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The Cambridge Analytica Files

posted by martyb on Monday March 19 2018, @12:52PM   
from the psychological-warfare-in-peacetime dept.

fritsd writes:

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 Cambridge Analytica Files: ‘I created Steve Bannon’s psychological warfare tool’: meet the data war whistleblower

(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

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Original Submission

• Re:Origin (Score: 5, Interesting) by fritsd on Monday March 19 2018, @05:15PM

  by fritsd (4586) on Monday March 19 2018, @05:15PM (#655007) Journal

  I think it makes a big difference, because in the country where I come from, party political broadcasts on TV were all allotted a slot on prime-time national TV, and every single one starts with a clear disclaimer: "This is a party political broadcast from the party of XYZ".

  That way you are on-guard that the broadcast *will* contain bullshit. But this is new and we are not inoculated against it:

  With these Cambridge Analytica techniques, they don't have to say who paid for the message. They don't even have to say that they especially targeted it to influence YOU (and the other millions in your specific category). They don't have to say which political party it is meant to benefit (might make a really abominable fake political party broadcast for the other party, ABC. Who is going to find out? Remember the Canadian automatic telephone message scandal? Irritate the voters and claim to be from party ABC instead of XYZ). Maybe the advertisement isn't even overtly political, but it just awakens your fears and doubts. Isn't all advertisement for hairloss lotions and bad breath chewing gum of this type?

  What I've learned is, that even when I wouldn't know how to do all this shit, there are people who are experts at it, and who have made a well-paid career out of it.
  I believe that, if these influence techniques didn't work, then organisations wouldn't spend billions to continue the work of the Father of Lies, and nephew of Sigmund Freud, Edward Bernays [wikiquote.org]:

  When I came back to the United States, I decided that if you could use propaganda for war, you could certainly use it for peace. And "propaganda" got to be a bad word because of the Germans using it, so what I did was to try and find some other words so we found the word "councelor of public relations".

  But when the example of the leader is not at hand and the herd must think for itself, it does so by means of clichés, pat words or images which stand for a whole group of ideas or experiences. Not many years ago, it was only necessary to tag a political candidate with the word interests to stampede millions of people into voting against him, because anything associated with "the interests" seemed necessary corrupt. Recently the word Bolshevik has performed a similar service for persons who wished to frighten the public away from a line of action.
  By playing upon a old cliché, or manipulating a new one, the propagandist can sometimes swing a whole mass group emotions.

  (from "Propaganda", © 1928)

  Parent

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