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

theguardian.com

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

#41

Post by mnm1 »

AndrewKemendo wrote: post #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 Ar…

How about banning donations, bribes, and money in all lobbying. No money, no ads. No ads, no manipulation. At this point, it would literally require the Supreme Court to reverse its own decision just to start so I don't think it'll happen, but it's good to know there is a simple, implementable solution that would fix our problems but that we will ignore so the interests of a few can be placed ahead of the many. Hardly an unusual situation as most of our problems have similar solutions.

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

#42

Post by cm2012 »

texasbigdata wrote: post #30
cm2012 wrote: 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"…

I actually have a subspecialty in targeting narrow business verticals, and yeah, the algorithm is better 95% of the time.

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

#43

Post by Larrikin »

mnm1 wrote: post #41
AndrewKemendo wrote: post #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 Ar…

How about banning donations, bribes, and money in all lobbying. No money, no ads. No ads, no manipulation. At this point, it would literally require the Supreme Court to reverse its own decision just to start so I don't think it'll happen, but it's good to know there is a simple, implementable solution that would fix our problems but that we will ignore so the interests of a few can be placed ahead of the many. Hardl…

Then only billionaires will win office. The old rule of a low monetary cap per house hold was the start of a good system. I'd say extend that further into a slightly higher cap overall but make it all political donations and not just per candidate.

Allowing unlimited dark money into super pacs is where it fell apart.

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

#44

Post by striking »

CptFribble wrote: post #33
AndrewKemendo wrote: post #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 Ar…

As long as free speech is considered important, ads aren't going anywhere (note: I consider free speech important). Even if you ban directives from ads (Buy Product Now!) ads can be reduced to simple voicing of opinions on a media channel ("I love product X, you'd love it too, I'm sure!"), which is what most ads are anyways - emotional persuasion, not the old style "Johnny's Canned Beans are the most nutritious!" fro…

> ads can be reduced to simple voicing of opinions on a media channel ("I love product X, you'd love it too, I'm sure!"),

We already have rules about this, https://www.ecfr.gov/cgi-bin/text-idx?SID=701066299822530421...

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

#45

Post by makomk »

CptFribble wrote: post #33
AndrewKemendo wrote: post #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 Ar…

As long as free speech is considered important, ads aren't going anywhere (note: I consider free speech important). Even if you ban directives from ads (Buy Product Now!) ads can be reduced to simple voicing of opinions on a media channel ("I love product X, you'd love it too, I'm sure!"), which is what most ads are anyways - emotional persuasion, not the old style "Johnny's Canned Beans are the most nutritious!" fro…

The Guardian considers their free speech very important, too. For example, almost all of the UK press is regulated by IPSO which (amongst other things) enforces accuracy standards. Except the Guardian. They've consistently refused to join because they think those restrictions on the press should only apply to the other lying publications who just so happen to have political views that don't agree with theirs.

I discovered this after they published a really astounding partisan whopper about a London terror attack right before the UK election - one which was not only completely untrue and debunked all over the place, but was something being spread by their preferred party as part of an explicit attempt to politicise the attack against the ruling Tories. They didn't care to correct this, and given their position that independent regulation was only for the other papers there was nothing that could be done about this.

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

#46

Post by meowface »

makomk wrote: post #34
ianai wrote: post #4

Is there anyone seeing people reflect increased skepticism of internet sourced information following this stuff? Like, I learned in HS to discount the validity and value of “stuff I read on the internet” to 0 until I could verify if through alternate sources.

Yes - but generally only of information that contradicts their pre-existing views. This whole thing is, after all, basically a way of helping to reassure Guardian readers who've seen their political side lose with the help of those they expected to support them that their views were right all along, and that it's all the fault of global manipulation by big tech brainwashing the other people into voting against their…

What kind of false information? I don't trust a single media outlet on Earth, but curious to see your examples.

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

#47

Post by meowface »

filoleg wrote: post #32
ben_w wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As a counter example, I thought roughly 25% of Americans thought Obama was not born in America, despite the birth certificate? And that a similar percentage believe the Bible is the literal truth of God?

While I am aware that he was born in the US (Hawaii), i can see where the confusion might come from (aside from willful ignorance and hatred for him as a person), considering that he was the first president born outside of the continental US (Hawaii; and we all know how many continental americans still don’t realize that Puerto Rico is a US territory) and lived in Indonesia between ages 6 and 20.

And the conspiracy theories propagated by Donald Trump from 2011 onward (and others since 2008) when he tried to run in the 2012 election.

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

#48

Post by nyolfen »

bradleyankrom wrote: post #17
anovikov wrote: post #15

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

it’s almost every democracy that has ever existed. this is like the ‘not real communism’ position

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

#49

Post by filoleg »

meowface wrote: post #47
filoleg wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

While I am aware that he was born in the US (Hawaii), i can see where the confusion might come from (aside from willful ignorance and hatred for him as a person), considering that he was the first president born outside of the continental US (Hawaii; and we all know how many continental americans still don’t realize that Puerto Rico is a US territory) and lived in Indonesia between ages 6 and 20.

And the conspiracy theories propagated by Donald Trump from 2011 onward (and others since 2008) when he tried to run in the 2012 election.

Oh yeah, agreed. It definitely didn't help the case that some prominent public figures fell for this as well (or did it intentionally knowing that was false, who knows), which helped propagate the misinformation even further.

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

#50

Post by ianai »

meowface wrote: post #46
makomk wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes - but generally only of information that contradicts their pre-existing views. This whole thing is, after all, basically a way of helping to reassure Guardian readers who've seen their political side lose with the help of those they expected to support them that their views were right all along, and that it's all the fault of global manipulation by big tech brainwashing the other people into voting against their…

What kind of false information? I don't trust a single media outlet on Earth, but curious to see your examples.

How can anyone communicate believable information to you if you already don’t trust anyone?

Regardless, I’d suggest reading Descartes or some philosophy of logic. You can’t trust everybody, but there are high value sources out there. The media are largely ok.

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