FLAWED DEMOCRACY

A DEEPER LOOK INTO TECHNOLOGY’S INFLUENCE ON POLITICS

By Sean Chua (G11)

There are about 2.8 billion Facebook users worldwide, and you’re most probably one of them.

As you scroll through your feed, you come across a conspicuous and seemingly harmless personality quiz. A few minutes later, unbeknownst to you, a tech company now has access to your Facebook account and probably knows more about you than you do about yourself. Worse, you are now part of an algorithm that can manipulate entire elections. This is the devious plot of a man behind a small data firm who revealed how democracy itself can be flawed through manipulating individual voters during the 2016 American elections and the United Kingdom Brexit referendum.

The common denominator in both the US elections and the Brexit referendum was the involvement of Facebook and a company called Cambridge Analytica (CA). Cambridge Analytica, founded in 2013, is a British firm which harvests user data from a number of sources and claims to be able to combine this data with behavioral science to target different demographics through a variety of marketing techniques such as advertising. Affiliated with a communications firm called the Strategic Communications Laboratories (SCL) group, it has used a number of strategies to potentially sway the outcome of elections. The method which CA mainly used is known as “psychographic microtargeting,” and this is the same method used for the cases in both the United Kingdom and United States of America. Its implementation resulted in the compromise and improper use of 270,000 individuals’ social media networks.

So, how exactly did Cambridge Analytica (CA) manage to gather the data of millions of people? They did so through a seemingly harmless “personality quiz.” According to Karissa Bell of Mashable, “The firm partnered with a Russian-American researcher who worked at the University of Cambridge named Aleksandr Kogan, who started a company named ‘Global Science Research’ (GSR). Under GSR, Kogan launched a personality quiz app called ‘This Is Your Digital Life,’ which he touted as a research experiment used by psychologists.” Unbelievably, Facebook allowed apps and quizzes like this since they did not have strong data privacy laws then to prevent this from happening in the first place. In a press conference in 2018, Mark Zuckerberg said, “We didn’t focus enough on preventing abuse and thinking through how people could use these tools to do harm as well. That goes for fake news, foreign interference in elections, hate speech, in addition to developers and data privacy.”

The sets of data produced by Kogan’s “personality quiz” reveal things about ourselves and could be used against us; data harvesting companies such as Cambridge Analytica take advantage of this fact and use it to manipulate viewers through specific targeted ads which are often put up on Facebook. Of course, CA’s involvement in the US presidential elections was denied in the company’s statement with regards to accusations on retaining data from Facebook users: “the parent company’s SCL Elections unit hired Dr. Kogan to undertake ‘a large scale research project in the US’, but subsequently deleted all data it received from Dr. Kogan’s company after learning that Dr. Kogan had obtained data in violation of Facebook policies.” However, in a seemingly contradictory remark, CA’s involvement was actually

outrightly stated by CEO Alexander Nix, taken from an undercover recording. He even bragged about how they were the catalyst in driving Trump’s presidential campaign: “We did all the research, all the data, all the analytics, all the targeting, we ran all the digital campaign, the television campaign and our data informed all the strategy.”

To continue with its operations, CA is often funded by a political party to swing the balance in its favor, as this is what transpired in the case of Donald Trump and his election campaign in 2016. According to Federal Election Commission records, “Donald J. Trump for President, Inc.”, the main financial affiliate of Trump’s presidential campaign, paid CA about $6M which was claimed to be used for “data management or data management services’’ in an attempt to sway the opinions of millions of voters across the US. CA was able to execute their plan using these funds and exploit people’s vulnerability to false information by using one’s fears – based on paranoia, political biases, racism and sexism – as a catalyst to drive opinions. In the months leading up to the elections,

“CA was able to publish over 10,000 ads on Facebook targeted to the tens of millions of users whose data were harvested and spread.”

The ads contained demeaning misinformation against the Democrat nominee Hillary Clinton while promoting Trump as the ideal president in an attempt to depress the number of votes Clinton would get. CA helped pull off what many thought to be impossible, one of the most unexpected presidential victories in US history, but this was just one instance of political manipulation through the exploitation of data.

