Digital dieting
Recent and upcoming elections have revealed an interesting, and disturbing trend. The creation not just of "fake news", but highly targeted fake news. Using data scraped from social media, and elsewhere, what arrives in out inbox or social media accounts is more and more tailored and targeted. A form in many ways of virtual reality.
Of course, it's not just elections. It is happening in all realms. On the benign side, curated, filtered information is a boon when it comes from those we trust, and have given permission to do this for us. On the dark side, it gives those with the capabilities of shaping our perception of the world to suit their agenda.
We are hosed down with information, of varying quality and as our attention is increasingly consumed, we have become "solution junkies" looking for fast, easy, proven, safe answers to the challenges consuming our attention. We end up chasing our tails, reacting to assertions and views that have sometimes been designed to achieve that.
Let's c…
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