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now what about the imperative to push adds and exert 'soft' political control? Some fifty years ago everyone was watching the same TV stations and reading the s

now what about the imperative to push adds and exert 'soft' political control? Some fifty years ago everyone was watching the same TV stations and reading the same newspapers (that's when media companies had a lot of influence) - nowadays you have two thousand TV stations and two thousand newspapers, so that the problem of exerting 'soft' control has become much harder. What alternatives levers of control over the public are there? (short of coercion by force)

denom 9y ago
Just look at the work of Cambridge Analytica. Soft control is in the hands of bit players now. Surely large players (google, governments) can be more deft with how they ply the waters. Two thousand tv stations? How about 20 million (Youtube)? In an information theoretic context, scale is irrelevant. Individuals are categorized, personalities are inventoried, and experiments are run. Maybe google doesn't do it, maybe they provide the conjugate interface to companies that actually do the inventory, the effect is the same. Havoc on an open society.
- MichaelMoser123 9y ago
  > Two thousand tv stations? How about 20 million (Youtube)? In an information theoretic context, scale is irrelevant. You can't determine the public agenda by owning a single news outlet out of 20 millions, you could however do that by owning a major newspaper back in 1970.
  - 908087 9y ago
    But you can certainly determine it if you happen to control the algorithm that decides which of those 20 million people actually see.
MichaelMoser123 9y ago
Credit card companies also have a lot of data on us - they know what stuff we are buying. Is this industry limited in how it may share this data for fun and profit? According to this source they do sell this data and it is used in targeted advertising: http://www.businessinsider.com/credit-cards-sell-purchase-data-to-advertisers-2013-4 http://www.businessinsider.com/credit-cards-sell-purchase-da... I wonder what has more weight - the purchase history or what one is searching on google? Now I would consider the purchase history of a user to be more conclusive than what he/she has been searching on google. Now go figure what the business minded people have been smoking. What is next? I would go for an analysis of the composition of garbage that goes out of a residential neighborhood; there is lots of data in it. Garbage analysis may be the next frontier! (and there is total coverage - even duckduckgo users are covered)

denom 9y ago

Just look at the work of Cambridge Analytica. Soft control is in the hands of bit players now. Surely large players (google, governments) can be more deft with how they ply the waters. Two thousand tv stations? How about 20 million (Youtube)? In an information theoretic context, scale is irrelevant. Individuals are categorized, personalities are inventoried, and experiments are run. Maybe google doesn't do it, maybe they provide the conjugate interface to companies that actually do the inventory, the effect is the same. Havoc on an open society.

MichaelMoser123 9y ago
> Two thousand tv stations? How about 20 million (Youtube)? In an information theoretic context, scale is irrelevant. You can't determine the public agenda by owning a single news outlet out of 20 millions, you could however do that by owning a major newspaper back in 1970.
- 908087 9y ago
  But you can certainly determine it if you happen to control the algorithm that decides which of those 20 million people actually see.

MichaelMoser123 9y ago

Credit card companies also have a lot of data on us - they know what stuff we are buying. Is this industry limited in how it may share this data for fun and profit? According to this source they do sell this data and it is used in targeted advertising: http://www.businessinsider.com/credit-cards-sell-purchase-data-to-advertisers-2013-4 http://www.businessinsider.com/credit-cards-sell-purchase-da... I wonder what has more weight - the purchase history or what one is searching on google? Now I would consider the purchase history of a user to be more conclusive than what he/she has been searching on google. Now go figure what the business minded people have been smoking. What is next? I would go for an analysis of the composition of garbage that goes out of a residential neighborhood; there is lots of data in it. Garbage analysis may be the next frontier! (and there is total coverage - even duckduckgo users are covered)