With another general election approaching, who to vote for is on everyone’s mind. Surely you’d assume we’re exposed to every possible choice, to make the right decision? Maybe not! Recently, a program was hosted on BBC Radio 4, describing how software is currently being used to filter what we see. It collects all of an individual’s social media activity, likes, clicks, etc, and uses these to send them the content they’re most likely to gain a reaction from, whether it be good or bad…
Our activity is taken, and ran through psychometric tests to ‘estimate’ what type of person we are. Personality type, political affiliation, level of intelligence, relationship status, religious status, and so on…
It does ring a bell. How many times have we all asked a friend, “have you seen that video on Facebook?!” For them to reply, no. “How have you not seen it? It’s everywhere!” Maybe they’re not the kind of person who would like that, maybe the producers probably don’t want to waste their time and money firing out their content to a demographic that wouldn’t give much back. Is it unethical, or is it just business? After all, we know that’s how other ads work. The commercials in between Jeremy Kyle are totally different to the commercials in between Downton Abbey.
Kinda scary, but this site run by The University of Cambridge lets you find out what the marketing world would think of you, based on your social media activity. Try it out – applymagicsauce.com
We think we’ll all be taking the content that appears on our feed with a pinch of political salt from now on!