[HN Gopher] Microtargeting as Information Warfare [pdf] ___________________________________________________________________ Microtargeting as Information Warfare [pdf] Author : donohoe Score : 48 points Date : 2022-01-11 20:00 UTC (3 hours ago) (HTM) web link (cyberdefensereview.army.mil) (TXT) w3m dump (cyberdefensereview.army.mil) | amriksohata wrote: | I found I was being targetted with a lot of pro Pakistani | propoganda on tiktok. I am Indian and the Pakistan is friendly | with a big neighbour. | the_optimist wrote: | Turns out the military is solidly 20-25 years behind the | cypherpunks and the EFF, and the failure to set the stage at a | higher level has lead to ready exploits. | kraemate wrote: | So, are people who work for microtargeting platforms (FB etc) war | criminals? | [deleted] | philprx wrote: | I think the intelligence work referred here is not within the | scope of war as defined in war criminal. | | But it could be collaborator to foreign intelligence, or agent | for foreign intelligence, which already is punishable. Now the | knowingly or unknowingly factor is important usually is | qualifying these crimes. | troelsSteegin wrote: | "The Department of Defense must place greater emphasis on | defending servicemembers' digital privacy as a national security | risk." | | What stood out for me was: "The objective of surveillance | capitalism-enabled advertising and information warfare is the | same: to influence an individual's behavior change in support of | someone else's goals." | JacobThreeThree wrote: | uniqueuid wrote: | Sure, microtargeting could be potent. | | But its effectiveness depends so much on the message, we could be | calling anything information warfare. | | I feel that the automated, microtargeting part is often over- | estimated. We are routinely exposed to a huge range of content | and are pretty resilient, the delivery doesn't radically change | that [1]. | | [1] An exception are new media such as radio and TV in their | infancy and perhaps Facebook for elderly people today - see the | paper from Andy Guess, Josh Tucker etc.: | https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/sciadv.aau4586 | wolverine876 wrote: | > We are routinely exposed to a huge range of content and are | pretty resilient, the delivery doesn't radically change that | | Microtargenting has never happened before; that's an enormous | change. Regarding our resiliancy, the results in our society | seem opposite your optimistic prediction. | didericis wrote: | Agreed. And the dangers of over regulating information exposure | are pretty severe. The whole point of free and open society is | to avoid over reliance on a central authority and allow for | emergent authority. Having a DoD regulatory program determining | what is and isn't information warfare seems infinitely worse | than targeted advertising. | | One little talked about counter strategy is just giving those | same people targeted ads with better information. If you need | to prevent certain messages from reaching certain people | entirely and can't counter them maybe that means they have some | validity that needs to be addressed to make counter messaging | viable. Jumping straight to regulation rather than a change in | counter messaging is a huge red flag that reflects poorly on | the level of humility and need for introspection I think is | needed to prevent these kinds of problems without making things | worse. | jchrisa wrote: | I ran this game on the local political establishment in 2015, | and it was scary effective. I assume they are more resilient | today, but at the time entry-level social media advertising | techniques were able to have a massive influence on | politician's perceptions of their constituents's concerns. I | wasn't surprised at all by the impact social advertising ended | up having in the 2016 election. | pohl wrote: | _But its effectiveness depends so much on the message_ | | I think it's best to think of this as _messages_ (plural) when | talking about microtargeting. Everybody could get a different | message but, in aggregate, the set of (Target, Message) tuples | could add up to moving the needle towards some desired outcome | (for elections, in particular: activating some voters, | discouraging others). | | For example, we might look at the infamous pre-election 2016 | meme that cited the fake "Crime Statistics Bureau - San | Francisco" and think it's not an effective message because it's | so easily disproven. But the real question is whether or not | it's an effective message for the subset at which it was aimed. | | A better phrasing might be "its effectiveness depends so much | on the messages in aggregate," maybe. | eurasiantiger wrote: | If it is as you say, how come Trump became president? | harrybr wrote: | Also see Christopher Wylie's book "Mindfuck". | | 2018 interview with the author here: | https://www.theguardian.com/news/2018/mar/17/data-war-whistl... ___________________________________________________________________ (page generated 2022-01-11 23:00 UTC)