The imminent election in Hastings and Rye will be decided by remarkably few voters.
The results at the last election in 2017 when 70% of registered electors went to the polls were as follows:
Amber Rudd, Conservative 25,668 (Majority 346 Votes)
Peter Chowney, Labour 25,322
Nicholas Perry, Liberal Democrat 1,885
Michael Sheridan, UKIP 1,479
Nicholas Wilson, Independent 412
Were it not for the independent conspiracy theorist who got 412 votes, Peter Chowney could now be our MP and Amber Rudd could have avoided the unpleasant experience of being in a Cabinet without friends and finally being driven to retire to the back benches.
Clearly one of the flaws of our current “first past the post” electoral system is that the result of an election can be determined by such a tiny number of votes. In Hastings and Rye 174 people could have changed the result.
This is one of the most marginal seats but in every constituency the political parties will want to win the votes of those who might be persuaded to change their mind or actually bother to vote. The party managers will be asking themselves: Can we identify these people and get a message directly to them? The answer is that in the age of big data (Big Brother) they are able to identify these individuals but also to find out what they think and what is likely to make them vote.
The data they use is made up of vast amounts of personal information often unknowingly provided by us to search engines and social media. This data can be used to identify and “profile” individuals in order to target them directly. It is not cheap to do this.
Political parties need generous donors to fund a national campaign to place targeted posts on Facebook, post news feeds directly to the audience and influence their web searches. Done correctly and at the right scale, it will mean that these voters will continuously get the message every time they look at their phone or go online.
Has the power to influence people in this way made a difference? Maybe these are some of the questions to ask:
Would Trump have been elected without the services of big data companies such as Cambridge Analytica?
What has been the effect of the Russian cyber warfare teams using Fake News feeds and social media posts on elections in the USA and other parts of the world?
How many Facebook ads were placed in the run-up to the EU referendum?
How much did this cost and who paid?
How much of what you are reading in the next month or so will be placed on your screens by a political party?
For more about the influence of Cambridge Analytica and Facebook there is an excellent documentary currently available only on Netflix called “The Great Hack” – hopefully this will be shown on television soon. There is also a 12-minute TED talk available on YouTube by Carole Cadwalladr the British journalist who originally covered the story.