For All of Us — A Brief Essay about Data Disaster and Data Potential
Bandung on October 7, 2019
Non Nobis, Sed Omnibus. It is a Latin phrase for not for us, but for everyone. I am sure you remember Facebook’s data leak scandal in early 2018?
If not, let me first refresh your memories.
Facebook was said to hand 87 million user’s data to Cambridge Analytica for making psychological profiles of voters in the US 2016 Presidential Election. The motive behind it was to find out which states and regions that potentially became the niche market for Donald Trump’s campaigns. Presidential campaigns surely involved a great deal of money, the right data would be useful to make targetted campaigns on the right niche which eventually would press down the campaign costs. Another related purpose was to target those who have not decided on who to vote yet. How did it happen?
Two years before the election (2014), there was a quiz on Facebook that invited users to understand their personality types. Through the quiz, Facebook gathered respondents’ data while also recorded data of friends from the participating accounts. Facebook had successfully gathered 270.000 respondents from this quiz, but the info gathered involves around 50 million users. The data are to be sold to Cambridge Analytica for making psychological profiles of voters in the US 2016 Presidential Election. As a result, Cambridge Analytica was accused to do inappropriate sourcing of data on behalf of political clients, including Donald Trump’s team.
Cambridge Analytica claimed their data came from a scholar, Aleksandr Kogan, through his open personality quiz on Facebook. However, Cambridge Analytica said the data has nothing to do with Donald Trump campaigns. Furthermore, they said that they do not know the data were retrieved in such an inappropriate manner. Hence, both Facebook and Cambridge Analytica blamed Kogan for this. There are 87 million data of Facebook users leaked and misused to date. This misusage was assumed to be not only political but also involved the distribution to corporate interests.
Facebook users are socializing and discussing anything that becomes their interest. Corporates saw this potential, then took advantage of it to craft suitable ads to market their products/services to those they know would like it. For instance, you love chocolate very much. Then, Facebook algorithms will read through your profile to offer you a bunch of chocolate product ads through all mediums related to your Facebook account (Email, Whatsapp, Facebook account, etc.). Another example is when you love playing games, a number of ads about game will appear on your Facebook pages as a result of the algorithm.
Apart from who’s truly in fault in this scandal, I want to take this moment to reflect on our behaviors in using social media. Let’s ask ourselves this, “Have I use social media wisely?” because being wise in using social media is not only for our sake, but for everyone’s.
Facebook scandal above is one case of misusage of data. However, data stores greater potential more than being misused. Before I explain further, I need you to know that I do not condone such practices to use data for unethical and illegal purposes. I believe the usage of data should be responsible and for the purpose that all parties surrounding the data agreed on.
From the case, we know that corporates also took part in this scandal. I do not want to inspect any further about corporate involvements, but rather to look at the data’s potential use for market intelligence and decision-making. Nowadays, companies are in the race for understanding their customers. Companies want to listen and interpret your situations to come with products and services to make your lives better. Researchers, data analysts, data programmers, and strategic analysts are reaching their steady golden roar now. All because of data.
Corporates need various data as the base to make decisions for developing business, integrating services, managing operations, creating financial projections, assessing target markets, and so on. The usage of data is not limited to big companies and startups, many SMEs also realize the importance of data to optimize their businesses. It is a good sign because companies nowadays should be able to flexibly adapt to changes in order to thrive in this everchanging world. Not too long from now, there will be a huge wave of companies that will look to adopt the new coming technologies, like automation, artificial intelligence and the Internet of Things (IoT), their success in doing so and their ability to differentiate themselves in those spaces will be dependent upon their ability to get data management right.
Have you ever had this experience: you’re sitting in a meeting, arguing about an important decision, but each and every argument is based only on personal opinions and gut feeling? And if you asked “why,” the only answers you’d get would be:
- “because we have done this at my previous company”
- “because our competitor is doing this”
- “because this is the best practice in our industry”
You could answer:
- “Your previous company had a different customer base and solved a different problem. Why would we use the same strategy here?”
- “If we don’t know why we are doing things, why would we suppose that our competitor does?”
- “Our world changes faster than ever. There are no industry standards anymore — just trends, and if you are the one who can respond the best and the fastest to these trends, then you’ll win.”
After all, the only real answer for the “Why do you think this is the best strategy?” question is: “Because this is what the data suggests.” An important way to learn exactly what the data suggests is to do data analyses.
Another data-related article:
