Midterm Examination

The Data
Midterm Examination
The Data

CASE STUDY
The Power of Big Data: A Case of Cambridge Analytica and The 2016 US and Philippine
Elections

Three years in the making. Seven years in “power”.

The electoral results in the United States of America was

plagued with issues of how a certain company called “Cambridge
Analytica” was able to indirectly or maybe directly influence a formal
democratic process of choosing a person to lead the country.
But just like a thief in the night, the parent company of this so-
called Cambridge Analytica were also pulling some strings in 32
different countries including the Philippines.

How Did It All Began?

Back in 2014, a data scientist in Cambridge University
named Aleksandr Kogan was hired by Cambridge Analytica to
develop an application called “This is Your Digital Life”. This
app was able to arrange an informed consent process in
research to which several Facebook users would agree to
complete a survey for a certain amount of payment and the
guarantee that the information that will be collected will be only
for academic use.
But then, Facebook allowed this application to further
collect private information not only from those who answered the survey questions but also from the respondents’ Facebook
friends which enabled Cambridge Analytica to acquire data from millions of Facebook users worldwide.
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The Data

This massive act of data collection by Cambridge Analytica (CA) was first reported in 2015 by Harry Davies, a
journalist for The Guardian. He reported that CA was working with the US senator Ted Cruz while using the data harvested
from users of Facebook without their consent. This data breach or leak became a hotter topic in March 2018 with the sudden
appearance of a whistleblower, Christopher Wylie who was a former employee of Cambridge Analytica.
As a result of these articles and the emergence of the whistleblower, Facebook lost more than $100 billion from its
market capitalization (number of shares multiplied by market price of a share). This also made the CEO of Facebook, Mark
Zuckerberg to testify in front of the US congress.

What Were Stolen?

Numerous media agencies such as Wired, The NY Times, and The Observer reported that the data set that
Cambridge Analytica (CA) collected contained information from at least 50 million Facebook users. CA, on an interview
claimed that there were only 30 million Facebook users included in the data set. However, Facebook said that there were
approximately 87 million users whose private information were collected. Furthermore, Facebook reported that 70.6 million
users came from the United States of America followed by 1.2 million users in the Philippines.

The New York Times further reported that aside from the
users’ name, location, birthday, age, and sex. Cambridge Analytica
was also able to access the users’ newsfeeds, timelines, likes, and
even private messages. Given these collected information (simple
yet detailed enough to work on), Cambridge Analytica was able to
create psychographic profiles for each subject.
For some context, psychographic profile refers to the
supposed personality, values, opinions, attitudes, interests, and
lifestyle of a person. With this unique profiling of millions of
Facebook users, Cambridge Analytica was able to produce and
suggest specific advertisement that will persuade an individual
person in a particular location for a political event.
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The Data

To give a concrete example, this video (https://youtu.be/luGIAaAv0lw) targets people who are considered as
“neurotics”. According to the OCEAN model of personality or the Big Five Personalities, Neuroticism is defined as emotional
instability, is a tendency to experience mood swings and negative emotions such as guilt, anger, anxiety, and depression.
Highly Neurotic people are more likely to experience stress and nervousness, while those with lower Neuroticism tend to be
calmer and self-confident.
Given the case of that ad about “North Carolina Deserves Better “For Our Children”” Cambridge Analytica claimed
that it was effective for 34% who were considered as neurotic and those who think that their primary issue is “national security”.
The ad further agitated the “neurotic” voters by showing them clips of violence overseas alongside with a child who was
waving the flag of America.

Data (Mis)use
When academics gather or collect data, protocols are strictly followed such as sending out written approval of consent
and a non-disclosure agreement from the companies or the individuals. Alongside with this, academics also include a part in
their study about the ethical considerations that they undertook to make sure that the paper that they are going to publish is
free from any bias and data misuse. However, it was rather the exact opposite for the case of Cambridge Analytica. Data
were improperly harvested and then was used outside of the academic realm.

Case of 2016 US Elections

Though Cambridge Analytica is not alone in misusing these data. American politician such as Ted Cruz hired
Cambridge Analytica for $5.8 million to aid him in his presidential campaign in 2016. Similar to the other works of CA, Ted
Cruz asked the company to produce individual psychographic profiles of Facebook users to create unique advertisements
that will sway people to vote for him.
Similar to Cruz’ strategy, another presidential candidate, Donald Trump also utilized the harvested data from
Facebook to build psychographic profiles. But with a greater budget, Trump was able to use a more sophisticated profiling
methods that uses micro-targeting techniques to produce and display customized messages about Donald Trump to different
US voters on various social networking sites.
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The Data

