It's important to be reminded that the modern methods of profiling and categorizing people were invented to sell war—both to potential army recruits and to a mostly isolationist public who saw no reason to get involved in a European war.
Modern advertising and public relations were born from this need to persuade unsuspecting audiences to adapt their behaviors and attitudes to comport with decisions made by an elite class to serve some abstract, greater good.
This disparity of knowledge is baked into the philosophical and business structures that have evolved throughout advertising and media businesses. We let ourselves become distracted when we focus only on the latest medium. If a medium is advertising-supported its clarity of purpose is compromised by this lineage. It is pretending to be one thing while earning its keep doing something different. This has a lot to do with why the media is so easy to target as a source of our troubles.
1
Why don't we just own up to the real problem. It's not Facebook. It's easily manipulable people, incapable of critical thinking, who spend too much time on Facebook, and who have the right to vote. All this complaining about Facebook is just us trying to protect ourselves from our stupid neighbors.
I spent my 40-year career in IT, doing every job from programming to design to data scientist to network administration, serving thousands of users and managing hundreds of IT folks.
Users were and still are intimidated by words such as ‘algorithm.’ Reporters have perpetrated fear of computers by the constant breathless reiteration of words such as ‘cutting edge’. This fear prevents proper governance of IT by users.
A computer is just a bunch of plastic, glass and metal bits. An algorithm is just a series of decisions about what you see made by a young (male) programmer at the behest of an (old, white, male) advertiser. Bottom line, nothing new here at all.
People are not being manipulated by ‘data’ or ‘algorithms’. Their personal information is being exploited for immense profit by a group of people who, in my experience, are motivated largely by showing off and money.
Programmers and advertisers famously and justifiably have little empathy for users. Their self-seeking behavior must be and can be regulated by thier targets, the rest of us.
I see no reason that existing regulations, such as anti-trust laws and election advertising laws, cannot be enforced in tech industries. IT people are not special and exempt from social norms, though they dearly like to think so.
It would help if writers such as Mr. Koopman would not feel driven to make up new words to describe phenomena as old as the sun: greed and manipulation.
Working on the ethics of data does not pay (and this is all about money, of course) and will be seen as an impediment to data analytics, which currently drive most everything, whether it harms us or not. This is like trying to impose ethics on medical research done by big pharma or device makers. Regulatory reviews required by law are always seen by those making money off this as nothing but a needless hurdle. This includes university researchers who must go through IRB reviews. It's only when people are harmed, and in the case of medicine that often includes death, that the money grubbers back down due to public outcry. Good luck ever getting that to happen here...our privacy simply does not exist any more so seeing the harm in this, aside from an obvious financial loss and the creepy feeling of being invaded, is much less likely, I'd say. I dont know if my data was grabbed by Cambridge, and I never will. I am appalled at their lack of ethic but where is the harm to me directly? Of course, if they helped elect Trump, whom I loathe and despise, that harmed me. But until people see that clearly, I don't expect much pressure to impose ethical standards.
1
There are a lot of easier ways to subvert democracy. For example, 45 years ago the Supreme Court invented an imaginary Constitutional right and then starting striking down laws that "violated" the "right", in essence removing an entire issue from democratic control. It also creates a precedent for removing other issues in the future. This is covered by code words like "culture wars" that distract Americans from what is going on. Any attempt to call attention to the situation is muffled by claiming that the critics belong to an unpopular religious group. One of the campaign promises that enabled Trump to win the Presidency was to appoint judges likely to reverse the ruling creating the imaginary right; even that development has been muffled, so much so that one Times opinionater remarked that "the culture wars seems to have simmered down.".
Isn't it ironic that candidates of the party that panders to rubes who willfully ignore facts about global warming, inequality, and the role of technology is willing and eager to spend millions on a company whose motto is "Data drives all we do"? The wolves are laser focused on the data, while the sheep walk in a trance, hypnotized by Fox news and Facebook apps designed to watch them. Not so long ago, this was the basis of a certain genre of dystopian science fiction novels. Now we're living in the novel.
2
If you use social media you have no privacy and obviously wish to have none. In fact, you are deliberately living in a glass house with the lights on 24/7.
