Cambridge Analytica and the hysteria around it

Will you be ware next time?

No matter how intelligent, advanced or evolved humans become, we are all gullible, at some stage. More than being gullible, we as a species are extremely lazy, even when it comes to thinking. We simply do not want to think. We want that job to be done by someone else. Over the past week, an otherwise little known company, Cambridge Analytica (CA) has made headlines across the world. The company, in its marketing and promotion material has claimed to have influenced election results across the world, particularly in getting Trump elected as the president.

The CA wild fire was sure to reach India and it did earlier this week. The whistle blower, Christopher Wylie, claimed that the Congress and the JD(U) had engaged CA to carry out research during elections. Some reports claim that CA thorough its Indian arm was also helping the BJP. After the information started to come in on involvement of Indian political parties with CA and its Indian arm, news rooms have become high pressure volcanoes. Arnab Goswami is trending #CongSmokingGun and Times Now is busy with #DataChorDossier. NDTV reluctantly managed to tweet once on CA leaks in the past six hours. But what exactly are people outraging over?

Broadly there are two aspects of the CA leaks. One, data from Facebook users was illegally harvested and two, the data was used to “influence” voters. This is the case in US. In India CA has been active since 2003. This report mentions its assignments in India from 2003 to 2012.

In 2003 SCL, CA’s India arm carried out a “Psephological study and opinion poll” for a national party to identify swing voters in Madhya Pradesh. In the same year, in Rajasthan, SCL did an internal (party audit) and external survey for a political party to understand voter behaviour.

In 2007 a political party in UP got a party audit and a census of politically active individuals through in-depth interviews. In the same year SCL carried out a research communication campaign for countering Islamist radicalisation in six states.

In 2009 general elections SCL managed the campaigns of many candidates using their “proprietary data collection methodologies” for successful campaigns.

In 2010 they carried out a detailed research programme, in Bihar, targeting 75% of the households to identify caste and its corresponding message.

In 2011 and 2012 SCL carried out research to understand caste and its dynamics to leverage it during elections.

Internal party audits should be least of our worries. What we should look at is the work done by SCL outside the party offices. Primarily it falls into the category of field work. What I think happened was something like this - A kind of caste census was done by SCL to tag a house with a caste. Together with other information like household income, number of family members, etc. campaigns were structured and targeted messaging was done to relate to the voters. I do not think Facebook would have played a major role in identifying caste of people. And such data collection drives are not unique. They are routinely done by almost all major parties, across the country. Most of the data is anyway available in the Census reports.

Why don't you buy a ticket to
Krabi? Or Siem Reap?

The other area where Facebook data was used to “influence” voters in US, is of grave concern. The data of 50 million Facebook users was used to send them targeted ads and posts based on their psychological profile. Now this may seem scary, but we have all, at some point in time witnessed such an attempt. Let me give you an example. I was looking up for flights to Krabi and Siem Reap over the past two days. During my research for this article I came across the page of The Hindu and viola, there was an ad from Yatra, selling me flights to Krabi and Siem Reap. This is exactly what CA did, only the other way around. They profiled people and sent pro Trump ads/posts to swing voters or anti Trump voters. There would never be enough proof to suggest that such campaigns actually work.

Our online presence has always been monitored by the likes of Google, Yahoo, MSN, Facebook, Amazon, Flipkart, Makemytrip, Twitter, etc. Our browsing history, purchase patterns, online reading behaviour is all known to these tech giants. They might not know our names, but they know our IP. What CA did is nothing new. Only they put the data to influence voting decisions by sending them customised campaign ads or posts. Some people might get outraged by this act. But then let us see what the political parties have done traditionally to “influence” voters. Parties have promised laptops, TVs, free internet and electricity, religious trips and so on. The migration from, in your face bribery to more subtle online messaging is perhaps the natural course a political party will take. Especially when the young voters are getting most of their content from internet, rather than from news rooms.

Targeted messaging or posts or content is the backbone of social media. Once you start watching too many Indian folk songs on YouTube, it will start recommending you similar content after a couple of hours. Your home screen will be customised based on your watchlist. Similarly if you start reading or start responding to or start retweeting too many anti Modi tweets, Twitter will start suggesting you anti Modi handles to follow. It will be the same if you start reading anti Congress tweets, only then you will be sent anti Congress handles. What people are getting hysterical about, has been happening for a very long time. CA got into a spot only because they used illegally obtained data, not because they tried to “influence” voters.

We should not feed the hysteria, especially on social media. You never know who might be profiling you. What has to be done is to understand what is happening and demand rules that would protect us from future data thefts. India doesn’t even have a data protection law. Most of the popular social media sites do not have their servers in India and hence are not governed by Indian laws, whatever little there is.

What we also need to do is to be careful when we click on that “quiz” or the cool “game” on Facebook or download that fun “app” next time.  These are usually the way by which data is mined. But then one can never really be very careful with such things. We all have that one stupid friend on our list, who would click on anything that flashes.

Elections next door

On Saturday the 11^th of May 2013, Pakistan for the first time in its history will vote to transfer power from one civilian government to the other. In the past six decades the country has never had a civilian government, which completed its term. Much of the time was spent by the army to introduce martial law and rule by decree. The army ceased to be looked as defenders of the frontiers; it was now saviour of the Pakistani people. The last popular army dictator was General Parvez Musharraf (he later resigned from the army and assumed the role of a civilian president). Democracy never really got a chance to take roots in Pakistan.

For the first time since Pakistan’s independence, things are looking bright and understandably so. The Pakistani media celebrated the successful completion of the full term of the parliament and hoped that it will now be a regular feature. In fact if this indeed becomes a regular feature, it will be beneficial for both Pakistan and its neighbours. A civilian government has different priorities and is more accommodating to public sentiments. The long rule of Generals has created an environment where Pakistan is projected as a victim of international conspiracy and constantly under existential threat (largely from India). Riding high on such imagined threat, the army managed to take control of almost one fifth (18%) of the total budget expenditure.

A civilian government is accountable to the people who voted it in (unlike a general who usually rules without any accountability and retires in a posh London or Dubai neighbourhood). The civilian government will also try to bring economic prosperity and sense of security to its people. Both are severely lacking in present day Pakistan, having said that it will be a tall order for any party which manages to form the government. Over the past decade or so, since the war on terror arrived in Pakistan, the country has been consumed in violence. Daily terror attacks, sectarian violence and political rivalry (called target killings) are no longer seen as something extraordinary. Billions of dollars of aid money (given by America in return of cooperation in the war on terror) has been siphoned off to secrete bank accounts or put to use in arming the forces. Little has reached the common man.

Over the years during its rule the army has managed to build a massive business empire of its own (The unending battle). The National Logistics Cell (NLC), the army owned trucking company is today the largest of its kind in Pakistan and has crushed private competition. Being a monopoly and a state enterprise the generals controlling the company have made sure that Pakistani railways is turned into an inefficient liability, making NLC more reliable. The various army business interests now work in absolute monopoly. For any civilian government to reverse the trend might mean risking another coup. But there are lessons to learn from. Turkey had a similar problem when the Generals there were powerful and controlled huge businesses. Today they are cut to size. The economic interest of the army is still high but is lower since its peak in pre Erdogan era. Pakistan can borrow a page from Turkey to tackle its own army.

Another challenge facing Pakistan is its political infighting and party rivalries. Target killings have become a routine in Karachi. Political parties formed on ethnic and linguistic basis fight turf wars and have turned pocket of Karachi into “no go” areas. The situation in Baluchistan is no better. A long running separatist insurgency has turned the gas rich province into a backward quarter of Pakistan. People are regularly kidnapped never to be seen again. Headless bodies later appear and identification becomes impossible. The central government seems indifferent to the situation there, though the Awami National Party from Baluchistan is an ally of the ruling Pakistan People’s Party. Amid such challenging environment the various strains of Taliban only add to the grief. The home grown terror organisations carry out suicide attacks on a regular basis, targeting political rallies, army garrisons, minority processions and their places of worship.

Changing all this and providing its people a better Pakistan to live will be a long drawn battle for the civilian government. The mess created in the last six decades cannot be sorted out in the next five years. Things that might accelerate the process of bringing back the country on track may include the following

• Tackling the terrorists in tribal areas before final pull out of NATO forces from Afghanistan
• Making peace with Afghanistan and helping it fight the terrorists on both sides of the Durand line
• Tackling the terrorist modules working against India in the Kashmir region
• Making peace with the Baluch insurgents and share the gas revenue with them

Majority of Pakistan’s problems will get sorted out if it manages to eliminate the terrorists on its soil. The next step will be to claim its share in the regional economy. With two giant economies in its neighbourhood, it will be foolish not to ride on their success. This will not happen overnight. But the election is a right step in that direction. 

A new dawn – Suu Kyi warms up to India

The winds of change in Myanmar brought Ms Suu Kyi to India, her first visit since her release from her house arrest. Her visit is getting covered extensively by the Indian media, something that the other heads of neighbouring states hardly manage to get. Her close relationship with India as her educational base, her father’s close political relations with India in early days of independence and her being a noble laureate have all contributed to the excitement of the press. In her interviews she appears as a calm and composed person who has overcome her bitter experiences and has moved on. She talks of being disappointed by India’s failure to support the democratic cause of her movement, but immediately jumps to accept the pragmatic aspects of diplomacy and wants to start a new chapter. Her visit has provided India a golden chance to shrug off the past and start a meaningful partnership with Myanmar.

Myanmar used to be an important trade partner of colonial India. Hundreds of thousands of Indians from Bengal (now divided as West Bengal in India and Bangladesh) went to seek their fortune in Myanmar. The Marwaris (a trading community from western Indian state of Rajasthan) established trade links and industries in Myanmar. Regular ferry services used to connect the Indian trade hub of Kolkata to Yangon and then onwards to Singapore. Indian cinema of the 40s had references of getting telephone call from Rangoon (now Yangon) where the protagonist has gone to work. Such were the close relations between the two countries. Much has changed since independence and post military takeover of Myanmar. So much so that Ms Suu Kyi could not fly direct but had to make a stopover in Bangkok to reach New Delhi.

Advantage Myanmar

The sky looks brighter, for you and for me

Myanmar shares its borders with India on its west, China on its east and Thailand on its south. All three countries are fast growing economies with a huge middle class. Myanmar is also the only ASEAN (Association of South East Asian Nations, a regional trade bloc) state to share borders with India. The country was long isolated from rest of the world due to the military rule and international sanctions, leading to a low industry base and a small economy. However the social indicators of the country are healthy with high rate of literacy and low unemployment.

Indicator	Value*	Comparison with India*
GDP	$82.68 billion	Revenue, Tata sons 2011-12 $100 billion^
Literacy	89.9%	74%
Median Age	27.2	26.5
Population Growth	1.07%	1.2%
Unemployment	5.5%	9.8%
Urbanization	34%	30%
*CIA world fact book, ^financial results Tata sons

The economy of Myanmar depends largely on agriculture. 40% of the GDP contributions come directly from agriculture, major industries are also engaged in agricultural processing and timber. Other industries are mostly in natural resource mining and oil production. This combination gives an ideal platform to build the industrial base of the country and diversify its economy. Geographical advantage of Myanmar can help India connect with the fast growing ASEAN market by linking its surface connectivity.

Top of the list

India should look at long term prospects of closer ties with Myanmar and prepare a list of top priorities. Given the low industrial base of Myanmar there is a huge potential for Indian companies to setup base there. India in the past decade has developed skills in automobile, pharmaceuticals, steel, cement, etc. all these will be required in abundance once Myanmar opens up fully for investments. India should also offer help in institutional reforms like training of civil servants, setting up of an independent election commission, training and recruiting staff to oversee elections, building capacity to improve infrastructure, etc. Another major exercise will be to provide direct connectivity between the two countries, both surface and air. India is already providing financial help to Bangladesh to connect its north eastern states. Similar help can be provided to Myanmar to complete the seamless connection into ASEAN. There are proposals of intra ASEAN high speed rail networks. India will benefit by linking its own rail network to that of ASEAN. Increasing business relation will feed the demand of travel and improve productivity.   

All this will however not happen till basics of a healthy business environment are not put into place. Independent judiciary, enforcing contracts, transparency in governance, etc are some of the aspects Myanmar has to reform before foreign investment starts pouring in. This however should not stop the Indian government and business to start chalking out their Myanmar plans.