.
Because every time I've asked a liberal elitist to explain why Brexit was bad, and when they could actually answer, it was usually about things that probably won't happen, and if they do happen, probably won't be nearly as bad as the liberals think. Kind of like Trump. The world is going to end! the Russians are coming!!! OMG Trump is going to personally rape your daughter and eat your p
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Suit yourself.
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"So. People are stupid if they disagree with you?"
You make it sound like its not complicated, it is VERY complicated because science is discovering people are NOT authorities on what they do and don't know about themselves and the errors in their own views and reasoning. See the science:
On reason [youtube.com]
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> voters make their decisions based on facebook posts
As opposed to what? The paranoid ravings of journalists who see some big conspiracy behind everyone they disagree with?
Every month they come up with some other bullshit: fake news, bots, russians, alt right, Facebook posts, some billionaire, etc. These nutjobs whipped themselves into a mass hysteria because people dare oppose their views.
Re:Just the beginning (Score:5, Interesting)
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Or 30+ years of political experience, in-depth exposure to and familiarity with US law, experience with international relations, military operations, and other required skills. Instead, this campaign let Bozo get elected because he was orange and talked down to women and treated them as objects. You're 1/2 already, but still no Trump or Putin.
Re:Just the beginning (Score:5, Insightful)
30+ years of political experience also means 30+ years of being exposed to corruption and becoming a stagnant and stale piece in the political field.
The latest US presidential election was a lose-lose situation. Overall the election highlights that the US election system has become pretty stale. A transit to the election pattern that France uses would be a step forward. But that would hurt both the Democrats and the Republicans.
Re:Just the beginning (Score:5, Insightful)
I still find it incredibly funny that people think anybody at all in US politics is less corrupt than a casino owning property developer. Atlantic City is such a bastion of law and order after all.
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Remember, the Republicans had some 16 candidates to chose from, while the Democrats ostensibly only had one, being the Bernie never had a chance against the rigged DNC election machine. The bad choice of the Republicans is their choice of their party members, the bad choice of the Democrats was the DNC choice. The fact that Bernie made a significant run and almost beat Hillary shows you how bad a candidate she really was.
Hillary Loss is fully on the DNC and Hillary as a candidate.
That, and the US Presidenti
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Really?
She was a one term senator and a secretary of state for one term. She was not particularly distinguished in either role.
Oh. She was the wife of a governor and president. Sorry Charlie, that doesn't count.
Re:Just the beginning (Score:4, Insightful)
So you voted for McCain, not Obama, right?
Re:Just the beginning (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Just the beginning (Score:5, Insightful)
The butthurt is strong in this one!
If the Horrendous Harridan was so fucking competent, why'd she run such an utter train-wreck of a campaign?
Hillary! LOST!!! BWAAA HAAA HAA!
So, tell me, are you part of what is described in the summary and articles? I have noticed that since shortly before the election, all of the message boards I participate in have been swarmed with right-wing trolls. And I do mean all of them. The vast majority are just like you; hurling stupid insults and trying to get under people's skin and provoke an emotional response. Either Trump's supporters just all decided to get active online at the same time, or there is a coordinated effort going on. Knowing what I do about social manipulation, I suspect the latter.
So are you one of them? Do you get paid for this? Are you merely a computer program? These are the questions we need to ask, at least to ourselves, when reading comment sections and other social media. Well funded organizations are working to manipulate and influence what we think, what our values are and how we view the world. Let's at least keep an eye out for it.
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I have noticed that since shortly before the election, all of the message boards I participate in have been swarmed with right-wing trolls. And I do mean all of them. The vast majority are just like you; hurling stupid insults and trying to get under people's skin and provoke an emotional response. Either Trump's supporters just all decided to get active online at the same time, or there is a coordinated effort going on. Knowing what I do about social manipulation, I suspect the latter
Yes, but the coordinated social media activity was a false flag operation by the democrats to make right-wing trolls appear as stupid and insulting hoping that would rub off on the public image of Republicans in general.
Heck, considering that this was the first election that was decided on which was less hated, both candidates could have been slipped into the opposing party as "poison pill" without any difference whatsoever.
Re:Just the beginning (Score:4, Interesting)
The problem with this conspiracy theory is that if the billionaires got to pick the president, it would have been Jeb Bush, not Donald Trump. Do you think that "the elite" wanted TPP cancelled, NAFTA re-negotiated, and subsidized pensions/healthcare for coal miners? Most billionaires would have picked Hillary over Donald. She was the "status quo" candidate, and the status quo is working pretty well for them.
