tag:theconversation.com,2011:/nz/topics/data-scandal-51678/articlesData scandal – The Conversation2020-08-10T12:20:25Ztag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1433902020-08-10T12:20:25Z2020-08-10T12:20:25ZContact tracing: why some people are giving false contact details to bars and restaurants<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/351603/original/file-20200806-14-8018zf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=40%2C0%2C4523%2C3013&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">
</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/vilnius-lithuania-may-3-2020-waitresses-1722529306">Michele Ursi/Shutterstock</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>For restaurants, hotels, coffee shops, pubs and nightclubs, the pandemic has hit hard. For many of these businesses, reopening again after the initial stages of lockdown has come with its own challenges. Not least has been that governments in many countries have instructed bars, cafes and restaurants to record people’s contact details in case they need to assist with test-and-trace efforts.</p>
<p>Contact tracing will allow governments to track outbreaks and the spread of the virus if needed. But not everyone <a href="https://osf.io/9wz3y/">is pleased about</a> the prospect of revealing their personal information to strangers.</p>
<p>There have been reports that some <a href="https://www.telegraph.co.uk/women/life/test-trace-used-harass-women-already/">restaurant staff have</a> harassed female customers after getting their information from contact tracing. A number of restaurant goers <a href="https://www.abc.net.au/news/2020-06-14/covid-confusion-as-cafes-warned-about-privacy-dangers/12351314">have complained</a> that their contact details can be seen by other customers. There have also been cases of <a href="https://conversation.which.co.uk/money/nhs-fake-coronavirus-contact-tracing-text-scam/">people receiving</a> scam track-and-trace text messages – all of which makes it unsurprising that <a href="https://www.irishexaminer.com/news/arid-30995879.html">some people</a> are giving out <a href="https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-8289061/Experts-warn-theres-stop-people-lying-NHSs-coronavirus-tracking-app.html">false contact details</a>. </p>
<h2>Privacy problems</h2>
<p>Part of the problem is that highly publicised privacy violations – such as the <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2018/03/17/us/politics/cambridge-analytica-trump-campaign.html">Facebook Cambridge Analytica</a> data scandal – have severely damaged public trust. <a href="https://www.pewresearch.org/internet/2019/11/15/americans-and-privacy-concerned-confused-and-feeling-lack-of-control-over-their-personal-information/">Many people believe</a> that using people’s personal information without their permission is a widespread problem across many industries. In the US, for example, <a href="https://www.pewresearch.org/internet/2019/11/15/americans-and-privacy-concerned-confused-and-feeling-lack-of-control-over-their-personal-information/">more than half</a> of people surveyed didn’t think they could avoid their personal information being collected in their daily life.</p>
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<p>While many bars, pubs and restaurants didn’t have to worry too much about data scandals before, reports of staff using people’s personal details to try and hook up with customers is potentially highly damaging – not just for those businesses, but for the whole hospitality sector.</p>
<p>Trust is obviously a big part of the problem here. For contact tracing to work effectively – for what might be many years to come – customers need to trust that establishments will look after their data correctly.</p>
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<img alt="Man in restaurant behind protective screen." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/351606/original/file-20200806-14-uh63ra.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/351606/original/file-20200806-14-uh63ra.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/351606/original/file-20200806-14-uh63ra.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/351606/original/file-20200806-14-uh63ra.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/351606/original/file-20200806-14-uh63ra.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/351606/original/file-20200806-14-uh63ra.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/351606/original/file-20200806-14-uh63ra.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
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<span class="caption">Many small businesses are having to completely change the way they operate.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/27042020-lyon-rhoen-alpes-auvergne-france-1722939616">ventdusud/Shutterstock</a></span>
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<p><a href="https://journals.aom.org/doi/10.5465/256727">Research</a> shows there are two basic types of trust: cognitive trust and affective trust. Cognitive trust is based on the confidence you feel in another person’s accomplishments, skills and reliability. This type of trust is said to be from the head or based more on reasoning and knowledge. </p>
<p>Affective trust, on the other hand, arises from feelings of emotional closeness, empathy or friendship. This type of trust is said to come from the heart – or have a more emotional link.</p>
