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Submitted via IRC for Runaway1956
Rightwing computer scientist and hedge fund billionaire Robert Mercer was the top donor to Donald Trump's presidential campaign. He contributed $13.5 million and laid the groundwork for what is now called the Trump Revolution. Mercer also funded Cambridge Analytica (CA), a small data analytics company that specializes in "election management strategies." CA boasts on its website that it has psychological profiles, based on 5,000 separate pieces of data, on 220 million American voters. CA scoops up masses of data from peoples' Facebook profiles and uses artificial intelligence to influence their thinking and manipulate public opinion. They used these skills to exploit America's populist insurgency and tip the election toward Trump.
[...] We enter and participate in this digital world every day, on our laptops and our smartphones. We are living in a new era of propaganda, one we can't see, with the collection and use of our data played back in ways to covertly manipulate us. All this is enabled by technological platforms originally built to bring us together. Welcome to the age of platform capitalism—the new battleground for the future.
Previously on SoylentNews: Do Advertisers Know You Better Than You Know Yourself?
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday April 11 2017, @01:21PM (5 children)
Ah propaganda, the old loaded term for PR. Everyone within the US political system is doing exactly the same thing, singling out Trump in order to spin the propaganda narrative against him is the epitome of hypocrisy.
(Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday April 11 2017, @02:10PM
Of course. When Obama had his tech gurus he was a revolutionary. When Trump does it, it's sinister. These guys are so fucking transparent. And I have no time for them, nor the useful idiots that actually believe them.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by DannyB on Tuesday April 11 2017, @03:25PM (3 children)
Googling . . .
Propaganda is "information, especially of a biased or misleading nature, used to promote a political cause or point of view".
Propaganda is not PR. PR may be biased, but should not be misleading -- especially about politics.
Trump is not being covered unfairly. Just critically. It is fair to criticize any politician including Trump. Especially using their own words. Probably why Trump doesn't speak in public anymore, because he can't speak in complete sentences. Criticism on this is completely deserved.
Trump's policies are criticized. Completely fair game.
Trump is not singled out. He just makes himself an easy target. Just like the Dear Leader of NK is an easy target for criticism.
Trump started a war with the media. What did he expect?
He's not being treated unfairly. He (and his supporters) just don't like the blowback for his policies which affect people other than his supporters.
To transfer files: right-click on file, pick Copy. Unplug mouse, plug mouse into other computer. Right-click, paste.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday April 11 2017, @03:32PM
Trump upset vested interests and pointed out media lies. Of course there will be a fight.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday April 11 2017, @07:22PM (1 child)
Googling . . .
Facepalming...
If you are wondering why I refer to PR as propaganda, you might want to look into the origins of PR [wikipedia.org]. Tis a field created by a man who quite openly cited Goebbels as his primary inspiration. Whatever online dictinoary you are citing is the victim of propagandist efforts into rebranding propagandist techniques as PR in order to obfuscate the moral bankruptcy of the practice.
(Trump blah blah blah)
Complete non sequitur. This is your brain soaked on PR, you are so mired in the mindset that you don't even realize the intellectually dishonest tactics you are employing.
(Score: 2) by jmorris on Tuesday April 11 2017, @10:24PM
Tis a field created by a man who quite openly cited Goebbels as his primary inspiration.
Well other than getting the entire direction of inspiration wrong.... nice work. But yes, it is quite clear that Propaganda and PR are the same thing, at least in the eyes of the guy who literally wrote the book on the subject.
From Wikipedia: