In an unmissable talk, journalist Carole Cadwalladr digs into one of the most perplexing events in recent times: the UK's super-close 2016 vote to leave the European Union. Tracking the result to a barrage of misleading Facebook ads targeted at vulnerable Brexit swing voters -- and linking the same players and tactics to the 2016 US presidential election -- Cadwalladr calls out the "gods of Silicon Valley" for being on the wrong side of history and asks: Are free and fair elections a thing of the past?
The rules of the game have changed because of the impact of ads on FaceBook. It's bad enough we have silos of news like Fox feeding their viewers right wing propaganda but of course voter influence was taken to an entirely new level in the Brexit vote and with the use of Russian bots and troll farms here in 2016.
As this speaker points out, our current laws are not equipped to deal with this type of influence. In addition to aiming these tidbits of influence at a certain group pinpointed through the use of filters on tons of data, apparently the ads are not archived for future analysis. It is also not possible at this time to figure out who paid for the ads or where they originated.
It is troubling to know that DJT has not made any effort to protect our elections from such interference. Even if Congress wanted to take some measures to keep this sort of thing from influencing voters, how would that be done? Candidates face an uphill battle to get their ideas across, that's for sure.
https://www.ted.com/talks/carole_cadwalladr_facebook_s_role_in_brexit_and_the_threat_to_democracy
The rules of the game have changed because of the impact of ads on FaceBook. It's bad enough we have silos of news like Fox feeding their viewers right wing propaganda but of course voter influence was taken to an entirely new level in the Brexit vote and with the use of Russian bots and troll farms here in 2016.
As this speaker points out, our current laws are not equipped to deal with this type of influence. In addition to aiming these tidbits of influence at a certain group pinpointed through the use of filters on tons of data, apparently the ads are not archived for future analysis. It is also not possible at this time to figure out who paid for the ads or where they originated.
It is troubling to know that DJT has not made any effort to protect our elections from such interference. Even if Congress wanted to take some measures to keep this sort of thing from influencing voters, how would that be done? Candidates face an uphill battle to get their ideas across, that's for sure.
https://www.ted.com/talks/carole_cadwalladr_facebook_s_role_in_brexit_and_the_threat_to_democracy