” And just as Kosinski had determined that men who like MAC cosmetics on Facebook are probably gay,”
WELL Who’d have thought that!!?
They invented more effective advertisement and better use of known data. Big whoop. Anyone who’s studied big data knew this was coming for a long time and it’s at the heart of how google or facebook make money on ads.
The real hidden story of this election cycle was the paid troll army that Ted Cruz and then Hillary Clinton both used on social media. Ted’s army wasn’t that big but it was more than enough to push the needle for him, but Hillary had around 20,000 people trolling for her every day on many different accounts. They took over multiple sites on the internet, facebook, ect. Trump has his own army, but it was all grass roots and people who trolls for fun.
BUMP
This is the most interesting article I’ve yet read about the election. Thank you for posting.
The circumstance of Trump having spent so little money on advertising could also speak for the effectiveness of personality-specific targeting, as could the fact that three quarters of his marketing budget was spent in the digital realm.
Those big TV and radio ad buys for the dinosaur media aren’t ever coming back.
OK. Big data exists, and I find it culturally dangerous and technically imprecise at the personal level. At the grand scheme of things? Guess we will see who is smart enough to model it for a purpose. In the end, it's a tool. Just like computers, which have changed our life for better or worse, it depends on the motives of those using it. Quality of data (garbage in is garbage out) and assumptions are the key.
I do not find Breitbart News being ultra-rightwing.
bfl
This article tries to make the case that using "big data" is a method to manipulate people. I don't see this as the case at all. In this example, the data was used to specifically target an audience that has been conditioned and propagandized to reflexively vote Democrat. And big data was used to sneak through a bit of information that this group would never have learned on their own. Political junkies know about the deep corruption of the Clintons, and we believe that if everyone knew about it, Hillary would not have a chance at winning the election. This marketing campaign put that belief into action.
Now, if we could harness the power of big data to break through the mountains of liberal propaganda surrounding us, to drive little nuggets of truth into minds shaped by liberal pablum and get them to engage in critical thinking, we could stop the growth of socialism in its tracks. But I don't think big data is nearly as powerful as this article claims. So the fight for freedom goes on.
Predictive analytics is so much more powerful now because so many people give away so much personal data, and computers are so much more powerful.
Sent this article to the sales staff already.
bfs
Good Stuff!
What’s fun is to like stuff that you don’t like and ignore stuff you like. I do that a lot.
HOORAY Michael Kosinski. Great idea. Psychological profiles via Facebook.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HuS5NuXRb5Y
I have to say, anything I look at on Amazon seems to follow me around on the ads on other sites.
Not that I care. They’re welcome to try to find things to sell me. I just wish their algorithms were better.
Just for the record I am the biggest Wu Tang Clan in the universe.
From my years in Checkmate on the Air Staff and at the A-AF CLIC the true value of this is using it to increase the fidelity of understanding against potential adversaries.
The negative ominous tone of this article is laughable. Big data, silly conmen valley, mad ave, and all other manipulators have finally achieved their holy grail with this stuff.
They should rejoice.
They are just upset that alternative political movements (brexit, Trump) used this stuff to win.