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: 2) by Scruffy Beard 2 on Tuesday April 11 2017, @05:08PM
The problem with conspiracy theories is that people like to believe them, even on flimsy evidence. It is fun to think you know something others don't.
Ostensibly, the media may refrain from carrying many stories because they lack independent verification. For something like a rape accusation, that may not always be possible. However, you are alleging a pattern of behaviour (with Bill Clinton anyway), which may imply more than one victim. Now that I think about it, The Rolling Stone article you are alluding to [wikipedia.org] may be a case where they did not fact-check well enough before publication.