The report and interview examines how data-driven methods, previously documented by Tactical Tech, were used in the Georgian elections.

The Use of Personal Data in Georgian Politics

Join us as we hear from international researchers, professional and organisers. Inspired by the excellent work of professionals within our international networks, these interviews are a way to amplify the work and voices of the community examining the global and local practices of influencing elections.

The Influence Industry Project: Interview Series

Read more about “The Influence Industry Explorer”, an online investigation tool that comprises evidence on 500 companies that work with political groups in over 30 countries to influence voters’ opinions.

The Influence Industry Project: Explorer Release

In 2008 the Barack Obama campaign revolutionised grass roots campaigning using the power of social media tools for supporter engagement, a feat that would be repeated again in 2012. In 2016, the Trump campaign was highly active on Facebook in particular. During that same election cycle, external nation-state actors were accused of engaging in a data-driven, social media focused misinformation campaign to further fuel division in the American electorate. That same year, across the Atlantic, the ultimately successful Voter Leave campaign was building a new data-driven voter analytics system with which to bolster the Leave campaign during the EU Membership - aka Brexit - Referendum. In 2018, it was exposed that Cambridge Analytica, one of the many data and digital strategy consultants working with political campaigns, had collected millions of Facebook users' data for political ad targeting. Since then, the role of social media, data and digital influence campaigns in election processes across the world have been under a close spotlight by regulators, civil society organisations, election monitors and tech companies themselves. During this time, Tactical Tech's Data &#x26; Politics research team and its international partners have been tracking commonly used digital and data-driven tools within digital election campaigning and how these are deployed in different political contexts across the globe.

Welcome to The Influence Industry Project

<a href="/en/learn">Learn</a> about, <a href="/en/explorer/">explore</a> research, and discover <a href="/en/resources">resources</a> on the industry using our personal data <TextIcon>data</TextIcon> to influence citizens <TextIcon>citizens</TextIcon> in political campaigns <TextIcon>campaign</TextIcon>.
Across the world, data on citizens <TextIcon>voters</TextIcon> is being collected, traded and utilised to influence their political views <TextIcon>influence</TextIcon>. Despite increased attention in recent years, it is still difficult to access information about the industry actors or the technologies that they use to sway citizens' political views <TextIcon>data_traces</TextIcon>. <a href="/en/project/about/">Our project</a> aims to increase accessibility and understanding to strengthen civic capacity <TextIcon>capacity</TextIcon> to engage with politics.

The Influence Industry Project provides resources and guides about
the who, what, where and how personal data is used by political actors to
influence voters in political campaigns.

The Influence Industry Project provides learnings, resources
and guides to the who, what and how of the use of personal data on voters is
used in efforts to understand, engage and influence citizens in political
campaigns.

Highlights

The Influence Industry Project

Since 2012, Georgia has been governed by the Georgian Dream – the coalition movement led by the millionaire Bidzina Ivanishvili, who served as the first prime minister of the country. Most recently, the Georgian Dream proclaimed victory again in the 2020 Parliamentary elections. These elections were evaluated as flawed but ultimately legitimate by international observers. However, this evaluation has not been accepted by the majority of the opposition parties, who rejected the election results as fraudulent and gave up their parliamentary seats.
Nino Macharashvili, director of ForSet, carried out a 6-month study observing the pre-election period in Georgia in 2020 and conducted interviews with experts after the elections. The research found that robocalls, mobile texting, and data leaks all played an important role in election tactics. At the same time, traditional methods remained dominant, especially as there is a lack of digital infrastructure across the country. The rising access to this infrastructure, and fears about the use of fake videos, suggest that these tools will continue to grow in importance in the increasingly polarised Georgian politics. 
<D link="https://cdn.ttc.io/s/the-influence-industry-project/researchpdfs/22.11.23PersonalDataGeorgianPolitics_Final.pdf">Read the full report here</D>
<h3>Hear more from the author</h3>
Nino Macharashvili speaks with former Data and Politics co-lead Varoon Bashyakarla about the report and beyond. Discussing topics from offline voting practices that have the potential to be translated online to the history of revolution and hope, this conversation explores Macharashvili’s research and thoughts for the future.
<TextBox text='Click here to listen to the full interview and read the transcript: <a class="long" href="https://influenceindustry.org/en/resources/full-interview-macharashvili/">Interview with Nino Macharashvili</a>.' />

