Cambridge Analytica: Compromising Democracy On A Global Scale

After the Netflix documentary “The Great Hack” (Amer and Noujaim, 2019) was released earlier this year, I was prompted to learn more about how a British based analytics company could influence, and ultimately make a mockery of, the state of democracy around the globe, over the last 25 years. It has been well documented by whistleblowers and journalists that what SCL/CA did as their business model was a form of digital neo-colonialism and exploited political dynamics without fully understanding their consequences (Canton, 2018). They often helped their clients (who can afford their services) manipulate the public with psychographic and behavioural research and targeting, using multiple forms of media, Big Data, and multiple digital technologies to pull it off (González, 2017). Most notably, Cambridge Analytica had a hand in both the Brexit campaign in the UK and Trump’s 2016 presidential campaign, two politically nationalist campaigns coming out on top and polarising the population as the rest of the world watched in awe (Cadwalladr, 2017).

The inception of this project came from an image that Quartz used in their article “Mapped: The breathtaking global reach of Cambridge Analytica’s parent company” (Ghoshal, 2019), visually demonstrating just how vast CA & SCL’s reach was and how intertwined they were with global democratic processes. However, for my project, I wanted to showcase something a little more interactive and detailed, then compiled them for a light take on some pretty unnerving activities. Using an easy to navigate power-point (acting as a website beta of sorts), I’ve created (visually overwhelming) summaries of for the countries displayed on the map just what Cambridge Analytica/SCL did, where, and when they did it, which you can reach by clicking a country on the map.

Although the experience of making this interactive map has been gruelling to wade through sources from multiple languages and countries of origins to receive the information I needed, it was extremely gratifying but horrifying to be more informed and be able to inform others, on how data (personal and gross) has been used to influence democratic processes around the world (Ghoshal, 2019). I believe there is a multifaceted learning utility for my project as it provides important information on how countries were both harmed and helped (from a Western perspective) by the involvement of SCL/CA and this information can be used to potentially help prevent the mass manipulation happening in future.

If I were to manage a project like this again, I would like to do it in an actual functioning website format so that I could link my sources in the project itself and have the freedom to embed audiovisuals to enhance the user experience. I would also like to include countries that were left off of the map that Quartz used such as the impacted Caribbean countries and Mauritius (Ghoshal, 2019).

However, I believe I’ve utilised my chosen medium well and the learning experience was overall beneficial to become more aware and invested in the knowledge of clandestine political operations, even though the overall process was emotionally taxing.

 

DOWNLOAD MAP HERE:

CA Interactive Map


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Tamkutė, K. (2019). Didysis „nulaužimas“: „Netflix“ juostoje apie „Cambridge Analytica“ ­­– dėmesys Lietuvai. [online] alfa.lt. Available at: https://www.alfa.lt/straipsnis/50398409/didysis-nulauzimas-netflix-juostoje-apie-cambridge-analytica-demesys-lietuvai [Accessed 27 Oct. 2019].

Tan, L. (2018). Duterte denies campaign deals with Cambridge Analytica. [online] cnn. Available at: https://cnnphilippines.com/news/2018/04/13/Duterte-2016-election-Cambridge-Analytica.html [Accessed 26 Oct. 2019].

Tatham, S. (2015). IOTA Global assists NATO COE in training Moldova Government in Strategic Communication. [online] Linkedin.com. Available at: https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/iota-global-assists-nato-coe-training-moldova-steve-tatham-ph-d- [Accessed 29 Oct. 2019].

Tatham, S. (2015). TARGET AUDIENCE ANALYSIS. [ebook] Three Swords Magazine, pp.50-53. Available at: http://www.jwc.nato.int/images/stories/threeswords/TAA.pdf [Accessed 29 Oct. 2019].

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@intersectional_future: An Instagram Experiment

Over the semester I have been developing an Instagram dedicated to people that are shaping a better future for generations to come while overcoming intersecting forms of oppression that have systematically been put in place. As I constructed this Digital Artefact, I made sure that I would exclusively post achieved women or gender non-conforming people of colour and address why their increasingly visible presence and representation is important for our future society. As I stated in my pitch, many different forms of oppression such as racism, sexism, ableism and queerphobia can intersect and therefore the journey to success is just that much more difficult for those identifying with intersecting marginalised groups (Carastathis 2014).

