Social Media Perception Management
Posted by delta on February 10th, 2021
First thing one needs to realize is that none of the companies who are now surveilling or editing our lives are actually private companies with no motive for what is occurring – they are in direct collusion with the government, politician’s and political parties. These institutions are not simply “paying customers”, they have many contracts worth billions of dollars with these institutions and , in some cases, got their start with venture capital from these institutions. Folks think that the Constitution is “still safe” because “it is not the government doing this” – they think it’s “all good” because “private companies can do what they wish”. We in the tech world call this “Willful Ignorance” – and it is usually characterized within the context of addiction (EX: those who smoke know smoking is bad for them and will most likely kill them but they do it anyway). Willful ignorance keeps you consistent and makes you predictable – and that is exactly what the algorithms (AI) need to serve up a better product – not for you, but – for the customer.
| I feel it is important, at this point, to explain what I mean by “ignorance”. Turns out there are several definitions and synonyms – some more harsh that others – so, I feel I should clarify exactly what I am saying. By “ignorant” I mean “unaware”, “unconscious”, “unfamiliar” and “innocent” – Willful ignorance is the act of intentionally keeping oneself “unaware of…”, “unconscious of…”, “unfamiliar with…” and “innocent of…” – it’s the adult equivalent of a child plugging their ears, closing their eyes exclaiming “La-la-la-la-la!” at the top of their lungs so they can’t hear a discussion in the room or a teenager rushing into their room and blasting the music so they can’t hear what their parents have to say… |
Let’s say I’m a customer for a social media platform. I go to them and say “I need to sell this… Help me out”. The platform then creates a few eye catching banners and quickly sets an algorithm which will pick out 10,000 people on the platform who WILL (without a doubt, based on their data) check out the product. Those 10,000 people then tell their (200 to 500) friends by posting, or texting/emailing family and friends about this “product”… Now, if this customer/product is a news article, political agenda, political party, political organization, PAC or a any type of Fake/Controlled “Opposition” to a social agenda – Game Over – within 30 days, that original 10,000 sets of eyes becomes a social movement of 1,000,000+…
Again, let’s say I’m a customer for a social media platform and I need to accomplish something so I ask them specifically for “a large group of people who would take to the streets and assemble for ‘redress of grievances’ to assure our Constitutional Rights are not being revoked”. Once I have that data, I could easily create a few fake social movements to control both sides of an issue. I could bombard each side from their own perspective and feed them with what “they should” fear for a few weeks. People fear what they do not understand and if one could make the issue complicated beyond their comprehension fear will turn to hate – if you can mentally “get them in the corner” so “there’s no way out” you got them. Once everyone is properly riled up, tell them, “but don’t worry… we got this… stay home… be safe… and wait… we got this… don’t come out…” All I have to do is create a problem, assure it is too complicated for most people to comprehend, make them fear it, have a solution for it and they will stay home and wait… and wait… and wait…
| Actually, now that I think about it, that is how facist regimes come into power. “Easy Solutions” for “Big Problems” which put the publics fears at ease, as long as they are willing to trade their freedoms and assimilate… Of course, in the digital age, they can do it without a single shot being fired… |
You are not the customer, you are the product… Algorithms (AI) feed you what it thinks you are going to be interested in. As you scroll, click, read or post – the algorithm takes that data and serves you more feeds/banners based on your growing profile… As you make more choices and the algorithm loops, it gets to “know you better” and can then serve up what the customer wants you to see in the way YOU want to see it – your perception of the world can be changed and managed without your knowledge or consent due to the way the algorithms are framing your online experience… One term for this is “Impression Management”, the Department of Defense calls it “Perception Management”…
If you are not paying for the product, then you are the product. Your information, your data, your desires, your fears and your personality traits are the product – a social media platform can create, change, block, delete or otherwise manage an entire social agenda within any geo-political context in 30-90 days, dependent on what the customers marketing budget is. If you are not worried about it, then either you are too ignorant to understand, too deep into the rabbit hole to lend a hand or too cowardly to take a stand – the algorithms can differentiate which within a few mouse clicks – and this information is also passed to the customers…
…and… ALL of this information is piped to the government – EVERYTHING. There are a few direct pipes to the NSA but these pipes tend to be “mushy” because they send straight (unformatted) data that is not usable or searchable without a lot of effort. To have data transmitted to them in usable format the government uses the data obtained by the companies supported by the venture capital group In-Q-Tel. In-Q-Tel is wholly owned by the CIA and they support approximately 80 companies, almost all of these companies are AI/algorithm products or services for harvesting your data and putting that data in a usable format for ease of use…
| One with major means/money can also use companies such as the now defunct SCL Group (Cambridge Analytica) to get extremely formatted data with very specific profiles for very specific operations… If you get nothing else out of this post, you need to check out what this company was able to do in the past… Through social media they were able to locate groups of individuals, discover EVERYTHING about them and target them specifically (in both war and politics)… Look it up yourself! If they hadn’t done it in the U.K. (where they have laws protecting each individuals digital data), they would still be in business today… |
I have found, knowing what I know, that it is simply a moral imperative to shut down all my social media accounts and to call for everyone else to do the same. Being liberated from unrestricted surveillance and calculated conditioning allows you to gather your own thoughts without being perpetually bombarded by what the algorithm (AI) of the site you’re visiting directs you to see… Privacy allows you to have your own thoughts, conversations and debates without fear of reprisal from some future source/force (which may not even exist yet)… Have we spent so much time online, being fed only that which perpetuates our prejudices, that we can no longer debate…? Is the fear of being questioned or having an honest dialogue so far out of the range of our human interaction at this point…? Are we that far gone already…?