Re: Just the beginning (Score:3)
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The main one would be that none of those contributed much to her loss. She failed to get the attention of what is supposed to be the Democrat "core" demographic, average people with average jobs, and put a focus on special cases instead. Most Americans appears to think so little of their country to bother to go out and vote so complacency about the sort of people that always vote Democrat was fatal. Trump wasn't complacent about th
Re: Just the beginning (Score:5, Insightful)
You voted for Trump because you identify with his white nationalism and you blindly hate the left. You feel like you're losing all the entitlements and benefits you had as a white male and you blame it on women and minorities....
As a white male, this is the funniest thing I've read all day! In all seriousness, though, THIS is the reason why Trump won. Average people who go to work every day, spend time with the family, and try to be involved in their communities are tired of being labeled, called names, told they're meanies, etc. when they don't agree with mouth-foaming liberals. Liberals have nobody to blame but yourselves for Trump.
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Liberals have nobody to blame but yourselves for Trump.
No, no, no, no, no. Party A does not get to blame party B for party A's candidate. Be proud of what your own candidate stands for if you wish, but you *DO NOT* get to deflect imperfections of your own candidate/office holder onto another party. Trump is who he is, and we have what we have because we keep on nominating unlikable candidates and can't agree on basic facts about what's important.
... when they don't agree with mouth-foaming liberals.
Also, you don't get to react like this to a comment about someone talking about you 'blindly hating the left' wit
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My 2 cents on why I voted for Trump as a white male, middle-class, technology-employed, highly-educated (CS degree and 2 Masters) guy.
1) Taxes - As someone fairly educated on economics, Clinton had zero tax/economic policy. I wish she did, so I could compare. I easily could see myself voting for Clinton, despite her personal failings. But, Trump campaigned on a reasonable corporate tax plan that I see as key to growth.
2) Education - As a father of 2 kids who went through (or finishing) a public education in
Re: Just the beginning (Score:5, Informative)
1) Taxes - As someone fairly educated on economics, Clinton had zero tax/economic policy. I wish she did, so I could compare.
Here, let me take two seconds to google that for you:
http://www.taxpolicycenter.org... [taxpolicycenter.org]
It's certainly fair to disagree with any of Clinton's policies, but to say she had none is either disingenuous or misinformed. Clinton had a huge policy shop - it just never caught much if any press attention. Maybe that was her fault for not pushing them more - perhaps the advice of campaign consultants to avoid her tendency to "wonk out" and glaze people over with details maybe.
while Trump was clearly against central federal involvement to the level that we had achieved over the previous 16 years.
The flaw in your logic here is that removing all of that doesn't improve the situation, it makes it worse. Getting rid of an inefficient or messy solution to a problem doesn't get rid of the original problem.
Clinton framed this issue as nothing more than "Trump is against immigrants." Why couldn't she just propose a comprehensive low-wage immigrant worker program? I mean, that is what the country ultimately needs. I would have voted for her if she had such a plan. She did not.
Her policy was a bit more than that. Again, I suggest using a search engine rather than accepting what others are telling you (whether on social media, or from various news shows/sites) without question. As for why she couldn't, I would suggest that given the history of both her and her husband, she would be entirely willing to entertain a reasonable (and widely supported) compromise. The Clintons have never been ideologues, and that's partly why they take lots of flak from the Left, because while they're on the left, they're also more than willing to throw whatever pet cause under the bus in order to champion a policy they think is going to attract majority support.
Trump, meanwhile, has shown zero inclination to any sort of compromises from an absolute hard line position, either on the campaign trail or now that he's in office. Furthermore, his past history has not been that of a compromise type, but rather someone who is adamant about getting his way, and using hardball tactics to get it. Now, if you want the policy he's pushing, then sure, that's a good thing - but I would argue that he's only going to cause us vastly greater problems for a variety of reasons, but that would be an entire thread of its own, so I'll skip it.
4) Open source - Well, I mean "open". Trump talked to the press and anyone who would listen. Clinton gave canned speeches to small groups of supporters. She basically never gave press conferences.
