Exploit Mental Vulnerabilities of Facebook Users

GURPS

INGSOC
PREMO Member
Those who have covered politics for more than a single Trump-cycle should know better than to use this kind of unnerving rhetoric for what amounts to average microtargeting, which has been used by hundreds, if not thousands, of firms. Yet, now, when it serves to bolster convoluted theories about an election being overthrown, terms like “psychographics” and “breach” are being thrown around to make it sound like someone hacked into voting rolls after boring into the deepest recesses of our souls.

Moreover, the idea that Facebook can know your “mental vulnerabilities” is only true if you share your nightmares with them. If you’re uncomfortable with data mining and your information being shared, don’t take surveys. Because, breaking news: You don’t have to be on Facebook. You don’t have to use Twitter. You don’t have a constitutional right to play FarmVille without answering some questions. You don’t get free stuff. The very existence of these tech companies is predicated on mining data so that they, or third parties, can sell you things.

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Yet, on the most obvious level, Cambridge Analytica is another story about double standards. The only consistent position the Left seems to take these days is that the mechanisms they use to keep power automatically transform into something nefarious and un-democratic when the opposition use them.

By constantly using the word “breach,” for instance, reporters are trying to insinuate that someone stole voter data that typically is off limits. Cambridge Analytica was allowed to pull that profile data. Facebook only changed its policy in early 2015. But then Trump campaign dropped Cambridge Analytica before the general election for the RNC data, reportedly never using the any of the “psychographic” information. According to CBS News, in Sept. 2016, it had “tested the RNC data, and it proved to be vastly more accurate.”

Most of all, so what if voters were being “targeted?” Part of living in a free society means being bombarded by messages we don’t like. The entire Facebook/Russiabot scare is predicated on the notion that people don’t have free will. It’s only once we start micromanaging the information Americans consume that we begin undermining choices.

The Cambridge Analytica Panic Is The Silliest Conspiracy Of The Entire Russia Scare
 
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