The report and interview examines how data-driven methods,
previously documented by Tactical Tech, were used in the Georgian elections.
The researcher finds that robocalls, mobile texting, and data leaks all played
an important role. At the same time, traditional methods remain dominant,
especially as there is a lack of digital infrastructure across the country.
The rising access to this infrastructure, and fears about the use of fake
videos, suggest that these tools will continue to grow in importance in the
increasingly polarised Georgian politics. 

We are pleased to introduce the Influence Industry Expert Interview Series.
Inspired by the excellent work of professionals within our international networks, these interviews are a way to amplify the work and voices of the community examining the global and local practices of influencing elections.
Throughout this series, we invite you to join us as we hear from international researchers, professionals and organisers, who have worked on uncovering the broad network of practices and companies working on political influence.
Listen in as former Data and Politics project co-lead Varoon Bashyakarla speaks with various experts, we’ll update this page as we launch new episodes as well as our PeerTube, Vimeo and YouTube channel.
Varoon Bashyakarla is a data scientist and statistician who worked with Tactical Tech for several years as part of the Influence Industry project. His past statistical undertakings led him to a variety of domains: public health, public safety, sports, finance, art, and cybersecurity. He started his career working as a data scientist in Silicon Valley. Today, he splits his time between public-interest technology groups and private sector companies. He aims to help bridge these two spheres and to build privacy and security-preserving technologies that respect democratic ideals. 
Find Varoon on Twitter: <a href="https://twitter.com/vbashyakarla">@vbashyakarla</a> or contact him directly at vbashyakarla [at] proton [dot] me.
<h3>Cyber-security expert Bob Diachenko:</h3>
Bob Diachenko, one of the founders of <a href="https://securitydiscovery.com">Security Discovery</a> describes his journey into data security, why companies minimize the large role that human error plays in data breaches and what politicians running a data-driven campaign should be promising their constituents.
Listen the audio and read the transcript: <a href="https://influenceindustry.org/en/resources/full-interview-diachenko/">Interview with Bob Diachenko</a> or on <a href="https://youtu.be/JUvKdm-dimk">YouTube</a>, <a href="https://watch.tacticaltech.org/videos/watch/88442a6c-5ce8-4f3a-9e54-38f656b955a4">PeerTube</a>, or <a href="https://vimeo.com/777816524">Vimeo</a>.
<h3>Lawyer's Hub guests Linda Bonyo and Catherine Muya:</h3>
Linda Bonyo, the founder and CEO of <a href="https://lawyershub.org/">Lawyer's Hub</a> describes her experience working to bridge the divide between technologists and law practitioners and the digital divide in Kenya. Fellow lawyer, Catherine Muya, also discusses issues of digital identity.