If you look at or buy things online you are telegraphing your likes and dislikes, which can range from annoying to helpful. Netflix often does a good job of picking my next foreign film based on my pattern of previous selections.
If you don’t use social media or shop on the internet, you still don’t have any privacy because all your personal information has been hacked from your doctor’s office or credit card company.
But then we’ve known this for a long time. The more privacy laws that are passed the less privacy we have. We gave it up voluntarily—no one took it from us.
I do take issue with whether the Russian meddling had any effect on the election itself. The Russians’ sniffing about has had more of an effect since the election. I suspect this post-election effect is what they had in mind. Like the Dane Cook joke of kicking in the front door of a family’s home while they are away but not taking anything—it drives the family crazy.
Can Democracy Survive Capitalism?
That's the real question. For the (mis)use of big data is simply another card in the hand of the wealthy and influential. If a politician's opinions can be bought by campaign donations and voters can be bought be advertisements, what is left? Democracy only survives by the independent thought of individual voters, if voters no longer behave as individuals, if money can buy their votes and campaign donations define their tribe's opinions then doesn't that completely shatter the social contract?
1
Can we think back to 2008 (at least those able to remember those long-ago times)?
As I recall, the Obama campaign got lots of kudos and positive press for using social media, including Facebook, to both reach out (i.e. influence) potential voters and to attract campaign donations. Is what happened in 2016 anything more than a progression of technology and electioneering? And how much uproar is due to a biased opinion on which side did what?
5
Great point!
There is a difference between reaching out to the public when the intent is to inform the public about a candidate's policy positions and personal and professional achievements. While the purpose is to paint a flattering picture of the candidate and a negative one of his or her opponent, this has always been the nature of the beast played out in the traditional media. It is something else entirely when a third party or foreign government analyzes personal data without consent to target you with fake stories and half truths designed to highten your hatred of the opposition candidate, and increase the divide between the electorate to the point where we begin to turn on each other.
Can I say with certainty that HRC and Obama before her did not engage in similar activities? No. If so, we are not yet aware of it. However, we now know for a fact that Donald Trump and his campaign did engage in this type of psychological manipulation. The use of social media in a political campaign is neither unethical nor the problem. The use of social media to present propaganda, foment hatred, and deliberately mislead the public by data mining is both of those things.
Back when I was working on early version web businesses, Web 1.0 and 2.0, I had to scratch my head when early social media started to appear and make inroads. First of all, I didn't think people would want to take the time to share photos and text, I was old school, consumers consumed content, didn't create it. And then I didn't believe that people would be comfortable sharing all that data and possibly making it accessible to advertisers or hackers. My generation, the boomers, was skeptical and fearful of big brother. How wrong I was! Social media took off, fed by our inherent psychological needs for belonging, for interacting, for creating meaning. And by a vast naivete among those who were quick to embrace the technology, as if these new services were created with benign intent, instead of by naked capitalists intent on scalability and getting rich. Now social media has became a lifestyle, not just a tool, and it's embedded so thoroughly in our lives that it will be hard to extricate ourselves, and will continue to be a platform for all kinds of shenanigans, including undermining democracy.
We have somehow imagined that abundance of information translates into increased knowledge or wisdom. One can only gain knowledge about a few things, and wisdom about fewer still. Both take time, depth, and study independently and with other knowledgeable and wise people. Take time to think.
I'm in agreement Sabrina: the current technology industry may not be familiar enough about the concept of informed consent. Of course that requires an underlying architecture of reason starting with the Hippocratic Oath, understanding the Hague and Geneva war conventions, the Declaration of Helsinki and the Nuremberg Code of Ethics. Informed consent, confidentiality, benefit etc.
I can't be the only one who is NOT outraged. Maybe the fact that a right-of-center group paid for the data and "used" it, (not clear how effectively, though Cambridge Analytica boasted in Trump-like fashion that they can get any and all desired results. I doubt it) is causing this brouhaha. But I don't get it. Does anyone think that "free" services like the self-ads that Facebook accounts are, and the messaging/video calls (unlimited and no charge) are a gift from some benevolent folks? I mean, GROW UP.
The saying that "if it's free, you are the product" needs to be repeated like a mantra.
