Russia Used Mind Control to Influence Voters in 2016 Election
Russia successfully used mind control to effect voters in the 2016 US election. Now that may sound hyperbolic but it is closer to the truth than you may think. It has been recently reported that Russian operatives bought online ads using the ad buying platforms of Facebook and Google, as well as creating fake accounts via Twitter to influence voter opinion of election candidates and divide the electorate.
“Ads aren’t mind control.” you may be saying, “Ads never work on me!” you may be arguing. Well thats what you think and stop talking to your computer. Advertising is a very powerful tool, if it wasn’t then companies wouldn’t be spending billions of dollars a year on it, and Google wouldn’t be printing money.
There is a reason that when we think soda we think “Coke” or “Pepsi”, or when we think about car insurance we think of “Geico”, or even when we think of a pickup truck we think “Ford”. Advertising works wether we like to admit it or not. Not only does it work but in a lot of cases advertisers know exactly how well it works and exactly who it works on by measuring your actions on and off the web and tying them back to specific advertisements.
With today’s technology a company can show you an ad and know if it caused you to go into a store and buy the very thing they advertised to you. They are essentially controlling mind and body. Advertisers knew this as far back as 1903. In article from a January 1904 issue of The Atlantic the author mentions a speaker at a conference on the psychology of advertising saying:
“As advertisers, all your efforts have been to produce certain effects on the minds of possible customers.”
It is no secret that advertisers want to influence our minds and have for decades.
When it comes to choosing Geico, drinking a Pepsi, or buying a Ford advertising is fairly harmless. Sure advertisers may be controlling your mind and body but who cares, Pepsi tastes good. Doesn’t it? Or do we think that because of the ads? Is Pepsi garbage? Why have I never noticed? Is there a such thing as free will? What is life?? Sorry but I digress. My point is that advertisers end goal of getting you to buy something is not a big deal. But what if someone used these same advertising tools to convince you of something that isn’t true? To change your opinions of a race of people?
This is essentially what the Russians did. They created ads to spread disinformation that divides our electorate and targeted these ads to audiences more susceptible to the divisive message in order to influence voters in the ballot box and cause chaos in the US election cycle.
While we do not know the details of the ads that were created, since the tech companies will not release them, one congressman who does offered some hints. Here is Rep. Schiff on the nature of these ads.
“I think the American people should see a representative sample of these ads to see how cynical the Russians were using these ads to sow division within our society,”
Advertising is a very powerful tool. It is nothing new that it is used to influence voters opinions on politics (why do you think politicians need to raise so much money?). It is also not news that Russians want to influence the opinion of US voters and create chaos within our country. What is news is the strategic way in which the Russians used the advanced marketing tools created by American companies to influence the minds of voters.
As far as I can remember the US has been fighting wars. The one kind of war we have never been good at is a War of Ideas. In this case Russia is one of the opponents and not only did they win a war of ideas but we created the tools they used to win it. The Russians have shown they are effective social marketers, and instead of promoting their latest vodka startup on Facebook so they can get enough sales to land a deal with Mark Cuban on Shark Tank, they promoted hate and racism to help Americans elect the worst president in US history. While we may not know exactly how effective these ads were, if the goal was to “sow division within our society” I think the current state of affairs proves those ads very effective.
