Open Lab Night: A voters guide to the influence industry

The session will invite participants to learn more about how personal data is used to influence the opinions of voters. In the session, participants will learn about the common tools and techniques used to collect and analyse their personal data, as well as how it is applied to influence political opinions across the world such as Germany, Kenya, and India.

Through interactive exercises, the participants will be able to learn about techniques such as a/b testing, data brokers, and geo-targeting and explore the consequences and ethics of data-driven influence techniques with the other participants. The session will explore the research behind The Opinionator, which is the product of six years of investigations carried out by Tactical Tech‘s research team and international partners.

The session will mix informative presentations about influence techniques, illustrative case studies of the use of personal data in campaign across the world, and interactive exercises to explore the impact of such campaigns. This will include a chance to use the Opinion-a-tor which can be found in the Futurium Lab exhibition hall.