Privacy is gone. That's a fact. We can't get it back, either. Use these services fully aware, and guard what you yourself put out there. We are already bugging ourselves with apps like Siri and Cortana and Alexa (or did you imagine the listening is only for your commands? Yes, until someone decides to really listen. :( )
In the hands of a less than benevolent government some of us will get hurt.
I don't believe Facebook promises, nor Google's "do no evil." I will continue to use them for what I like to do. However, having a "for pay for each use" to the consumer option, (one that will depend on a stellar reputation for privacy/no data sharing, ever) is a really good idea at this point. Someone should take that business model to the Internet, and those most interested who can afford it will come.
It's not fair. It's not nice. It’s the real world.
4
Big Brother and businesses have been collecting data on us for years. Go to a grocery store and use their discount card and out pops those annoying coupons from businesses trying to get you to buy their product. Even non-profits can cross the line when they buy lists of potential donors from organizations who will sell it to them. The bottom line is Caveat Emptor, buyer beware. In an age of faster than speed information coming at us each day and then too quick of a decision made without due diligence, one can and will become a victim to the ever changing tactics used to give away our privacy.
2
Yes, ethics and anticipating consequences early in the design process are important, but not enough. Not all ethical decisions are as clear as the Golden Rule (although frequent invocations of it wouldn't be a bad start), and not all social consequences are foreseeable. But we can certainly make better efforts; get more comfortable with ambiguity, asking "What If?"; and thereby minimize unpleasant societal surprises.
Missing here is the still-acceptance of "data" as all-powerful. Complimentary myths are that "numbers speak for themselves," meaning interpretations could not vary with different perspectives; are objective; and the insidious implication that something doesn't really exist unless it is quantified.
Relatedly, we lack recognition that most if not all categories are inherently imperfect, and that we are all unique individuals who may uncomfortably fit within whatever box someone has assigned us. We aren't the box!
Parts of the solution are appreciation and elevation of ethicists and ethical practice within technological (and other) circles; critical and holistic thinking; and courage to challenge group think. When we see these in job ads (i.e. "Wanted: Big Data Ethicist"), along with recruiters who know how to evaluate these skills, we'll know we've made some progress.
And, as others have pointed out, better literacy and scrutiny of what we see in social media is also important.
This is not the full answer to re-storing our democracy, but a big piece of it.
Data theft and behaviour control through psychographic tools do pose a threat to democracy, yet it works only when society is starved of real education and the right sources of information. For, then the disinformation and fake news become the decisive factors that really guide the course of opinion formation and the voting choices, further reinforced by the divisive political discourse often resorted to by the incompetent populist demagogues.
1
Is there something that the individual can do, now, that will build an individual firewall that will thwart the manipulators who are operating with no boundaries? That is what people want. They do not want to destroy companies that have come to rely on FB, and hurt a lot of people, but is that inevitable? Do we need a Face Book FREEZE until the ethics problem is addressed? How long would it take? Months? A year? How about a government subsidized "Time Out". Zuckerburg and the other billionaires can chime in on how the Freeze would work. It is like a power outage. We all survive somehow until the lights go back on. Turn FB back on with a new set of rules. FREEZE Face Book. Take a time out. Otherwise, I and others will simply turn it off individually. I simply won't use it.
"Ethics" implanted in technology development is a non-starter. Corporate ethics of any kind are at an all-time low. The ethos at present is to make money no matter the cost to customers (for example United Airlines), workers (Amazon) or society (Uber).
Unfortunately a large part of the American public has bought into this ethos. What needs to change on the data collection and use problem is people's view on data privacy, and strict government regulation.
Given where we are on gun control, I am not optimistic.
2
The transition from horse age to motorized age was fraught with grave misgivings. Early cars were denounced as “inherently evil.” At speeds topping 20 mph, they were considered menace to society and many communities sought to have them banned for having caused deaths and injuries. But that was before Detroit led the nation in designing measures and enacting laws that would bring order and safety to the operation of cars on the streets. It pioneered such concepts as traffic and stop signs, lane markings, one and two way streets. It assembled the first corps of traffic cops. The rest is history. Today, a world without motorized transportation is unthinkable. The digital age that is now upon us frightens many, and for good reasons: death to privacy, untrammeled media manipulations, sabotage of computerized systems, upending of world order through viral misinformation. But we have been there before. With single-minded determination—- business, government, technology users, citizens—- if united as a country, we can lead the world in taming the new technological beast.