Cambridge Analytica’s controversial interference in the UK’s Brexit referendum was the reason for Brexit in the first place, as it swung voters’ opinions in favor of it. In this case, CA worked with a pro-Brexit organization known as the “Vote Leave” campaign, which was headed by now UK Prime Minister, Boris Johnson. His organization allegedly laundered around £2.7M to collaborate with Canadian data firm AggregateIQ (AIQ) which coordinated with Cambridge Analytica and used the same information gathered in CA’s database. However, Johnson boldly denied these claims. Moreover, AIQ helped create the profiling data harvesting algorithm used by CA. According to investigative journalist Carole Cadwalladr, who worked with whistleblower Christopher Wylie in exposing the issues about CA, the primary objective of these ads is to incite fear and hate within people to potentially sway them into thinking a certain way. Poll results seem to reflect that one’s level of education, which CA exploited, gauges one’s susceptibility to misinformation as well. People who had lower education levels were more easily swayed by news which incited strong emotions, such as fear and hatred, compared to those with higher education levels. The results of the referendum were tight, with 51.9% voting “Leave” and 48.1% voting “Remain.” In response to this, high-ranking officials from the UK disagreed with the decision for the country to leave the EU due to the adverse long-term effects the vote could pose on the country. Britain’s Foreign Secretary Philip Hammond said that the UK leaving the EU could have significant and adverse effects on the nation, possibly resulting in a “diminished global voice.”

After Alexander Nix’s suspension and resignation from Cambridge Analytica in 2018, the company shut down and was officially defunct the same year due to the negative publicity it was receiving from its data-harvesting scandal, which they claimed to be legal. Nonetheless, this caused a number of CA’s clients to back out, resulting in a significant decrease in the potential profits it could earn. However, some reports have claimed that CA executives have guised themselves under other companies which could still have copies of previous data despite its supposed liquidation. These are just speculations and have not been fully confirmed. Besides this, in Mark Zuckerberg’s meeting with the European Parliament in 2018, he provided them with a number of ways for Facebook users to have more control over their data as well as pledged to significantly strengthen its cybersecurity against misinformation attacks. He emphasized the importance of doing so especially in times of elections to counter future attacks and has worked with governments and tech companies against potential threats. In addition, he has committed to comply with the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), which is a set of strict data protection laws in the EU and dictates how companies or entities can process the data of citizens.

Given that the world is transforming into a more data-driven one and realizing the power that large tech and companies wield, can we ever be sure that democracy is truly free? Can we ever be sure that we, the people, are making the decisions? That we aren’t ever so slightly being manipulated?

section of the blue moon valley jade dragon snow mountain in the background Mr. SWAPEE

By Amery Atinon (G11) and Marco Mendoza (G11)

Photo by Hart Baking (G11) Art by Sky Angeles (G9)

In the closing ceremony of 2019’s Xavier China Experience Yunnan, over a hundred students watched a man walk onto the stage. The trip was definitely eventful; over forty-two days, it seemed as if everyone saw the best and the worst of each other. The delegates looked back fondly at the many memories created, good mixed with bad, but the latter stood out for the strangest reasons. Several incidents took place, all of which undoubtedly put a lot of stress not only on the parties involved, but on the entire delegation. Through it all, the one-hundred-person strong team looked to the same man onstage for reassurance. On that day, he gave the shortest of speeches, but it was met with great applause. The students cheered his endearing nickname: “Swapee!”

Mr. Paolo Suapengco, the team leader of XCE Yunnan 2019, remains a figure well-respected by the whole delegation. In his regular Xavier School life, Mr. Suapengco is the English department chair, but he also participates in the XCE Yunnan program. In 2019, he became the team leader of the whole program. We spent time with him to find out exactly what made this year’s batch stand out against previous batches, and what keeps him coming back to lead XCE delegations year after year.

You were this year’s Team Leader for XCE Yunnan, 2019, and you have been there a number of times before. What part of Yunnan draws you to repeatedly return to the place?

I think it would be the unique natural features of the place. Yunnan has very distinct locations, such as the Stone Forest, and the Blue Moon Valley. In the context of the city of Kunming, it is not as advanced as other cities, and so the local color of the place is very enticing and endearing to me.

You have participated in the XCE Program a few times before. What made you decide to become the Team Leader of this year’s delegation in Yunnan?

It was not entirely my choice. You are usually “tapped” to become the Team Leader, but it is ultimately your decision to accept or decline the offer. I think what primarily compelled me to become the Team Leader once again this year was remembering my past experiences with the program. I was also the Team Leader for the XCE Yunnan Program in 2017, but I chose not to go in the following year because I had to finish my Master’s Degree. At the time, I didn’t quite know if I would go back this year, and so it took a lot of reflecting for me to come to that decision. Another major factor was knowing that it was Fr. Xavier Olin’s last year, and I didn’t want to miss FEATURES 11

the chance to work with him one last time in XCE. Being the English department chair, I never really have the chance to interact with students as much anymore since I no longer teach in a classroom setting. However, XCE has given me the opportunity to fulfill my role as a formator of students more directly.

