Cambridge Analytica was well underway in 2013, now 10 years ago. People like to think that just because researchers find x on Twitter and y on Facebook - that that is the clearly documented cases - that the tactics and general psychology didn’t copy everywhere.
Cambridge Analytica is mostly famous for Facebook… but I don’t view their direct targeting of individuals to be the long-term damage. The long-term damage is that they legitimized psycological manipulation, falsehoods, as a form of winning audiences. The were Psychology/Psychiatry professionals who applied human history and experience towards making people believe false things. Like a rebirth of Dr. AA Brill from 1929 on a new scale. The legitimization of it without any ethical uprising…
There are people with great social skills… but they aren’t becoming leaders away from hate or exploitation of crowds. A social movement towards goodness is long overdue, but it doesn’t seem to take hold.
Christianity in USA has degraded to be almost pure anti-science and out-group hate oriented. Sure, this was there all along since 1492 when it came to Americas from Europe. But it has become notably worse since 2012, and people don’t seem alarmed that groups can be shifted that way… much like Germany in 1930.
There are no easy ways to measure these things, but there are warning signs when entire populations become motivated by hate and mocking.