Democracia fragilizada na era cibernética: dados online e a eleição de Donald Trump em 2016

Abstract

The Internet and social networks are tools which have been revolutionizing the world more and more, reinforcing globalization, facilitating a range of processes, breaking social frontiers and being used by companies with the intent to exert influence over democratic processes, such as presidential elections. It must be noted that every action performed by us inside the Internet leaves traces, like where we go to, where we have been or traveled to, establishments we frequently go to, locations, actions within platforms, likes, follows, interactions, credit cards, research history. Thus, it can be said that we are being read, interpreted and understood by super intelligent machines, with super powerful algorithms, to the point in which they know our pains, mental behaviors, positions and even our political opinions. All this information is being stored somewhere and being benefitted by an industry that moves billions of dollars every year, we just do not know exactly where nor who use it for their interests. For this reason some say that our online data must be part of our fundamental rights, having to be implemented in the guidelines of the Human Rights, for its relation to our personal data. Because of that, this paper is theoretically structured between Neoliberalism and Liberalism, in which Neoliberalism has to do with the scenario where companies use online data to interfere in political processes and people’s privacy whereas Liberalism has to do with the reinforcement ofthe defense of people’s civil and political rights. This work aims to approach Trump’s Electoral Marketing in 2016, as to answer if this kind of practice can contribute to the weakening of democracy in a society through the weakening ofthe individual's privacy rights. It will also be taken into consideration the participation of Cambridge Analytica (CA), a communication company that was a worldwide leader in online data, that, through information acquired from American citizens, created persuasive campaigns with the purpose to change political positions of Democrats in favor ofthe Republican, Donald Trump.