When you were first asked to be a supervisor for the XCE Program, what were your first impressions of it?

I was initially scared and overwhelmed. I was a third-year teacher then, and I would only hear about what XCE was all about from colleagues. Mr. Mike Cuepo, the International Programs Coordinator at the time, was a good friend of mine, and he was able to allay a lot of my fears and doubts. He never romanticized it, and was very transparent about its challenges and difficulties. I later learned as I went through my first XCE Program that my fears were unfounded, and it was just me worrying too much. I would attribute my involvement in the program, in my becoming the Assistant Team Leader for Academics in my second year and Team Leader in my third and fourth, to Mr. Cuepo.

As Team Leader, you were faced with a lot of responsibilities, and subsequently, stress. May we ask what your most stressful moment was in this year’s XCE Yunnan Program?

My philosophy for XCE is that no problem is insurmountable, but what really scares me every time I go is the welfare of the students. In XCE, students and teachers are so far away from home and our comfort zones. If anything bad should happen to the students - in terms of their mental and physical wellbeing - it is always something I take very seriously. In this year’s XCE Yunnan Program, someone was put at great risk because of an accident, and that was what made it the most stressful among all XCE Programs I’ve participated in.

You have previously described this year’s batch to be a batch of “many firsts.” What did you like and dislike about this years’ batch?

In all honesty, this year’s batch was very lovable. If I were to imagine the “worst person” in your batch hypothetically, I would still say that that person has good qualities that overshadow his not-so-good qualities. I think this years’ batch consists of very good-natured and sincere people. In my interactions with students, I came to know that they can be very honest and kind. Out of all batches that I’ve handled, I would say that they were the most easy to deal with, all things considered. I think they rekindled my reasons as to why I am still in the education field. While I was at the hospital after the incident, I learned that the students, who were back at the dormitory, held rosary brigades for the affected person. Many students had also messaged me out of genuine concern for that person as well. It is not always the case that I encounter a batch that cares so much about each other in little and big ways.

I would want them to know that the real world is very messy. It’s not as organized and orderly as what we have experienced in school. But as long as people genuinely care for each other, no challenge is insurmountable.

How have your expectations for this year’s XCE Yunnan Program been met or subverted?

My expectations for this year’s XCE Yunnan Program can be categorized. In terms of the program’s objectives, I think the batch definitely met my expectations. In terms of getting to know the batch, I think this is the batch that I have gotten closest to compared to previous XCE batches. I also believe that this batch has reciprocated the time and effort that I had invested towards the program, and in that aspect, I think the batch truly exceeded my expectations.

There were also many others who have contributed to the program’s success. In your opinion, who else should be credited for this year’s XCE Yunnan Programs’ success?

I would definitely give credit to all the supervisors, as each one had something to contribute in their own way, and for that I am very grateful. I would also credit the students and their parents for bringing about the different experiences that we encountered, and how they dealt with them. I would also extend my gratitude to those behind the scenes, such as the I.P.O. and the Administrative Office who, although not always visible to the students, constantly worked very hard to ensure everyone’s wellbeing. Lastly, I would say that Fr. Xavier laid down the foundation of the entire formation program of XCE Yunnan. When Mr. Joel Hawod and I started participating in the XCE Program, Fr. Xave already had previous XCE experiences. As we got to work with him, a lot of the activities, events, and formation initiatives were already in place because of his devotion. Everything that we experienced in this years’ program all stemmed from what Fr. Xavier had laid out as groundwork, and every year we would always find ways to finetune the program. But while there is always room for improvement, we have a very solid formation program for XCE.

What would you want the students and supervisors that you’ve handled to take away from the program?

I would want them to know that the real world is very messy. It’s not as organized and orderly as what we have experienced in school. But as long as people genuinely care for each other, no challenge is insurmountable. All problems have solutions, and all challenges can be overcome and learned from.

Due to the current pandemic, XCE has been suspended for future batches. Unfortunately, this has been necessary to protect the safety of the students and faculty involved. However, it is very likely that, one day, the XCE program will return, and future Xaverians will be able to enjoy and learn all that XCE has to offer.