Big-Data Firms as an Excuse for Brexit and Trump’s Win

A few days ago, this article was shared and posted multiple times on Facebook. It seemed to gain more and more attention over a very short time span. Of course, it did not take long for journals and newspapers to notice (e.g. SPEKTRUM, HORIZONT etc.) and so they reported and stated their opinion on the topics in it, such as psychological targeting and manipulation of the public for political purposes.

Said article was first published in Das Magazin and written by Mikael Krogerus und Hannes Grassegger. They explain a method which was created by the psychologist and expert in psychometrics Michael Kosinski. The original intention was to measure people’s personalities with the help of a survey, an online quiz and most controversial: Facebook-Data. Kosinski claims that his motive was purely scientific and that he always asked for permission, before his team adjusted their results from the tests with the subject’s social media account. This alone has the potential to raise suspicion and awareness for already known terms like “Big-Data” or “Data hunters” etc. I believe that nowadays most people, who are active on social media platforms know that, their data is being saved and collected for analysis and advertising purposes, but they are not aware of how much this can influence their everyday lives and even their future. Example for the latter were, according to the article, Donald Trump’s win or Brexit. The authors claim that firms (such as Cambridge Analytica) which manage elections for candidates or political programs, measured ten million Facebook profiles in order to use them to the advantage of their clients. With the help of this information those firms could, for example, specifically adjust Trump’s election campaign to groups of voters (worried fathers, undecided democrats, etc.) according to results from Kosinski’s method.

Now the question arises, why this article was shared so often and seemed to receive a lot of positive feedback? One of the more critical responses was an article from the WDR, which offered a reason for this question. Before Trump’s win and even before Brexit, the majority of the people were convinced, these exact outcomes were not going to become reality, it was considered as an impossibility, the polls and surveys supported those naïve opinions. So understandably many were shocked by the actual outcomes. Those who had not predicted them have been searching for possible reasons. As a result, when the story about Kosinski’s method and it’s exploitation by Cambridge Analytica surfaced, it was the perfect explanation. A scapegoat in form of the Big-Data firm was found and Kosinksi was given the role of the tragic victim. That was, what people wanted to hear and what made them feel vindicated.

This is just one of the excuses, which are used to explain these major political changes. They all have one thing in common- they focus on external factors and shift the blame on others. Maybe it’s time to start focusing on the social injustices, hatred and hostility within the system itself, since those are the breeding ground for figures like Donald Trump or Boris Johnson.