Yesterday I sat down to watch “The Great Hack” on Netflix. The narrative of the documentary about information warfare and privacy was not something that was new to me. But it did get me thinking about the difference between influence and manipulation, the definition of truth and who is responsible for it.

The documentary makes the statement that millions have been manipulated because Cambridge Analytica knew exactly what kind of personalities the millions had, because of their data. They concluded that personality, which is something subconscious, drives behavior. So if you feed people with the right information, you influence them subconsciously and their personality drives them to adapt their behavior. And that is a bad thing. Because in that way you can, for example, influence the outcome of a democratic process.

It made me wonder if the problem is the data, because it sounds to me like two things are getting intertwined here. The fact that our data is being used by whoever pays for it, points at our urgent need for new laws about property of personal data and privacy. But the second thing that is stated as a cause for the scandal that we now call Cambridge Analytica is the fact that people can actually be manipulated without them knowing it.

Now, isn’t it true that people always get manipulated without knowing it? If you look at a regular day of your life objectively, you probably come to the conclusion that you are being manipulated practically the whole day. The ads you see on the television, on the internet, on street signs, in magazines, walking by shops. The stuff you use day by day which makes your life easier. The people you call your family and friends feed you with their opinions. Even your own personality filters what you register and what you ignore without you being fully aware of it. Your subconscious is constantly being fed information and you are only aware of a small part of it. And even for that small part you do register as influence, you won’t always question the truth of it.

If you ask me, the fact that our data is being used is only a part of the problem. The bigger problem lies within the people themselves. It is true that it is a despicable way of manipulating crowds when you create lies  and feed them as truths. But it is not something new. People have always known how to lie. And also, what do we see as a lie?

Does it need to be proven scientifically? Not everything can be proven. When you dream about penguins and you tell someone, you can’t prove it scientifically and you are not lying.
What if you just state your opinion and for you it is your truth but for another it is proven to not be true? Religion seems to me like good example of such a case.
What if you just have a different truth. Like when people say it is healthy to eat nuts but you are allergic to nuts.
Also, is a salesman, trying to sell a car as the best buy ever, a liar?

Truth is not always black and white, there are a lot of greys in that area. If you ask me, the responsibility to filter information for falsehood, truth, opinions, advertisements lies with the individual and not with the medium that provides the information. If the medium has a responsibility to filter for absolute truth, it would never publish anything because truth is often subjective and checking it for absolute truth is a lot of work.

So what then? We just accept the manipulation of great masses because clearly we are just to lazy to think for ourselves about the origin of the information we are being fed? No, I think the lesson we are learning here is that it is important to teach people from a young age how their minds work. Teach them about sociology and psychology, let them experience the effects of subconscious manipulation and then make them aware of it. Explain to them how it works. That way you make the best effort to put an adult on the planet who is conscious enough to know when he/she is being manipulated or how to verify it when it is unclear.

And let’s not forget that manipulation and influence are not separated by a very clear line. For me it is logical that my parents influenced me with their political and religious beliefs. I am aware that many of my beliefs are there because of what they thought me. For my friend, being raised like Christian feels like he has been manipulated in to believing lies.

Maybe we should focus on how we all perceive things in stead of blaming the things we perceive wrongly?

Unfortunately things are not as simple as just fixing our perception and we will all be safe forever. The underlying issue is and always will be that everybody is different and we are very bad at accepting each other’s differences. So when someone creates a facebook event to protest for cause A. And the same person creates a facebook event to cheer for cause A, on the same day and at the same place, the fact that it will get messy is still a very logical one (sadly). The bad intensions of the creator of the events are very clear and it should be the first thing that is addressed. But the second is equally important. Why don’t we just accept that we can’t all feel the same about everything? Why do we get so mad if someone is for ‘the enemy’? Would it not be better if in stead of yelling at each other we tried to understand the perspective of the opposite view?

One of the whistleblowers of the Cambridge Analytica scandal states it as being something very important but equally dangerous. The risk of trying to understand the other side is joining the other side and eventually losing grip on your own beliefs for a while. Which is kind of scary. But to me, that is also a very valuable life lesson you can only learn by experiencing it.