> if 60 second short videos were ideologically useful
A single 60 second video is not materially useful. But steady repetitive exposure to the same or similar messaging videos, is the foundation of TV advertising. There is likely some useful weaponization in there somewhere when the videos can be made without the assistance of a Madison Avenue crew and contract, and the consumers are pecking at the screen for more videos for long stretches of time like a pigeon in a psychology experiment.
Someone is going to try something to achieve controlled/directed opinion shaping with that kind of mass population behavior in a relatively regulation-free context compared to conventional centralized media. It has to be too tempting a centralized target to leave alone. Opinion shaping in these channels already is being attempted commercially. I'd like to hear from domain experts whether the metrics bear out such efforts actually work in the commercial sector, and if other domain experts in politics and defense think such experience warrants those sectors dabbling in making their own attempts.
What you’re describing is exactly what’s going on. Cambridge Analytics was the smoking gun. That unraveled what sophistication of technology is being used to mine the internet and control sentiment.
A single 60 second video is not materially useful. But steady repetitive exposure to the same or similar messaging videos, is the foundation of TV advertising. There is likely some useful weaponization in there somewhere when the videos can be made without the assistance of a Madison Avenue crew and contract, and the consumers are pecking at the screen for more videos for long stretches of time like a pigeon in a psychology experiment.
Someone is going to try something to achieve controlled/directed opinion shaping with that kind of mass population behavior in a relatively regulation-free context compared to conventional centralized media. It has to be too tempting a centralized target to leave alone. Opinion shaping in these channels already is being attempted commercially. I'd like to hear from domain experts whether the metrics bear out such efforts actually work in the commercial sector, and if other domain experts in politics and defense think such experience warrants those sectors dabbling in making their own attempts.