We have found the enemy and it is not Cambridge Analytica
We humans are no match for systematic brainwashing. We claim to be intelligent creatures, but look at the science.
In a series of experiments, researchers from Yale University uncovered the simple — and often obvious — tricks that effectively exploit our psychological quirks to make us vote certain ways or believe even a wacky, incompetent, demonstrably dishonest and immoral political candidate.
The No. 1 trick used to manipulate people is fear. And the scientists found the more anxious and fearful you are, the more likely you are to be politically conservative.
The research, published last fall in the European Journal of Social Psychology, found that diehard liberals could be transformed into conservatives — at least temporarily — by ramping up the fear factor. (Think 9/11, Joe Mccarthy.)
Meanwhile, if conservatives engage in a completely different thought exercise where they envision themselves being safe from harm and believe that the only thing they have to fear is fear itself, voila, they espouse liberal political positions and are far more willing to accept cultural and social change.
Enter Cambridge Analytica with its dark money and its darker promise to take people who think they know what they believe and why, and transform
them into quivering zombie acolytes.
For a few hundred thousand dollars and with the help of millions of guileless Facebook users who gush publicly about everything from their biopsy results to who they support for governor, Cambridge Analytica promises to deliver a “psychographic analysis” of the electorate and produce an advertising message that will shamelessly bypass their brains and exploit their emotions to deliver their votes.
While Cambridge Analytica is grabbing the headlines for its role in Colorado elections and Donald Trump’s 2016 campaign, it’s hardly unique among political consultants harvesting readily available personal data from social media sites and manipulating voters to produce election victories.
In 2012, President Barack Obama’s re-election campaign was hailed for its innovative use of big data, including gobs of personal information collected through the use of an Obama campaign Facebook app, to catapult campaigns into the “Moneyball” era of sophisticated voter mobilization through data.
And then, of course, there’s the story of the 2016 Russian election meddling, which used a mashup of fear, technology, deceit and social media to target unsophisticated voters, heighten divisions in American culture, and brainwash an electorate that was all -too willing to consume and then regurgitate the hate speech.
Which brings us to the real problem.
Us.
Here’s the deal. You know that advertisement for overpriced slippers that keeps coming at you whenever you access your digital newspaper subscription or perform a Google search or check Facebook? At some point you innocently click on the ad to see what it’s all about, and then they’ve got you. The ads keep coming. And pretty soon you think you really need another pair of slippers even if they cost 150 bucks and, after all, they’re still just slippers.
You’ve been played.
Now, remember those stupid slippers the next time you get about a million messages on your devices about how Muslims or Jews or evangelicals or immigrants or criminals or cops or transsexuals or rich white men or gun-control activists or gun owners or Republicans or Democrats (name an imaginary villain here) are threatening your safety and ruining your life and (name an opportunistic politician here) is the only one who can protect you.
All I’m saying is before you succumb to overpriced slippers or mind control, think about the bot.
This automated communications program has found a little flaw in your psychological immune system and it’s bombarding you relentlessly with a deadly virus of misinformation until you give up and relinquish all control over good judgment and common sense to the bot-builders from Moscow, London, San Jose and Peoria, Ill., for their own greedy, nefarious purposes. Think about it.
That’s all you need to do. Just think.
While it’s still legal.