Clinton has always had an uneasy relationship with the press, sure. That said, she did give press conferences - far moreso than Trump, yet she was the one who was criticized in certain parts of the media (particularly those that leaned right). Worse, Trump outright banned reporters from certain major media outlets whose coverage he didn't like:
http://money.cnn.com/2016/06/1... [cnn.com]
My feeling is that Clinton phoned-in her tenure at State.
Based on what? Criticism on Fox or such? It's fair to disagree with the outcomes, and to suggest she could have done things differently, but it seems strange to me to suggest she spent her time not working.
ACA - I can do math. I have an understanding of models. The ACA is doomed by math. Clinton would not say the obvious. Why not?
The ACA isn't doomed by math any more than Social Security will run out in 203X. Since this is Slashdot, here's the requisite car analogy. If your engine is making a whining or knocking sound, do you throw up your hands and say
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Common Core was not federally mandated.
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That was Hillary's mistake. She should have lied big and lied often. In a way it almost inoculated Trump against the accusation of being a liar. Because he is a shameless fantasist, supporters feel completely free to reinterpret his every utterance in any way they please.
Only those we disagree with "hijack democracy" (Score:5, Insightful)
If we agree with the person doing the activity?
Why, that's just democracy in action!
Nothing to hide (Score:5, Interesting)
When informed about mass surveillance and privacy issues many people respond that they have "nothing to hide". My response to them is that they may have no criminal activity to hide, but with all that information they can be me manipulated without knowing it. I give the example of a first date. If you know what the person likes and dislikes before the date you can easily shape your approach to the evening, presenting yourself to be as pleasing as possible.
This is exactly what theses projects are doing to us on a national level, manipulating people one by one. And that's the danger of having so much data about ourselves out there. We can be influenced and manipulated on a personal and societal scale simply by these groups knowing so much about us.
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For a moment there I thought you were going to suggest you'd be offering something more specific - date consulting.
Imagine the money you could squeeze out of guys by advanced cyber stalking, data mining, and analysis of potential dates. You could rate them on looks, personality, and, most importantly, likelihood of putting out for a particular client utilizing a particular approach.
Re:Nothing to hide (Score:5, Informative)
This goes way beyond traditional marketing. This isn't branding, this isn't an ad campaign, this isn't a PR slack on TV. This is psychological manipulation on a personal level.
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Sort of. Except past the point of acceptability. At least that's my opinion. I don't believe democracy can survive mass psychological manipulation at this scale. There has always been propaganda for the masses, but this is different. This is propaganda for the individual.
This is an assault on our very humanity (Score:3, Insightful)
When informed about mass surveillance and privacy issues many people respond that they have "nothing to hide". My response to them is that they may have no criminal activity to hide, but with all that information they can be me manipulated without knowing it. I give the example of a first date. If you know what the person likes and dislikes before the date you can easily shape your approach to the evening, presenting yourself to be as pleasing as possible.
Well put, nuanced point. Unfortunately, I tend to f
Wouldn't be a problem -if-... (Score:5, Insightful)
This wouldn't be a problem if the media were still fulfilling their role of informing people of the facts, instead of also taking up the role of interpreter of those facts.
So what if you're influenced by something you hear? That's normal: you receive information and act on it. You should, however, have -all- the information and not just the subset deemed supportive of the cause by invisible people, with the rest made up with suggestive phrasing and outright lies. But reporting of actual facts, supported by accurate and relevant numbers, has become a rarity, and finding those numbers is becoming less and less possible, despite the vast possibilities the internet offers for unlocking information.
So it's all down to hollow phrases, and given that total lack of input, people become suggestible. I would suggest, however, that the solution lies in a well-educated population that is aware of the problem, and is given unlimited access to uncensored facts and figures.
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Are you seriously saying opinion should be force fed to poor people because they are too poor to understand facts? That's just... wow.
Any opinion in the media without underlying facts is mere propaganda. That's precisely what I'm arguing against. And since the government collects pretty much all information anyway, why not give it the task of opening its databases and letting people see facts?
That also costs (some) money, but nobody ever said democracy should be free. In fact, some generations had to give t
It's the argument for an aristocracy (Score:3)
It's kind of the argument for a republic if not an aristocracy.
The masses are too ignorant, gullible and guided by base motivations to make serious decisions. In a Democratic Republic you at least have the will of the people as voiced in elections for Representatives, but that as a rule intelligent, serious people will actually be making the decisions.
It's what's kind of interesting at times in the British monarchy -- the crown doesn't run government but by virtue of its status, gives advice and guidance t
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Citizens from poverty level to upper middle class are typically burdened with conventional jobs or other entrepreneurial adventures, child-rearing, sleeping, hobbies, eating... all sorts of humdrum daily activities that fill up the hours of one's busy little life.
Unless politics or government is your gig, there's just not enough time nor inclination for the average person to collect the data themselves, so most people align with a socially acceptable news so
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what about stating an opinion as NEWS?
Re: Wouldn't be a problem -if-... (Score:2, Interesting)
The same media landscape existed in mid-nineties Russia.
Imagine a media channel that is worse than fox neuz on information/disinformation ratio. Worse than Infowars and Breibart. Orders of magnitude more vapid, energetic and aggressive at spewing mental bulshit than crazy street preachers.
Now imagine that backing of such news organisation is a prerequisite for anybody to win any election. This is how it was, and this is what made Russian subhumans to vote in a former KGB leutenant into Kremlin.
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You should, however, have -all- the information and not just the subset deemed supportive of the cause by invisible people
The main reason that we have representative, rather than direct, democracy is that no one has the time to do that. Do you understand the causes of the conflict in Syria? The economic impact of NAFTA? The costs and benefits of EU membership for each member state? People who spent their day jobs don't fully understand these, so what chance does the general population have? You need some kind of filter that will highlight the parts that are relevant for you to care about, the problem is that there's no ac
Re:Wouldn't be a problem -if-... (Score:4, Interesting)
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Re:Wouldn't be a problem -if-... (Score:5, Insightful)
So, when was the magical period when we had "all the information, not just the subset deemed suuportive of the cause"?
Certainly wasn't this century.
Or the 20th either.
Hell, the Spanish-American War of the 19th Century was at least partly the result of the efforts of William Randolph Hearst and Joseph Pulitzer...
And there were more than a few American newspapers pushing the people's buttons in the late 18th Century leading up to the American Revolution.....
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There's a problem. Newspapers used to be funded by adverts - specifically classified adverts, notably on Saturdays. And now there are better ways, Craigslist, eBay, GumTree, etc. Better, yes, But no money flows to the newspapers.
So they are desperately struggling for income. Subscriptions, anything really. But overall, they are no longer strong enough to be independent.
TV ads are under heavy threat - DVRs, internet, NetFlix, Playstation, many things compete for attention. And money.
So media is struggling fi
Re:Wouldn't be a problem -if-... (Score:4, Interesting)
Perhaps the fact that a great majority of Democrats choose to get their news from comedians pretending to be journalists in front of studio audience on a cable channel rather than, you know, an actual news broadcast has some impact. Colbert, Oliver, Trevor, Maher, et all are NOT news shows, they are entertainment, as witnessed by the "laugh" signs in their studios.
Re:Wouldn't be a problem -if-... (Score:4, Insightful)
It's not that the media fails to inform - there is informative media out there. During Brexit, for example, the BBC in particular and a few other neutral organizations did debunk the lies and post what little factual information was available. The problem is that people didn't want to hear it.
In the post-truth world, people don't care about reality or facts. They only care about hearing what they want to hear, which is why populists did so well. Facebook is a great platform for this. Fake news and biased information on Facebook has credibility, because it appears to be coming from "friends". Not politicians, who all lie all the time, but friends and "ordinary people" who are far more trustworthy.
It's a very efficient system. Someone posts a meme or some fake news. Lots of other people like it and re-post it, giving it credibility and truthiness. Any dissent or contradiction is quickly silenced by virtue of being comment #697 that no-one will ever read.
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Actually the BBC failed miserably to debunk the lies. In its typically misplaced idea of "neutrality" it would typically avoid making a factual statement and instead have interviewees on to make opposing points. The effect of this was to dignify the lie and place it in the centre ground.
They've done this consistently for years, especially since coming under significant pressure from the Blair government around the Iraq war time (regarding the dodgy dossier, David Kelly etc). And now the threat of the Conser
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It's not that the media fails to inform - there is informative media out there. During Brexit, for example, the BBC in particular and a few other neutral organizations did debunk the lies and post what little factual information was available.
