Mental Malware
Nachshon Goltz, Tracey Leigh Dowdeswell, PETER A. SINGER, Yip Fai Tse · 2023
Cambridge Analytica used the data to train recommendation algorithms and promote social media content “capable of moving public opinion at scale.” Cambridge Analytica&s;s algorithms did this by micro-sorting people into groups defined by demographic, political, and psychometric characteristics. While marketing based on demographic groupings has a long history, the practice has been supercharged by the enormous amounts of data created by social media. As the Mental Malware case describes, Facebook both influence and facilitate others influencing large numbers of people. In the Mental Malware case, both Facebook and other entities that employed the platform seemed to treat Facebook&s;s users merely as means. For transparency to be ethically significant by deontological standards, then, it must be tailored to users in a way that facilitates meaningful, informed choices based on what matters to them.