Facebook Analatica

Cambridge Analytica is or as of now “was” a British political consulting firm founded in 2013 which was constituted of data mining (examination of large pre-existing databases in order to generate new information), data brokerage (collection of personal information from consumers and consequently selling that information to other organization) and data analysis (evaluation of data with the aid of statistical and analytical tools to obtain useful information) and all of the three previous weapons were harnessed during the electoral processes. Cambridge Analytica has been involved in more than 200 elections but the most infamous involvement was in the elections of 2016. Cambridge Analytica was dispersed in London, New york city and Washington DC. Cambridge Analytica was merely a descendent of the SCL group “global election management agency”.

Cambridge Analytica

What happened ?

Briefly and concisely put, a data scientist who’s also a researcher in Cambridge University has used Facebook to collect personal data from 87 million of its users in order for Cambridge Analytica to use the data obtained in the processes of data mining, data brokerage and data analysis to target voters in the elections of 2016 to manipulate their votes and redirect them in the direction they desire. Cambridge Analytica promises to help clients in gaining the advantage over their opponents by using the three processes spoken about above in addition to behavioral psychology and adding them to their campaign arsenal.

The entities involved in Facebook/Cambridge Analytica

Before diving into the relationship, it is quite crucial to thoroughly study the involved entities in order to carefully connect the dots.

• Alexandar Nix: Cambridge Analytica’s CEO and former director of the SCL group. Nix was the one to set up an offshoot for SCL to target voters in elections.

• Steve Bannon: former vice president of Cambridge Analytica and now the White House Chief Strategist and Senior Counselor to the President was responsible for two important events. He persuaded the conservative mega-donors Robert Mercer and Rebekah Mercer to fund Cambridge Analytica and has introduced Cambridge Analytica to the Trump campaign.

• Aleksandr Kogan: the data scientist/psychology professor that developed the app that was the gateway to the collection of the personal data from Facebook users‘ profiles.

• Julian Assange: editor, publisher and activist who founded Wiki Leaks which is responsible for leaking sensitive information.

• Robert Mercer and his daughter Rebekah: the mega-donors which funded Cambridge Analytica.

The relationship between the Trump Campaign and Cambridge Analytica

The relationship between the Trump Campaign and Cambridge Analytica

Of course, Cambridge Analytica couldn’t have done it alone. Cambridge Analytica has sought help from Facebook and WikiLeaks.

• First of all, Alexander Nix has emailed Assange in order to gain access to Hilary Clinton’s emails that went missing (33,000 emails were leaked by Wiki Leaks and were subsequently permanently deleted from Clinton’s email server) in order to turn those emails into a searchable database for the Trump campaign.

• Second of all, if we were to ask ourselves how did Cambridge Analytica actually get the data of those 87 million Facebook users’ profile, there must be an intermediary between these two organizations. The intermediary is Aleksandr Kogan.

Allies of Cambridge Analytica

Surprisingly, Facebook was more to blame than Cambridge Analytica since they have allowed developers for many years to develop apps that aim at not only on the collection of information about one individual and their likes or that individual’s friends but it also allowed the collection of information on friends of friends.

That being said, Aleksandr Kogan has taken advantage that Facebook didn’t prevent the collection of the information and developed an app “thisismydigitallife” to collection the information. This app was supposed to be like the normal quiz apps on Facebook where 270,000 users had taken the quiz (allegedly with their consent after they’ve been informed it was for academic use and after also being informed that no sensitive pieces of information had been taken but they did acquire the location of each user which as we will has been used in the core process) and the tree of friends of those who took the quiz had their information collected even if they haven’t ever heard of the app. The collected information has then been sold to Cambridge Analytica to undergo several processes which have aided in the Trump Campaign.

The app which harvested the user profiles

After Cambridge Analytica has acquired the data from the quiz app “thisismydigitallife”, the next step which was the core idea behind the whole process was to map personality traits based on the users’ likes and similar information to target them with the digital ads. The real question here is how were they able to map the personality traits? Cambridge Analytica has used an algorithm which was capable of psychologically profiling from the information. The big 5 personality test which has been used by psychologists for years which scores each individual on 5 core traits which are as follows: openness (the ability of an individual to welcome new experiences), consciousness (how much of a perfectionist are you?), extraversion (do you like parties?), agreeableness (how compassionate are you towards others?) and neuroticism (do you often easily get worried or upset?). For each combination of the 5 traits, there exists a different personality type. This algorithm’s accuracy and correctness is directly proportional to the number of likes; the more the likes the more it is able to predict accurately your personality type. Our shares, likes, messages and photos all together provide a better insight of who we are!