<h2>Listen to your brain</h2>
<p>With this in mind, our latest <a href="https://researchers.mq.edu.au/en/projects/an-investigation-of-contact-tracing-in-hospitality-in-the-covid-1">research project</a> looks at whether cognitive or affective trust is more effective in terms of gaining consent for contact tracing.</p>
<p>Our preliminary findings reveal that cognitive trust is the key to gaining people’s trust and getting them to recognise the value of contact tracing. So if places have transparent policies around how their data will be used, professional data-collection procedures, and clear communication then customers are more willing to share information.</p>
<p>Our findings also indicate that many customers are initially reluctant to share their personal information. And if they are pressured to provide information, then they are more likely to give fake information. So our next research project will look more deeply into some of the reasons why customers are doing this. </p>
<p>Understandably, many people are worried about a second wave of the virus and another lockdown. This would mean rising unemployment, loss of income and disruption at an already difficult time. This is why it’s so important we get contact tracing right – and that people feel comfortable, and safe, sharing their personal information.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/143390/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>The authors do not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and have disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Contact tracing may be around for years, but it’s not going to work if privacy concerns are not addressed.Donia Waseem, Lecturer in Marketing, University of BradfordJoseph Chen, Lecturer (assistant professor) in Marketing, Macquarie UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/987452018-07-04T14:00:59Z2018-07-04T14:00:59ZCambridge Analytica used our secrets for profit – the same data could be used for public good<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/225727/original/file-20180702-116139-4xho2n.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">How could we put the same strategy used by Cambridge Analytica to better use?</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/download/confirm/1077206666">AlexandraPopova/Shutterstock</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Ever since it was revealed that Cambridge Analytica had taken data from 87m users via a Facebook app <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2018/apr/13/revealed-aleksandr-kogan-collected-facebook-users-direct-messages">that exploited</a> the social media site’s privacy settings, it has been suggested that anything from Donald Trump’s election in the US to the European Union referendum result in the UK could have been the result of the persuasive power of targeted advertisements based on voter preferences.</p>
<p>But Aleksandr Kogan, the University of Cambridge researcher whose data-collecting app formed the basis for Cambridge Analytica’s subsequent work for various political groups, appeared to pour cold water on this idea when <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2018/jun/19/aleksandr-kogan-facebook-cambridge-analytica-senate-testimony">speaking to a US Senate committee</a>. “The data is entirely ineffective,” he said. “If the goal of Cambridge Analytica was to show personalised advertisements on Facebook, then what they did was stupid.”</p>
<p>Even <a href="https://www.channel4.com/news/exposed-undercover-secrets-of-donald-trump-data-firm-cambridge-analytica">if the boasts</a> by former Cambridge Analytica CEO Alexander Nix and the statements of <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/news/2018/mar/17/data-war-whistleblower-christopher-wylie-faceook-nix-bannon-trump">whistleblower Christopher Wylie</a> of the company’s influence are overblown as Kogan claims, the firm nevertheless hit on something with its approach of harvesting data in order to influence voter behaviour. Before that approach becomes commonplace, we should survey the whole moral panic around the scandal and see what lessons can be learnt.</p>
<h2>Use and abuse of data</h2>
<p>The first issue is our misunderstanding of consent. Kogan’s data-scrape may have been unethical, but he didn’t steal the data from those that used the app – they gave it willingly. When you use a social media platform you, by definition, are publishing your private life. More so, you effectively sell your private life on an open market through giving your consent for it to be monetised by that platform. </p>
<p>Following <a href="https://www.cnbc.com/2018/04/06/facebook-sheryl-sandberg-users-would-have-to-pay-to-opt-out-targeted-ads.html">admissions</a> by Facebook chief operating officer Sheryl Sandberg, we now know that “online privacy” settings exist only as a means to allow Facebook users to believe they have a consumer’s right to privacy, when in fact they are not the consumer, but the product itself. If privatisation is a process of transferring ownership from the public to the private realm, this means privacy itself has been privatised. You publish your data, making it public, so that private companies can capitalise on what this data says about you by selling you things.</p>
