SoylentNews is people
SoylentNews
from the psychological-warfare-in-peacetime dept.
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, Disagree) by ilPapa on Monday March 19 2018, @04:46PM (2 children)
I bet if you really thought about it for a minute, you could come up with a good answer.
You are still welcome on my lawn.
(Score: 2) by isostatic on Tuesday March 20 2018, @02:29PM (1 child)
No would be the answer. If I'm Joe Moneyballs, I pay $100m to Kang for their campaign, $100m to Kodos, and whoever wins is expected to pay me back (after all that's just good business, I expect a return on investment)
This means that Kang and Kodos both work for me, both of them will pass that $1b no-bid contract as they can't afford not to have my $100m bribe^H^H^H^H^H donation at the next election.
This is far worse than the government running an advertising campaign convincing people to wear a seatbelt.
(Score: 2) by ilPapa on Tuesday March 20 2018, @06:40PM
The problem is your false equivalency and "both-siderism" isn't borne out in real life. For the most extreme example, look at something like NRA campaign contributions/endorsements. You can have 80-plus percent of the population supporting stricter gun laws, but because Republicans know which side of the bread their ammo is on, they'll vote against their constituents every time.
When it all comes down to it, we need to forbid corporate campaign contributions and have stricter campaign finance laws generally.
You are still welcome on my lawn.