In the 21st century, ‘big data’ is everything. For the collectors of the date, our interests, habits, and movements are merely combinations of binary. No one can completely avoid these information hoarders, but there are a few who have the resources and tools exploit this information for themselves. They understand big data and know how to use it to pursue their own agendas. The political sphere, in particular, is filled with these individuals. In the United States, and many other democratic countries, politicians have increasingly begun to use voter data to help them influence the electorate. Electoral databases have allowed parties to create voter profiles, which help the parties focus their attention on only the most valuable voters. Consequentially, elections have increasingly been decided by the success of one party to win the support of a tiny segment of the population. This is not a particular new practice, but the injection of big data has greatly exacerbated the issue. Without new regulations and increased public awareness, big data collection has the potential to critically weaken our democratic foundations.
In 2016, the Trump campaign successfully utilized political microtargeting, especially on social media, to provide targeted ads and news to vulnerable populations. The campaign used “digital targeting to conduct “major voter suppression operations,” according to a report in Bloomberg, focusing on African-Americans, young women and white liberals — with tools including an onslaught of so-called “dark posts” on Facebook.” (Chester, 4). While there has always been voting suppression in U.S elections of marginalized populations, that suppression now exists in people’s pockets, not just the voting booth.
Private data collection services like Cambridge Analytica brought issues with social media targeting to prominence during this election cycle. Decisions of where in the nation to allocate resources used to be political guessing games, but with services like Anlytica’s, they became probabilities.In 2016, Cambridge Analytica “informed key decisions on campaign travel, communications and resource allocation.” Every week, the firm “collected responses from 1,500 to 2,000 people in each battleground state. It used this research and data to model scores for all voters across key states: which candidate they preferred, which were persuadable.”
While Trump’s 2016 campaign took data to a new level, electorate microtargeting is not just restricted to the GOP. In 2012, both the Obama and Romney campaigns engaged in substantial data collection, but Obama’s ultimately achieved more success. In part, this was thanks to their unusual strategy of placing ads in settings which few campaigns had ever previously seen value, including on fringe and marginal radio and tv stations and at very odd times.
Since then, improvements in data collection and prediction models have made microtargeting even more essential. This is a worrying trend. Big data collection poses numerous threats to political equality and accountability. Primarily, this is because the data suggests that only a small portion of the population is truly up for grabs, as such campaigns dedicate most of their energy and resources to trying to win over these voters. This means that voters in solidly blue or red states are often overlooked, and their voices and opinions are rarely taken into consideration.
Since politicians on both sides of the aisle benefit from these data, there is little incentive for them to address the issue. Making matters worse, private companies, like Facebook, who profit off of this information frequently contribute large sums of money to politicians of all persuasions. Setting tough restrictions on data collection would no doubt stem the flow of these donations, making much-needed restrictions even less likely to pass through congress.
Though the situation in the United States looks rather bleak, there are examples of more ethical data laws, especially those of the EU. Their stricter data laws even allow citizens to wipe away parts of their digital footprint upon request. Encouragingly, there is a good deal of evidence that there is an appetite for these sorts of laws in the U.S. If public opinion on this front can be properly utilized there is reason to hope that stricter data laws could eventually be passed. Before this can happen, however, it is essential that citizens make their voices heard and demand that their privacy be returned.