Listen the audio and read the transcript: <a href="https://influenceindustry.org/en/resources/full-interview-bonyo/">Interview with Linda Bonyo and Catherine Muya</a> or <a href="https://youtu.be/pGPCX9UOfqM">YouTube</a>, <a href="https://watch.tacticaltech.org/videos/watch/689afb7b-42a9-4dcc-bd72-b8c8dd8b2d33">PeerTube</a>, or <a href="https://vimeo.com/777816524">Vimeo</a>
<h3>Elections and civil society researcher Tetyana Bohdanova:</h3>
Tetyana Bohdanova describes the historical events leading up to the 2019 national elections in Ukraine and what she found in her in depth research on data-driven campaigning during the election. Please note the interview was recorded in June 2021.
Listen the audio and read the transcript: <a href="https://influenceindustry.org/en/resources/full-interview-bohdanova/">Interview with Tetyana Bohdanova</a> or listen on <a href="https://youtu.be/BxwWd5444Og">YouTube</a>, <a href="https://watch.tacticaltech.org/videos/watch/b1a556a7-0eba-458a-8d41-26e727ea4ac0">PeerTube</a>, or <a href="https://vimeo.com/780994942">Vimeo</a>.
<h3>Data journalist and researcher Nino Macharashvili</h3>
Nino Macharashvili speaks about the the state of politics in the country of Georgia in 2021. From offline voting practices that have the potential to be translated online to the history of revolution and hope, this conversation explores Macharashvili’s research and thoughts for the future. Please note the interview was recorded in July 2021.
Listen to the audio and read the transcript: <a href="https://influenceindustry.org/en/resources/full-interview-macharashvili/">Interview with Nino Macharashvili</a> or listen on <a href="https://youtu.be/ggfIAtAYr6g">YouTube</a>, <a href="https://watch.tacticaltech.org/videos/watch/d650b342-7bf9-4859-a0c2-c667eecd4ad9">PeerTube</a>, or <a href="https://vimeo.com/777816524">Vimeo</a>.
<h3>Digital Rights and Leglislation Activist Rafael Zanatta</h3>
Rafael Zanatta and Varoon Bashyakarla discuss how popular media often misrepresents techno-authoritarianism, the legal reaction to data breaches in Brazil and why data protection is for everyone. 
Listen to the audio and read the transcript: <a href="https://influenceindustry.org/en/resources/full-interview-zanatta/">Interview with Rafael Zanatta</a> or listen on <a href="https://youtu.be/Yu5ZUY3kNqY">YouTube</a>, <a href="https://watch.tacticaltech.org/videos/watch/d138b452-ec81-473f-837e-4b6615de66a3">PeerTube</a>, or <a href="https://vimeo.com/781802393">Vimeo</a>.
<h3>Digital Rights Activist and Researcher Eliana Quiroz</h3>
Eliana speaks with former Data and Politics co-lead Varoon Bashyakarla about her journey into activism, the disinformation ecosystem in Bolivia, and how her organisation, Internet Bolivia.org is working to expand the digital rights conversation in Bolivia to include all citizens. 
Listen to the audio and read the transcript: <a href="https://influenceindustry.org/en/resources/full-interview-quiroz/">Interview with Eliana Quiroz</a> or listen on <a href="https://youtu.be/6ZNXZgf6yjk">YouTube</a>, <a href="https://watch.tacticaltech.org/videos/watch/aacb93fc-45b0-4ad6-9465-d54bd7970099">PeerTube</a>, or <a href="https://vimeo.com/781823170">Vimeo</a>.

The Influence Industry Project: Interview Series highlights the
work of people and groups working to uncover the broad network of practices
and companies working on political influence. 

Digital technologies and personal data are increasingly used in political campaigns to influence people's voting choices. Understanding the technologies and players that are part of this "Influence Industry” has become a priority for journalists, researchers, and digital rights groups. To ensure elections are transparent and accountable, it is key to be able to access information about the companies - such as data brokers and consulting firms - that influence election outcomes globally.
To increase access to information about this industry, Tactical Tech has developed The Influence Industry Explorer - an open-data tool that provides curated information based on public evidence of over 500 companies that play a role in elections worldwide. Besides details on the companies, the tool offers information about over 30 countries they work in, the timelines of their work, and the type of work they do. This is appended with financial data from the detailed public records of election spending held in the UK and the US. The Explorer is supported by public sources and our research methodologies which are also accessible through the tool and the accompanying case studies. 
<a href="https://influenceindustry.org/en/explorer/">The Influence Industry Explorer</a>.
<h3>What can you do with “The Influence Industry Explorer”?</h3>
The industry is multifaceted and represents several investigative opportunities, and now we want to collaborate and co-develop the next stage with investigators. The tool enables users to discover the details of companies involved in international scandals, such as Cambridge Analytica or Crosby Textor. Users can also dive deeper to investigate their own questions such as examining how much political parties in the US have spent on consulting firms such as Blue State Digital, the type of work companies are conducting in Indian elections, or the role of partisan companies working across several different countries such as McLaughlin &#x26; Associates. Through the Explorer you can:
<ul>
<li>Explore the companies including the countries and dates they have worked, and the type of work they carried out.</li>
<li>Access the links gathered to their websites, company information, and previous research conducted on the companies.</li>
<li>Download the data and analyse it to develop investigations and stories yourself.</li>
</ul>
An explainer to our methodology and case studies exploring the data can be found here: <a href="https://influenceindustry.org/en/explorer/">https://influenceindustry.org/en/explorer/</a>
The data is collected transparently but not free from error and we are keen to work with others to improve the accuracy and quality of the data - if you have any interest in collaborating, co-developing, or providing feedback on the tool or if you have any questions about how to use it within your work, please get in touch by sending an email to ttc @ tacticaltech.org
(GPG Key fingerprint: BDEE 1F9A 94DB CDB4 EB3F 2D17 ED37 47E6 87A4 9D27)

Tactical Tech launches “The Influence Industry Explorer”, an online
investigation tool that comprises evidence on 500 companies that work with
political groups in over 30 countries to influence voters’ opinions.

The Influence Industry Explorer Launch

In order to help address this digital knowledge divide, Tactical Tech's Data &#x26; Politics is launching The Influence Industry Project: an intersection of research, learning and exploration of the Influence Industry of professional digital political campaigners, the data-driven tools in its arsenal and the global contexts where it operates. The project provides long-form resources and structured learning modules addressing fundamental questions about the influence industry and soon will also provide a window to explore the industry using a combination of verified data sources and research.
In 2008, Barack Obama's Presidential campaign revolutionised grassroots campaigning using the power of digital social media tools for supporter engagement. In 2016, Donald Trump's Presidential campaign made use of a host of new data-driven campaign tactics and was highly active on Facebook in particular. That same year, across the Atlantic, the ultimately successful Vote Leave campaign was building a new data-driven voter analytics system to bolster the Leave campaign during the Brexit Referendum. In 2018, Cambridge Analytica was exposed for having collected millions of Facebook users' data for political ad targeting. 
The role of social media, data and digital influence campaigns in election processes across the world is under scrutiny by regulators, civil society organisations, election monitors and tech companies themselves. During this time, Tactical Tech's Data &#x26; Politics research team and its international partners have been tracking commonly used digital and data-driven tools within digital election campaigning and how these are deployed in different political contexts. 
Despite the topic of digital political campaigning being in the public eye, the discussion and questions remain largely surface-level. The conversations revolve around the role of Facebook and focus on digital political ads as a product. The conversation needs to become more nuanced and broader: what does it mean for political cohesion and democratic principles that an industry with countless actors specialising in adapting the tools of digital marketing, commerce, fundraising and brand-building to political communication are mediating political campaigns, largely without transparency? 
Understanding the details of digital tools, data analytics and online digital strategies for voter segmentation, targeting and outreach is essential in order to understand how current democratic processes work. Expanding insights into the influence industry and how their practices are applied outside of a few cases covered by the media which are mostly in the US or Europe is essential to get a fuller grasp of how they operate and what the future might hold.

The Influence Industry Project: an intersection of research,
learning and exploration of the Influence Industry of professional digital
political campaigners, the data-driven tools in its arsenal and the global
contexts of where it operates. The project provides long-form resources,
structured learning modules addressing fundamental questions about the
Influence Industry and soon will also provide a window to explore the Industry
using a combination of verified data-sources and research by the Data &
Politics team.