“Before the referendum results, the concern we had was that people’s biases were being manipulated, either intentionally or unintentionally,” said Chris Sumner, research director and co-founder of the not-for-profit Online Privacy Foundation, who led the research. Sumner’s research focused on replicating some of the key findings of psychographic research by crafting adverts specifically targeted at certain personality types. When randomly sorted, 38% of people agreed with the statement; but once all the psychographic signifiers were incorporated, the low authoritarian group fell to just 25% agreement, while the highly authoritarian group rose to 61%. For example, the highly authoritarian group’s anti-surveillance advert used the slogan “They fought for your freedom. Don’t give it away!”, over an image of the D-Day landings, while the low authoritarian group’s pro-surveillance message was “Crime doesn’t stop where the internet starts: say YES to state surveillance”.

Source: The Guardian July 31, 2017 09:07 UTC