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Political Campaigns Mining Online Data To Target Voters
New submitter nicoles writes with this quote from an AP report:
"The Romney and Obama campaigns are spending heavily on television ads and other traditional tools to convey their messages. But strategists say the most important breakthrough this year is the campaigns' use of online data to raise money, share information and persuade supporters to vote. The practice, known as 'microtargeting,' has been a staple of product marketing. Now it's facing the greatest test of its political impact in the race for the White House. ... The Romney team spent nearly $1 million on digital consulting in April and Obama at least $300,000. ... Campaigns use microtargeting to identify potential supporters or donors using data gleaned from a range of sources, especially their Internet browsing history. A digital profile of each person is then created, allowing the campaigns to find them online and solicit them for money and support."
With the combination of this and search engines trying to tailor results to individual users, can we expect to see even more polarization between supporters of the major parties?
Palm trees and 8
Are you anti-war, pro-bill of rights, and anti-deficit spending? If not then you're not getting any dollars from me Romney or Obama.
But I guess you already knew that from my web surf history. "Running-up 2 trillion in debt is unpatriotic!" Yeah. I agree Candidate Obama. You ran up almost 3x that amount; Romney looks set to do the same.
My AC stalker: " I personally agree with your posts most of the time, but that won't keep me from modding you troll"
Really? I thought that Soulskill felched it out of his asshole before he left. At least he had the goddamn common courtesy to wear tampons on his way out.
-- Ethanol-fueled
Captcha: Gallons
Hah heh hee hee ho heh hooooooooo! The captcha is more intelligent than the goddamn "editors," that's for damn sure.
All that money being spent to test my spam filter!
$1million and $300k - that's a very small percentage of money out of the estimated $1billion each spend. And what is this digital consulting anyway? Is that what they are paying for facebook ads?
For those of us who wish to use social networking and other friendly but intrusive aspects of the web...If you haven't already, you better start scrubbing your visible online information. Reduce your online presence.
A good place to start viewing your publicly available information is http://www.pipl.com/
From there you can decide whether or not it is acceptable information and take the appropriate measures.
"A voter who has indicated an interest in a candidate and then views a video on YouTube is likely to see a 15- or 30-second campaign ad, called a pre-roll, pop up. A box will appear after 5 seconds asking if the person wants to continue viewing the ad. Campaigns only pay for ads the viewer watches through to completion."
I think I've found a way to hurt Romney financially.
Sweet.
My AC stalker: " I personally agree with your posts most of the time, but that won't keep me from modding you troll"
in return from their bible thumping ozark supporters?
I'm definitely not impressed by the efficiency of the Republican campaign. My father, who passed away 3 years ago gets multiple pieces of mail daily from various Republican candidates and fund raising committees.
Some of these I've responded to stating he is deceased. Doesn't do any good, the begging continues.
If they want to spend money to get votes, the should just SPEND MONEY TO GET VOTES! My vote, for whatever, is available to anyone for the right price. Bidding starts at $100 - Obama or Romney, your choice - highest bidder gets the vote. Honestly - just skip the pretense and get down to the brass tacks. I got $20 for my for vote for Ted Stevens the last time Alaska voted for Senators (; Paying people to vote the way you want could to wonders to increase the rather dismal turnout rate (in the U.S.).
lololOLOLOllololololOLololol
Gallons.
I 3 /.
...why when I looked up 'Kang and Kodos' I got political advertising from both.
Unfortunately, it feels like the vast majority of voters are stuck in their childhood-naivety in believing politics is just unimportant and they should just vote for whoever they "like" the most, turning the presidency into a high-school level popularity contest. At this point, why not just give both candidates an FB page and decide who becomes the next president by whoever has the most likes? This is the type of response massive advertising will bring.
Why can't we make this type of advertising illegal for public offices. Perhaps instead, a consolidated web-based resource should be constructed where each candidate (including individuals running separately from any political party affiliation, and without bias towards those affiliations) is given the same space to identify themselves and their beliefs, and which consolidates resources on the person, their activities within government (both positive and negative), and any interviews/debate type questions they've answered. Also, perhaps some kind of Q&A type service (like a reddit AMA, except less chaotic), so that people can get more information on the stances of the candidates. I envision something sort-of like the "we the people" petition system except much more candid and less worthless, since it entails asking questions to a candidate at large and having popular questions answered sincerely (rather than deferring to media shills and mouth-taped panelists being the only ones that get to ask questions outside of showing up at a town hall and hoping you get called on to ask a question). Most importantly, these things would be immortalized, really showing which candidates hold true to their responses, giving us an ability to objectively score winning candidates on their performance going forward.