<p>This leads to a paradoxical situation I call neoprivacy, following neoliberalism’s similar disregard for and exploitation of the private individual. In a neoprivate world privacy exists to be exploited financially. The neoprivate individual both values their personal life so much that they publish it, yet is so neglectful of their privacy that, well, they publish it.</p>
<p>Cambridge Analytica’s stroke of genius was to combine two different kinds of datasets, let’s call them deep and broad. The deep psychometric tests of a small sample (from Kogan’s app) were combined with the broad online behaviour of a massive sample. With this they claimed they could <a href="https://theconversation.com/psychographics-the-behavioural-analysis-that-helped-cambridge-analytica-know-voters-minds-93675">predict people’s behaviour simply by their actions on Facebook</a>. </p>
<p>The firm sold this to political campaigns and lobbyists as their “<a href="https://www.theguardian.com/news/2018/mar/17/data-war-whistleblower-christopher-wylie-faceook-nix-bannon-trump">secret weapon</a>”. This model shows a real understanding of social media by grounding it on people’s actions on Facebook – what they click on, read, and like – rather than their expressed statements. It’s <a href="http://www.mediamasters.fm/william-watkin">what you do that matters</a>, not what you say.</p>
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<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/225728/original/file-20180702-116126-1e23zoc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/225728/original/file-20180702-116126-1e23zoc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/225728/original/file-20180702-116126-1e23zoc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/225728/original/file-20180702-116126-1e23zoc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/225728/original/file-20180702-116126-1e23zoc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/225728/original/file-20180702-116126-1e23zoc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/225728/original/file-20180702-116126-1e23zoc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
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<span class="caption">Putting information up for only commercial interests is a wasted opportunity.</span>
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<h2>Democratic data dividend</h2>
<p>I think this data-driven approach offers a democratic opportunity. Typically deep, expert research generates the evidence that informs policies. But data-driven governance appears increasingly disassociated from ordinary lives, with voters preferring crowd-pleasing factoids when it comes to major decisions. Indeed, suspicion of experts may even be a contributing factor in the <a href="https://www.bigissue.com/opinion/william-watkin-truth-post-truth/">rise of what could be called demagogcracy and fake news</a>. </p>
<p>In contrast, broad data is generated by people based on what they choose to do, not what an expert has asked them, or prompted them, to say. Neoprivate individuals feel a sense of ownership and investment when they share something on Facebook or Instagram. If anything online needs to be harvested, it is this sense of communal, social engagement. Yet our primal need for social engagement is both stymied by expert policy wonks with no grip of the grassroots, and monetised by the big platforms with no interest in civic society. </p>
<p>Evidence-based governance was instigated under former prime minister, Tony Blair, that was supposed to be a panacea for the uncertainties of political decision making. It has failed. In contrast, the activity-based influence of broad data is a political model that has been shown in the hands of Trump to be frighteningly effective. If we are to fix democracies then future leaders should engage with both – albeit more transparently than Cambridge Analytica did.</p>
<p>One final lesson: if we live in a neoprivate world, why couldn’t we monetise our own lives just as the big tech companies have? If Facebook knows enough about me to advise me on what sort of shelf brackets I need, why couldn’t this same level of insight be applied to more important, more technical, complex political decisions that need to be made by citizens, for their benefit?</p>
<p>If Cambridge Analytica can develop algorithms that are good predictors of our behaviour, shouldn’t that information be used to influence policy? Why shouldn’t politicians harvest it for the greater good rather than personal gain? Many <a href="http://criticallegalthinking.com/2017/05/10/michel-foucault-biopolitics-biopower/">biopolitical</a> theorists define our current age as that of <a href="https://theconversation.com/inside-view-prison-crisis-will-continue-until-we-hear-inmates-stories-83735">power through regulatory surveillance</a>; it is time that neoliberal democracies transitioned to power through participatory enhancement.</p>
