Modern political campaigns are fuelled by voters' social media profiles, says former strategist

by Samantha Lui

Before the internet, Rick Anderson wouldn't have much to work with when trying to get information on voters' interests.

But the breadth of information available to parties has exploded with the rise of social media.

Anderson, who is now a principal at Earnscliffe Strategy Group, would knock on doors and call voters on the phone while working on campaigns for the Liberal and Reform parties during the '80s and '90s.

"In the old days, you were lucky if the previous candidate had in their garage some boxes with the old marked up list or something like that. That was about as good as it got," Anderson said to guest host Susan McReynolds during Checkup's show on online privacy concerns.

Anderson realizes that the internet can be used for "some darker possibilities" — especially given last month's data-collection scandal involving Cambridge Analytica and Facebook.

But with the introduction of new technology, he says he was suddenly given more opportunities to learn about their potential voters' interests — and how best to grab their attention in a campaign.

"You do see increasingly, political candidates or their parties putting out ads that are specifically tailored towards people with a variety of interests. I think that's probably a good thing."

Anderson adds that it's also a person's choice to share what they want online, and says people can choose to ignore messages sent to them by politicians.

However, he says a simple click of a button can give away a lot of information. And to a political party, that becomes fair game.

"As soon as you click like or follow or retweet or whatever it is you comment on it, they then know that right away," he said.

"That's the way the Facebook platform works."

Regulation needed to protect users on social media

But despite the benefits of having access to more information on the web, Erin Kelly thinks it has gone too far.

Kelly is the CEO of Advanced Symbolics Inc., an artificial intelligence service company based in Ottawa. She believes governments aren't doing enough to protect people from being micro-targeted on social media.

"The opinion of our government [and] the CRTC, [is] that anything that is posted on social media is fair game if the social media company is offering their service for free and you're posting," she told Checkup.

Kelly says she doesn't believe there is enough proof that Cambridge Analytica swayed the results of the 2016 U.S. election. Last week, she told CBC Radio's Ottawa Morning that she thinks the company's claims of influencing the Trump election was a marketing ploy gone wrong.

However, she says the main issue is the harvesting of personal information, regardless of whether the election was influenced.

"They still violated people's personal privacy, and that still needs to be addressed regardless," she said. "Knowing that someone has your file, that is still a gross violation."

Cambridge Analytica scandal was 'abnormal'

Anderson acknowledges that governments should be more vigilant in creating regulations to protect people from those situations.

Despite that, he says what's happening with Cambridge Analytica was "abnormal" and shouldn't be expected as the norm from political parties.

In that sense, it can be an assist to democracy — and of course an assist to campaigns.- Rick Anderson, former political strategist

"Even though we know more about where voters are coming from and [what they're] interested in, we still don't really act on it as political organizations other than through the advertising," he said.

While he understands that people are concerned about their privacy online, he says he still believes in social media, as it's helped him learn more about constituents in the past.

"Campaigns, whether they're political campaigns or advertising campaigns, are about trying to deduce what people are interested in … and hopefully offering them a product that matches what they're looking for," he said.

"So in that sense, it can be an assist to democracy — and of course an assist to campaigns."

You can hear more from Rick Anderson by clicking 'Listen' above. You can hear the rest of Checkup's program on online privacy concerns here.