Policy Alert #162 | April 11, 2018

On March 17, 2018, the New York Times and Observer broke the news on Cambridge Analytica’s use of an estimated 85 million Facebook users’ personal information that was “scraped” without authorization in its public relations services–specifically in its dealings with political campaigns. Although the lion’s share of impacted users were American, according to initial Facebook’s estimates, over 560,000 Indian and 443,000 Brazilian users’ data was leaked. The scandal has prompted new debates on individuals’ rights to privacy as well as their governments’ roles in protecting them from violations. In this week’s Policy Alert, we survey this ongoing dialogue within the Rising Powers.

INDIA

Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and the opposition Congress Party have reportedly been “trading barbs” regarding which had ties to SCL Group–Cambridge Analytica’s parent company–after it was vaguely announced that the company had done work for a “national party.” The Cambridge Analytica scandal coincides with the Information and Broadcasting Ministry Press Information Bureau’s (PIB) failed crackdown on fake news. After announcing changes, the PIB withdrew its directive in a brief statement the next day after facing immediate outcry from journalists and press organizations, as well as a reprimand by the Prime Minister’s Office.

• In an editorial, the business-focused Economic Times called upon the Indian Election Commission to “mandate all political advertisements online to disclose the identity of those paying for political ads, alongside the ad itself. And the expenditure on ads must count as part of a party’s poll expenditure.”
• The liberal Hindustan Times demanded regulations to protect personal information: “For India, the big message from all this is the pressing need for a comprehensive and contemporary data-protection and privacy law. Data is the new oil, but the emergent digital business can do without robber barons.”
• The pro-government Daily Pioneer argued that “machines are truly taking over democracy.” Although the Pioneer admitted that politicians and their campaign managers in India “have always had access to” any information that might be useful, the impact was mitigated by the reliance on “manual” human labor to be useful. In another article, the Pioneer took aim at Facebook co-founder and CEO Mark Zuckerburg, who has been personally criticized for his company’s initial silence to the breaking of the scandal:  “Facebook needs to be regulated, not just in India but across the [sic] world and maybe just maybe, Facebook’s board needs to find a better person to run the company.”
• The centrist Times of India also had plenty to say about the scandal. The paper echoed calls for increased regulation of tech platforms, “The time has come for India to take more control of its digital infrastructure and ensure Indian tech companies have a level playing field, rather than leave it to monopoly foreign platforms. This might mean paying for some services, or relying on open-source models. It will definitely require regulators to step up, and ask technology companies to be more transparent about their code, their privacy practices as well as where they pay their taxes.” The Times used the topicality of fake news to criticize Science and Technology Minister Harsh Vardhan for “falling into the fake news trap” regarding his comments that the “Vedas might contain a theory superior to Albert Einstein’s famous equation E=mc2”: “Vardhan, as science and technology minister, should himself be educating people about fake online information.” The Times lambasted the PIB’s “misguided war on ‘fake news’,” arguing that “Eliminating fake news entirely is a utopian project, and attempts to establish utopias in real life result in totalitarian dystopias.”

CHINA

The Chinese media was relatively silent on the scandal, no doubt due to the issue’s irrelevance in the country, as China currently blocks access to Facebook.

• The nationalist Global Times hailed Chinese “management” of the internet as a success, “China has made tremendous efforts over internet supervision with fruitful results. The rampant disorder and anarchy on the internet has been reined in. Relevant laws are being made and national core values are being applied online. China’s internet governance will have to keep pace with internet development. Getting high scores in this respect will be a long-term and arduous task.”
• The independent South China Morning Post featured columns by foreign contributors on the issue, including Bhavan Jaipragas, the SCMP’s South and Southeast Asia correspondent, Stuart Hargraves, professor in the Faculty of Law at the Chinese University of Hong Kong, and David Black, owner and managing editor of Singapore-based polling company Blackbox.

RUSSIA

Cambridge Analytica first faced public scrutiny back in December 2017 when Special Counsel Robert Mueller requested information from the data firm as part of his investigation into alleged collusion between the presidential campaign of US President Donald J. Trump and the Russian government. The whistleblower who provided evidence to the New York Times and Observer, Christopher Wylie, recently speculated in an interview with American news outlet NBC that the records of affected users may be stored in Russia. The firm’s ties to the Russian government remain unclear, however, and the Russian government has not yet commented on the matter.

• Government-funded RT has led the Russian press with its coverage of the scandal and took aim at foreign governments’ credibility in the ruckus. RT highlighted the rumors on social media platform Reddit that the United Kingdom’s BBC was purposefully “dropping” coverage of the scandal, and emphasized Facebook’s other shady enterprises, such as a proposed project that would entail “collect[ing] anonymized personal details, which could be then matched up with user data from the social network.” RT explained that the project was cancelled after the scandal with Cambridge Analytica broke, but warned that Facebook’s “Building 8” which led the effort, “continues to work and expand.” RT also took the opportunity to cover the unrelated allegations that Germany’s Christian Democratic Party–which backs German Chancellor Angela Merkel–bought voter data from the Deutsche Post within the context of political groups’ questionable methods of collecting private information.

JAPAN

• The Japan Times urged its readers to remain vigilant in protecting their data online even though they were not directly impacted by the scandal: “It is tempting for Japanese to dismiss such practices as distant concerns. Japanese politics is much more personal, and the campaign advisers and the techniques they have exported to other countries do not seem to be much valued in Japan. That thinking is too complacent.” The Times explained that the efforts by the US and UK governments to get Facebook to surrender their records have been ineffective, which further demonstrates the need for users to advocate for themselves: “One of the most important issues of the digital economy is ownership of that information: Only when individuals assert their right to that data will the abuses stop.”
• The conservative Yomiuri Shimbun similarly advocated that users be cautious when sharing personal information online: “There are also many social media service users in Japan. With the enforcement of the revised Private Information Protection Law, use of personal information is widely controlled. Nevertheless, social media users are required to recognize the present situation in which the data on them is used for business purposes and assume a stance of thinking carefully about the information they provide.”

BRAZIL

• The online portal Uol reported that Cambridge Analytica executive staff admitted that the firm established a branch in Brazil in 2017 and was planning to begin operations in 2018 with the intention of working as part this year’s country elections in October. However, after the release of the scandal, the Brazilian consulting firm that was associated to Cambridge Analytica stated that they ended up their partnership.
• The O Globo newspaper emphasized the scale of the leak for Brazil’s 443,000 impacted users and the allegations that the firm used this illegally obtained data in the 2016 US presidential election. O Globo cited a statement by a Facebook spokesperson that all impacted users are expected to be notified regarding the issue.
• An editorial in Epoca magazine pointed to the international turbulence involving Facebook and Cambridge Analytica and concluded that the role of digital media and user data in political campaigns is a trend that will remain and will undoubtedly change the traditional means by which politicians strategize in electoral races.

RPI acknowledges support from the MacArthur Foundation and the Carnegie Corporation of New York for its activities.