Politics of Data

Computational propaganda describes the use of automatization, algorithms and big data analysis, on the context of political processes, with the aim to influence the public opinion. Since 2010 computational propaganda has become a rising phenomenon and different countries start to see this development as a vital threat to democracy. The creation of fake social media profiles, so called social bots, as well as search engine optimization, micro-targeting and micro profiling are some widely used techniques. The latter was for example heavily used by Cambridge Analytica during the US presidential campaigns of Ted Cruz and Donald Trump. During his studies at the Hochschule der Künste Bern Max Frischknecht pursues this topic and the role of the visual within. At the talk he will give an insight of his current research status.