Not very well. The large media organisations have been caught somewhat flat footed. I don't recall previous campaigns where one side was knowingly, brazenly lying about their biggest points as the Brexit leave campaing. In the past there's generally been some attempt
Re:Wouldn't be a problem -if-... (Score:4, Insightful)
The BBC started its Fact Check site, and Leave did come out a lot worse from it... Problem is, few people read it. Especially if they were already in the Leave camp, then they just dismissed it as left wing / establishment bias or the worthless opinion of experts.
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The problem is that people are going to believe what they want to believe. It's part of being human. We saw that with Brexit. The Leave side was promising all of this money for the NHS, no immigrants, sunshine every day, clown free circuses, etc. There were people, including some news organizations, calling out their lies. And we see how well that turned out.
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Oh, where do I sign?
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This has always been my interest in that the facts be presented to allow people to make their own decisions. If people wanted opinion, they should ask. This is why some people think that journalism is not what it used to be and not being as trustworthy as it once was. It seems recently to be more subjective instead of objective.
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You are right, but all of those flaws we have to live with. There is no benevolent intergalactic government we can appeal to for good governance of planet Earth. And I do not buy into the notion that a small elite of 'smarter' people is an acceptable, let alone the best solution. Down that road lie the gas chambers.
Besides, we can do a hell of a lot better than we do now. Too many claims in the media go entirely unsupported by any kind of statistics. I'm not asking for perfection; I'm asking for honesty and
We need mind-antivirus (Score:2, Interesting)
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It's a shame that the Free Speech Warriors will scream "censorship!!1" when anyone tries to deal with this. Some of them are the ones benefiting from it, and some of them are just useful idiots.
Politicians promising what the people want to hear (Score:2, Offtopic)
Now we just have better technology. Macron did it too.
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That's not what this story is about at all...
What kind of bullshit article is this? (Score:3, Interesting)
When Obama won in 2008 slashdot ran slobbering articles about how the tech industry had used data mining techniques to properly target ads towards the appropriate voters and who the Dems needed to target to maximize votes. In 2012 this was repeated along with Facebook altering walls to make sure only the "proper" messages were showing up on walls.
Now the "other" side is doing it and its "evil" and "manipulative" and "fake news"
No that's bullshit. You can't praise the use of story planting and voter manipulation when your guy does it then turn around and demand all the rules be changes because for all that whiz bang technology you couldn't get voters to choose your sucky candidate. Maybe that's the real story here... that all this voter manipulation and Orwellian tech doesn't really work and individuals still pick the best candidate presented?
Naaah... they're sheep when they don't vote the way you want and enlightened peoples when you use the same techniques.
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At the expense of me probably being flogged alive by the left, would this be similar psychological manipulation that says an ethnic minority cannot be racist? I get a lot of that on Facebook these days.. I'm sexist because I'm male. I'm racist because I'm white. If those direct accusations irritate me, it's because of "male fragility" or "white fragility" (god forbid you tell a woman she's sexist, or an ethnic minority that they're racist). These are becoming so pervasive these days, that it's quite sc
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Yes, a minority can be totally racist. But that's not the problem, as long
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Exactly - here are some of the links:
MIT's Technology Review [technologyreview.com]
New York Times [nytimes.com]
InfoWorld [infoworld.com]
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You're kidding yourself to think the two elections were anyware similar. Politifact - Trump only 31% true (to some degree) - 16% pants on fire. Obama - 75% true (to some degree) - 2% pants on fire. Trump lies or is just ignorant 69% of the time.
Unprecedented hoards of absolutely fake news and headlines as documented in the article we're discussing. What fake news is there from the Obama election other than he's a secret Muslim not born in the U.S.? The pizza parlor shooting (from ACTUAL fake news) is j
Underwood (Score:2)
did it first!
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yay. (Score:5, Insightful)
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No (Score:2)
Democracy doesn't depend on informed voters. Democracy is nothing more than giving the vote to citizens who are not part of the government. The outcomes will be better, for certain definitions of better, but there's no way to hijack democracy.
Curious (Score:2)
Curious that they are portrayed by the poster as some insidious master data manipulator...when as recently as 2016 advertising industry magazines mocked them for being "all hat, no cattle".
Several customers were quoted as complaining that their $16k monthly fee produced nothing of value except constant sales pitches.
http://adage.com/article/campa... [adage.com]
Fake news? (Score:2)
And there I thought it was the conservatives that had the occasional fake-news problem
It seems impossibly hard to believe for some that Trump won because people were honesty, genuinely fed up with the alternative. Instead its one nutty conspiracy theory after the other about why he really won.
