[darawk]

Another interpretation of this is that it is even more about issues, though. At the end of the day, you're targeting people based on their interest in / feelings on particular issues. Everyone wants to be so alarmist about all of this, but the reality is that this is democracy functioning as intended. Candidates are trying to fit even more tightly to what the voters want.

[zapita]

Unfortunately that’s not true. If you look at the thorough reporting of Cambridge Analytica’s operations for example, it shows that their targeting was not based on issues but on psychological profile, which they determined with personality tests. Specifically they focused their attention on people exhibiting signs of neurosis and anxiety, and then experimented with various content designed to amplify their fears. Once they got the right level of “engagement”, they hammered crucial electoral districts in swing states with a deluge of weaponized propaganda. In that election the issue (“payload” would be a better term) boiled down to “Hillary Clinton is corrupt and belongs in jail”. The point is not to convince millions of people to change their minds, but to manipulate a few tens of thousands of crucial undecided voters into distrusting one candidate without really knowing why, just enough to change their vote (or perhaps just stay home - Cambridge Analytica had conducted vote suppression campaigns in other countries as well).

This is essentially large scale human experimentation. We have to accept the fact that it works, and is not at all politics as usual. To expect to be targeted with “issues” is to expect to be treated like a human being. But to be targeted in this way is to be treated like a lab rat.

[darawk]

> Unfortunately that’s not true. If you look at the thorough reporting of Cambridge Analytica’s operations for example, it shows that their targeting was not based on issues but on psychological profile, which they determined with personality tests. Specifically they focused their attention on people exhibiting signs of neurosis and anxiety, and then experimented with various content designed to amplify their fears.

Sure, that was their marketing pitch. But we have no evidence that anything like that actually worked, or was meaningfully implemented at scale. Secondly, what does it mean to "target people with anxiety or neurosis"? Were they shifting their opinions? Or were they just saying, "Hey, are you afraid of stuff? Well, we've got the candidate for you". My guess is it's the latter, and if it's the latter, that's just another way of communicating issue alignment of their candidate.

I don't think there is any substantial evidence at all that CA or anyone like them was actually shaping opinion. As far as I know, all the evidence indicates that they were finding the issues people cared about, and explaining why and how Donald Trump aligned with them on those issues.

The underlying fact that nobody seems to want to face is that large numbers of people aligned with him on many important issues. Not because they were tricked, but because that's what they truly wanted.

[simonh]

Overall I agree. The left was ecstatic about Obama’s ground breaking use of social media and analytics in his first presidential campaign, but now are crying foul because the right has caught up and even pulled ahead. I’m not entirely happy about the tactics due to the privacy implications, but that’s a separate issue.

What does worry me is that the messaging being targeted in this way is often disingenuous. Parties will target one message at one demographic and a contradictory message at another demographic. So if a consistent message is simply being targeted effectively that’s fine, but deceptively tailoring the message to the target is a legitimate concern.

[zapita]

You’re making a false equivalence. The Obama campaign hired savvy analysts and marketers to run a modern web and email campaign. A lot of what they did was pioneer what is now standard in almost every campaign: heavy use of email follow-ups to keep supporters engaged; recruiting and coordinating canvassing teams nationwide; using social media as a primary channel of communication rather than a gadget.

What the Trump campaign did was go to Paul Manafort, the guy who fixed Ukrainian campaign using black ops disinformation campaigns on behalf of Putin, and hire him to run his campaign!

The only thing those campaigns had in common is that they used the Internet efficiently. But they used them very differently to achieve different goals. To compare them as equivalent is irresponsible.

[darawk]

You keep implying differences, while not actually stating them. Who was hired is not a salient difference, in this context. The tactics employed by each are essentially the same: Heavy internet advertising with effective, outcome-based targeting. For all of Cambridge Analytica's marketing puff pieces, I see no evidence they were doing anything fundamentally different.

[zapita]

Just to be clear, you are willing to say on the record that the Obama campaign and Manaford, a convicted criminal who is known to have worked for a mass murdering autocratic regime as their expert electoral fixer, are “essentially the same” in their use of the Internet?

If so, you’ll have to find someone else to engage in debate with you. If you are capable of believing such a thing, we simply don’t have enough moral common ground to have a productive conversation.

I will say for the benefit of others who might read this, that how successful Cambridge Analytica actually was in manipulating US voters in 2016 is irrelevant to whether or not A) mass disinformation is a real threat to elections everywhere (it is) and B) the Trump campaign employed Cambridge Analytica to manipulate US voters using mass disinformation (they did).

[everdev]

Exactly. I don't care how many ads you show me, I'm not voting for a candidate that I don't agree with on some level.

Lying is a problem, not ads.