Recent revelations about data analytics firm Cambridge Analytica’s unauthorized use of private data to sway the 2016 Presidential election is the subject of the United Nations Association Golden Empire Chapter meeting, April 17, at the UUCM church, 246 Church Street Grass Valley. KVMR radio hosts Glen Farr and Paul Castro of the Computer Technology show “Zen Tech” will explain the process CA used to boil down individual personal data into narrowly defined classes of voters. Once the beliefs and behavior of voters were defined, selectively targeted messages exaggerating or inflaming the personal beliefs/opinions of these personality “types” could be sent directly to every potential voter.
If you were one of the millions of people caught up in the CA effort to develop targets to influence voter opinion and preferences you might have received deceptive or outright false information about the candidates and the election process.
Is that acceptable in a Democracy? Print and television advertising are required by Federal Election regulations to identify the source of all political advertising. Similar safeguards do not exist on the internet or social media.
Farr and Castro will provide examples of the personality types identified by the CA process and examples of the messages sent to motivate voting in one’s personal interest; and examples of inflammatory messages designed to be shared with like-minded “friends.”
If you are a user of social media you will want to know how readily available your personal data is and what you can do to protect information about yourself, your friends and your beliefs. Many users of social media are unaware or have limited understanding of their privacy rights. There is a tendency to think the only way to protect your identity and personal data is to delete your social media account. The Zen Tech team will share what means are available to limit your exposure to unauthorized use of your personal data.
The threat to democratic elections is mounting world-wide. Well understood cyber-attacks on Political Parties and individual candidates have been recorded in many countries in what has been determined to be a concerted attempt by Russia to destabilize western democracies. Now more than ever we need to understand the threats posed to our democracy by cyber hacking, their links to social media and what to look for to determine legitimate election communications and separate them fromtruly fake, distorted propaganda.
Please join us for next UNA meeting.