<p>Two worlds remain an absolute mystery: Facebook’s algorithms and why we vote the way we do. Place both those secrets in the public realm rather than in the hands of the highest bidder, and maybe democracy can develop its own app and fix itself. Now that’s what I call neoliberalism.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/98745/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>William David Watkin does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Something good could come from the Cambridge Analytica scandal if we used the same data to fix society, rather than profit from it.William David Watkin, Professor of Contemporary Philosophy and Literature, Brunel University LondonLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/948672018-04-17T15:31:59Z2018-04-17T15:31:59ZCambridge Analytica and SCL – how I peered inside the propaganda machine<p>British electoral consultancy firm <a href="https://theconversation.com/uk/topics/cambridge-analytica-51337">Cambridge Analytica</a> and its parent company, SCL Group, continue to be dogged by a series of allegations, weeks after a whistle blower <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/news/2018/mar/17/cambridge-analytica-facebook-influence-us-election">told The Observer</a> that data had been harvested from Facebook by an academic research company called Global Science Research, which then licensed SCL to use the data.</p>
<p>As an expert in propaganda, I conducted interviews with key figures at SCL, Cambridge Analytica and Leave.EU for research projects on the Trump and Brexit campaigns long before the data scandal was made public.</p>
<p>It has been claimed that Cambridge Analytica was <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2018/mar/27/brexit-groups-had-common-plan-to-avoid-election-spending-laws-says-wylie">involved in the Brexit campaign</a> and that the firm allegedly used <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2018/apr/04/cambridge-analytica-used-violent-video-to-try-to-influence-nigerian-election">unethical methods to help sway international elections</a>.</p>
<p>Cambridge Analytica and SCL have denied any wrongdoing. Leave.EU says Cambridge Analytica “has never carried out any work on behalf of Leave.EU”.</p>
<p>However, the data scandal continues to engulf the firm. The Conservative MP, Damian Collins, who is the chair of the cross-party Digital, Culture, Media and Sport Committee currently scrutinising “fake news”, has said that the story – which led to Facebook boss, Mark Zuckerberg, recently being <a href="https://theconversation.com/shadow-profiles-facebook-knows-about-you-even-if-youre-not-on-facebook-94804">grilled by US lawmakers</a> – is <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2018/apr/14/damian-collins-mp-interview-need-reform-electoral-law-digital-age">“only in the foothills”</a> and is a broader global issue. </p>
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<p>Due to my expertise, I was recently asked by the UK’s <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-43546186">Electoral Commission</a>, the <a href="https://ico.org.uk/about-the-ico/news-and-events/news-and-blogs/2018/04/ico-statement-investigation-into-data-analytics-for-political-purposes/">Information Commissioner’s Office</a> and the <a href="https://www.parliament.uk/business/committees/committees-a-z/commons-select/culture-media-and-sport-committee/">Digital, Culture, Media and Sport Committee</a> to submit evidence relating to electoral campaigns by Cambridge Analytica, SCL and others who were involved in the campaigns.</p>
<p>I researched SCL’s <a href="https://theconversation.com/uk/search?utf8=%E2%9C%93&q=war+on+terror&sort=relevancy&language=en&date=all&date_from=&date_to=">war on terror</a> work for <a href="http://www.manchesteruniversitypress.co.uk/9780719091056/">my book</a> on propaganda and counter-terrorism, for which I conducted numerous in-depth interviews. Over the years I was able to build up enough contacts to place me in a rare position to gain access to interviews on the 2016 US election for another <a href="http://www.emma-briant.co.uk/books">new book</a> about media bias and the rise of Trump, co-authored with professor Robert M Entman of the George Washington University. I have also been working on research and publications about the EU referendum. </p>
<p>I was alarmed by what my research uncovered, and it was both a matter of personal conscience and public responsibility as an academic to provide information to the various inquiries and investigations that are now underway.</p>
<p>Statements from my research – which includes interviews with staff at Cambridge Analytica and SCL personnel, and documents they gave me, alongside essays contextualising and discussing what I found – have now been published by the <a href="https://www.parliament.uk/documents/commons-committees/culture-media-and-sport/Dr%20Emma%20Briant%20Explanatory%20Essays.pdf">fake news inquiry</a>. </p>
<p>My evidence also includes <a href="https://www.parliament.uk/documents/commons-committees/culture-media-and-sport/Dr%20Emma%20Briant%20Audio%20File%20Transcripts%20with%20links.pdf">transcripts</a> from my interviews with representatives at SCL, Cambridge Analytica and Leave.EU.</p>
<h2>Dark arts and cream teas</h2>
<p>For more than a decade, I’ve conducted interviews with government personnel and key contractors, including SCL, working in a very secretive area as part of my <a href="http://www.manchesteruniversitypress.co.uk/9780719091056/">research on UK and US propaganda during conflicts</a>. I gained access slowly at first, gradually winning confidence through introductions once I had a few contacts in this tight-knit and suspicious field. </p>
