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Fresh Cambridge Analytica leak ‘shows global manipulation is out of control’

theguardian.com

21–30 of 73 posts

Re: Fresh Cambridge Analytica leak ‘shows global manipulation is out of control’

#23

See, in the present world, the majority of voters have no good prospects - for purely objective, technologically-driven reasons. Therefore, there are only two ways to make society workable - shut down popular democracy, or manipulate. Meaning, there is no way an average American, or even European, would vote for anything which won't be a blatant lie: because it is too grim. Alternatives as i see them are either "demo…

“democracy with prequalification” is not democracy at all

Yes it is.

Re: Fresh Cambridge Analytica leak ‘shows global manipulation is out of control’

#24
post #3

> There’s evidence of really quite disturbing experiments on American voters, manipulating them with fear-based messaging, targeting the most vulnerable, that seems to be continuing. Ironically, it's not clear which party they re referring to

Isn't she explicitly not referring to only one party? If she is, why is it ironic that it's not clear which?

> The documents reveal a much clearer idea of what actually happened in the 2016 US presidential election, which has a huge bearing on what will happen in 2020. It’s the same people involved who we know are building on these same techniques,” she said

I m confused, were the Democrats being accused of using manipulative social media ad campaigns in 2016?

Re: Fresh Cambridge Analytica leak ‘shows global manipulation is out of control’

#25
post #3

> There’s evidence of really quite disturbing experiments on American voters, manipulating them with fear-based messaging, targeting the most vulnerable, that seems to be continuing. Ironically, it's not clear which party they re referring to

Fear based political messaging has always been the norm.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=riDypP1KfOU

Re: Fresh Cambridge Analytica leak ‘shows global manipulation is out of control’

#26

See, in the present world, the majority of voters have no good prospects - for purely objective, technologically-driven reasons. Therefore, there are only two ways to make society workable - shut down popular democracy, or manipulate. Meaning, there is no way an average American, or even European, would vote for anything which won't be a blatant lie: because it is too grim. Alternatives as i see them are either "demo…

“democracy with prequalification” is not democracy at all

Why not? Just build rules about who gets to vote. It may include certain minimum level of education and/or income and/or property. So that people who are able to decide for themselves, and have a stake in the game, get to vote.

Re: Fresh Cambridge Analytica leak ‘shows global manipulation is out of control’

#27

See, in the present world, the majority of voters have no good prospects - for purely objective, technologically-driven reasons. Therefore, there are only two ways to make society workable - shut down popular democracy, or manipulate. Meaning, there is no way an average American, or even European, would vote for anything which won't be a blatant lie: because it is too grim. Alternatives as i see them are either "demo…

“democracy with prequalification” is not democracy at all

As grim as this may sound: it is in fact the original meaning of the word.

The words we are more likely to associate with the setup would be "oligarchy" or "plutocracy".

Re: Fresh Cambridge Analytica leak ‘shows global manipulation is out of control’

#28
post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Isn't she explicitly not referring to only one party? If she is, why is it ironic that it's not clear which?

> The documents reveal a much clearer idea of what actually happened in the 2016 US presidential election, which has a huge bearing on what will happen in 2020. It’s the same people involved who we know are building on these same techniques,” she said I m confused, were the Democrats being accused of using manipulative social media ad campaigns in 2016?

Not sure, but they definitely did it in 2012, back when it was considered cool and forward-looking, to the point of bragging about it in interviews[0].

I don’t blame them for doing it at all, but i definitely feel uneasy about a lot of democrats blaming 2016 elections on cambridge analytica and acting like their party didn’t do it themselves, while also bragging about it publicly.

Note: I neither support nor am affiliated with the republican party whatsoever. I also don’t think that cambridge analytica scandal affected the 2016 election outcome in any significant way.

0. https://www.investors.com/politics/editorials/facebook-data-...

Re: Fresh Cambridge Analytica leak ‘shows global manipulation is out of control’

#29
"There’s evidence of really quite disturbing experiments on American voters, manipulating them with fear-based messaging, targeting the most vulnerable, that seems to be continuing. This is an entire global industry that’s out of control"

Lets be clear this is the explicit purpose of the advertising and public relations industry.

1. Create Art (writing, multimedia etc...) intended to influence viewer

2. Distribute Art via Large Scale Channels

3. Hope that people exposed to it take the action you want them to

For Coca-cola they want you to "Buy Coke"

For AirBnB they want you to book a stay

For Politicians they want you to vote for them

Politicians have always used the media channels of the day to advertise themselves. So it's extremely unclear what is news here aside from the fact that Politicians are following Corporate levels of sophistication for advertising.

I think what it really shows is that Advertising in total is a toxic and corrupting business and should be banned outright for all things.

Re: Fresh Cambridge Analytica leak ‘shows global manipulation is out of control’

#30
post #22

I'm a professional ad manager. These lists have 0 value. At scale, it's always better to use algorithmic targeting than uploading lists to target. This is true on any ad network, but especially on Facebook.

Why? And dont you sort of know the population skews a certain way given the platform you choose (guessing quora differs from bing which differs from coupons in the mail)?

Restated, and this might be so off base and tangential that maybe it's not worth answering, but if you were say....something reasonable like a dentist. And you were fairly far along in your practice and had tenure. Let's say in that case your "list" represents a fairly not insignificant amount of the people around you. Say 5%? 10%? Whatever is reasonable.

Even in that case the algorithm is better?

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