Marketing firm Cambridge Analytica convinced its customers that they could use data mined from Facebook to influence people’s votes. With South Africa’s elections on 8 May, we wonder: do their psychological profiling techniques really work?
Your Facebook data could be revealing more about you than you realise. But could it be used to persuade you to change your vote? Data-driven marketing and political consulting firm Cambridge Analytica hoped it could. But now, the firm is facing a backlash after it was revealed that it had amassed data on tens of millions of Facebook users.
Data harvest
The data came from This Is Your Digital Life, a personality quiz app created by neuroscientist Dr Aleksandr Kogan. If you gave the app permission to collect your Facebook data, thanks to the way the social network worked at the time, it was able to gain access to all of your friends’ data as well. Kogan later started working with Cambridge Analytica, giving the firm the data that allowed them to create ‘psychographic’ profiles for tens of millions of voters.
Just like demographics, psychographics splits people up into groups. But instead of basing the groupings on characteristics such as age and gender, psychographic data is concerned with your personality. The theory is that by knowing your psychological quirks, they can show you adverts that you’re more likely to respond to. Creating an ad using psychographic data isn’t illegal, but Cambridge Analytica allegedly obtained Facebook data from a third-party app developer without most of the Facebook users’ explicit consent. It is thought that just under 300,000 people installed This Is Your Digital Life, yet the data of 87 million people was collected. Cambridge Analytica worked for Donald Trump’s campaign during the 2016 US presidential election, but the consulting firm denies using the Facebook data for the services it provided. Nevertheless, on Friday 16 March 2018, Facebook suspended Cambridge Analytica and its parent company Strategic Communications Laboratories from the social network.
Diese Geschichte stammt aus der May/June 2019-Ausgabe von Very Interesting.
Starten Sie Ihre 7-tägige kostenlose Testversion von Magzter GOLD, um auf Tausende kuratierte Premium-Storys sowie über 8.000 Zeitschriften und Zeitungen zuzugreifen.
Bereits Abonnent ? Anmelden
Diese Geschichte stammt aus der May/June 2019-Ausgabe von Very Interesting.
Starten Sie Ihre 7-tägige kostenlose Testversion von Magzter GOLD, um auf Tausende kuratierte Premium-Storys sowie über 8.000 Zeitschriften und Zeitungen zuzugreifen.
Bereits Abonnent? Anmelden
HOW TO MASTER YOUR METABOLISM
Ready to welcome a leaner, healthier you? It's time for a metabolic makeover. With a few simple, research-backed changes, you can supercharge your body's calorie-burning
A BLUEPRINT FOR ANTI AGEING
Science says it's time to rethink - and take control - of our body's age. Here's how to slow, halt and potentially turn back your biological clock
THE BROKEN MIRROR
Body dysmorphia - the all-consuming obsession with perceived flaws in our looks - is sweeping the globe. One in five young people is thought to be affected. What can be done and how is tech changing the way we see ourselves?
SCROLL REVERSAL
Losing days by endlessly scrolling on your smartphone? You're not alone. Perhaps neuroscience can help us beat the urge
Going back to the moon
ARTEMIS AND A NEW DAWN OF LUNAR EXPLORATION
SAD CLOWN PARADOX: WHY TEARS OFTEN LIE BEHIND THE LAUGHS
Mental health issues are common among comedians and performing is just one way they can self-medicate
INDOOR AIR POLLUTION: HOW COOKING CAN DAMAGE YOUR DNA
From roast dinners to scented candles, there are potentially harmful pollutants lurking in every home
FARM OF THE FUTURE
Join the BBC's Planet Earth III film crew and go behind the scenes in the city farm that's transforming fields into towers and running almost everything with robots
COULD ONE BOMB DESTROY THE WORLD?
How big a bang are arms manufacturers capable of creating?
THE THREAT OF DAY ZERO
Queues at public water taps could become normal. What can we do to avoid them?