Quote from: stompix on February 17, 2018, 09:51:28 AM

Also we must accept that there are a lot of easy to manipulate morons who will make the wrong choices.
Hitler was voted by 30% of the Germans, and Stalin would have won fair and square every election.
And this was way before Trump and whatever happened there.

My point was that people will always be people. We all screw up and tend to follow the herd most of the time.

You completely glossed over the fact that such social media experiments show that it is indeed possible to target and manipulate particular demographics based on their social media/ net habits.

For example, Someone with access to all the google, twitter and facebook meta-data and the motivation and resources to mine it can easily divide people in groups as being favorable/ non-favorable to a particular candidate or proposal. They can then target the users accordingly to shape their opinion.
Denying that its always only "stupid" people who fall for such tactics is giving too much credit to your own thought process. A majority of people will change their opinion when bombarded with a particular ideology on their social feeds for a long enough time.

Quote from: stompix on February 17, 2018, 09:51:28 AM

Quote from: amishmanish on February 17, 2018, 09:32:43 AM

Sound good when its just the cat. Not so much when the state decides to infringe on your activities because you are becoming a thorn by the side, say like an activist journalist. They know everything about you and your behavior pattern, places you visit etc. Its not so hard to imagine such data being used to demolish political opponents or even activists.

The state is elected by you and me.
If you vote into power people that are going to abuse power, then the fact that your cat is a youtube star is your last problem.
I come from a former communist country ,i f the government wants to enforce something, they will do this without the help of social media.
20 tanks rolling in the streets will make you rethink what's most important in life.

You talk about treating cancer rather that preventing it.

Lets take the cat out of the equation..LOL..

My argument was that indiscriminate and voluntary use of social media, amazon, google etc. allows for constant surveillance and monitoring. This makes it possible for the state to have control over the lives of individuals that can be considered to be politically sensitive targets.

You have lived in a communist country so you must be well aware of what the state apparatus can do with brute force and how political opponents can be targeted. How it can be dangerous to profess your opinions in public.

The catch is that infringement on privacy allows the state to have the same level of control while maintaining the facade of being a completely democratic one. That is in fact a much more dangerous situation.

Quote from: stompix on February 17, 2018, 09:51:28 AM

Quote from: amishmanish on February 17, 2018, 09:32:43 AM

I don't think its so simplistic. Normal people like you and me gradually become part of this machinery that determines how the world runs. When the people in power no everything and monitor everyone, their are subtle ways that information can be used to their advantage without anybody noticing. Maybe facebook doesn't want your data. But having all of it stored in their servers is a potential mine from where patterns can be derived.
You may call it paranoid but the level of false information that is being fed to reinforce viewpoints is undeniable. This is being made possible by targeted delivery of news and ads. You only ever see the things that their "algorithm" thinks will gain the most clicks form you or the most view time. You surrender yourself as a consumer because you only ever see what they show you. Where is the chance to expand your horizons and make mistakes then.
So, One really shouldn't brush off privacy concerns. They affect all of us and have far reaching consequences.

Just as I said above.
If you allow people that are going to abuse power to reach positions of power you are the only one to blame.
Not showing your taste in cars or food on social media won't solve the problem, nor will laws about your privacy.
Prevent the situation, don't try to solve problems that shouldn't be there in the first place.

You are absolutely right that "Citizens are to be blamed if they allow wrong people to get to power". But then you are choosing to completely ignore the effect that 21st century media has.
This argument assumes that human judgement remains untouched by the flurry of information and bombardment of sensational imagery by social media and media in general.

I suggest you take a look at this article about how investigating agencies think that Russian troll farms targeted particular demographics during the US elections.