Mindf*ck: Cambridge Analytica and the Plot to Break America

by Christopher Wylie

This means the data from Facebook has increasingly more ecological validity, in that it is not prompted by a researcher’s questions, which inevitably inject some kind of bias. In other words, many of the benefits of the passive qualitative observation traditionally used in anthropology or sociology could be maintained, but as many social and cultural interactions were now captured in digital data, we could add the benefits of generalizability one achieves in quantitative research. Previously, the only way one could have acquired such data would have been from your bank or phone company, which are strictly regulated to prevent access to that sort of private information. But unlike a bank or telecom company, social media operated with virtually no laws governing its access to extremely granular personal data. Although