Then, armed with something like that, where we can actually read up on all the candidates and find ones we align ourselves most with (and more importantly, who appear to be most beneficial to our country), we then head to the court houses to vote. Not this ass-backwards "see a name on TV, go vote for them because he said something you agree with in the commercial" nonsense. Terrible, the current system is.
I will vote for Ron Paul
First, background: After being a Republican for many years, I switched over to vote for Obama in '08.
If the Republicans had any real data mining going on, they'd have no problem finding my reasons for doing so. And yet all the spam I get from them is of the crazy religious fascist variety, and outright lying about easily checked facts. The exact sort of crap that drove me away. "How dare Obama require church-owned organizations to allow their employees to buy abortion-covering healthcare from a third party! We need to run him out of office before he takes away our guns!" Fuck off.
Meanwhile, I've found myself donating substantially less money to the Democrats this election cycle, precisely because I'm annoyed at the HUGE amount of spam they send me. Not a day goes by that I don't get at least one letter and five emails. Most days, I also get one or two phone calls. And the phone calls are always at terrible times. Like 6 AM (I've moved to the west coast dammit, how many times do I need to tell you!) or 3 PM on a weekday (some of us have real jobs, FYI).
Both sides have absolutely no idea how to appeal to the average voter. Republicans are offensive, and Democrats are obnoxious and incompetent. Quite a reflection of the parties' actions in office, come to think of it.
Slashdot is getting worse and worse. Every time there is an article that is remotely related to politic, the Ron Paul fans spam the posts, mod each other up, and the comment section ends up looking like a Ron Paul propaganda machine.
Frontline's eight year old documentary called The Persuaders (specifically chapter 5, though it's all quite interesting) showed the pollsters going door to door, but before knocking they got all your data from Axciom or Lexis so they could tell you EXACTLY what you want to hear. Disingenuous? Nahh, it's just politics.
Imagination drew in bold strokes, instantly serving hopes and fears, while knowledge advanced by slow increments...
Please. Your political preferences are boring. Let's talk about something of interest to /. readers.
If you manage a small site or blog that accepts advertising, this is the time to make some cash. For years, small media outlets such as newspapers and TV stations have used the political buying season to get well. Now it's your turn.
If you design web sites, here's a chance to understand how web advertising really works.
And if you have privacy concerns, put them aside for a few months to observe just how bad it can get.
Voters are lab rats. Learn.
he doesn't think government should be regulating women's wombs.
If you don't think unborn babies have a right to life, say so.
Don't say this issue is about "women's wombs" when you know
very well that the being inside has a unique DNA.
Next year they'll use that data to send weiner photos via their smartphones to targeted campaign donors.
So they're "mining" social data to target their message, huh?
What are they using to figure out where to dig for this data? Dowsing rods? Pendulums? Ouija boards? Because every time I go onto YouTube these days, I get these ridiculous anti-Obama adverts that look like they crawled out of Rupert Murdoch's colostomy bag.
[End Of Line]
So it's high time to stop this shit and use an addon called " Do not track plus"
http://abine.com/dntdetail.php
It's a plugin/addon for all the major browsers
http://abine.com/dntdetail.php
Do not track plus
I'm so sick of people inventing "quotes" for others. This sort of debunking should go straight to +5.
Well, I'm not a huge fan of either party, but after carefully considering who I would prefer in the Oval Office, I've decided to vote for our current President. So, I raised $600 for the campaign through a "grassroots" fundraising page. Guess what? Now I get a spam email almost every single day with a 1-click instant donation link. I've already told them I'm tapped out and I won't be raising any further funds for them, but I offered to make calls or pay visits to people if they would simply give me a list of people to contact. They can't be bothered to even respond. I took the further step of opting out of all but the most "important" messages, but that hasn't stopped the flood of spam that I get.
The following email exchange is reflective of the Democrats' spam:
--
From: Bill Clinton
Subject: Meeting you
Date: May 24, 2012 8:49:09 AM PDT
To: Andrew Watters
Reply-To: Rufus Gifford
Andrew --
I've been in President Obama's shoes before -- less than six months to go before an election to let you finish what you started. It was tough enough back then, but this election is going to be tougher.
