[stareatgoats]

I disagree. What we're seeing here IMO is targeted influencing in it's own right. "Regular people" are way too susceptible to influence - period. In this case it is the joint forces of old media (who are vying to keep their obsolete business idea of peddling influence using paid ads), and governments who are seeing their tax-base dwindle when global tech companies move to tax havens, and certain tech competitors pointing fingers away from themselves: all whom are targeting Facebook to set an example.

Add a sprinkle of righteous outrage at the unethical tactics of Cambridge Analytica and how the Trump Campaign was able to use data that the DNC would rather have exclusive access to.

"Regular people" don't care that their data is hoarded, they only start caring when it is framed nefariously (and disingenuously) by interests like the above.

[jackvalentine]

> "Regular people" don't care that their data is hoarded, they only start caring when it is framed nefariously (and disingenuously) by interests like the above.

If the framing is a good or bad thing is just a matter of opinion. A 'good' way of flipping what you've written is 'we've finally found a way to break through to regular people about these issues on a level they understand and resonate with'.

To call general articles on websites like cnn.com "targetted influencing " is a bit of a stretch.

[stareatgoats]

I think it's the other way round. We are not "breaking through to regular people", the current campaign against Facebook is rather exploiting peoples superficial knowledge and unfounded fears to build a disingenuous case.

Facebook has been too slack, and the good part about this whole thing is that they may finally might get their sh*t together. At least they have the power to bring this under control, as the various decentralized alternatives being touted here on HN won't have.

> To call general articles on websites like cnn.com "targetted influencing " is a bit of a stretch.

Yeah, well. Depends on your definition of targeting, but influencing it is. And as usual, how good or bad you think that influencing might be depends on if you like what you are being led to believe or not.

[jackvalentine]

You've said disingenuous a lot, what exactly is disingenuous about the current reporting?

[jochung]

I'm not OP, but... The fact that it is not consistently connected to other instances of political campaigns previously is a big one. The narrative is that the West is radicalizing to the right because of the evil propaganda, unlike the pure and virtuous honest reporting that brought us "change we can believe in" or "Clinton is 95% sure to win" and so on.

When the good tribe does it, it's "remarkable insight into the political base and clever use of modern technology", when the bad tribe does it, it's "disturbingly sophisticated targeting and an automated violation of consent". Really, go read the write ups about previous democrat campaigns, the narrative was of tech savvy modern progressives leaving the conservative old timers in the dust.

Russel conjugation is the favorite trick or the press today as they hawk their narratives:

"I am trying to get an important message out. You are running a political campaign. They are spreading harmful propaganda."

But 99% of harvested data is gathered with only proxy consent of 1% of the users, and most of either group is unaware of what's happening. Ignoring this ratio in order to haggle about exactly how the 1% was or wasn't tricked is entirely beside the point.

The bigger problem with this whole affair is that people correctly diagnose a breakdown in the mechanisms for forming consensus reality, which makes a lot of information suspect. This should make you question your in-groups' world view as much as the out-group. But instead of going back to primary sources and reevaluating what they know, people only double down on it more, and use it to justify why the out group is even more clueless/insidious than before. But one of the biggest hallmarks of propaganda is that the enemy is both horribly inept and terrifyingly powerful at the same time, swapping between the two seamlessly to serve the current narrative.

[jackvalentine]

This is a very US-Centric view. I suppose that's the root of the disagreement here - a misunderstanding of each other's starting points.

The coverage in my country has been more about castigating Facebook et al and both major parties have copped flack for their voter-intelligence operations.