Think Target and Home Depot invade your privacy? Political campaigns might be worse:
Data mining.. data mining..
Think you are getting to know everything about your favorite presidential candidate? They are actually very busy getting to know you through a number of tools from private firms that analyze trends and social media likes and status updates.. This from reporter Even Hapler in the LA TIMES:
The data modeling from Rocket Fuel shows that this group leans against a path to citizenship for workers in the U.S. illegally. And these particular voters have become surprisingly easy – some argue creepily so – for campaigns to find and approach. So have consumers of frozen vegetables, who are more likely to oppose abortion. As have people curious about diabetes, a group that tends to settle on a candidate early in the race.
“Knowing the nuances of each voter beyond whether they lean right or left makes every difference,” said JC Medici, the firm’s national director of politics and advocacy. “We can identify what people are persuadable.”
That frozen veggie/abortion fact is a little more than bizarre..
But social media firms aside, who is doing best at using social media to his advantage this yer? Trump..because he lives and breathes pop culture and social media.. way better than any high-paid contracted company to sneak into our accounts and chip away at privacy.
It is the wild west online.. your data is not protected. Your likes are known. And if you buy frozen veggies, I bet you don’t like abortion.
….still can’t wrap my head around that one.
