Random Politics & Religion #32

As a marketer, my issue with the entire cambridge analytica story is that there is nothing out of the ordinary there other than 1 thing: Many people didn't opt in to have their information shared with them. That's is absolutely it. That is not to say it isn't an ethical breach, it is. But there's nothing else out of the ordinary there.

First, Marketers are constantly developing content custom tailored to their target audiences.

Second, that content is supposed to be persuasive and result in either an action "CTA" or in behaviour change "cause campaigns", or in opinion changing "influence marketing"

This is not espionage, sexy, corrupt, secret and classified work. It is how the ENTIRE DIGITAL MARKETING field works.

We build personas. Personas are based on real life people and their behavior. Demographic targeting has been dead for decades. It is all about psychographics now.

There are entire industries built on this.

Third,if the protests by the news and mainstream media is that an entity associated with a politician or political party used these methods to influence people's opinions - social engineering, wtf does everyone think the mainstream media do constantly? What about super pacs, AIPAC, the NRA, Gay rights, feminists, MRAs, Animal activists do when they launch programmatic media buying and geo and psychographic targeted media campaigns? Everyone does it. Heck everyone did it before the internet. Just because it is online and more accurate, measurable, faster, customised more and direct to the audience does not make it unethical...not anymore than a girl scout being told to target a certain neighborhood because for her cookie sales because there are lots of senior citizens and grandparents there more likely to buy.

Again, the fact that Cambridge Analytica was able to access the information of friends of people who opted in is the only unethical issue I am seeing here.

The rest is business as usual. If laymen didn't understand this before, well they do now. And if they don't like it, trust me there are much bigger fish to fry than Cambridge Analytica - starting with every single major corporation in the world, and ending with the house and senate.

Look at these morons talk. The ignorance on how digital marketing works is outstanding.
There are programs out there constantly monitoring how you browse and reporting those insights in to analytic teams that customize the experience to persuade you to do something, think something, or buy something. What a bunch of outdated fools talking about ***they don't understand.

Buzzfeed you might as well get your news stories from me !

Well considering criminals run the country, or are involved enough that all major political entities use them, any Democrat that has dealt with the Russian government for any reason has "worked with criminals". It's pretty much a given that any official dealings with Russia will involved a criminal element at some point in time.

THIRDLY Crisis actors don't get paid enough to pretend to be wounded in school shootings.

Like tell half truths spread propaganda same thing you guys accuse Russia of. Also they aren't very good at it cause no one watches MSNBC FOX CNN etc. It is all about infowars.com

I'm sure CJ you are well versed of the private lives of people you never met. Do you work for TMZ ?

Blazed, did you read the article?

The head of CA bragged about stepping well outside the practices you outlined. Indeed, practices that are illegal and morally questionable.

Its all over the news, I just found the Buzz Feed article first.

If it is all over the news why didn't I read it then ?

Because you're not obsessed with Donald Trump, unlike those in here who claim to dislike him.

Ugh.. BuzzFeed...

I like how the video only makes one mention of Donald Trump and is not the focus of the expose but the assumption is it totally is because Chanti posted it.

You don't read.

Don't worry, the Simpsons will have an episode on it next season.

Trump May Be Deposed in ‘Apprentice’ Groping Lawsuit
Bloomberg

Choice tidbits

As I alluded to recently, any allegations of this variety will lose steam when a bunch of lunatics come out of the woodwork looking for fame, and the TV networks will end up parading all of them on camera. This will kill the legitimacy of any reasonable accusers, and we'll be back to square one.

How do I know this? It pretty much already happened before the election. But hey, the media had proven that it never learns, so get ready for round 2. It will follow the exact same pattern.

Right.... waited until he was elected President then suddenly "remembered" to sue, in a liberal jurisdiction no less.

This will eventually be tossed aside like all the rest during and after the campaign.

Because polygraph tests are totes reliable, bro.

Oh that "researcher" for CA who got the info on seventy bazilloin facebook users just hapens to be a Russian.

That's *** disgusting.

I wouldn't do Trump with someone else's pussy.

Or a ten foot pole.

/gag

Way more than two CJ.

This is what I thought was funny. They apparently acknowledge he lies and ignores facts.

I wonder if we'll ever get back to discussing actual topics, or if we should just say screw it and call this the Russia & Unproven Gossip thread.

This is what politics is now. When you bat everything away with a "facts I don't like" cudgel everything becomes unproven gossip. That would be Trump's fault.


Also, I just really, really wanted to use the word cudgel.