Essay: Cambridge Analytica

Ethical theories and modules have been a great source for individuals and organizations when making decisions. In recent times, introduction of new technologies and methods have replaced the traditional models of conducting business, hence the need for ethical ground is even more significant. Keeping in mind this view, this essay will scrutinize the article, “Data Collection: “Harvesting” Personalities Online”, which states that companies like Cambridge Analytica has been employing big-data analysis in form of behavioral science insight to assist political campaigns of the candidates. In other words, users’ information is being collected and provided to political candidates, enabling them to mold their campaign around the ‘personality’ of recipients.

Bringing relevant classic ethical theories in action, this essay will judge whether the personality harvesting method used by the company is right or wrong. To initiate argument in favor of the topic, the deontology class of ethical theory states that while an individual is in the process of making decisions or mapping out their obligations to other individuals or society, they take into consideration their duties and obligations (Tavani, 2011). However, this article maintains that the company is utilizing user’s raw data for the political purpose without their consent, whereby the same user might not see it as their ‘duty’ to, forcibly; provide information so that it can be consumed for their manipulation by political candidates, hence rendering the method unethical. In addition to this, the data gathered by the company was posted on public domain, which was further accessed by corporation who, again, can take advantage of the information by tailoring their campaign in accordance to the personality of the recipient. Nevertheless, the fact that users agreed to posting their information, when they accepted the ‘terms and condition’ of the company, indicates that no foul play was present, thus making the personality harvesting method ethical. 

Moving on, the second argument highlighting how Cambridge Analytica’s method is unethical proclaims that the company’s disclosure was ambiguous and insufficient. It further expresses that neither the company specified that the data being gathered will be used for political purposes, nor the disclosure was simple and direct. Instead, declaration was complex and deliberately conceals sufficient information from the user about how the information would be employed later. Nonetheless, countering this argument is that fact that Cambridge Analytica specifically mentioned that the user information could be used by a third party. Associated with these arguments, is another classic ethical theory, utilitarianism, which communicates that an individual’s ability to predict the consequences of their action render the process either ethical or not(Harris, Jennings, Pullinger, Rogerson, & Duquenoy, 2011). For instance, if a person foresees a positive impact for the society of their action, then they deem such action ethical, and vice versa. Therefore, according to this theory, if the company actually believed that collection and consumption of data can lead to selection of a political candidate, such as Donald Trump, who will work in the favor of the country and its citizen, and help grow the economy to benefit country, and world at large, then their personality harvesting method is ethical. 

On contrary to this side of the utilitarian perspective, a research draws out a loop in this theory and proposes that justification of action based on perceptions and estimations often times disregard the possible impacts of such an action (Pimental, Kuntz, & Elenkov, 2010). To elaborate this point, if the company is justifying its data collection by assuming that the political candidate who ultimately uses this information and ultimately wins election will be doing good for the country, when in reality this might not happen. As expounded earlier, there’s always a possibility that Donald Trump does not use his position for the betterment of the country, rather the opposite, then the whole justification behind the method used by Cambridge Analytica will be labeled as unethical. 

Further on, the method used by the company can again fall into the category of being ethical, seeing that there is a lack of clarity when it comes to determining who is responsible for ethics around data and code in the organization. One of the studies by (Pratt, 1994) underlines the thesis that generally an action or a decision is called unethical when it is in opposition to the rules and regulations, guidelines of the company. For illustration, if the management is taking a decision based on actions that are prohibited or not encouraged by the company, then those decisions will be deemed as unethical because they did not follow the allowed guidelines. Howbeit, if there are no specific rules and regulation concerning any action or process, then decisions based on those action cannot be deemed as unethical, which is what seems to be the matter with Cambridge Analytica. 

Yet again, antithetical to the argument presented above, utilitarian perspective enunciate that if the management of the company, genuinely, believes that their actions and decisions will bring benefit to individuals and society at large, then their justification and the outcomes associated with it is believed to be ethical. 

To provide a synthesis for all the points stated above, I believe that the actions of the company, though according to them might be ethical, but in reality it’s the complete opposite. Not only the personal information is being used by political parties to set their agenda accordingly and manipulate the votes for citizen, the data is also sold to large corporations who exploit the information for future profit and to whom the users did, certainly, not provide information to be compromised. In addition to this, the utilitarian assumption by the company that the whole procedure is being done to provide them benefit in form of a political candidate who will meet the recipient needs and demand, while the potential outcome, which can be adverse, is completely disregarded in this whole process.