<p>In <a href="http://www.manchesteruniversitypress.co.uk/9780719091056/">my 2015 book</a>, I explored how a romanticised British military reputation that strives to <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/uk/2006/feb/12/iraq.military">win over the “hearts and minds”</a> of the public overlays a mythologised notoriety for the “dark arts” of information warfare. This <a href="http://www.manchesteruniversitypress.co.uk/9780719091056/">myth helped Britain to extend a perception of expertise</a> and inflate its importance among Americans during the “war on terror” conflicts. The so-called “special relationship” between the two countries and perceptions of “British expertise” in propaganda aided me in gaining access to research interviews in the US. </p>
<p>I’ve observed that this niche perception of British expertise in the dark arts can prove helpful for former military contractors when promoting their work in the US. SCL and Cambridge Analytica appear to have similarly extended their reach in politics by using US perceptions of “Britishness”. By way of example, Cambridge Analytica’s former research director, Chris Wylie – who was first to blow the whistle on the company – claimed it had <a href="https://www.thenational.ae/world/europe/whistleblower-christopher-wylie-reveals-cambridge-analytica-s-dark-arts-1.715053">fabricated</a> ties to the University of Cambridge. </p>
<p>Cambridge Analytica, headquartered in London, was set up in 2013 and is a closely affiliated subsidiary of SCL.</p>
<p>My evidence and recent coverage from <a href="https://www.channel4.com/news/cambridge-analytica-revealed-trumps-election-consultants-filmed-saying-they-use-bribes-and-sex-workers-to-entrap-politicians-investigation">Channel 4 News</a> show how the ex-Cambridge Analytica CEO, Alexander Nix, would push his firm’s supposed notoriety in the dark arts in brazen ways – such as the <a href="https://theconversation.com/psychographics-the-behavioural-analysis-that-helped-cambridge-analytica-know-voters-minds-93675">invasive psychological profiling of US citizens</a> during the Trump campaign – while a public image of SCL projected its apparent moral compliance and respect for democracy.</p>
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<p>The top executives – such as SCL boss Nigel Oakes – could be charming in interviews, <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b09wlncc">as I recently explained on BBC Radio 4</a>. For Oakes, the activities we discussed seemed normal. Oakes told me he saw Nix as “the guy who wants to sell the flashy box”. </p>
<p>In another exchange published by parliament, he <a href="https://www.parliament.uk/documents/commons-committees/culture-media-and-sport/Dr%20Emma%20Briant%20Audio%20File%20Transcripts%20with%20links.pdf">said</a>: “Alexander Nix has one downside, which I don’t agree with. This is very much off the record, he believes that all press is good press.” Oakes told me that Nix understood the importance of keeping Cambridge Analytica’s name in the news to help bring in more business, even if the company was generating critical coverage. </p>
<p>He added: “… frequently people come to us and say ‘we’ve got so many dirty tricks against us, we now need to know the dirty tricks to go back’. Or ‘we need to know how to counter the dirty tricks and you guys seem to know how to do it’.”</p>
<p>My discussions with interviewees on the topic of unethical conduct emerged cautiously, but with a knowing smile, over casual cream teas in a London shopping centre. All this with my recording device on the table. </p>
<p>I earned my interviewees’ trust by being open about the purpose of my research and asking the right questions, sometimes very directly, in a way that made them feel comfortable. I told interviewees connected with Leave.EU that I had voted for Britain to remain in the European Union, because honesty helps to build trust.</p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/cambridge-analytica-scandal-legitimate-researchers-using-facebook-data-could-be-collateral-damage-93600">Cambridge Analytica scandal: legitimate researchers using Facebook data could be collateral damage</a>
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<p>Andy Wigmore, who is the former communications director of Leave.EU – which failed to become the officially designated campaign for British voters who wanted to exit the European Union – told me that the group had copied strategies shared with Leave.EU by Cambridge Analytica. But Leave.EU didn’t go on to hire Cambridge Analytica.</p>
<p>He also said that whipping up concerns among voters about immigration was “the main thrust” of Leave.EU’s campaign during the Brexit referendum.</p>
<p>At one point, Wigmore also spoke in admiring terms about Nazi propaganda techniques. He <a href="https://www.parliament.uk/documents/commons-committees/culture-media-and-sport/05%20Andy%20Wigmore%20-%20Historic%20use%20of%20propoganda.wav">told me</a>:</p>
<blockquote>The propaganda machine of the Nazis, for instance – you take away all the hideous horror and that kind of stuff – it was very clever, the way they managed to do what they did. In its pure marketing sense, you can see the logic of what they were saying, why they were saying it, and how they presented things, and the imagery.</blockquote>
<p>Oakes also talked to me about Nazi Germany, by <a href="https://www.parliament.uk/documents/commons-committees/culture-media-and-sport/08%20Nigel%20Oakes%20-%20Nazi%20methods%20of%20propoganda.mp3">claiming</a> that Adolf Hitler “didn’t have a problem with the Jews at all, but the people didn’t like the Jews”. He said Hitler used Jewish people to “leverage an artificial enemy. Well, that’s exactly what Trump did. He leveraged a Muslim.”</p>
