5 ms·

> By leveraging automated emotional manipulation alongside swarms of bots, Facebook dark posts, A/B testing, and fake news networks, a company called Cambridge

by zeteo 10y ago

> By leveraging automated emotional manipulation alongside swarms of bots, Facebook dark posts, A/B testing, and fake news networks, a company called Cambridge Analytica has activated an invisible machine that preys on the personalities of individual voters to create large shifts in public opinion And somehow managed to overcome the constant "fact checking" by major cable networks, the Post, NYT and generally a large majority of the established media. Let's be serious. The narrative is ridiculous, but even if we were to take it at face value the cure is worse than the disease. Basically voters can no longer be trusted with making up their own mind in a democracy and they need to be automatically manipulated for the greater good: > From now on, the distinguishing factor between those who win elections and those who lose them will be how a candidate uses that data to refine their machine learning algorithms and automated engagement tactics. Elections in 2018 and 2020 won’t be a contest of ideas, but a battle of automated behavior change. I think at this point the losing side needs to accept that they didn't make their case properly ("the other guy is worse" only gets you so far) and stop chasing ridiculous scapegoats. American democracy has endured through secession, yellow journalism and Joseph McCarthy. It will survive Facebook and sentiment analysis bots.

pgodzin 10y ago
> And somehow managed to overcome the constant "fact checking" by major cable networks, the Post, NYT and generally a large majority of the established media. Well a big part of the campaign was delegitimizing the establishment as "fake news" that is in bed with Hillary. Combined with a bombardment of headlines that confirm their biases, targeted by personality, it could have a big impact.
- flukus 10y ago
  Could it be that the tactic only worked because the establishment was in bed with Hillary? She is about as establishment as the come after all.
  - pgodzin 10y ago
    Except the delegitimizing was done to the point where fact checking actual lies and falsehoods were simply ignored. This targeted approach didn't have to "overcome" that, as the parent claimed, just make people ignore it entirely.
- gydfi 10y ago
  >Combined with a bombardment of headlines that confirm their biases, targeted by personality, it could have a big impact. Does your use of "their" mean that you think your own side of politics isn't exactly the same?
  - pgodzin 10y ago
    "Their" meaning the people being targeted in this way. Sure, both sides target specific demographics or biases, but I think this personalized approach is certainly novel.
- Natsu 10y ago
  > Well a big part of the campaign was delegitimizing the establishment as "fake news" that is in bed with Hillary. This would've been far less effective if CNN wasn't caught red-handed cheating at the debates, then lying about it afterward. In my view, we need news with less opinions and more facts, better sourcing, and more complete coverage and no rumors allowed. Then again, I think the CS Monitor was founded more or less to confront the original plague of yellow journalism and somehow they've vanished without a trace from Google News, which always tries to feed me the clickbait versions of every story, despite the fact that I don't click on those. So maybe the real problem here is that the market has spoken and people prefer junk food news? A depressing thought :/
- RealGeek 10y ago
  > Well a big part of the campaign was delegitimizing the establishment as "fake news" that is in bed with Hillary. Trump administration continue to delegitimize mainstream news, and call it "fake news".
- elihu 10y ago
  I think the news media largely delegitimized themselves to supports of Bernie Sanders by almost completely ignoring his campaign and showing favoritism to Clinton in debate coverage, and at the same time delegitimized themselves to everyone who isn't a Donald Trump supporter by covering Trump's campaign in such meticulous detail that the other candidates of both parties (including Clinton) got only the barest minimum of coverage. The media didn't give Trump free publicity because they love him; a lot (perhaps most) of that coverage was negative. It was good for ratings, though, and I think that's something Trump understood and took full advantage of. The long term consequences of this is that it was a contributing factor to Trump winning the primary and later the general election, but also many progressives and independents that previously saw the media as a benign entity have adopted the default assumption that every news article is either a veiled advertisement, a stunt to raise viewership, or propaganda with some