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described Invoke as ‘the professionalisation of politics—it’s what happens in
the US with political consultants’ (interview, Fahmi Fadzil, Kuala Lumpur,
February 2018). Invoke’s move from party machine to private company in the
aftermath of the election raises the question of whether Malaysians gave funds
and information to big data companies in order to support their party choice—
indeed, even to support a democratic movement in Malaysia—assuming they
were supporting a not-for-pro t organisation. When the company becomes
for-pro t, is the information volunteered by citizens still available? In the
immediate aftermath of the election, Ra zi only announced, ‘Invoke will
move on to focus on other missions that are in line with what we set out to
do, to promote and harness grassroots volunteerism for social, economic and
political empowerment’ ( e Sun Daily 2018). What this means explicitly is
unclear. Most of these companies aim to be involved in elections in other
countries in the region; almost all were scoping out candidates in Indonesia,
Southeast Asia’s largest democracy, for work in the 2019 presidential elections.
Where do these data go?
is brings us to the broader question of privacy. Many voters in Malaysia,
and indeed globally, have little or no idea how big data companies are using
their data and social-media content to attempt to sway their vote. is research
has shown that campaigners and political-party o cials believe that big data
companies exert reasonable in uence in gathering data on voters, and in
targeting voters for political campaign advertisements. More research needs to
be conducted on the extent to which Malaysians consent to such information
being used for political-campaign purposes. Even if Malaysians do not consent
to some data being sold to political parties, there is the still the issue of data
being sold through a ‘side door’ anyway. e monetization of data for political
purposes raises serious issues for privacy that will possibly require a whole
new regulatory system and urgent studies from researchers exploring potential
solutions to improving election campaigns in the digital era.

A Sectarian Public Sphere
As we have seen above, microtargeting from big data companies groups
people in terms of religion, race, language, family background, and/or age.
Recent literature questions the role of digital media in encouraging a rise in
sectarianism, insularity, and xenophobia in Southeast Asia (Gromping 2014;
Lim 2017). e rise of ethnonationalistic campaigning in the United States, for
example, can be encouraged by big data companies who microtarget citizens
in areas of underemployment, using foreigners as scapegoats (Gonzalez 2017;

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