Having spoke about Facebook's ability to dish targeted advertisements in a thread about how they can harvest and pass-on data (only to be told by certain sections that I and others were tin-hatters), I'm not surprised by this at all.
Linking this to that is neither here nor there, but the method of action seems similar in some respects. Whilst drawing 'hotwords' from conversations does not link over this to this by any means - the motivations and gains by big businesses should exemplify motivations for Facebook to sell data to third-parties.
The crux of it is, for me, that whilst Facebook is free - they (and companies) will use personal data for their own gain. This has been going on for years and this looks, to me, to be the natural progression of doorstep politics; only, they don't have to pay people anymore, they can do it from a mobile app.
I'm sure it is all very technical and that no-one would fully understand it's nuts and bolts - however, in simple terms, it looks to be a bit of a viral program that you see pop up nowadays. I remember similar personality tests and essentially, it would pop-up in your feed what personality your friend was (there were IQ tests and whatnot too), and when you clicked on it (to see yours), it would try to link your profile to an app (like Words with Friends) that would then ask you to accept its terms. Now, this company have been caught - but I would suggest that there are oodles of companies like this behind a lot of these tests - all competing to get your data and sell it on.
But one of the more interesting things is this:
The academic had developed a Facebook app which featured a personality quiz, and Cambridge Analytica paid for people to take it, advertising on platforms such as Amazon’s Mechanical Turk.
The app recorded the results of each quiz, collected data from the taker’s Facebook account – and, crucially, extracted the data of their Facebook friends as well.
To my mind, that is paid stooging. So, x amount of people are paid to take the test, share their data and get their friends to take it (unpaid, I assume). The ones who don't are then compared to the ones that do (using likes and similar trends to 'guesstimate' their friends' responses. This then creates a basis for a paid viral campaign that can be used to pigeon-hole and loop groups of people together - (with their location, age, gender etc...).
I would think that this test is just the tip of the iceberg - if this 'test' works, then can you imagine what could be done when the method is applied to other, more serious means? Coud it be the basis for democratic voting? Could... could... (I say this with a big could), could a company take people's personality traits, likes and
personal data, and possibly
guess which candidate they
may vote for? In the western world, that may be impossible, but think of a country with low GDP, little or no media infrastructure and no platform on the world stage.
Look at Brexit, for example - do people remember the absolute vitriol spouted by 'groups' and friends to warrant a leave vote? If a company could find out who were 'easy voters' and people who 'followed the crowd' or what conspiracists theorise as being 'sheeple' (people who believe what they are told by a higher power) - they could begin to target or connect people using adverts for Facebook groups or pages - social engineering. Nothing too different to what politicians do on political rallies or 'polling' (when you used to see scores of people on phones polling people with political questions).
If you could identify individuals or specific groups and begin to link them together using social media - that's a pretty big army of support that could, could be used to drive a specific agenda - for example, gun control. With a few well-placed moles here and there, and big personalities to organise, you have yourself a body of potential voters who can influence and do half of your work for you... virally.
All that is blue sky thinking and between the lines pop-science, but nothing would surprise me. Facebook is one of the most powerful forces we have ever seen - a network of thoughts and emotions interlinked by a giant blue elephant - it is a ruling classes dream. We once thought that Facebook was the last democratic bastion that allowed people to rise above the shit and connect with others on a personal level. Stories like this are showing how Facebook can be used by higher powers to potentially influence important world events.
I remember all the pressure from Facebook friends (and I have quite a lot) to vote - there was even a drop-down on Facebook to let 'your friends' know that you had voted. Most of them were left-leaning, and when it came to Brexit, they made their opinions clear - around that time, 'everyone' seemed to be voting to stay (or at least in my circles). When I say everyone, everyone that Facebook wanted me to see first.
And this, I feel, comes to the crux of the power of Facebook. After implementing (drip feeding) new features, around three to four years ago, people started to lose their ability to see what they wanted to see first. Being first when you open Facebook is the most important thing a company can have. The implementation of 'Top Stories' changed things hugely in this department, most people don't know that you can change from 'Top Stories' to 'Most Recent', which is a
massive thing. It essentially hands over power from you, to Facebook to feed you what is 'hot news' in your networks.
Over the past few years, I have noticed that people are becoming more and more critical and political over what they like and what they share. One time, you could post up a picture of yourself posing with a turd and get likes - it was fun. But now, with page upon page, and group upon group, there is faaaaar more to see and share - and you, as a sole sharer, have to compete with videos of dogs farting, kids singing, X-factor, and low-cut tit shots gilded with Snapchat filters.
This will not damage Facebook at all - the application has its worshippers and they follow it like a religion. 6-8% off their market worth? Small change... They'll make that up in a
month with a new feature! It will be the average user and start-up who will face the backlash as Facebook rally and change their privacy terms.
This won't be the end of something, this will be the start of something and as conspiracy nut as it sounds, it will end up opening the question of digital voting again. All this technical mumbo jumbo will instigate debate, and the end-game will be to get people to give over more of their personal data (to confirm real-life identity) so that Facebook will be used as the primary source for census data, political voting, polling and yes, viewing and shopping habits.
Few things if you already haven't:
Check your installed apps:
https://www.facebook.com/settings?tab=applicationsI personally uninstalled all
113 apps that had access to my personal data - I will only add what I need.
Also - if you scroll down to the bottom there is a section that throws up this window:
People on Facebook who can see your info can bring it with them when they use apps. This makes their experience better and more social. Use the settings below to control the categories of information that people can bring with them when they use apps, games and websites.
Bio
Posts on my timeline
Birthday
Hometown
Family and relationships
Current city
Interested in
Education and work
Religious and political views
Activities, interests, things I like
My website
My app activity
If I'm online
If you don't want apps and websites to access other categories of information (like your friend list, gender or info you've made public), you can turn off all Platform apps. But remember, you will not be able to use any games or apps yourself.
Not sure what it means, but unticked it all nonetheless...