This project is a visual representation that addresses an imagined future with the basis of the need for increased representation of women inflicted with multiple forms of oppression in politics, sport, media, academia, STEM and in everyday workplace or social settings. Although there is observed evidence of increased representation within media and politics, it is nowhere near sufficient as long as the systems of oppression are still very much present (Tasevski 2018). My project, “@intersectional_future”, imagines a future where the people I have highlighted would be at the forefront of representation in all communities and their success would no longer be extraordinary as the systems of oppression would cease to exist. This is especially important within politics as in Australia, a country which prides itself on multiculturalism only 5% of senior leaders are of non-European and Indigenous background despite making up approximately 24% of the population and even less are women, LGBTQIA+, or disabled (Cave 2018). These are voices that deserve to be heard, seen and represented however at this point in time, it is lacking quite severely.

Over the semester, I have curated pictures of different people from around the globe not only finding success but also paving the way for the groups they represent. I have also received helpful feedback from my peers on how I can improve one of my biggest issues which was irregular posting. Before presenting my Beta, I would post twice in a week and then not post for multiple weeks due to poor organisational issues and unforeseen circumstances that prevented me from posting regularly at the detriment of the project. However, after receiving some feedback I have found that setting reminders have helped me to keep those posts on my radar at least weekly. I am disappointed that I wasn’t as dedicated to this DA as I originally hoped to be as there are still more people I would love to post about, however I’m glad that the format of the DA allows me to continue building this project for years to come. Overall, I have enjoyed making these posts and educating those interested about the importance of intersectional feminism and representation, and a user-centric medium like Instagram has made it possible to deliver content to the masses recognising actions and voices that are consistently forgotten about in the conversation.

 


References

Carastathis, A. (2014). The Concept of Intersectionality in Feminist Theory. Philosophy Compass, 9(5), pp.304-314.

Cave, D. (2018). In a Proudly Diverse Australia, White People Still Run Almost Everything. [online] Nytimes.com. Available at: https://www.nytimes.com/2018/04/10/world/australia/study-diversity-multicultural.html [Accessed 7 Jun. 2019].

Tasevski, O. (2018). Australia’s Parliament looks nothing like its community. A quota would help fix it. [online] ABC News. Available at: https://www.abc.net.au/news/2018-03-16/ethnic-diversity-quotas-multicultural-australian-parliament/9538954 [Accessed 7 Jun. 2019].

Commenting On My Comments – Deux

Catching you up from my last commenting reflection post, I was assigned another three digital artefacts to relay my renowned wisdom and feedback unto and theirs unto me. Each project was fairly clear as now they were in the Beta stage and thus more developed than the pitches. This means that for each comment I made I outline the traits of the project I found interesting and if there were any topics or information that related to their project they might find useful.

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Felicia’s project explored the the future of A.I.  in journalism through interviews and gaining opinions on the subject. In this comment, I thought it might be helpful to investigate the ethical concerns of A.I. in journalism. I gave a link to an ethical checklist for robot journalism discussing… and a link to a paper that discusses the ethics behind the person creating the algorithms for automated news.

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Georgia’s project focuses on the physical and psychological effects of image manipulation. This project although a good idea, lacked any diversity and so far has not shown how image manipulation and beauty standards are oppressive towards minorities in western society. Therefore I gave a couple of links that discussed issues with photo augmentation through filters used on media such as snapchat. One article the the problematic nature of gender swapping through a filter while transgender and gender non-conforming people are very much criticised and ostracised for this behaviour. Another discusses the issue of skin lightening through snapchat filters that are supposed to nix your features of “flaws” which is highly problematic given dark skin is definitely not a flaw.

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Phillip presented an interesting project that he utilised well for developing his profession within the music industry. He chose to develop his Instagram accounts while studying how there is a possibility for change in focus for Instagram onto aesthetics rather than likes in future. I suggested to perhaps looking into cross promotion as he was looking into gaining a wider reach for his record label. Therefore I gave a couple of links on social media marketing that hopefully would be useful for his project.

Again this exercise has been useful to develop my own project as well as hopefully helping with my peers’ projects. The feedback on my project outside of this class has been quite minimal so this exercise has been quite informative as I have again gained more insightful feedback for the final developments on my project. I felt that this time the feedback would be more helpful if I gave suggestions on how to develop rather than concentrate on any appraisals or criticisms I had on the project or the Beta delivery. Overall, again this has been quite a valuable experience and I’ve found this exercise very helpful in developing my skills. I hope that my input helped my peers in finalising their digital artefacts and perhaps giving them a suggestion or resource that they haven’t previously thought of before.