The Power of Big Data and Psychographics | 2016 Concordia Annual Summit

> Ultimately, the bigger problem is that even in crowds like HN's, no one seems to have a good idea of what should be done about governments abusing datascience so efficiently. The general-populace/crowd/mob has already lost this game. Govts/Companies (all of them irrespective of ethics/democracy/etc.) are doing what they want with data and datascience. The populace is easily propagandized/distracted from reality and can be easily cocooned. The only recourse left for the individual is to learn and start playing the game himself. Fortunately the new tools are a great help in this asymmetric warfare. Organizations like EFF/OpenSource/GNU/etc. need to take the lead on this since most people are like sheep when it comes to uses/misuses of technology. Palantir is just "Cambridge Analytica" redux but with more money/connections/data/breadth/depth/etc. Watch this old presentation by their then ceo Alexander Nix and extrapolate to today's AI world - [this video] Finally go and read the works of George Orwell, Edward Bernays, Jacques Ellul, Marshall Mcluhan, Noam Chomsky etc. on the whole subject of Propaganda/Manipulation to really understand where we are now.

> This is completely different. Cambridge Analytica deliberately lied and deceived users about the intention of the application they created to harvest information about users: Yes, but lots of apps are deceptive about what they do with data. > Cambridge Analytica is also in the business of using manipulation and psychological techniques to convince users of an outcome. And this isn't something I'm making up, the CEO of Cambridge Analytica peddles this as the potential of his platform: [this video] That's called advertising. Obama's campaign did the same thing (and so did every other modern political campaign). > The most damning aspect is his naked promotion of misinformation under the newspeak of "Behavioral Communication" where he suggests comparing the effectiveness of using "Private Beach" vs "Sharks Sighted" as a deterrent. That one is actually somewhat significant, although it's not clear that lying is exactly a novelty in politics.

Psychographic data (personalities and traits beyond simple demographics) has long been known and used before Facebook ever existed, it's just much easier now that so many people are feeding data to a centralized system with easy access. CA's CEO is seen presenting this clearly in 2016, specifically how well it helped the Cruz campaign: [this video] Worldview Standard has a podcast called RawData where ep 1 of season 1 in 2015 talked about how a few likes on Facebook would let you know someone better than their own family, based on research from 2013: [link] Obama's campaign used heavy data analytics for both runs, explained as early as 2012: [link] None of this is new. It was only either ignored or accepted before and has finally reached critical mass due to the amount of controversy and conspiracy today, along with the generally expected fatigue of social media and the now evident effects it makes on most people's lives.

This is completely different. Cambridge Analytica deliberately lied and deceived users about the intention of the application they created to harvest information about users: > Like all app developers, Kogan requested and gained access to information from people after they chose to download his app. His app, “thisisyourdigitallife,” offered a personality prediction, and billed itself on Facebook as “a research app used by psychologists.” [0] Cambridge Analytica is also in the business of using manipulation and psychological techniques to convince users of an outcome. And this isn't something I'm making up, the CEO of Cambridge Analytica peddles this as the potential of his platform: [this video] The most damning aspect is his naked promotion of misinformation under the newspeak of "Behavioral Communication" where he suggests comparing the effectiveness of using "Private Beach" vs "Sharks Sighted" as a deterrent.[1] He also continued to revel in his company's ability to manipulate after the election.[2] [0]: [link] [1]: [this video] [2]: [link]

This is a scandal, and we should not blur lines here. Facebook engages in surveillance capitalism. Cambridge Analytica engages in Orwellian practices of deliberate and targeted mass manipulation, actively deceiving users from the outset about it's intentions, and using lies as a means to an end. From the Facebook report on the reason CA was suspended: > Like all app developers, Kogan requested and gained access to information from people after they chose to download his app. His app, “thisisyourdigitallife,” offered a personality prediction, and billed itself on Facebook as “a research app used by psychologists.” [0] Cambridge Analytica's CEO also espouses complete deceit as a strategy core strategy for using data to manipulate outcomes and advocates for using "behaviorally targeted language" to create an outcome. Like say you have a "private beach." If you really want to keep people out, why not say "sharks sighted" instead? His example, not mine: [link] , [this video] , [link] The scandals for me are two fold. First, we have a data repository (Facebook) that's powerful enough to assist in this type of weaponized manipulation that's entirely unprotected. Even if you think Facebook is some type of benevolent overlord that you trust with your data, it's a scandal that nothing has stopped any number of third-parties from doing what Cambridge Analytica did. Second, we have a sitting president who actively made use of these "targeted information strategies" during his election in a bl