Polls, disinformation, targeted communications: how can we trust the information to which we are exposed on a daily basis? On the eve of the first round of the presidential elections, Julia Cames, Marketing Director France of HubSpot, delivers her vision of the power of data in politics.
A largely eroded trust
It is a fact, false information circulates faster than the true ones. Disinformation in our daily life is only increasing and it appears, unsurprisingly given the stakes, particularly intense during an election period. The main theater of this culture of disinformation: the social network platforms, on which incessant ballets of fake news and deepfakes follow one another, until they verge on an overdose.
Criteo and Inria explore the transparency of advertising AI
The Cambridge Analytica scandal in 2018 is probably the high point in raising awareness of this disinformation phenomenon, revealing the use of the personal data of tens of millions of unwitting Facebook users to influence American voters via campaigns. mass targeted advertising. But this case is unfortunately not isolated. The scandals that have marred the Brexit ballots and the last two American elections do not encourage optimism in the perspective of the French presidential election which begins to be played out this week. Voters have gradually lost confidence in the information they receive, regardless of its source.
Even the polls take for their rank. Ordered as much by the media as by the political parties, they go so far as to be considered, sometimes even by the candidates themselves, as instruments of propaganda harming free individual opinion. Under these conditions, what information can you rely on to form your opinion? There was indeed the Elyze application, which, let’s face it, has given itself a very noble mission to reduce the rate of abstention in the elections by allowing users to find, via an algorithm and Tinder-style ergonomics, the candidate closest to their own ideas and convictions. But, despite all its good intentions, the tool proved to be imperfect, the flaws left room for doubt, and the CNIL took the lead, fearing a resale of anonymized data to third parties.
A necessary regulation
If some efforts have been made on both sides to curb the phenomenon (provision by Google of its deepfakes database, promise to delete tweets containing misleading information by Twitter, etc.), it is indeed on the side of legislation that needs to be pursued to restore voter confidence.
Because at this stage, the major platforms are still accused of laxity in the fight against fake news, under the guise of defending freedom of expression. They have no reason to stop monetizing the content that is most viral until there is strong regulation. Good news, after having been voted by Parliament last January, the Digital Services Act is on the right track to succeed. It aims, among other things, to fight against online disinformation, by inviting Gafam to finance their supervision by the European Commission. But if this legislation sounds like good news for the digital ecosystem, there is still work to be done, as the phenomenon is difficult to normalize.
In France, several laws have been put in place over time to deal with these threats. That against the manipulation of information was definitively adopted in 2018, mainly to fight against attempts to influence during the election period. Structures have also been put in place, such as Viginum in 2021, whose mission is to detect foreign digital interference operations for the purpose of manipulating information on social networks.
CRM and politics
Fortunately, social networks are not the only field of communication on which an electoral campaign is played. You still need to know where to find potential voters in order to exercise your power of influence, convince…
Political parties are constantly studying new scenarios to grow their databases, between organic growth of their own address book, use of electoral lists and rental or acquisition of data from brokers to obtain consent (political opt-in ). All this is of course very framed, by the GDPR, among others.
Beyond data, there is targeting. Because data is expensive, and no party has the means to reach each French person individually. Even outside electoral campaigns, elected officials and parties have clearly understood the importance of being in constant contact with citizens and of using digital tools capable of addressing instant multi-channel communications.
Traditionally used in companies, CRM software (customer relationship management) has thus begun to penetrate political spheres over the past ten years. Coupled with databases, they now make it possible, without necessarily being costly, to collect data and donations, to consult citizens, to centralize all information in one place or to have better management of the GDPR. And of course to communicate by email or SMS in a territorial and targeted way, allowing the parties to gain precious points in the field of influence.
A good data strategy may not be able to win an election alone, but it is now a major contributor. Beyond ideas and power games, it is the data, and more specifically the transparency or honesty with which they are used, that make them tools of democracy.