Once upon a time I worked at a Video host for news and other content publishing companies. They track (and in many cases decide) what you watch as you jump from site to site.
They know exactly what kind of people (personality trait wise) will keep clicking the next vid recommended. They actively seek out these personality trait combos and hit them with the right vids. And then ads.
It's very sophisticated because their player is embedded on so many sites spanning so much different type of content that profiling people becomes almost automatic. And also hooked into all the ad networks which have their own profiling data. The only reason we haven't reached mind control abilities yet is Psychology/Neuroscience as fields are still very young and are playing catch up - as in what do you do after you identify an addict, a sociopath, a psychopath? It's easier to identify (and trigger certain behaviors) than it is known what should be done, that is in the interest of the individual and society in all cases.
Its much more clear what benefits the corporation. "Keep showing the person with issues stuff because hey its free revenue"
For example, they know triggering/negative content energizes people more than positive content. And the most "energized" people will keep producing more content to feed into the machine that keeps the addicts coming back. So the system automatically has a selection bias for certain content producers and content types.
In many cases, in different parts of the world, what can be done even after you identify bad actors/people with issues etc is limited because capacity to do it doesn't exist. There are more cops per 100K people than there are shrinks by a large factor. So the response of society to negative content that triggers misguided behavior is almost always Violence or some form of taking away peoples rights.
Monetization also sets up this game, where if you (content producer/advertiser/distributor etc) don't cash in on a money making pattern some one else will. So lots of people in the ecosystem get trapped there and don't see ways out.
But as the public begins to realize the consequences of all this targeting/profiling, on kids, on the workforce, on consumers, on the defense establishment, on politics, on journalism etc liability questions are snowballing.
They know exactly what kind of people (personality trait wise) will keep clicking the next vid recommended. They actively seek out these personality trait combos and hit them with the right vids. And then ads.
It's very sophisticated because their player is embedded on so many sites spanning so much different type of content that profiling people becomes almost automatic. And also hooked into all the ad networks which have their own profiling data. The only reason we haven't reached mind control abilities yet is Psychology/Neuroscience as fields are still very young and are playing catch up - as in what do you do after you identify an addict, a sociopath, a psychopath? It's easier to identify (and trigger certain behaviors) than it is known what should be done, that is in the interest of the individual and society in all cases.
Its much more clear what benefits the corporation. "Keep showing the person with issues stuff because hey its free revenue"
For example, they know triggering/negative content energizes people more than positive content. And the most "energized" people will keep producing more content to feed into the machine that keeps the addicts coming back. So the system automatically has a selection bias for certain content producers and content types.
In many cases, in different parts of the world, what can be done even after you identify bad actors/people with issues etc is limited because capacity to do it doesn't exist. There are more cops per 100K people than there are shrinks by a large factor. So the response of society to negative content that triggers misguided behavior is almost always Violence or some form of taking away peoples rights.
Monetization also sets up this game, where if you (content producer/advertiser/distributor etc) don't cash in on a money making pattern some one else will. So lots of people in the ecosystem get trapped there and don't see ways out.
But as the public begins to realize the consequences of all this targeting/profiling, on kids, on the workforce, on consumers, on the defense establishment, on politics, on journalism etc liability questions are snowballing.