gloswhite wrote:Bloody hell, all our prejudices are on show now. This really is getting too involved, with apparently none of us prepared to give much credence to others when they don't agree completely with our own views. A lot like our politicians really, who who condemn for the same responses.
It's not about "prejudices" Glos unless you apply that to the process by which we give greater creedence or significance to a range of particular facts over another set of facts.
In my case, I think the important facts are those relating to the power and influence of specific right wing global corporations meddling with governments and elections, in order to further their own interests.
And if you watch the Great Hack you will clearly see that organisations such as Steve Bannon and Robert Mercer's Cambridge Analytica who have a track record of working for said global corporates have done that in numerous countries and done it successfully by manipulating the electorate. In fact that they boasted about how they "fixed" elections in Australia, India, Kenya, Malta and Mexico as well as the USA and UK.
Which brings me to the second area of interest which is can an electorate be manipulated through psychographic targeting?
One of the hardest things for people to recognise - and more importantly, admit to themselves - is that they have had their opinion altered by external forces.
We all want to believe that we make our own minds up and any admission that we have been manipulated is generally viewed as an admission of weakness - so any organisation that sets out to manipulate a vote is on a winner because those they manipulate will be in total denial.
So at a basic level, why is the advertising industry one of the largest sectors in the world? Why would they spend billions and billions on trying to persuade people to buy, invest - or vote - if it didn't work?
The answer is simple - it does work, especially if they target the market, and all the scientific study and the day to day reality of their success backs that up.
When they take those basic principles to the next level by having more information about their target market then ever before in human history - and in the case of the 40 million+ British Facebook users right down to pictures of what they had for lunch, let alone what they like, dislike and are frightened of - they know exactly what buttons to press for what people to get a reaction.
So when you need a swing of just over a million votes to win a referendum and amongst the 40 million you know that 3 million of them have never voted previously and you know that another 7 million have previously expressed the view that they are frightened about increased immigration, you can get that extra million by targeting just 10 million of them with fake messages like "The EU is about to give 75 million Turks free access to the UK" - which they later withdrew after the seeds had been sown. And that was just one of the 300+ targeted messages sent to different segments of the Facebook community during the run up to the referendum.
As we speak, Cummings is running over 300 targeted messages on Facebook to try to shore up the backing for Boris and even though Facebook have closed down a few because they were downright lies, he can always put up more because as it stands, there is no penalty for lying on t'internet.
I wouldn't describe my genuine concern for this situation as a "prejudice" and as much as the next man I don't like the idea of being susceptible to being sold to but I do know I like Toblerones and if I walk past a shop which has them in the window and a big sign that says 3 for a quid I'll be in there like a shot.
And I'll be very pissed off if I go in to buy them and they say that offer only applies for customers who spend over £100.
Home
