Politics and Business

How This Technology Will Change Politics For The Next 20 Years

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When the scandal about Cambridge Analytica broke out, I was not surprised. As a marketer, I’ve already known how much data is being collected on people. Whether we like it or not, our technology has been able to deduce everything from what our likes are, to what we hate seeing. It only made sense that companies and politicians would eventually use it to sway people to their sides.

What I didn’t expect to see happen, though, was for Cambridge Analytica to get caught. I don’t think that Facebook expected to see its company’s “innocent” mask ripped off by the media, either. Perhaps that was our saving grace as a country, because I really do think that we needed to see how partisan companies can be when it comes to our politics.

It’s 2018. We can no longer trust most outlets to provide us with fair, balanced, and honest views of the world. We just can’t. Tech has made it possible for politicians and companies to lie to us about everything—and it’s really terrifying to think about that. If we had such a huge part of our election influenced by a corrupt group of people in 2016, what will happen in 2038? 2050?

Well, it’s up to us to figure that out.

Right now, politicians and companies are witnessing their behavior getting caught and bucked by the very target audiences that they tried to reach. Facebook, post-Cambridge, had over 50 million people delete their profiles. Many more stopped using it for anything other than a communication tool because of the scandal.

Older methods of propaganda, such as mass text messages and flying, has already been shown to be ineffective. On the other hand, “troll factories” from Russia have managed to sway peoples’ votes and even cause riots in the United States. Political shills have started to get way more insidious and way more human than ever before.

If political groups don’t get their act together, the next 20 years of tech will be very disruptive and very difficult for them.

It’s clear that we are at a turning point in civilization. It’s a turning point where we actually have to fend off the negative potential effects of tech as they happen, or watch as our world becomes a dystopia. Citizens and local individuals might just be the saving grace our democracy needs during this time.

Right now, if you ask regular people what they feel is going on in the world, they’ll tell you quite a bit. Most people are informed and actively are looking to have a political discussion—and that’s great! Some even attend clubs just to talk about politics, and many more attend rallies to see what will happen.

One group has even banded together to create a social media site devoted to nonpartisan, local political discussion called AllyUs.org. People can go there to talk about what’s bothering them and even give their own two cents about polls. Some even use the site to petition local politicians to help improve their local government. With hope, more sites like AllyUs will happen.

Check out this video:

The thing is, our tech is providing a lot of smoke and mirrors for the wrong people. We need clarity, and if we can’t enforce that for the next 20 years, it won’t be pretty. I don’t know what will happen in the future, but with hope, people can take back their government with honest, human, and healthy discourse.  I believe after speaking with Ben Shahin, the Founder of Allyus.org, that this may be the technology to bring the power back to the people.

For more, go to: http://Allyus.org

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