Cambridge Analytica’s Capability for Influence: Is Manipulation Merely Big Data, Psychological Profiles and Personalised Ads?

Cambridge Analytica claimed to have in-house analytical capabilities for profiling individuals and manipulating their voting behaviour. However, as this chapter shows, this was not the case. The chapter demonstrates that scraping and blending social media and other types of data is not an effective method for capturing the complexity of human personality and persuasion. It also shows that Cambridge Analytica lacked the technical knowledge for influencing elections. Indeed, it did not consider that unvalidated data are poor indicators of people's personalities and that social networks are dynamic and change over time. More importantly, Cambridge Analytica did not use any instruments for measuring the effectiveness of its campaigns. Therefore, the chapter concludes that it did not possess the capability for manipulating elections. The chapter also claims that although changing voting behaviour might be possible, it is not technically doable at this point in time. There are unknown psychological processes and analytic methods yet to be developed for effective mass or indeed targeted influence campaigns. Moreover, the chapter argues that manipulating voting behaviour is not ethical and undermines the legitimacy of liberal democracies.