<p>Wigmore now <a href="http://www.wmbfnews.com/story/37967589/uk-academic-says-data-firm-helped-trump-campaign-spread-fear">claims</a> that his interview with me was “not for publication” and described the release of evidence to parliament as “willful deception and trickery”. In fact, the entire exchange was on the record and Wigmore’s willingness to contribute to the research is recorded on tape several times.</p>
<p>It takes a calm, friendly, diligent approach for a researcher to gather this much illuminating material. A ton of patience and time is also required to move beyond evasiveness and gain access to closed elite networks. As a sociologist, I learned how to navigate <a href="https://theconversation.com/uk/topics/cambridge-analytica-51337">Cambridge Analytica</a> and SCL’s subculture and used similar language to build an understanding of how the modern day “propaganda machine” works.</p>
<p><em>This article has been amended to specify that data had been harvested from Facebook by Global Science Research, not Cambridge Analytica as previously stated.</em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/94867/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Dr Emma L Briant receives funding from ESRC Studentship</span></em></p>My expert evidence to parliament shows how Cambridge Analytica and SCL secretly pushed their supposed notoriety in the dark arts in brazen ways.Emma L Briant, Senior Lecturer in Journalism, University of EssexLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/938142018-03-27T13:43:13Z2018-03-27T13:43:13ZCambridge Analytica scandal: Facebook’s user engagement and trust decline<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/212205/original/file-20180327-109185-1xga450.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">
</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/download/confirm/552496312?size=huge_jpg">Shutterstock</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Facebook has been hit with the biggest trauma in the company’s 14-year history in the wake of the <a href="https://theconversation.com/cambridge-analytica-scandal-legitimate-researchers-using-facebook-data-could-be-collateral-damage-93600">Cambridge Analytica scandal</a>, but it’s far from dead – as a public utility it is as relevant as ever.</p>
<p>While space baron Elon Musk may have made the social network’s boss Mark Zuckerberg wince with his laconic “what’s Facebook?” <a href="https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/977209817012977665">tweet</a> as he <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-43514648">removed his SpaceX and Tesla brands</a> from the site, reports of Facebook’s death are premature.</p>
<p>It’s popular to say that “<a href="https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2018/feb/12/is-facebook-for-old-people-over-55s-flock-in-as-the-young-leave">Facebook is just for the oldies now”</a>. And Zuckerberg’s purchase of <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-17658264">Instagram</a> and <a href="https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2014-10-28/facebook-s-22-billion-whatsapp-deal-buys-10-million-in-sales">WhatsApp</a> and his <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2013/nov/13/snapchat-facebook-buyout-offer-rejected">failed attempt to buy Snapchat</a> for US$3 billion demonstrates how Facebook has – for years – been pursuing more engagement from younger people.</p>
<p>But the real picture is more complicated than a simple ageing market.</p>
<p>Evidence suggests that plenty of young people are still using Facebook – which claims to have <a href="https://newsroom.fb.com/company-info/">1.4 billion active daily users</a>. According to <a href="http://www.pewinternet.org/2016/11/11/social-media-update-2016/">Pew Research</a>, 88% of Americans aged between 18 and 29 have a Facebook account, far more than Instagram’s 59% or Twitter’s 36%. It also beats Snapchat and Wickr, which between them are used by 56% of young people in the US. And 18 to 29-year-olds don’t just have Facebook accounts: 49% of them check the site or app when they wake up. It remains, by a long distance, the most popular social network overall: 79% of online adult Americans hold accounts, and three quarters of these users check it in every day.</p>
<p>But as the numbers also show, Facebook is no longer the only player. Young people in particular have little loyalty, typically holding accounts on at least two other networks. And now other services are available, the way they use Facebook has changed.</p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/psychographics-the-behavioural-analysis-that-helped-cambridge-analytica-know-voters-minds-93675">Psychographics: the behavioural analysis that helped Cambridge Analytica know voters' minds</a>
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<p>Facebook used to be the place for in-jokes, flirtations, hot gossip, pokes. It was <a href="https://newsroom.fb.com/company-info/">developed by Zuckerberg and three co-founders</a> on a campus at Harvard, and it felt like it. I was working at a British university when Facebook first rolled out beyond the US. I once horrified an entire lecture theatre by Googling a couple of student names on the big screen in 2008, to prove what they were doing was more public than they thought. </p>
