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It’s important that the B.C. auditor general is reining in government TV ads that are blatantly partisan on the eve of the May 9 election.

Carol Bellringer is right that there ought to be written guidelines defining what is government advertising and what is partisan.

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Yet, an even more important issue that needs to be addressed is benignly called “nudging” and more frighteningly described as “digital paternalism.”

Both effective and potentially insidious, it’s at the confluence of politics, money and big data. It’s advertising tailored and targeted and delivered based on individual personality profiles, which are compiled using massive amounts of data scooped from anywhere including social media likes and clicks.

That data is analyzed using algorithms (a.k.a. artificial intelligence), which then selects individuals who are leaning or susceptible to a particular issue or belief. Those views are then reinforced via special messaging or ads on social media or, in some cases, even on the doorstep.