Figure 4. Trump's Political Ads in Facebook

Source: The Guardian

To illustrate this, ads were segmented into different categories based on the political characteristics of the voter –
Trump supporters, swing voters (voters who does not
have any affiliation to any of candidates, neutrals) and
non-supporters. Those who support Trump received
unique advertisements that shows a ‘triumphant’ or
‘winning’ Trump as well as information about the
polling stations. On the other hand, those who are
considered as swing voters and non-supporters
based on the algorithm, they received advertisements Figure 5. Number of Interactions on Trump's ads

of notable people and icons that endorse and support

Trump as well as negative ideas, graphics, and information about his opponents, particularly Hillary Clinton.
Furthermore, Facebook was literally bombarded with ads containing Trump’s campaign since he spent around $19 million on
Facebook ads ALONE enabling him to produce 218,100 unique ads in the said platform. This utilization of misused data may
be considered as one of the factors that Trump won the 2016 US elections.
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The Data

Case of 2016 Philippine Elections

A year before the elections in the Philippines, the presence of
Cambridge Analytica also dawned in the Philippines through its mother
company – Strategic Communications Laboratories (SCL). Alexander Nix who
is the CEO of Cambridge Analytica and the former director of SCL went to
Manila in 2015 to conduct a ‘research’ and to give a talk to National Press Club
of the Philippines about the usage of data and modern technology to aid
political campaigns and the electoral process. In Nix’s talk, he uttered the same
lines that talk about "new strategies and tactics that are products of behavioral
microtargeting, psychographic profiling, predictive analytics, and many other
modern tools." Similar to what was implemented in the US elections during that
time.

In 2013, three years before the 2016 elections, the Strategic Communications Laboratories (SCL) released a brochure
stating that the company was in the process of rebranding “an incumbent candidate” in the Philippines into a “strong, no-
nonsense man of action” and has the “qualities such as toughness and decisiveness” through the use of “crosscutting issue
of crime.” Furthermore, SCL have stated that this certain client that they were serving was a probable candidate for a national
position.
Further beefing up this description, this was the statement that SCL placed in their website before it was removed.
“In the run up to national elections the incumbent client was widely perceived as both kind and honorable, qualities his
campaign team thought were potentially election-winning. But SCL’s research showed that many groups within the electorate
were more likely to be swayed by qualities such as toughness and decisiveness. SCL used the crosscutting issue of crime to
rebrand the client as a strong, no-nonsense man of action, who would appeal to the true values of the voters.”
Though the brochure did not drop any names, some thought this candidate that they were referring to is the current
president of the Republic of the Philippines. However, it should be taken into account that in 2013, the national election that
was taking place in the Philippines were the senatorial and congressional elections. It was three years after the publication of
the said brochure, Rodrigo Duterte became the president. According to The New Yorker, a US-based magazine, clients of
SCL has to spend around 10.4 million Philippine Peso for its consultancy works while the price for a market campaign could
cost around 104 million Philippine Peso.
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The Data

Implications
With this huge scandal concerning over the misuse of data as well as violation of data privacy, there were many
organizations -– private and public that demanded explanations and filed litigations over what happened.
On a CNN interview in 2018, Zuckerberg apologized because of what happened. In this interview, he called the
situation as a “mistake” and a “breach of trust”. However, some officials of Facebook did not agree with the concept of “breach”
since those who took the “This is Your Digital Life” gave their consent to give away their information.
In line with this issue, different governments also demanded Cambridge Analytica to report how did they use the data
that they have gathered. UK’s Information Commissioner’s Office also fined Facebook for £500,000 since Facebook was not
able to safeguard the people’s information resulting to a data breach. The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) also fined
Facebook around $5 billion to settle the investigation of the issue. The National Privacy Commission (NPC) in the Philippines
also launched an investigation into Facebook to determine whether there is an unauthorized processing of personal data of
Filipinos.
This scandal also lead to Alexander Nix’s suspension in Cambridge Analytica (ultimately the closure of the said
company) since the emergence of recordings wherein he boasted that his data company played a huge role in Trump’s 2016
campaign as well as influencing the elections in a Southeast Asian country.

Case Discussion and Analysis of Situation

1. Given the circumstances shown in the case study, how can you explain the possibility that data can persuade people?
2. As a digital native who spends between four to six hours a day online, what strategies can you suggest in order to
handle responsibly the huge amount of data that we receive a day.
3. If you were in the position of Mark Zuckerberg, how are you going to manage this massive issue?
4. It was said that Alexander Nix was offered copious amount of money to develop the software algorithm. He also knew
that it will be used to influence the electoral process. Some of his colleagues told him to reject the offer but he still
accepted the offer. Given this situation, what can you say about Nix’s actions?
5. What are the other things that you can say regarding the case study that you have read?
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The Data

Guidelines and Outline

Format: Font size 12, 1.5 Spacing, 1” margins, maximum of 5 pages only (including text and graphical representation of
data; excluding references and citations), PDF File

Outline for the Case Analysis

1. Problem Statement (usually one to two brief paragraphs of how you want to approach the case study)
2. Analysis of the Situation (This section is where most of the questions under the heading Case Discussion are
answered. Do not limit yourself to only answering those questions raised by the case, you may add other insights
and analysis.)
3. Conclusions and Recommendations

Submission
1. The deadline for the submission is on September 17, 2021 (Friday) until 8:00 PM
2. Submit the case online via Canvas