Did A Billionaire Harvest Big Data From Facebook To 'Hijack' Democracy? (theguardian.com)

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."

Comments

Just the beginning

[volodymyrbiryuk]

and it won't stop as long as these "persuadable" voters make their decisions based on facebook posts.

Re:Just the beginning

[jarle.aase]

If we assert that human brains are nothing more than complex state machines with lots of individual properties and variations - then it's obvious that if someone have the data and algorithms to predict how to alter the current state of individuals into a more desired state - and the infrastructure to deliver state-altering stimuli, then that's exactly what they will do. That's a predictable move. To say that those who do this is evil or saints is just a matter of perspective about the desired outcome.

Re: Just the beginning

[Trondheim]

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.

Re:Just the beginning

[kilfarsnar]

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.

Re: Just the beginning

[Fire_Wraith]

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...

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...

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

Only those we disagree with "hijack democracy"

[Anonymous Coward]

If we agree with the person doing the activity?

Why, that's just democracy in action!

Nothing to hide

[605dave]

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.

Re:Nothing to hide

[605dave]

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.

Wouldn't be a problem -if-...

[johannesg]

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.

yay.

[DMJC]

And yet Stallman is the crazy one? The man is a fucking prophet. Almost everything about computers he's predicted has come true including the eventual turning of computing technology and user data against democracy.