Both sides of our existing social dilemma are being manipulated to extremes. Those of us watching it happen from the outside of either sphere are literally waiting for war. Both sides believe everything is going to go back to what it was before – they just need to destroy the other side first. Seriously, that is the gist of their conversations – to “get rid” of the “other side”. Oh yeah, if you hear them talk about the future, they actually believe it will go back to how it was – both sides – ironically, the more I listen to them the more I find their rhetoric to be a “distinction without difference”…
On Monday 27 February 1933 the German Parliament Building in Berlin was burned down – the “Reichstag Fire”. Most people believe this was a “false flag operation” by the Nazi Party itself. Due to this fire, the Nazi Party was able to suspend civil liberties for the public and make mass arrests of all political rivals of the Nazi Party. Within just a few short months, there were nothing but empty seats in parliament – the Nazi’s filled these seats with their own which gave Hitler’s facist regime complete legal power of the government.
Does this spark any scent of familiarity to any recent events lately? Have we learned nothing from history?
| Each person cherry picks what they are exposed to so they can create a narrative in their head that “feels good” and “loads them up” with “what they need” to convince others of their version of history. Did you know that, as you are reading this, there are tens of thousands of Native Americans on reserves living in complete poverty? In areas with no economy… no jobs… no decent land for farming… no natural resources… no hope… Poverty which, if known, would make any other social agenda crumble in comparison. Not only have Native American past been written out of history, their present situation is being completely excluded. NO ONE wants to have THIS conversation! …even other minority groups! If the condition of LIVING Natives was known to the public, no other social group could justify the persona of victimization for themselves or of generations past. Three living generations of Americans who “know nothing” of the plight of our Natives simply because it has been written out of our history books and no one who knows the PRESENT SITUATION wants this conversation “out of the bag”… |
Speaking of writing things out of history, I was talking to a group of folks the other day who knew nothing of the “Red Scare” or the “blacklist” from our own history. I was stunned – no one knows history anymore…
“Judge not, they say, but they consign to hell everyone who stands in their way”. This is heading toward what can be called nothing other than “The Digital Red Scare of the 21st Century” – if we don’t stop it now, there will be another “blacklist” and with the technology we have today it won’t be 10 people – it will be 10 million. This time, there will be no trial, there will be no commission and there will be no publicity. They can manipulate any digital data on anyone – they can make anyone disappear from “the books” as if they never existed. Suddenly, the folks on the “losing side” won’t own anything, they won’t be able to buy anything and they won’t be able to get a job… no one will know who “did it”… no one will know how to “undo it”…
Do you know what your “digital profile” is? Do you know what your “digital assets” are?
This needs to stop. Everyone needs to unplug, leave their cell phones at home and go to the nearest coffee shop and just talk to one another. No recording, no tracking devices, no posting of what takes place or what is said – just honest, open dialogue…
It sounds stupid, but I think we will find that there is more to unite us than divide us… Is that what the powers that be fear? Do they fear us being united so badly that they need to force feed us hate, to keep us divided, to assure their rule over us?
I honestly don’t know if it’s possible at this point… Everyone thinks everyone else is an idiot… Lifelong friends and “tight” families aren’t even able to sit down and talk at this point… If you know your history, you know that that’s when society breaks down… Instead of depending on family and friends to have our backs we stay away from them because either they (intentionally or unintentionally, through mouth or their digital activity, respectively) or their digital devices (via tracking, microphone or camera) are going to turn “informant”… Thing is, they don’t even have to do it intentionally – most often, they won’t even know they did it – that is how willfully ignorant people are at this point… This is a really bad path we’re heading down…