Electioneering on the campaign trail

February 19, 2016 3:19 PM

Old and new data-driven efforts implicate mind control (get out the tin foil hats)

It's been well reported that the Obama campaign used psychology and data to motivate voters for the 2008 and 2012 campaigns. The effect of data-driven technology was seemingly evident in the 2012 election: "Elan Kriegel, who now leads analytics for the Clinton campaign, suggested the technology accounted for perhaps two percentage points of the campaign’s four percent margin of victory in 2012". Even though Kriegel later qualified those point as "at most", in a close race it may be inappropriate for the effect to be downplayed.

The technology used in Obama's campaign is now being used by Clinton's campaign. Clinton is backed by a major technology vendor, called "The Groundwork" funded by Google Chairman Eric Schmidt. This past October, Julian Assange purported that "Google was now Hillary's secret weapon" in reference to the alleged connection between Clinton, The Groundwork, and Eric Schmidt.

Assange has written previously about the connections between Google and the State Department. After being approached by Eric Schmidt, Assange later confirmed Schmidt was sent not by Google, but from the Department of State, under Secretary Clinton, calling it "back-channel diplomacy".

Clinton hired Stephanie Hannon, a former Google employee to be her Chief Technology Officer. With Hannon and Schmidt, it's estimated they "have the power to drive between 2.6 and 10.4 million votes to Clinton on election day with no one knowing that this is occurring and without leaving a paper trail. They can also help her win the nomination, of course, by influencing undecided voters during the primaries."

More from the main article: "The shift we had produced, which we called the Search Engine Manipulation Effect (or SEME, pronounced ‘seem’), appeared to be one of the largest behavioral effects ever discovered...Swing voters have always been the key to winning elections, and there has never been a more powerful, efficient or inexpensive way to sway them than SEME"

posted by jiblets (27 comments total)

This is about the powers of suggestion and omission in cyberspace.

It does not therefore implicate control so much as influential guiding.

That is a very bad thing for third parties and independent candidates; so it should be transparently regulated to protect their rights.
posted by MisplaceDisgrace at 3:55 PM on February 19, 2016 [2 favorites]

This seems like a lot of different things hanging (or not) very loosely together. For instance, the implication that the Clinton campaign's vendor and CTO being formerly of Google means that they could tweak search results? That seems pretty thin.

Though the tests they ran with candidates and search engines are really fascinating.
posted by lunasol at 4:03 PM on February 19, 2016

Fools.

Do you know why this works? Because THEY replaced tin foil with aluminum foil and aluminum foil doesn't block the mind control, it enhances it!!!

WAKE UP SHEEPLE!!!
posted by eriko at 4:06 PM on February 19, 2016 [14 favorites]

So if I, understand correctly, without Google's help Hillary would be even further behind in the popular vote?
posted by ZenMasterThis at 4:09 PM on February 19, 2016 [1 favorite]

Well, it was more than matched by whatever the GOP did to gain 9 Senate seats in 2014...
posted by oneswellfoop at 4:14 PM on February 19, 2016

Poor Bernie Sanders without the help of this mind control software how can he possibly compete. No wonder Iowa and New Hampshire were Clinton blowouts. #sarcasm
posted by humanfont at 4:51 PM on February 19, 2016

"... few people look at other results pages, even though they often number in the thousands, which means they probably contain lots of good information. "

*citation needed

Seriously, does this person not understand the whole concept of SEO and blogspam and shit? I'm not saying there isn't good info on later pages, but trying to find it is a whole new order of difficulty. Noise vs Signal.
posted by symbioid at 5:10 PM on February 19, 2016 [2 favorites]

Twenty years later, Interface (Neal Stephenson and Frederick George’s sci-fi thriller about the 1996 presidential election) seems as prescient as ever.
posted by mbrubeck at 5:28 PM on February 19, 2016 [2 favorites]

I've been burned by this, so I try to be careful. When I meet a politician I say up front, "Now, don't you go controlling my mind with any of your powers!"
posted by nom de poop at 5:52 PM on February 19, 2016 [2 favorites]

Yes, this is all annoying and shit, but how many election threads have we had this election??
posted by eriko at 6:10 PM on February 19, 2016

how many election threads have we had this election??

Don't get greedy, you have about 11 months to go before Trump gets sworn in!
There's no need to ration the election threads now.
posted by Mezentian at 6:49 PM on February 19, 2016

Swing voters have always been the key to winning elections

I thought it was base turnout that was the key to winning elections.
posted by straight at 8:40 PM on February 19, 2016

I am very, very, very skeptical of the claim that manipulating Google search engine results could significantly effect enough people's decisions about who to vote for to effect the outcome of an election.
posted by straight at 8:44 PM on February 19, 2016

"Elan Kriegel, who now leads analytics for the Clinton campaign, suggested the technology accounted for perhaps two percentage points of the campaign’s four percent margin of victory in 2012". Even though Kriegel later qualified those point as "at most", in a close race it may be inappropriate for the effect to be downplayed.

