Data is the new oil’ as Mukesh Ambani said at the Telecom Congress recently, and no one knows this better than the man whose empire was founded on oil and is now betting big on data-driven telecom. Standing at the cusp of the Fourth Industrial Revolution, these are very exciting times to live in—empowered by data and addicted to accessing it through the internet—yet, challenged by concerns on security, privacy and data heist.
Colonisation in the 21st Century no more happens through military aggression for gaining dominance over territorial rights. Annexing geographies now happen by controlling the commerce of nations through databases and networks at the click of a finger. Though we live within defined territories, ‘digital colonisers’ such as Facebook and Google have gained overarching dominance over governments and individuals by virtue of data-power acquired through patented applications, which then empower them to influence consumer and democratic choices.
By unwittingly surrendering to an intrusionist state, as also to intrusionist owners of social media (SM) sites, and consenting to their arbitrary terms of access, we turn oblivious of how custodians of our personal data trade it. ‘Virtual dominance’ is increasingly turning citizens into ‘dogs on an electronic leash’, tagged and tracked through life by both the government and internet. Data is now a commodity like bullion, attained through tracking users digital footprints, which accords unlimited access to government through Aadhaar cards, as also to MNCs such as Google, through personal profiling for profit.
Future control over humanity is being decided by ‘who owns what quantum of data’ and how it is refined thereafter for growing businesses, delivering efficient governance, or enlarging voter base. So in the political context, the BJP is today the richest political party in terms of data ownership, which explains how its IT cell powers the lead in decision-making and messaging through their SM strategies.
The latest technique in data optimisation successfully used by Cambridge Analytica for US President Donald Trump’s campaign was ‘psychographics’, which the BJP is heard to be incorporating into their communication strategy for voter messaging in 2019. Psychographics is a cut above demographics, being a wider confluence of data mined through banks, credit card history, browser history and TV set-top boxes. This data is then analysed by the marketeers to gain deeper insights into the lifestyle and mindsets of voting communities and consumers in order to craft appropriate messaging.
The BJP’s political marketing is ahead of its opponents in mining data over four years, giving it a first-mover advantage in deeper penetration of its voter-base than parties who depended on traditional ways of physical campaigns and crowd mobilisation. Essentially, the party’s political functionaries and cadres are disseminated feeds from the master IT cell, which is relayed down to Whatsapp ‘clusters’, Twitter ‘circles’ and Facebook ‘rings’.
Usually, humour and wit are used in video clips and images to satirise the opponent, so it is subtle and apolitical messaging up to this point. For example, Rahul Gandhi’s image-issue is lampooned by the BJP’s SM warriors, transforming him into the original ‘Pappu’. The frequency, as also the sting, increases closer to any election. The power of precision-strikes was used in the Uttar Pradesh polls by the party’s IT cell, which has access to over 9,000 WhatsApp groups and outreaches 13 lakh voters every day.
While the rise of digitisation affords ease-of-living and doing business, as also enables governments to legitimately access even encrypted messaging in the interest of state safety (to nail terrorists or tax criminals), it is turning citizens captive to SM oligopolies and state policing with nowhere to hide. So, is access to data a luxury or a hazardous necessity? gdalmia73@gmail.com