Brexit, psychological profiling and the ethics crisis.

 

American writer Gregory S Williams said “Think for yourself. Ignore the noises around you that polarise and try to promote fear and division. You know better. Be better.’’ With more and more specifically targeted advertising and content on social media it becomes increasingly difficult to filter out the ‘noise’ as Williams describes it. This essay examines how social media is used as a tool by government and private companies to influence public opinion and in the process deliberatly create division in society. From the Brexit Vote Leave campaign to inciting acts of terrorism, social media has become a tool for control that has far reaching repurcussions for society.

Everytime you interact with social media whether it’s a like on a Facebook post, a retweet or comment on Instagram, you’re creating a digital footprint. This footprint is similar to the one you create browsing the internet as a whole, from online shopping to reading your favourite fashion blog. However what makes your social media footprint more unique is that it creates a more accurate picture of your psychological profile (Matz et al., 2017). Psychological profiles have become the target of Political Microtargeting (PMT), PMT has been used in recent years to heavily influence voters in the EU Referendum and 2016’s US election (Zarouali et al., 2020).

Harvesting social media profiles for PMT was described by one industry whistle-blower as ‘psychological warfare’ (Cadwalladr & Graham-Harrison, 2018). Cambridge Analytica is a data mining firm who have exploited hundreds of millions Facebook profiles illegally. Christopher Wylie who worked for Cambridge Analytica is quoted as saying they built models to specifically exploit peoples ‘inner demons’ (Cadwalladr & Graham-Harrison, 2018). This method has also been cited as the reason behind the victory of the Brexit Leave campaign during the EU referendum (Zarouali et al., 2020).

 

(‘Vote Leave’s Targeted Brexit Ads Released by Facebook’, 2018)

 

So how does PMT’s use of psychological profiling on social media stoke division in society? The Brexit Leave campaign is a perfect example. Ten years ago, Brexit was considered a very fringe political ideology (Brexit, 2016). Since social media emerged it has become possible to take an idea and insert it directly in the path of those it would appeal to most (Zarouali et al., 2020). Using PMT Vote Leave were able to directly communicate with those psychologically profiled to be receptive to targeted adverts (shown above). This imagery was very divisive and factually incorrect. The adverts were specifically designed to instil a feeling of fear. Predominantly they targeted voters over 65 and were seen over 169 million times (‘Vote Leave’s Targeted Brexit Ads Released by Facebook’, 2018).

Evidence suggests that mass psychological profiling has been used to stoke fear and division that directly impacts hugely important political decisions and society. If left unchecked, it sets a hugely dangerous precedent for the future of democracy.