I also note that Elan Kriegel himself sounds a lot more skeptical about whether he has any idea how much of a difference Big Data made in the 2012 election than the author of this article who quotes him.
posted by straight at 8:51 PM on February 19, 2016 [1 favorite]

Not that this isn't a potentially serious matter needing further study, transparency, and regulation (not likely to happen to a meaningful degree anyway), but part of that argument is, duh, because of couse search results are going to influence people or else they wouldn't use them. Also, can't find it on mobile, but that study was posted here before and fairly much dismissed.
posted by blue shadows at 10:35 PM on February 19, 2016

So, a vote against Hillary is a vote against Google?
posted by TwelveTwo at 10:54 PM on February 19, 2016

Trump should just Camacho as his running mate and get this over with.
posted by ian1977 at 6:31 AM on February 20, 2016

From Wikipedia's entry for Dr Robert Epstein (author of the first article above). It appears that the author has a bit of a grudge against Google.

In 2012, Epstein publicly disputed with Google Search over a security warning placed on links to his website.[10] His website, which features mental health screening tests, was blocked for serving malware that could infect visitors to the site. Epstein emailed "Larry Page, Google's chief executive; David Drummond, Google’s legal counsel; Dr. Epstein's congressman; and journalists from The New York Times, The Washington Post, Wired, and Newsweek."[10] In it, Epstein threatened legal action if the warning concerning his website was not removed, and denied that any problems with his website existed.[10] Several weeks later, Epstein admitted his website had been hacked, but still blamed Google for tarnishing his name and not helping him find the infection.[11]

posted by humanfont at 6:46 AM on February 20, 2016 [4 favorites]

Google Ron Paul Hillary Clinton.
posted by 445supermag at 7:08 AM on February 20, 2016 [1 favorite]

Hilary and the election aside, the Assange article linked above Google is Not What it Seems is pretty darn interesting.

[Schmidt &Cohen's] book was a simplistic fusion of Fukuyama “end of history” ideology—out of vogue since the 1990s—and faster mobile phones. It was padded out with DC shibboleths, State Department orthodoxies, and fawning grabs from Henry Kissinger. The scholarship was poor—even degenerate. It did not seem to fit the profile of Schmidt, that sharp, quiet man in my living room. But reading on I began to see that the book was not a serious attempt at future history. It was a love song from Google to official Washington. Google, a burgeoning digital superstate, was offering to be Washington’s geopolitical visionary.

posted by sneebler at 7:40 AM on February 20, 2016

Also, can't find it on mobile, but that study was posted here before and fairly much dismissed.

Don't know if this is what you are referring to but I found this:

Transcript of secret meeting between Julian Assange and Eric Schmidt
posted by bukvich at 8:21 AM on February 20, 2016

Despite the immediate threadshitting here, there's actually some good information in the above links that go far beyond the current election. We need more algorithmic transparency in order to know how critical things in modern society, like voting machines and self-driving cars work. This includes knowing how search results are returned and how algorithms detect insider trading or adjust a loan rate based on on who your facebook friends are or what you post on social media. With Google acting as the Hillary's tech advisor, we will never see that happen.

It's quite reasonable to question how the largest information clearinghouse in the world is manipulating voters prior to the election.
posted by antonymous at 8:48 AM on February 20, 2016

part of that argument is, duh, because of couse search results are going to influence people or else they wouldn't use them

What? No, that doesn't follow at all.

(1) People Google stuff for all kinds of reasons. My hypothesis would be that the most common reason people search for stuff about candidates is to figure out what people are joking about today on Twitter, way ahead of people trying to figure out who to vote for.

(2) The number of truly undecided voters is tiny. It's usually turnout that swings elections. Are a significant number of voters prompted to get out and vote by the results of Google searches? Maybe, but it's not obviously true and seems like a really hard question to test.
posted by straight at 9:59 AM on February 20, 2016

I donno about election searches since I've mostly ignored it. I've noticed google quality decline markedly over the years however. I've largely attributed this decline to blockades desired by law enforcement, copyright holder, spy agencies, etc. because that's when it becomes most obvious.

It's likely all the SEO jerks that google fights against contribute too though, and that google fighting SEO jerks fucks the results up more, which both complicate the standard pro-transparency arguments.

We do imho need to "break up" google into non-profit autonomous somewhat open and transparent search information modules from which different companies or non-profits build more trustworthy search engines.
posted by jeffburdges at 12:30 PM on February 20, 2016

This past October, Julian Assange purported that "Google was now Hillary's secret weapon" in reference to the alleged connection between Clinton, The Groundwork, and Eric Schmidt.

Fixed link.
posted by homunculus at 8:43 PM on February 22, 2016 [1 favorite]

Detained whistle-blower Julian Assange remains hopeful he’ll be able to leave embassy; warns a Clinton presidency would bring “disaster”. Assange tells Salon that WikiLeaks has new releases in the works and talks about Sanders — and his limitations
posted by homunculus at 9:08 PM on February 22, 2016

Clinton is backed by a major technology vendor, called "The Groundwork" funded by Google Chairman Eric Schmidt.

Speaking of Schmidt: Pentagon Grabs Former Google CEO to Help Innovate the Military: ​Former Google CEO Eric Schmidt will head the Pentagon's new innovation board.

This Is Not the First Time We Hired a C-Level Businessman to Advise Our Military. Let's take it back to WWI.
posted by homunculus at 12:37 PM on March 5, 2016