The Guardian has an article about a whistleblower from Cambridge Analytica, who claims to have devised a strategy to "weaponize" Facebook profiles, in order to use those profile for targeted advertising to sway the US elections in 2016.
(The Guardian headline titles are often crap). I read a few older articles, presumably by the same author: she had a series of articles in March--May 2017 about Cambridge Analytica being used as a weapon to convince British voters to vote for Brexit in the referendum. It seems that her investigative journalism encouraged this wistleblower to "come out" and be interviewed by her.
Here's one: https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2017/may/07/the-great-british-brexit-robbery-hijacked-democracy
Democracy is the worst form of government, except for all the others (Churchill), but when does advertising cross the line into psychological warfare against your own population?
Additional coverage at The Register
(Score: 3, Insightful) by JoeMerchant on Monday March 19 2018, @01:33PM (1 child)
There are no lines, it is a continuous multi-dimensional slope.
Advertising supports a candidate, and/or undermines others. Each candidate represents the best interests of the people imperfectly: helping some, hurting others.
You might argue that the candidates who best represent the interests of the most constituents are the "best" candidates, or that the one who keeps the most promises/lies the least is the best - but times change, and keeping promises isn't always in the best interests of the people. What the people want may not be what's best for them on a 3 month, 5 year, or 50 year timescale. Lies are part and parcel of diplomacy, a diplomat who never lies is not serving their people well.
Now, since the units of measure are people, the surface must have some discrete aspects - true singularities cannot happen, but some actions can be clearly characterized to benefit a very small number at the expense of a very large number - what's our acceptable ratio? 1:10000000, 1:1000, 1:10? And, what level of harm? Death or serious injury, loss of liberty or financial ruin, some years life reduction by disease or the price of a daily cup of Starbucks?
🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 3, Insightful) by https on Tuesday March 20 2018, @03:37AM
CA is in the business of constructing cliffs, vortexes, and punji stake pits, and populating any leftover navigable parts with geneticly targeted poisons.
Offended and laughing about it.