Weekly New/Digital Media (69)

Facebook employs ex-political aides to help campaigns target voters

https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2017/may/08/facebook-political-aides-campaigns-target-voters

Summary: "Roles for former Conservative and Labour figures prompt fears firm ‘whispering in ears’ of parties to aid micro-targeting of users" "The Guardian has learned Facebook’s recruits have inside knowledge of how the major parties’ general election campaigns are likely to work. They include a former Downing Street adviser to David Cameron, a former aide to Ed Balls and a social media expert who worked with the Conservatives’ election strategist Lynton Crosby."

“This is where you can do the interesting stuff,” said the campaigner, who wished to remain anonymous. “You are not just advertising to them once; if they click, you know a specific person has shown an interest. You can feed that back and know who and where they are, down to the postcode. Then you can change the messaging to suit what you need politically.”

Key facts/statistics:

• Campaign strategists for both Donald Trump and the Leave.EU campaign have said that reaching voters on Facebook has become pivotal to election success.
• Both Labour and the Conservatives have teams dedicated to targeted Facebook advertising and are thought to be preparing to hand the San Francisco company well over £1m in the coming weeks.
• There has been growing concern about the ability of politicians to track the interests of Facebook users in order to “micro-target” voters. There are 31m registered Facebook accounts in the UK.
• During the 2015 general election campaign, the Conservatives spent more than £1m on Facebook advertising; Labour sources have indicated they are prepared to spend a similar amount in the coming weeks.
• “One of the things we are absolutely there to do is to help people make use of Facebook products,” he said, in a programme that explored how political campaigns capitalise on Facebook users’ personal information.
• Gerry Gunster, an American strategist who worked for Leave.EU during last year’s Brexit referendum campaign, told Panaroma that Facebook was “a game-changer”.
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My opinion:

It just highlights the sheer power facebook has over society. There seems to be an increase in a 'passive' audience as they just cannot escape being 'drip fed' these ideologies as its on a platform they enjoy using and is being presented to them in an enjoyable manner. Audiences are duped into thinking they are more active in and in control when in reality they aren't (hegemony) Therefore highlighting just how much social media has on democracy and the political system of countries as a countries well being is treated as a marketing campaign and as products, there is such an extent of dehumanizing individuals into products and pieces of a greater power play especially between higher up political parties that seem to be bending for the even more powerful media conglomerates such as facebook and google. Kind of worrying that British Democracy should be filtered through American organisations that have a complete different set of needs and wants to a British society.