<p>But there’s no need for shock tactics now. Young people know their future employers, parents and grandparents are present online, and so they behave accordingly. And it’s not only older people that affect behaviour. </p>
<p>My <a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/14682753.2014.960763">research</a> shows young people dislike the way Facebook ties them into a fixed self. Facebook insists on real names and links different areas of a person’s life, carrying over from school to university to work. This arguably restricts the freedom to explore new identities – one of the key benefits of the web. </p>
<p>The desire for escapable transience over damning permanence has driven Snapchat’s success, precisely because it’s a messaging app that allows users to capture videos and pictures that are quickly removed from the service. </p>
<p>Meanwhile, Facebook’s user engagement has fallen through the floor. After a conservative decline, it <a href="http://www.mavrck.co/8-user-generated-content-trends-we-learned-from-25-million-facebook-posts-report/">dropped significantly by almost a third</a> between 2015 and 2016, research shows. This matters because user posts drive about six times more engagement than public posts made by companies on Facebook. In that same period comments, “likes” and shares on the network also fell by a third. </p>
<p>Other <a href="https://www.theinformation.com/articles/facebook-struggles-to-stop-decline-in-original-sharing">researchers</a> have found a similar trend. </p>
<p>The drop in user engagement – even before the Cambridge Analytica scandal, in which it was alleged that the British company had <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/news/2018/mar/17/cambridge-analytica-facebook-influence-us-election">harvested the data of 50m Facebook profiles</a> to try to manipulate election campaigns – is clearly bad news for the multi-billion dollar business. In the past few years, Facebook has routinely played around with its algorithm to improve engagement by prioritising video, or people over pages and more recently it began testing <a href="https://newsroom.fb.com/news/2018/01/trusted-sources/">“trusted sources”</a>.</p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/cambridge-analytica-scandal-legitimate-researchers-using-facebook-data-could-be-collateral-damage-93600">Cambridge Analytica scandal: legitimate researchers using Facebook data could be collateral damage</a>
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<p>Zuckerberg has <a href="https://www.facebook.com/zuck/posts/10104413015393571">said</a> that it was better for users to connect with friends and family than to passively consume content. But the tweaks are also an effort to make Facebook matter on a personal level again, by rewarding people who drive engagement.</p>
<p>However, it’s worth noting that trust in Facebook has waned – so improving user engagement could continue to be problematic. According to a recent <a href="https://www.reuters.com/article/us-facebook-cambridge-analytica-apology/americans-less-likely-to-trust-facebook-than-rivals-on-personal-data-idUSKBN1H10AF">Reuters/Ipso online poll</a>, carried out after the Cambridge Analytica scandal struck, only 41% of Americans trust Facebook to abide by privacy laws.</p>
<h2>Mingling in social networks</h2>
<p>Meanwhile, different social networks continue to pop up. The latest is <a href="https://www.vero.co/">Vero</a>, which <a href="http://variety.com/2018/digital/news/vero-social-app-store-ad-free-social-hype-1202711654/">claims</a> not to use algorithms to promote content, instead serving up a simple timeline. It has copied Facebook’s divisions of friends into varying degrees of intimacy, but appears to have made selective sharing of content much easier than Facebook’s notoriously complex privacy settings. </p>
<p>It makes money from affiliate sales on the site and it’s highly likely that Vero will bring in a subscription charge. It has no adverts and promises never to sell a user’s data. There’s also an <a href="https://www.vero.co/terms-of-use">outright ban on content</a> that is racist, invasive, physically or mentally harmful, “threatening, profane, obscene or otherwise objectionable”.</p>
<p>But Facebook isn’t over yet – it’s ubiquity means we can find almost everyone there, which makes it a handy replacement for the phone book, trade directories and large chunks of the postal service. Facebook groups also create a real sense of community and build relationships. And Facebook is also a huge content referral agency, in which advertisers are its customers.</p>
<p>So despite a decline in engagement and Musk and others switching off in the wake of the Cambridge Analytica scandal, its huge userbase means there’s plenty to keep Facebook going for a long time because it’s very successful in its true business as a data broker.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/93814/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Amy Binns does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Young people are abandoning Facebook and calls to delete profiles are growing over the alleged exploitation of data for political campaigns.Amy Binns, Senior Lecturer, Journalism and Digital Communication, University of Central LancashireLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.