From Dataveillance to Datapulation : The Dark Side of Targeted Persuasive Technologies
Résumé
Online services, devices or secret services are constantly collecting data and meta-data from their users. This data collection is mostly used to target users, customized their services or monitor them. This surveillance by the data, sometimes referred to as Dataveillance, is omnipresent and generates a lot of attention [6]. However nowadays, data and technologies are not only used to monitor people, they are also used to motivate, influence or shape their opinions or decisions online. The better understanding of users' behaviors combined with the capacity of building accurate psychological profiles create the opportunities to develop techniques to influence users online, by shaping their behavior. These technologies can encourage positive norms, such as fighting terrorist or racists propaganda online, or can be used to motivate users to drive more safely or economically, to eat healthier or to exercise more 1. In this case, they are often referred to as "Persuasive technologies or profiling" by psychologists, designers or behavioral economists [11,3]. However, these "persuasive technologies" have also a dark side. They can constitute efficient and targeted informational weapons to deceive or manipulate users' opinions or behaviors maliciously, via fakes news, information disorder, psychological or media manipulation techniques [27]. We define, in the paper, the concept of Datapulation, manipulation by the data. Datapulation consists of "mediated" personalized manipulation techniques, based on information, created primarily to change the attitudes and behaviors of users, for malicious intends or intends that go against users' own interests. Datapulation can be used by commercial companies to increase profit [7,4] or by political parties to influence elections [15,8]. We argue that Datapulation can be dangerous for privacy, human rights and democracy, and deserves more attention by policy makers and researchers. The main goal of this paper is to define the concept of Datapulation, by formalizing how data can be used to manipulate our decisions. We believe this is an important step in order to address it properly.
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