The entire social media business has been premised on selling your private data to actors who have the money to buy it. But what happens when those actors are not looking to just sell you goods; but an idea – That your country is going to the dogs!
It creates the possibility that entire elections can be manipulated using the very same data that allows a company to sell you baby wipes because you have a young one that has arrived recently.
For better or for worse we are irrational beings who can be influenced to make decisions based on our emotional state. Data allows for this manipulation.
The Cambridge Analytics story is more than a year old, you can find the original Vice post here.
To act as if this happened yesterday is ignorant and stupid.
The reaction at the bourse has been swift.
But if there is anything that I have learnt, it is that we have the collective memory of a butterfly and money can make most governments look the other way.
As they say – You cannot make someone understand something if their income depends on not understanding it!
Let us see how hard this storm blows…
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