motive other than informing the public. (I think the Trump supporters and Tea Party types have mostly already believed this, so whatever they think of the media being pro-Hillary, it's something they believed all along; nothing changed there.) This puts a large proportion of the public in the awkward position of wanting to know what's going on in the world, but having no reliable source of facts since the major players have largely disqualified themselves. Hence the rise in fake news, but fake news is just a symptom of a general lack of trust (deserved, in my opinion) of the so-called mainstream media. And so, the media join a long list of important institutions that are perceived by many (including myself) to either be in decline or have somehow gone off the rails, including Congress, the court system, the police (in some areas), intelligence agencies, higher education, the democratic process, the major political parties, the financial services industry, unions, and so on. I know it's practically an American tradition to believe that society is falling apart and that we're on the verge of catastrophe, but still, it seems like we've got more things than usual coming apart at once and no obvious fix for any of them within reach. I would have felt a little better if Clinton had prevailed, but still there's a lot of problems I'm concerned about that are deeper and have been around a lot longer than the election of president Trump.
autokad 10y ago
its more of a story about doing bad analytics by the Clinton campaign. from article: "Presumably because of its alliances, Analytica has declined to work on any democratic campaigns" honestly, having an analytics company work closely in both sides sounds a bit ridiculous to me. THAT would be more worrisome
- leereeves 10y ago
  Is it true that Democrats had their own version of Cambridge Analytica, funded by Eric Schmidt, called The Groundwork? I read that on qz.com but can't find many other sources. https://qz.com/520652/groundwork-eric-schmidt-startup-working-for-hillary-clinton-campaign/ https://qz.com/520652/groundwork-eric-schmidt-startup-workin...
  - autokad 10y ago
    i may be wrong, but its my understanding that the Clinton campaign was more demographics based and Analytica's was more personality / individual targeting. I also read that boots on the ground were begging for resources and refused because what they were seeing did not fit the models - thats bad analytics no matter how you wash it. especially since the same models predicted landslide wins over Sanders where she had lost.
    - mirimir 10y ago
      Yes, that's my understanding. And the Trump team just had the more effective methodology and systems. Next time around, the Democrats will do a better job, targeting women, minorities, etc.
jawarner 10y ago
> And somehow managed to overcome the constant "fact checking" by major cable networks, the Post, NYT and generally a large majority of the established media. A person's consumption of media will dictate their voting patterns. Someone who reads the Post and NYT will probably vote differently than someone consuming primarily Conservative news and memes on Facebook. > American democracy has endured through secession, yellow journalism and Joseph McCarthy. It will survive Facebook and sentiment analysis bots. Many Americans read news exclusively on Facebook. If peoples' political opinions are influenced by their friends', then content on Facebook benefits from a halo of social proof. Regardless, in a system where media consumption is dictated by what is shared, then content which evokes strong emotional reaction will have a strong sharing advantage. Journalism and McCarthyism existed in an age before ML. If smart algorithms could optimize share rates, then a professional team could gain a lot of influence with highly curated media. Complete thoughts here: [https://news.ycombinator.com/edit?id=13649547 https://news.ycombinator.com/edit?id=13649547]
bostik 10y ago
> Basically voters can no longer be trusted with making up their own mind in a democracy and they need to be automatically manipulated for the greater good That sounds very much like Noah Chomsky. The pretext of Media Control is that the general public is a bewildered herd that needs to be kept entertained and divided, less they engage in unwelcome "activism". Namely, democracy.
namlem 10y ago
There is a much better cure: abolish elections in favor of a sortition-based system. Selecting leaders by lottery seems counterintuitive, but it has a lot of advantages. It prevents the creation of cabals and a political class, reduces the impact of propaganda, and prevents demagogues from rising to power. It's hardly a new idea either. It's been used since ancient times and is still occasionally uses today. Ireland selected 40% of the delegates to its 2012 constitutional convention by sortition.