We're facing a tidal wave of anonymous, unlimited spending. The other side has pledged to throw more than 1 billion dollars into tearing down our president.
It's unprecedented.
Fortunately, so is the grassroots organization you're building.
Pitch in what you can today to strengthen the campaign -- and you'll be automatically entered to join me and President Obama in New York City, with the campaign covering airfare and accommodations.
By clicking here, your saved credit card will be charged immediately:
QUICK DONATE: $56
QUICK DONATE: $35
QUICK DONATE: $50
QUICK DONATE: $100
QUICK DONATE: $250
Or donate another amount.
If our opponent succeeds, so much of what we've fought so hard for will be rolled back. Health care reform -- which many presidents, including me, tried to pass and couldn't -- will be gone. Same goes for the opportunity for millions more Americans to afford to go to college, and a growing economy that works for middle-class families.
Our opponent is actually advertising a more extreme version of the policies that got us in trouble in the first place: policies that will leave us with more debt, weaker regulations on risky investments, and fewer jobs.
All of that's at stake between now and November, but here's why I'm feeling good about our chances: I know people like you have the President's back.
And I can't wait to meet you. I hope you'll give it a shot:
https://donate.barackobama.com/Presidents
Thanks, and good luck,
Bill Clinton
--
From: Andrew Watters
Subject: Re: Meeting you
Date: May 24, 2012 12:44:19 PM PDT
To: Rufus Gifford
Thanks Mr. President, I actually met you once in Hawaii, and several years back I worked for one of your big time fundraisers, ___________,
of _________, CA.
I'm sorry to say that I can't afford to contribute any more money to President Obama's campaign. However, I remain available to assist in the
President's fundraising efforts in some capacity, as indicated in my prior emails including the one attaching my resume. What would be great is
simply a list of people in my area whom I could call or drop in on.
Thank you for your consideration sir.
Andrew Watters
-
No response, despite name-dropping a well-known powerhouse fundraiser who has many pictures of himself with President Clinton from the 1992 campaign, held a fundraiser with candidate Edwards in 2004 at his home, was on the boat with candidate Kerry in the 2004 campaign, etc. In addition to noting that yes, I have actually met Bill Clinton. Despite this, I got another spam email a few days later, a
Democracy is a failed political model.
I think Churchill said it better: "Democracy is the worst form of government, except for all the others which have been tried.". I agree that democracy - at least in the form we have it in the west - is seriously broken. However I have not seen a better model than democracy - every other form of government gives worse results on average. So we are stuck with democracy until someone has a better idea.
So does it work when I open it in a torified or anonymous proxied GMail session?
They can spend all they want. their records ensure i would never vote for either! Ron Paul!!!!
How do we all balance out saying that its important to vote at the same time as saying that both candidates are the same?
Should more time be spent on deciding president, or senator, or governor or mayor?
How can the parent post be construed as being against Slashdot's
comment rules? It was polite, reasonable, and a response to a previous
comment.
Please help fight moderator abuse.
that's the whole point of closed secret ballot voting.
so you can sell your vote - you just don't have to vote like you said you would and nobody can prove otherwise.
I'm pretty sure they could buy some goodwill from the homeless and the poor though by just going around giving them cash - a lot more than advertising on tv they don't have.
world was created 5 seconds before this post as it is.
When a politician ignores my number on the national Do Not Call list and robocalls me, they demonstrate to me that they care more about their political career than about representing their constituents. When a politician spams me, they demonstrate that they are scum. Representatives who I have supported for years have lost my support because of this.
I don't think the unborn babies rights trump the mother's.
It is not which _person_ is more important, it is whether the right to life is more important than the convenience of not being pregnant.
And since you're so concerned with these unborn babies, I assume you support providing pre-natal care for the mothers, and funding for children's health care. You know, those things the GOP always wants to de-fund because they care so much about these kids?
1) I'm not Republican.
2) Conservative people donate 30% more to charity than liberals. Conservatives do charity with their own money, while liberals demand the government to do charity with other people's money and claim to be morally superior to conservatives. That is wrong.
Do I have to write everything explicitly?
An unborn baby has his own unique, individual, _human_ DNA,
and the ability to grown into a child if provided food and oxygen.
By your logic, people in ICU have no right to life since they cannot live outside the ICU.
Therefore I can invade an ICU and shoot all the patients.
That is absurd.
Therefore, your logic is wrong.
And you should think before writing.