Is the Internet good or bad? Yes.
Facebook tracks status updates that people start and then delete, so as to better understand why they decide not to post.
.. The few big media outlets that dare run reports about corruption have been slapped with huge tax bills on the order of billions of dollars, which were then miraculously rescinded after coverage was blunted.
.. How might they do it in practice? Consider that some people are prone to voting conservative when confronted with fearful scenarios. If your psychological profile puts you in that group, a campaign could send you a message that ignites your fears in just the right way. And for your neighbor who gets mad at scaremongering? To her, they’ll present a commitment to a minor policy that the campaign knows she’s interested in—and make it sound like it’s a major commitment. It’s all individualized. It’s all opaque. You don’t see what she sees, and she doesn’t see what you see.
.. Most of the demonstrators around me were wearing yellow construction hats, sold to them by Turkey’s mostly Roma street peddlers. (From day one, the peddlers also offered spray paint, goggles, and other protesting essentials. Does anyone else in the world have better just-in-time stock management than dirt-poor street peddlers?)
.. When the ammunition from another crowd-control weapon—water cannons—began to burn on contact, the protesters sent samples to a lab, which discovered that the government had added pepper spray to the water. Months later, a government spokesperson acknowledged this.)
.. Every citizen is now assigned a national ID number, which provides access to a government website documenting almost every interaction with the state, from property records to taxes. For many, it’s a relief to have escaped the country’s old bureaucratic systems. But the databases also enable massive surveillance. Citizens of Turkey need an ID number to buy a phone SIM card, for example, or to make a doctor’s appointment through the public health system.
.. Big-data surveillance is dangerous exactly because it provides solutions to these problems. Individually tailored, subtle messages are less likely to produce a cynical reaction.
.. Last year, an article in Adweek noted that women feel less attractive on Mondays, and that this might be the best time to advertise make-up to them. “Women also listed feeling lonely, fat and depressed as sources of beauty vulnerability,” the article added. So why stop with Mondays? Big data analytics can identify exactly which women feel lonely or fat or depressed. Why not focus on them? And why stop at using known “beauty vulnerabilities”?