The first big psychological study of Brexit voters has found that people who voted Leave in the 2016 UK referendum share many personality traits with Trump supporters in the US, and supporters of far-right political parties in Europe. In particular, they were far more likely to have an “authoritarian” personality

In September, 2016, Alexander Nix, the C.E.O. of Cambridge Analytica, the data and messaging company that was working at the time with Donald Trump’s supposedly flagging Presidential campaign, explained his firm’s work like this: “If you know the personality of the people you’re targeting, you can nuance your messaging to resonate more effectively with those key audience groups.”

Building psychographic profiles of individual voters based on their lifestyles and preferences could be hugely powerful, thinks Chris Sumner, research director at the Online Privacy Foundation.

“It is a huge problem,” he told the BBC.

“The power of emotional advertising is well-known and drives a lot of decisions but right now there is less regulation on online political campaigns than on a marketing campaign for toothpaste.”.

Facebook ‘dark ads’ (a political advert tailored to a specific personality type that only that individual can see) have the power to swing political opinions, according to a new study. Given their effectiveness, and the availability of data that fuels them, dark ads aren’t going anywhere.

Research conducted by the Online Privacy Foundation revealed that targeting specific personality types, with bespoke political adverts that play on particular concerns, can have a very real impact on the individual on the receiving end.

‘Dark ads’ based on publicly available interests on Facebook can be used to sway political opinions in an almost undiscoverable manner, a new study suggests.

The research presented at the Def Con hacking conference in Las Vegas, from the Online Privacy Foundation, used psychographic profiles of individual voters gathered from their publicly stated interests to hone messages to appeal to certain personality types, the Guardian reported.

Ads targeted using profiles generated from individual voters’ stated interests are more successful in shifting attitudes according to Online Privacy Foundation

Using “psychographic” profiles of individual voters generated from publicly stated interests really does work, according to new research presented at the Def Con hacking conference in Las Vegas, Nevada.

Could Facebook really tip the balance in an election? Over the past year firms like AggregateIQ and Cambridge Analytica have been credited with using AI-targeted ads on social media to help swing the Brexit referendum and the US presidential election respectively. But a lack of evidence meant we have never known whether the technology exists to make this possible.

Now the first study detailing the process from start to finish is finally shedding some light. “This is the first time that I’ve seen all the dots connected,” says Joanna Bryson, an artificial intelligence researcher at the University of Bath, UK.

The Online Privacy Foundation found Leave voters were significantly more likely to be authoritarian and conscientious.

Before referendum day, I said the winners would be those who told the most convincing lies,” Paul Flynn, a Labour MP, wrote in these pages. “Leave did.” The idea that those who voted for Brexit were somehow manipulated is widely accepted by the Remain camp. The Leave campaign, so the argument goes, played on voters’ fears and exploited their low numeracy. And new research from the Online Privacy Foundation suggests this argument may, in part at least, be right.

New research shows EU Referendum voters are also deeply divided along the same lines over “Nothing to hide, Nothing to fear” privacy argument.

Research by the Online Privacy Foundation shows that UK citizens who voted in favour of Leaving the EU were significantly more likely than their Remain-voting counterparts to agree with the statement “With regards to Internet privacy, if you’ve done nothing wrong, you’ve got nothing to fear.”

If a seemingly sweet old lady named Sybil tweeted at you asking which super powers you wish you had, would you answer her? If you would, you might the kind of person who could be tricked into bantering with a Twitter bot — i.e., a social networking account powered by artificial intelligence.

“There’s lots of research about detecting Twitter bots,” says Chris Sumner of the Online Privacy Foundation. (E.g.) “But not of the kind of people likely to interact with them.”

Researchers behind a July 2012 report on the relationship between Twitter usage and psychopathy have been quick to distance themselves from the media’s swift refocusing of the report’s findings. Chris Sumner and Randall Wald gave a talk at DEF CON 20 titled, “Can Twitter Help Expose Psychopathic Killer’s Traits?” Despite sober findings, the press was quick to glamorize the story.

DES MOINES | All of Iowa’s more than 5,600 registered sex offenders could soon have their mug shots digitized and saved to a database that law enforcement officials could match to photos from an array of other sources, such as security cameras and Facebook, with a few mouse clicks.

