SHADOWS OF DECEIT & MANIPULATION
Herjinder Singh
T`495 he Influence Industry Project is an organization that studies how data and technology can be used to influence politics. Data is beneficial for political parties in three ways, according to the classification done by this organization. v Data as an asset: Data acquired in various ways and from diverse sources is used to develop a thorough profile of each voter. Where he lives, what he does for a living, what he reads, what websites he visits, where and how he is active on social media, his caste, religion and all other information are stored with his name, address and other contact information. v Data as intelligence: The process of analysing the data acquired in this manner is crucial. This information is then utilized to develop predictions about each voter. What is his ideology? What are his political beliefs? And, in the end, which party or candidate will his vote go to? This also indicates who among this group of voters can donate to the party’s fundraising efforts. v Data as political influence: It is then decided how to reach these voters, influence them and keep them engaged indefinitely. This also determines what type of message is sent to which voter. Big data is the window through which you can understand your voter while also entirely changing his experience of connecting with the political narrative. If you totally grasp your voter and make them feel connected to your narrative, you have already won more than half the battle.
WHAT IS BIG DATA?
The Internet has become an inseparable part of our lives. From grocery shopping, finding the fastest route to our destination to mobile banking, we regularly access information and have become overly reliant on the Internet.
When we use online services, they collect our information to make our experience better. This creates a lot of data every day, and this can loosely be called Big Data. When you’re on the Internet, your data is gathered in different ways. Websites use cookies (small files on your device) to remember what you do and like. Web analytics tools watch how you use websites, and social media sites learn from what you post and engage with. For example, if you enjoy short clips from Shah Rukh Khan movies on a social platform, you’ll notice that suggested videos are often from movies featuring the same actor. Another instance is how search engines remember what you search for and where you go online. If you look for a book, you might see ads from an online store selling the same book following you online for a few days.
The sheer volume of information gathered on individuals is extensive, personal and revealing. They capture our conversations, expressions and content consumption, including images, movies, music and news. There are even claims that data analytics can predict a woman’s pregnancy and anticipated delivery date solely by analysing her Instagram posts. They accomplish this by gathering large amounts of data, analysing patterns and employing prediction models to identify potential life events, such as pregnancy, allowing businesses to tailor their marketing efforts to specific client segments. It seems that almost every aspect of our lives is on track to be documented.
In their report, Data and Democracy in the Digital Age, Stephanie Hankey, Julianne Kerr Morrison and Ravi Naik give us clarity on the same:
In particular, individual opinions and behaviour can be cross-correlated with that of thousands of similar people, achieving an uncanny understanding of individual personality sets. These profiles are probably more predictive than what the individual could achieve through introspection (for instance, it has been suggested that Facebook ‘likes’ enable algorithms to assess your personality better than your own friends could). As recent political scandals have shown, they can predict which side you will ultimately vote for in an election. And it’s not just individual-level profiling power—large groups can be even more predictable, as aggregating data points erases randomness and individual outliers.
There are various avenues available to create profiles of voters; all that is needed is data. In India, there are two types of basic data freely available for politics. The first is the electoral roll, popularly known as the voters’ list. The second is the complete results of the several elections. By the way, both of these have existed since before modern data analytics, but data analytics has altered their meaning through value addition.
TURNING THE VOTER LIST INTO BIG DATA
The voters’ list data is massive, but it cannot be called Big Data. The latter is not only vast in size, but it also grows all the time, continuously and rapidly. In the 2019 general elections, there were 912 million registered voters in the country. In contrast, a voters’ list is a static data set whose size does not grow automatically. To use the voters’ list data, it needs to be turned into Big Data. There are multiple ways political parties turn the voters’ list data into Big Data in order to devise effective polling strategies. One approach to accomplish this is to add people’s phone numbers and social media IDs to the voters’ list database, which opens up several opportunities for constant engagement with them as well as helps add all of their activities to the database.
Obtaining phone numbers of people can be tough in the rest of the world, but it is not so difficult in India. People easily give their phone number and often their email address as well. There are numerous approaches to this. To begin, the mobile apps of the parties are a major source of this. The party receives the phone numbers and other information of users who installed the app. That’s not all. Consider the NaMo app. When you install it, it asks for permission to access your location, contacts, photographs, camera and microphone. All such information is freely available to the server that runs the app.
There are numerous more methods available. For example, a political party may organize a yoga camp through one of its non-political affiliates. It is not at all odd or unusual to ask the participants there to share their names, addresses and phone numbers. A simple social service event where participants are looking forward to better health can actually just be a data collection exercise. People there will undoubtedly learn some vital yoga asanas, but what the political party gains from it will be far more useful. Next, let us see how these phone numbers are used to woo the voters.
A perfect example for using collected numbers is what happened in Ghaziabad district in UP, when local body elections were held in the first half of 2023. Vasundhara and Indirapuram are two colonies in the Ghaziabad district’s Trans Hindon area. The metro service in Delhi has reached neighbouring colonies but not there. This was also planned multiple times but never came to fruition.
In these colonies, the main complaint was that the metro does not reach them. Many such WhatsApp groups began to form there six months before the local body elections, one after the other: Metro Sangharsh Morcha, Metro Vistar Samiti and so on. For a long time, there was just chatter about metro service. When the elections arrived, the election campaign began in the WhatsApp groups. Following the elections, these groups almost ceased to exist. However, by that time, numerous numbers from a certain area had entered a party’s database.
There are even claims that data analytics can predict a woman’s pregnancy and anticipated delivery date solely by analysing her Instagram posts
The Deception Industry by
Sahni delves into the intersection of technology, social media, and democracy, scrutinising modern election tools, influential actors, and the spread of fake news.
There are multiple ways political parties turn the voters’ list data into Big Data in order to devise effective polling strategies
GEOFENCING
When you arrive at an airport and turn on your phone, you are likely to get a message asking you to dial a particular number for a taxi. Just as you approach a clothing store in the vicinity, you unexpectedly receive a message prompting you to explore another fashion outlet with a fantastic offer. The curiosity arises about how they obtained your phone number and how they are aware of your current location. Geofencing technology is employed in such communication.
(Excerpted with permission from