"We Are Entering An Age Of Metastasizing Risk" - As Facebook & CA Lobotomize Our Ability To Respond
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We are entering an age of metastasizing risk. The ubiquity of digital networks and the mixture of opportunities and vulnerabilities they bring with them, coupled with the escalating impacts from climate collapse, means risk management is set to move from a dull compliance issue to a core skill set for any corporate with hopes for longevity. But something bigger also is going on here that has serious implications for the global response to the climate threat.
The practice of micro-targeting may be employed by every political party and large business, but it essentially a populist and divisive approach. It is about identifying a narrow demographic, a shared sense of values — be they liberal, socialist, illiberal, conservative or authoritarian — and pandering to them as shamelessly as possible. Messages of aggressive reassurance aimed at a single, relatively small demographic then almost inevitably result in the reinforcing of prejudice and the stoking of division.
Add in the way in which only the target demographic will see these messages and you also have fertile soil for exaggeration, fake news and conspiracy theory.
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It also should be obvious that the digital tools and murky campaigning tactics deployed by Cambridge Analytica are most brutally effective in the hands of nationalists whose raison d'etre is divisiveness and whose understanding of the world is one of zero-sum competition. As such, they strengthen those who are most likely to be opposed to climate action on the simple grounds that they instinctively oppose anything that smacks of collective international cooperation. This data-driven campaigning is also calculated in every sense of the world. If the data tells you 90 percent of people support clean energy and 10 percent oppose it, but the 10 percent are fiercely motivated in their opposition and live in your key target constituencies, while the 90 percent's interest in the issue is soft and dispersed among voters who won't vote for you anyway, then you end up loudly opposing clean energy, regardless of what is in the national interest.
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https://www.greenbiz.com/article/cambridge-analytica-facebook-and-climate-change-angle