It didn’t stop at the prediction of the personality types and rather targeted each personality type in a different manner. Hundreds of ads were posted everyday which were aimed at specific personality types tailored to what’s people’s inner most fears, needs and emotions. So let’s say there were personalities such as adventurous, executive and protective, each one has most likely seen different ads on their news feed on Facebook to grab their attention talk to their inner selves.

In addition, they’ve also made ads which have pictured Hilary Clinton as a monster to make them despise her.

How was the data dealt with?

In March 2018, Christoper Wylie, a Canadian data scientist who was a former employee at Cambridge Analytica had revealed what Cambridge Analytica was up to and how they illegally obtained the Facebook information of up to 87 million Facebook users and subsequently used it to build psychological profiles for the voters. After Wylie had revealed the truth behind this psychological conspiracy, Facebook has encountered a meltdown in its market value and it has also set governments around the world scrambling to more stringently regulate social media, data collection and political campaigning. Wylie even had taken the time and effort to write a new book called: “Mind****: Cambridge Analytica and the plot to break America” which talks about Wylie’s experience and realization of the enormous amount of data that each of us share with being completely oblivious and unaware that every little detail can and will be combined and synthesized to shape our thoughts as if each little detail is accumulated one after the other until it finally takes the shape of a weapon backfiring at us! In a way, this resembles a puppet show where we are the puppets and organizations which monitor and control how we think and act are the puppet controllers. Wylie claims that although Cambridge Analytica did indeed dissolve, but what dissolved is actually the place that holds the capabilities and not the capabilities themselves which will always be a threaten in each event that requires the diversion of people’s thoughts.

Whistle blower

1- Is it ethical to sell the profile data for users to Cambridge Analytica without the user's consent?

2- Is it ethical to exploit user data to manipulate behavior without the user's consent?

3- Is it ethical that Facebook allows developers to collect information on friends of app users without their consent?

4- Is it ethical to use the user's data for psychographic targeting ?

5- Is it ethical to use bribes and other possibly illegal tactics ?

6- Is it ethical that Facebook breached data protection laws by failing to keep user's personal information secure ?

7- Is it ethical to use the users data to influence on election without the user's consent ?

8- Is it ethical that Donald Trump wasn't arrested ,and he is continuing his presidency until now ?

Moral Questions

- If we were to imagine that the network which is constituted of Cambridge Analytica, Facebook and the Trump campaign is non-existent which means that Facebook in the first place didn’t allow developers to create apps which enable them to obtain information regarding the users and their friends which in turn implies that no information has been sold to Cambridge Analytica which also implies that Cambridge Analytica aren’t able to develop an algorithm which performs psychographic targeting that manipulates voters and hence Hillary Clinton could win the elections. Also, if Hillary Clinton didn’t win, at least the elections are fair and more representative.

- In addition, if we were to imagine that the network mentioned previously was not disclosed by the whistleblower Christopher Wylie, people will be unaware to the fact that they have undergone a series of manipulation starting from the app developed and finishing up with the advertisements that were created to drift the electoral process in the direction of interest. It’s noteworthy to also mention that if Wylie hadn’t blown the whistle then people will also be unaware from the fact that quiz apps do actually collect data for mysterious and unknown purposes.

-1984, George Orwell is a book which predicts how the government will control our thinking in every aspect and henceforth in a way, it is possible that this network would’ve had the ability to control the flow of thoughts by taking advantage of people’s personality traits which affects their thinking in a harmful way. It is then possible that we divert from who we really are under the control of such networks.

Different possible courses other than what really happened

Moral Reasoning

-In the first alternate course of action, it’s morally right to not play with the electoral process so it can be pure with no manipulation and a better representative for the opinions of the people.

-In the second alternate course of action, whistle blowing is indeed an ethical dilemma but in this case it is morally right to blow the whistle since people will be aware of the truth and it will protect them from future manipulation and privacy violation.

-It is considered an utter right for a person to have the freedom to think, speak and etc. as long as it doesn’t harm anyone. It is morally wrong to try to control the direction of thinking of the people to serve a specific interest.

Our opinion

-The Facebook polices must be more strict, by not allowing any developers to create an application that takes personal information without giving a clear reason for what the information will be used , and also clear to the users that there information will be used and for what

-The whistle-blowing is an ethical dilemma, but in the situation of Facebook-Cambridge Analytica we agree with the whistle-blower, because every thing that happened is unethical , and without users knowing.

- We are with Cambridge Anlytica, when they used the data in a psychology way , but when they works for public good, and with people and users knowing.