Boris Johnson's adviser Dominic Cummings has made it a "TOP PRIORITY" to try to collect vast amounts of user data from the govbernment's information website gov.uk, Buzzfeed News revealed last week. Users (anonymously, we're assured) will be tracked across their interactions with the site to see their behaviour patterns. Departments have been told the info is needed to aid prparations for leaving the EU, the aim being to serve "targeted and personalised information" to individuals.
Facebook's Ad Library stats already reveal that the government is spending up to £20,00 a day on ads telling the public to "Get ready for Brexit" — nearly ten times as much as the current next biggest spender, the Lib Dems. This is a massive ramp up from the average government spend of around £2,600 a month over the last year. The Conservative Party, however, is saving its pennies, spending about £500 or £600 on Facebook ads a day. Despite recent events, the ads all maintain that Brexit is definitely set to happen on 31 October, and each directs anyone wanting more information to that ripe-for-the-harvesting, gov.uk....
Actually, the same kind of messaging to 'prepare people for Brexit' comes across on televised adverts that are repeated a few times each day on the commercial tv channels, costing how much?
I am reminded of Noam Chomsky's book title, 'Manufacturing Consent: The Political Economy of the Mass Media' published in 1988, before Facebook et al. I am also reminded of the term 'operant conditioning' from behavioural psychology, and a Private Eye cartoon from Xmas 2016 about Brexit voters being like turkeys voting for Christmas.
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