by zeteo 10y ago

pgodzin 10y ago

> And somehow managed to overcome the constant "fact checking" by major cable networks, the Post, NYT and generally a large majority of the established media. Well a big part of the campaign was delegitimizing the establishment as "fake news" that is in bed with Hillary. Combined with a bombardment of headlines that confirm their biases, targeted by personality, it could have a big impact.

flukus 10y ago
Could it be that the tactic only worked because the establishment was in bed with Hillary? She is about as establishment as the come after all.
- pgodzin 10y ago
  Except the delegitimizing was done to the point where fact checking actual lies and falsehoods were simply ignored. This targeted approach didn't have to "overcome" that, as the parent claimed, just make people ignore it entirely.
gydfi 10y ago
>Combined with a bombardment of headlines that confirm their biases, targeted by personality, it could have a big impact. Does your use of "their" mean that you think your own side of politics isn't exactly the same?
- pgodzin 10y ago
  "Their" meaning the people being targeted in this way. Sure, both sides target specific demographics or biases, but I think this personalized approach is certainly novel.
Natsu 10y ago
> Well a big part of the campaign was delegitimizing the establishment as "fake news" that is in bed with Hillary. This would've been far less effective if CNN wasn't caught red-handed cheating at the debates, then lying about it afterward. In my view, we need news with less opinions and more facts, better sourcing, and more complete coverage and no rumors allowed. Then again, I think the CS Monitor was founded more or less to confront the original plague of yellow journalism and somehow they've vanished without a trace from Google News, which always tries to feed me the clickbait versions of every story, despite the fact that I don't click on those. So maybe the real problem here is that the market has spoken and people prefer junk food news? A depressing thought :/
RealGeek 10y ago
> Well a big part of the campaign was delegitimizing the establishment as "fake news" that is in bed with Hillary. Trump administration continue to delegitimize mainstream news, and call it "fake news".
elihu 10y ago
I think the news media largely delegitimized themselves to supports of Bernie Sanders by almost completely ignoring his campaign and showing favoritism to Clinton in debate coverage, and at the same time delegitimized themselves to everyone who isn't a Donald Trump supporter by covering Trump's campaign in such meticulous detail that the other candidates of both parties (including Clinton) got only the barest minimum of coverage. The media didn't give Trump free publicity because they love him; a lot (perhaps most) of that coverage was negative. It was good for ratings, though, and I think that's something Trump understood and took full advantage of. The long term consequences of this is that it was a contributing factor to Trump winning the primary and later the general election, but also many progressives and independents that previously saw the media as a benign entity have adopted the default assumption that every news article is either a veiled advertisement, a stunt to raise viewership, or propaganda with some motive other than informing the public. (I think the Trump supporters and Tea Party types have mostly already believed this, so whatever they think of the media being pro-Hillary, it's something they believed all along; nothing changed there.) This puts a large proportion of the public in the awkward position of wanting to know what's going on in the world, but having no reliable source of facts since the major players have largely disqualified themselves. Hence the rise in fake news, but fake news is just a symptom of a general lack of trust (deserved, in my opinion) of the so-called mainstream media. And so, the media join a long list of important institutions that are perceived by many (including myself) to either be in decline or have somehow gone off the rails, including Congress, the court system, the police (in some areas), intelligence agencies, higher education, the democratic process, the major political parties, the financial services industry, unions, and so on. I know it's practically an American tradition to believe that society is falling apart and that we're on the verge of catastrophe, but still, it seems like we've got more things than usual coming apart at once and no obvious fix for any of them within reach. I would have felt a little better if Clinton had prevailed, but still there's a lot of problems I'm concerned about that are deeper and have been around a lot longer than the election of president Trump.

autokad 10y ago

its more of a story about doing bad analytics by the Clinton campaign. from article: "Presumably because of its alliances, Analytica has declined to work on any democratic campaigns" honestly, having an analytics company work closely in both sides sounds a bit ridiculous to me. THAT would be more worrisome

leereeves 10y ago
Is it true that Democrats had their own version of Cambridge Analytica, funded by Eric Schmidt, called The Groundwork? I read that on qz.com but can't find many other sources. https://qz.com/520652/groundwork-eric-schmidt-startup-working-for-hillary-clinton-campaign/ https://qz.com/520652/groundwork-eric-schmidt-startup-workin...
- autokad 10y ago
  i may be wrong, but its my understanding that the Clinton campaign was more demographics based and Analytica's was more personality / individual targeting. I also read that boots on the ground were begging for resources and refused because what they were seeing did not fit the models - thats bad analytics no matter how you wash it. especially since the same models predicted landslide wins over Sanders where she had lost.
  - mirimir 10y ago
    Yes, that's my understanding. And the Trump team just had the more effective methodology and systems. Next time around, the Democrats will do a better job, targeting women, minorities, etc.

jawarner 10y ago

> And somehow managed to overcome the constant "fact checking" by major cable networks, the Post, NYT and generally a large majority of the established media. A person's consumption of media will dictate their voting patterns. Someone who reads the Post and NYT will probably vote differently than someone consuming primarily Conservative news and memes on Facebook. > American democracy has endured through secession, yellow journalism and Joseph McCarthy. It will survive Facebook and sentiment analysis bots. Many Americans read news exclusively on Facebook. If peoples' political opinions are influenced by their friends', then content on Facebook benefits from a halo of social proof. Regardless, in a system where media consumption is dictated by what is shared, then content which evokes strong emotional reaction will have a strong sharing advantage. Journalism and McCarthyism existed in an age before ML. If smart algorithms could optimize share rates, then a professional team could gain a lot of influence with highly curated media. Complete thoughts here: [https://news.ycombinator.com/edit?id=13649547 https://news.ycombinator.com/edit?id=13649547]

bostik 10y ago

> Basically voters can no longer be trusted with making up their own mind in a democracy and they need to be automatically manipulated for the greater good That sounds very much like Noah Chomsky. The pretext of Media Control is that the general public is a bewildered herd that needs to be kept entertained and divided, less they engage in unwelcome "activism". Namely, democracy.

namlem 10y ago

There is a much better cure: abolish elections in favor of a sortition-based system. Selecting leaders by lottery seems counterintuitive, but it has a lot of advantages. It prevents the creation of cabals and a political class, reduces the impact of propaganda, and prevents demagogues from rising to power. It's hardly a new idea either. It's been used since ancient times and is still occasionally uses today. Ireland selected 40% of the delegates to its 2012 constitutional convention by sortition.