Most users of Facebook never imagined that every detail of their lives which include even their very personal choices such as the kind of food they prefer, the friends they choose, the movies they select and above all the political parties they are inclined towards. Most Facebook users never really gave much thought to why advertisements appearing on their timelines are related to the things they mention on their posts the previous day. It all seemed odd but until a few days ago, social media users did not know that Mark Zuckerberg was selling information to different clients about his own Facebook users. Cambridge Analytica, a British Consulting firm apparently acquired data of fifty million people and used that to target voters on behalf of Donald Trump in the 2016 elections. Considering that social media has tremendous influence among its users, strategic and positive information about the candidate from sources that appear credible can easily mislead voters.
Interestingly much of the date acquired was not harvested from Facebook per se but was spontaneously given by users to the maker of a Facebook personality quiz App called thisisyourdigitallife. This App was developed by a University of Cambridge Professor Aleksandr Kogan who managed to collect the data of about 2,70,000 people. He then installed that along with data about their Facebook friends which ran to fifty million. Kogan then gave the data to Cambridge Analytica. It is curious to note that even now Facebook poses very personal questions to its users everyday and people respond to those questions and even post those responses, which, on the face of it appear harmless.
The European Union and the United Kingdom have taken measures to address this threat to the privacy of their citizens by storing all data in their country. India is yet to take stringent action against the data leakage of its citizens. What is worse is that Cambridge Analytica is also working in India for certain political parties. Are we really a sovereign, democratic republic when our choices are manipulated?