I Laugh at the US for Voting For Trump
But then again, I could’ve voted for him too
Last year I watched a Netflix documentary titled The Great Hack.
The documentary revolves around Cambridge Analytica — a company that Trump used to fool almost every person in America and ensured that they vote for him.
The Great Hack came forward with the truth of data tracking and how our online behavior, whether it’s about liking a Facebook post or watching a YouTube video, is enough for the billion-dollar companies to use us as a feast.
If you’re not paying for the product, then you’re the product.
Even though using Social Media websites doesn’t cost us anything, it doesn’t actually come for free.
These websites know everything about you, including the things you like, the products you use, the time you wake up, and even the hotel you stayed in last night.
Companies like Facebook and Google work on the same model. They leverage this data against us every day: to sell things, to get us to vote or to stay at home, to divide or unite us according to the whims or needs of the person who pays them enough — in this case, America’s favorite Donald Trump.
How Cambridge Analytica fooled people?
If you use Facebook, you might’ve seen hundreds of games floating on the app, including Farm Ville, Ludo World, or those Horoscopic games that catches everyone’s attention.
Those kinds of games were at the forefront of the Cambridge Analytica model. Except, of course, a million things were going behind the scenes.
The company had launched some of its own games on Facebook. Whenever a user would log in and play those games, it would capture that user’s data.
This data included the pages he liked, his location, and his friends’ list, apart from many other things.
After garnering every detail they needed, their algorithm would go through that person’s profile, and with the power of technology, they would fit that person into almost 5000 ‘data points’ they had created.
These data points were the focal point of their system. It categorized people according to their relationship, political preferences, and how much they lean towards nationalism, to name a few.
With net worth as much as $250 million, it was easy for Trump to work with the company and leverage this data to fool people in the US.
Consider a person, Larry, who has made up his mind to vote for Democrats this year. He has liked a few of their posts and also follows the official party handle on Facebook.
One day Larry stumbled upon a Facebook game that he took an interest in. As soon as he starts playing the game, his details would automatically go to Cambridge Analytica, and their algorithm would put his profile in one of their data points.
Now the real work begins. The company would then start showing him ads that would look like they’re coming from a trusted source.
Those ads would contain something negative about Biden, or like most of the cases, a fake news related to Biden.
When Larry would see those ads enough times, it would catch his attention, and ultimately change his mind from voting for Biden.
The most stumbling thing about these ads was that no two people were shown the same ads.
According to their preferences and the things that Facebook knows about them, Cambridge Analytica would target every person in a different manner.
Needless to say, the trick worked, and Trump is sitting on the throne today.
Facebook has repeatedly constrained its efforts against false and misleading news, adopted a policy explicitly allowing politicians to lie, and even altered its news feed algorithm enough times, writes various reporters from The Washington Post.
After seeing the documentary and watching the testimony of Mark Zuckerberg, it becomes hard to say that Facebook didn’t know what Cambridge Analytica was doing on its platform.
The question is: How far will the tech companies go and hide their real motives behind the garb of a free platform?
And an even bigger question remains: Will there be another Cambridge Analytica to help Trump win the upcoming elections?
