YOU ARE THE PRODUCT BEING SOLD

Data is the exhaust of the digital age and there’s much money to be made from it. Security agencies, marketing companies and, yes, political parties, are all interested in your digital footprint

significance of big data analysis in political campaigns. “Data analysis gives us a good understanding of multiple attributes, such as age group, caste, religion, location, education, profession and relationship,” he says.

But there is a near consensus among various stakeholders that the impact and scope of mining and analysing social media data is very limited in the Indian political context. Anand dismisses the power of social media data in influencing elections, saying that user profiles of platforms like Facebook do not necessarily provide information crucial for Indian elections, such as caste and political leaning. “The social media penetration in 2014 was much less compared to what it is now. And to even say that Facebook data will help create a successful election campaign is a 10-year leap of faith at the moment,” he says.

According to the 2018 Global Digital Report from We Are Social and Hootsuite, India has 34 per cent internet penetration compared to the global average of 53 per cent. The US has 99 per cent internet penetration. India is also far behind the global average in social media penetration. India recorded 19 per cent social media penetration in January 2018 as against the global average of 42 per cent. However, at 31 per cent, it was the second fastest growing country in terms of social media penetration.

The data also indicates that it was most unlikely that CA had enough numbers to influence Indian elections through social media manipulation. India’s internet penetration has been fuelled by mobile phone data, which received a huge impetus only in 2016 with the launch of Jio phones, resulting in sharp fall in data tariffs. In India, 79 per cent of the web traffic comes from mobiles as compared to the global average of 52 per cent.

A prominent election strategist, who has worked with both the BJP and the Congress, agrees with Anand and says that the social media behaviour of people in the US and in India is vastly different. “In the US, it may be easier for an analyst to guess whether a person is Republican or Democrat. In India, people don’t reveal much about their political behaviour,” he says.

Praveen Chakravarty, who heads the data analytics wing of the Congress, believes that social media certainly makes it easier to get one’s message out in a targeted manner, but it cannot predict voters’ behaviour. “Predicting voter behaviour through Facebook trends is vastly overrated and exaggerated, at least in the Indian context,” he says. Contrary to his assertions, a study published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences in 2013 showed that if one had enough data, just based on ‘likes’, one could predict sensitive personal attributes, including political views, fairly accurately. That could perhaps be the logic behind Prime Minister Narendra Modi recently asking BJP MPs to increase the ‘genuine likes’ on their Facebook pages to 300,000 if they wanted to contest the 2019 elections.

But Chakravarty dismisses CA’s claims of helping political parties win elections with its data analysis. “Data and analysis can be a very useful input in overall electoral strategies. But to say that data analytics alone will win elections is a gross exaggeration. It is one of many important inputs into an election,” he says.

According to Pitroda, the impact of messaging based on data analysis is shortlived. “Politics is not about selling a product. This is a new phenomenon promoted by businesspeople to make money. It will not last long. Mahatma Gandhi did not need such tools to communicate. If the message is true, it will reach the target audience.”

A campaign strategist, who did not want to be named, pointed towards the complications in analysing such data as Facebook offers dynamic data. “Billions of data points will be generated every day. To make sense of these, a high level of analysis is required, which could be really time consuming,” he adds. He is also confident that neither the BJP nor Congress has ever used CA because several Indian entities offer such data sets at much cheaper rates.

Chakravarty agrees, saying external agencies are not required for constituency mapping or analysing election trends at booth levels. “I have published an entire body of empirical research work using electoral data. It is no brain surgery,” he says.

Adds the strategist, “That’s the reason a top BJP leader slept through a CA presentation. Ambrish Rai, who used to do surveys for political parties, was taken on board by CA because he helped the British company get access to several political leaders.”

Amit Malviya, head of the BJP’s IT cell, is not willing to dismiss the impact of social media data though he categorically states that his party never used any social media data procured without consent. “We have such a large database of our members. We don’t need Facebook data and we don’t indulge in unethical practices,” he says. Malviya, however, confirms that the BJP extensively uses

THE IMPACT OF MESSAGING BASED ON DATA ANALYSIS IS SHORTLIVED, FEELS TELECOM EXPERT SAM PITRODA. “POLITICS ISN’T ABOUT SELLING A PRODUCT.”