>>However, I'm not convinced what they did was really all that new or interesting.
You say that as someone who frequents HN. Collectively we are probably the top 0.2% of the population in terms of technology awareness and know-how, to the point where we probably easily recognize this type of propaganda (then again, maybe not!) and understand how it works.
The same cannot be said for the overwhelming majority of the population though. In fact, I'd go so far as to claim that the majority of Facebook users don't even understand how Facebook makes money (even though the answer is so obvious to us).
I was around on the internet back in the 90's and the stuff that came out in the Snowden revelations wasn't that suprising (Echelon was widely known back then but unconfirmed), We (meaning techies) have had the suspicion that they where doing this shit under the "just because they could, they would" approach.
Where Snowden was incredibly useful was that it confirmed it in a way that was hard to deny since it was straight from the horses mouth.
We might suspect that CA was doing shady shit but stuff like the C4 investigation confirms it and the confirmation is a valuable thing.
"We're smart enough to not fall for it but the proles stand no chance" doesn't pass the smell test as anecdotal evidence.
What they are doing is what marketing people have done for years, only we know from years of data and experience that these "profile and target" ad campaigns are barely above baseline for RoI.
The classic one is people who move house are more likely to go on to buy a new car in 12-24 months so they buy house sale data and target you with car info.
Supermarkets do tons of profiling based on your CC and purchase history.
None of this is to say that trying isn't scummy, but we shouldn't lose sight of the possibility that CA could be peddling snake oil.
Of course. But there's also the possibility that in this case the snake oil actually delivered an election result.
RoI is actually irrelevant. The two bigger issues are that this shouldn't be being attempted, and - more importantly in a genuine democracy - it shouldn't even be possible.
>>"We're smart enough to not fall for it but the proles stand no chance" doesn't pass the smell test as anecdotal evidence.
That's why I said "then again, maybe not".
>>What they are doing is what marketing people have done for years, only we know from years of data and experience that these "profile and target" ad campaigns are barely above baseline for RoI.
This is completely irrelevant in the current context, because for people with deep pockets, the ROI of a single project doesn't matter if it leads to huge gains further down the line.
Case in point: CA is owned by the Mercers, who just got a huge tax cut thanks to Trump.
You say that as someone who frequents HN. Collectively we are probably the top 0.2% of the population in terms of technology awareness and know-how, to the point where we probably easily recognize this type of propaganda (then again, maybe not!) and understand how it works.
The same cannot be said for the overwhelming majority of the population though. In fact, I'd go so far as to claim that the majority of Facebook users don't even understand how Facebook makes money (even though the answer is so obvious to us).