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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: 3, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday April 11 2017, @02:58PM (8 children)
I just can't believe it. How many times do we need proof of election rigging to finally bring a court case against Trump and his administration?
Oh, right. It doesn't matter. Americans are complacent about Russia and Trump swaying voters.
And now that he's in power, it's just going to be more and more of this. And the fact that it was done with stuff like Facebook makes it just that much worse.
Who knew we'd get both 1984 and Brave New World in the same book, and call it "2017."
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday April 11 2017, @03:22PM
I don't know much about the US law regarding elections, but is "influence" illegal? I'm having a very difficult time trying to find anything about it, and I've spent 5 minutes or so already searching. "US voting laws influence" doesn't yield much more than some articles written by SJW's about how black people are too stupid to have ID's and that its racist to enforce voter ID. "US voting laws 'illegal influence'" leads me down the opposite path, with talks about how Obama actively encouraged illegals to vote and reassured them that if they did vote they wouldn't be deported, with video proof no less. so I'm really not seeing anything in US law that says you can't lie to gain votes, because I'm pretty sure that would kill the career of many politicians.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday April 11 2017, @03:43PM
When corruption goes far enough unpleasanties pop up.
(Score: 1, Flamebait) by jmorris on Tuesday April 11 2017, @05:00PM (3 children)
You are probably too young to remember. But Pepperidge Farm remembers and so do I, when the Democrats supported Soviet Russia and called anyone who saw the pervasive Soviet infestation of our institutions an evil person practicing McCarthyism against innocent public servants. Amazing how that reversed almost as soon as the Soviets became the Russians again. Now Conservatives (especially Alt-Right ones) are willing to see Russia as a future friend while Progs HATE the traitors to the cause.
And if meddling in the internal affairs of others is wrong somebody forgot to tell the US government. You might be too young to remember Soviet Russia but do you remember President Obama meddling in Egypt's elections to favor the Muslim Brotherhood? Meddling in the BrExit vote by openly campaigning on the side of Remain? Totally ignoring the politics of smart bombs that deposed Libya's dictator. So Putin would rather not let the NeoCons rejoin the Progs to go to war with Russia and took an interest in preventing WWIII, you guys say that like it is a bad thing. Is Putin evil? Oh Hell yea, but like the Middle East I doubt a Good aligned person could rule so whatever. But he understands there wouldn't be a winner in WWIII so I can agree with him on that point. Let us return to some RealPolitik here and make the best out of a broken world.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday April 11 2017, @08:41PM
Oh wow...
Just wow...
I don't...
I tried, but I can't even.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday April 11 2017, @09:21PM (1 child)
> But Pepperidge Farm remembers and so do I
We all knew you were crackers, and that you are about as smart as a goldfish.
But we never expected you to brag about it. [pepperidgefarm.com]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday April 12 2017, @06:15AM
[begin encoded message] SJW Special Task Force, jmorris Division, tactical update. Stardate 70742.2. Subject apparently delusional, attributing consciousness and memory to "farms". Not a good sign for the subject, but if this trend continues, subject may be rendered harmless. I mean, who wants to read a guy who writes "Pepperridge Farms remembers"? Situation being monitored. Hold off on the Wet Squad, for now. [end encoded message] And remember, jmorris, just because you are paranoid, that does not mean they are not out to get you. Listen to aristarchus, he has your best interests at heart.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by shortscreen on Tuesday April 11 2017, @05:47PM (1 child)
Yes, the election was rigged. It was rigged before it even began, being monopolized by two corrupt political parties with long histories of criminality and blatant track records of favoring special interests over people. They have the corporate media and the government itself stacked with their own henchmen. Who's gonna stop them?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday April 11 2017, @10:10PM
...and those of you who refer to USA's "2-party system" without venom dripping from your voices: shame on you.
We need more political parties in the mix.
We need to experience a wider range of ideas.
(A big raspberry for Lamestream Media here.)
To make this effective, we need to adopt Ranked Voting (like all the civilized countries).
-- OriginalOwner_ [soylentnews.org]