• by Gord Hotchkiss , Featured Contributor, March 23, 2021

In looking for a topic for today’s post, I thought it might be interesting to look at the Lincoln Project. My thought was that it would be an interesting case study in how to use social media effectively.

But what I found is that the Lincoln Project is currently imploding due to scandal. And you know what? I wasn’t surprised. Disappointed? Yes. Surprised? No.

While we on the left of the political spectrum may applaud what the Lincoln Project was doing, let’s make no mistake about the tactics used. It was the social media version of Nixon’s Dirty Tricks. The whole purpose was to bait Trump into engaging in a social media brawl. This was political mudslinging, as practiced by veteran warriors. The Lincoln Project was comfortable with getting down and dirty.

Effective? Yes. Ethical? Borderline.

But what it did highlight is the sordid but powerful force of social media influence. And it’s not surprising that those with questionable ethics, as some of the Lincoln Project leaders have proven to be, were attracted to it.

Social media is the single biggest and most effective influencer on human behavior ever invented. And that should scare the hell out of us, because it’s an ecosystem in which sociopaths will thrive.

A definition of Antisocial Personality Disorder (the condition from which sociopaths suffer) states, “People with ASPD may also use ‘mind games’ to control friends, family members, co-workers, and even strangers. They may also be perceived as charismatic or charming.”

All you have to do is substitute “social media” for “mind games,” and you’ll get my point.  Social media is sociopathy writ large.

That’s why we -- meaning marketers -- have to be very careful what we wish for. Since Google cracked down on personally identifiable information, following in the footsteps of Apple, there has been a great hue and cry from the ad-tech community about the unfairness of it all. Some of that hue and cry has issued forth here at MediaPost, like Ted McConnell’s post a few weeks ago, “Data Winter is Coming.”

And it is data that’s at the center of all this. Social media continually pumps personal data into the online ecosystem. And it’s this data that is the essential life force of the ecosystem. Ad tech sucks up that data as a raw resource and uses it for ad delivery across multiple channels. That’s the whole point of the personal identifiers that Apple and Google are cracking down on.

I suppose one could  draw an artificial boundary between social media and ad targeting in other channels, but that would be splitting hairs. It’s all part of the same ecosystem. Marketers want the data, no matter where it comes from, and they want it tied to an individual to make targeting their campaigns more effective.

By building and defending an ecosystem that enables sociopathic predators, we are contributing to the problem. McConnell and I are on opposite sides of the debate here. While I don’t disagree with some of his technical points about the efficacy of Google and Apple’s moves to protect privacy, there is a much bigger question here for marketers: Should we protect user privacy, even if it makes our jobs harder?

There has always been a moral ambiguity with marketers that I find troubling. To be honest, it’s why I finally left this industry. I was tired of the “yes, but” justification that ignored all the awful things that were happening for the sake of a handful of examples that showed the industry in a better light.

And let’s just be honest about this for a second: using personally identifiable data to build a more effective machine to influence people is an awful thing. Can it be used for good? Yes. Will it be? Not if the sociopaths have anything to say about it. It’s why the current rogue’s gallery of awful people are all scrambling to carve out as big a piece of the online ecosystem as they can.

Let’s look at nature as an example. In biology, a complex balance has evolved between predators and prey. If predators are too successful, they will eliminate their prey and will subsequently starve. So a self-limiting cycle emerges to keep everything in balance. But if the limits are removed on predators, the balance is lost. The predators are free to gorge themselves.

When it comes to our society, social media has removed the limits on “prey.” Right now, there is a never-ending supply.

It’s like we’re building a hen house, inviting a fox inside and then feigning surprise when the shit hits the fan. What the hell did we expect?