The fallout of Cambridge Analytica --- One of the key ways in which the US 2016 election and the Brexit vote was influenced was through the massive disinformation campaigns run by Cambridge Analytica. The fallout from their campaigns was that a large number of people were made to believe propaganda which influenced them to vote for a particular candidate/issue. While there were a lot of stories of the electoral ballots being tampered with, there was no evidence of this. Instead, people voted of their own volition, but based on false information. For a democracy, this is disastrous, not only because it undermines the electoral process but because there is no real way to hold anyone accountable (no crimes were committed by CA by spreading disinformation). Yet, it is a huge cybersecurity and national security risk especially for open democracies with active citizenry online. 'Fake news' laws have largely been ineffective and in fact do more harm than good. So what is the solution?

Source author: Pavitra Ramanujam pavitra.ramanujam@gmail.com