Sounds Familiar... (Score:2, Insightful)
I'm pretty sure Obama For America employed many, if not all the same tactics in 2008 election...
Why yes, look at MIT's Technology Review [technologyreview.com], the New York Times [nytimes.com], and InfoWorld [infoworld.com] - again, another glaring example of a profound double-standard. When Team Obama did it, it was "ground-breaking", when Republicans employ similar tools it a nefarious plot to control the world!
Re:Sounds Familiar... (Score:4, Insightful)
I'm pretty sure Obama For America employed many, if not all the same tactics in 2008 election...
Why yes, look at MIT's Technology Review [technologyreview.com], the New York Times [nytimes.com], and InfoWorld [infoworld.com] - again, another glaring example of a profound double-standard. When Team Obama did it, it was "ground-breaking", when Republicans employ similar tools it a nefarious plot to control the world!
Normally I'd agree with you but since you are trying to compare putting Obama in the White House to putting Donald Trump in the White House I'm going to have to disagree here. Obama, whatever you may think of him, at least had a multi digit IQ that allowed him to answer questions from reporters, skin that was too thick for his soul to be injured by Saturday Night Live skits and had a clear idea of which countries he had bombed. Trump on the other hand walks out of press conferences when he gets questions he does not like, launches twitter storms where he lambasts anybody who lampoons him and told a reporter he'd launched a missile strike on Iraq until the reporter corrected him and pointed out the strike was on Syria.... and those are just three sample of the highlights of what those bastards at SCL Group and their friends have saddled us with
Re:Sounds Familiar... (Score:4, Insightful)
Why are you blaming SCL when it's was the Clinton campaign's strategy for a "Pied Piper" nutjob to be the GOP nominee (because she's too bad of a candidate to run against an adult), Bill encouraged him to run, and the media gave that asshole $2 billion in free advertising.
The reason that we have this problem is that our electoral system lacks an option to shoot both candidates into the sun and have a mulligan. That could have gotten 65% of the vote, easy.
Facebook data... (Score:2)
What, Not Russian Hackerz Anymore? (Score:2)
New Headline (Score:2)
You mean someone besides Zuckerberg? (Score:2)
I thought the whole point of Facebook was to give him access to that data.
Google and Clinton (Score:2)
So, no mention of the startup company (Groundwork) that Eric Schmidt (former Google CEO) created for the Clinton campaign to do exactly the same kind of data analytics?
“There are a lot of people who can write big checks,” Slaby says. “Eric recognizes how the technology he’s been building his whole career can be applied to different spaces. The idea of tech as a force multiplier is something he deeply understands.” https://qz.com/520652/groundwo... [qz.com]
Evolution of reason (Score:2)
Primates, eh?
Evil Billionairez Hijacked teh Democracy!!! (Score:2)
Anything to deflect the blame anywhere else but themselves. Liberals really ARE just like small children. Wonder what next month's excuse will be?
Archer sez... (Score:3)
Seriously, are we not doing Betteridge's Law any more?
Re: (Score:2)
The Left seems to have forgotten how Obama won the 2008 campaign - look at MIT's Technology Review [technologyreview.com], the New York Times [nytimes.com], and InfoWorld [infoworld.com].
Re: (Score:2)
When you start your research with your conclusion already in hand, you're no longer researching, you're just finding additional support for your thesis.
I guess you stop reading scientific articles at the abstract, since those usually have conclusions in them.
Re: (Score:2)
What I am objecting to is the "Evil Matrix" assumption that underlies that first, summary paragraph. Re-read that paragraph again. The author's assumption shows up in literally every sentence.
These types of articles are a waste of time. There is nothing new to be learned.
Comment removed (Score:4, Informative)
Re: (Score:3)
anybody else sick to the back teeth of listening to anonymous cowards claiming that there are these tinfoil hat conspiracy theories from people with far left views?
Re: (Score:3)
Re: (Score:3)
I wanted Sanders. I really don't like Clinton.
However, like most of us, we voted for her. Or did you happen to miss the small detail that SHE WON THE POPULAR VOTE BY ALMOST THREE MILLION?
So shut up. And the rest of you, oh, right, next you're going to tell me that we don't need new laws to protect democracy from modern tech... and you probably believe that Diebold "I'll deliver OH for Bush" all-electronic voting machines didn't lie, and that you don't need recounts other than "tell the spreadsheet to give m