Duterte allegedly won during the 2016 elections through the use of Filipinos’ Facebook data by Cambridge Analytica.
There have been allegations that said that President Rodrigo Duterte won the presidency during the 2016 national elections through the use of Filipinos’ Facebook data by Cambridge Analytica which is a communication firm also involved with US President Donald Trump’s alleged campaign scandal.
Its end goal is to create software intended not only to predict voters’ choices but as well as to influence them on what to write on their ballots.
According to the article published in Rappler, Facebook’s Chief Technology Officer Mike Schroepfer shared on his post that Facebook informations of about 1,175,870 Filipino users may had been shared improperly with Cambridge Analytica.
It was said that the firm used the collected data from Facebook to identify voters by their personalities and behavior.
Through this, content specifically tailored were used to target Facebook users based on their information.
“If you know the personality of the people you’re targeting, you can nuance your messaging to resonate more effectively with those key groups,” Cambridge Analytica CEO Alexander Nix during his speech back in 2016.
It was said that the same technique was used during the 2016 elections in the Philippines.
The source directly stated that President Duterte was the one who benefitted most in this technique.
Strategic Communications Laboratories, the parent company website of Cambridge Analytica which has 13 offices worldwide, including the Philippines, reportedly stated this on its website.
SCL boasted its role in rebranding its client as “as a strong, no-nonsense man of action, who would appeal to the true values of the voters,” based on the article.
However, on the said statement, it was not mentioned that it really pertained to the current President of the country.
Here is what SCL stated on their website regarding their work in the Philippines, which is now removed.
“In the run up to national elections the incumbent client was widely perceived as both kind and honourable, qualities his campaign team thought were potentially election-winning. But SCL’s research showed that many groups within the electorate were more likely to be swayed by qualities such as toughness and decisiveness. SCL used the crosscutting issue of crime to rebrand the client as a strong, no-nonsense man of action, who would appeal to the true values of the voters.”