An ever-growing number of users share their thoughts and experiences using Twitter, and even though Twitter posts contain a small amount of content to convey significant information these messages can be combined to build a larger picture of the user posting them.

The meaning of privacy does not change from one day to the other, and should actually never change. However, it looks like that nowadays people forgot what privacy is or simply does not care anymore, mainly on the online world.

If you’re not on Twitter, though, your risk of having your vivisected body dissolved in a bathtub full of lime in Hell’s Kitchen is also dramatically reduced.

Xavier Conort is a French-born actuary who runs a consultancy in Singapore. When he’s not assessing risk as part of his day job, he’s competing in global, online contests. It’s not poker or gaming, but still a sport of aggressive mental display: creating algorithms that could predict whether you or I will default on a loan, like a song or make a health insurance claim.

These contests are run by Kaggle, a platform for companies and organizations who offer cash prizes for predictive models.

There are probably a few people on your Twitter feed or Facebook friends list that you consider “crazy,” and a new study by says you might be right.

Think you’re playing safe with your tweets? Think again.

Using foul language in your tweets indicates you are a psychopath, a new study shows.

You can use Twitter postings to spot whether someone is a psychopath, especially if he frequently uses words such as ‘die’, ‘kill’ and ‘bury’, a new research has claimed.

Scientists believe that using words like “die” and “bury” on Twitter indicate that you might have very difficult tendencies.

Your tweets can reveal whether you are a psychopath, with the frequent use of words such as ‘die’, ‘kill’ and ‘bury’ among the key warning signs.

Your Twitter postings may reveal not only your hobbies, politics and celebrity obsessions, but also whether you are a psychopath, according to researchers at Florida Atlantic University.

The coverage of the recently finished Online Privacy Foundation Psychopathy Prediction based on Twitter Usage challenge has made me start to wonder: Is data science scary?

On Sunday, Defcon 20 had a talk that I had previously written about on the idea of using statistical analysis of word use to determine psychopathy in individuals online.

Wäre James Homes auf Twitter aktiv gewesen, hätte die Tragödie in Aurora angeblich verhindert werden können. Führt der Kurznachrichtendienst auf die Spur von Psychopathen?

A paper and talk being given at Defcon 20 this week has gotten people all worked in in a lather within the news arena and has piqued my interest. The talk centers around the premise that one may be able to determine psychopathic traits (psychopathic and sociopathic behaviors) from of all things, the analysis of tweets.

Psychisch gestörte Menschen leben in ihrer ganz eigenen Welt, zu der andere kaum Zugang haben. Und nicht jedem merkt man sofort an, dass mit ihm etwas „nicht stimmt“.

Can you spot a psychopath just by his tweets?

That’s the question a team of researchers have honed in on this year, as part of a larger project analyzing what the posts of nearly 3,000 Twitter users revealed about their personalities.

It happens every year before DefCon: All the big media outlets latch on to one of the upcoming talks with headlines that read like the preview to a blow-’em-up summer movie. In one such case this year, the presenters delivering the talk are calling out the media — Fox News, especially — for making FUD of their findings.

Social media can reveal much about an individual’s personality but now researchers believe they may be able to spot psychopaths on Twitter.

A multi-disciplinary team of researchers has been studying whether it’s possible to detect psychopathy in people’s tweets.

Researchers presenting at Defcon next week have developed a psychopathy prediction model for Twitter. It analyzes linguistic tells to rate users’ levels of narcissism, machiavellianism and other similarities to Patrick Bateman.

People’s nasty traits have a way of revealing themselves on social networks: in writing. Or rather in how they write.

The accidental psychological foibles of celebrities and colleagues are entertaining by-products of social media. Now a new study aims to nail a link between various psychopathic behaviours and tweeting.

Big problems could be ahead if we rely on conclusions drawn from individuals’ social-networking data.

From Facebook to pins and passwords, invading our lives couldn’t be easier, finds Neil Tweedie.

Chris Sumner, 39, from Chineham, is conducting the first survey of its kind in a bid to find out how a person’s personality is revealed through their online activities.

As I sit writing this, I am feeling vaguely grubby — guilty even — in the way a neurotic husband might after hiring a gumshoe to go trawling through his wife’s secrets.
There is a 15-page report in front of me chronicling virtually every aspect of my girlfriend’s life: past and present.