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: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday March 19 2018, @11:44PM (1 child)
For this anon, I've always been aware of the calculated nature of advertisements. The information is out there for anybody who wishes to know how the sausage is made.
However, there was a moment when I saw that advertising is merely the pond scum on a much deeper swamp. The simulacra and simulations go all the way down. This kind of truth doesn't make a good Hollywood action movie, even if some Hollywood movies are entertaining simulations of the truth while providing a cultural metaphor as a reference point. It's impossible to exhaustively explore in a comment all the ways that the humans are hypnotically plugged in to the moon matrix.
Seek the 11-pointed star. It will show you the way.
(Score: 2) by ilPapa on Tuesday March 20 2018, @09:30PM
You can avoid Hollywood movies. It's not even hard to do. But you cannot avoid advertising. It is designed to work on you whether you choose to look at it or not.
You are still welcome on my lawn.