Just saw a segment from Fox “news”, full of crazy conspiracy theories and it occurs to me that Fox is being fed topics and stories targeted to Cambridge analyticas psychogenic profiles, is love to see NYT follow that thread
2
Delete Facebook, Instrgram, Twitter, and so forth. They were a fools errand.
1
Never used Facebook, never will. I told you all, I was mocked and derided as " out of touch ". Who's sorry, Now ?????
2
Answer = heavy government regulation. Expecting any for-profit entity to act in the interests of humanity is throughly stupid. Government is a blessing because it is a non-profit entity that we elect to represent our interests. Let's elect people who will believe in government and in regulation. Let's stop being idiotic enough to think of government, and/or government regulation, as anti-freedom.
6
Autonomous cars are on a parallel course of tech development, with profit-making actors rapidly creating a new reality while the public sector watches in awe.
Have to note one of the most awkward sentences I've seen in a while:
"It is all of our faults." NYT editors, don't go there!
And to think the United States managed to interfere with the elections and leadership of multiple countries before the Internet even existed!!! Boy, those were the days, huh?
3
im still attempting to understand how anything other than the fact that Hillary was a terrible candidate led to her defeat. She was and continues to be arrogant, entitled, clueless, with zero self awareness. Social media data mining and russian propaganda through social media did not cost her the election. She lost to the worst candidate in my lifetime, who has gone on to be the worst president in my lifetime, because of her own hubris. Own it dems and stop pretending that the election was somehow denied to her by nefarious means and manipulations. Of course you will not own it or accept it which is why you are useless and perhaps doomed to losing to Trump a second time.
1
OMG the left still cannot figure out why Trump beat HRC. Guess what-more people voted for him in the states that mattered.
All this talk about the russians or some clever data mining that was the difference is poppycock.
1
Well Cambridge Analytica wants to take some of the credit. In their meeting with the Channel 4 News undercover reporter, they boasted of the narrow margins in three states they were able to achieve that put Trump over the top.
https://www.channel4.com/news/exposed-undercover-secrets-of-donald-trump...
To think this had no effect on voters is naive.
1
The premise of this article -that the next generation that comes along to design new technologies is just going to be more ethical - is absurd. The New York Times continues to reveal its neoliberal technocratic biases. If we can rein in these technologies it is going to be because we decide to regulate them and because people take an interest in opposing the corporations that run them purely for profit.
The writer says that any good building must comply with a complex array of codes. Of course, that's why more buildings don't fall down - because we've seen buildings fall down and we've created building codes to stop that from happening! Absent the codes then contractors will cut corners and more buildings will fall down!
"Researchers like Woodworth and Yerkes (or their Stanford colleague Lewis Terman, who formalized the first SAT) did not anticipate the deep consequences of their work [...]"
Of course they didn't! Why would this start being any different for inventors and engineers in the future? Nobody knows what the consequences of what they build will be. We cannot start expecting that to happen. We can start deciding as a society how to regulated social media so that corporations cannot just do whatever they want with out data.
1
Duckduckgo has an an app that cleans the junk ads from the empty columns of your newspaper. No more dumb shaver ads. It also shows the ad tracking sites. It give a grade to the web page. Ex. NYT gets a B. Facebook gets a D. The Duck search site is also great. It doesn’t sell your info. Using the Duck instead of Google got rid of 95% of my spam.
Facebook needs to feel our pain. The easiest way to do that is to put a comment on those demented ads that pop up on your page stating that you are boycotting their product until FB cleans up its act. Confess isn’t doing anything. Facebook isn’t controlling what ads get through. It is up to consumers to do the only thing Facebook gets. Cut their ad revenue.
1
Did they stop teaching civics in school at some time? How is it that so many, including half the Congress do not understand how governments are run?
Say what you want about her personality, Hillary did the homework and was the most qualified for president ever.
I asked a friend who doesn’t like her “ if you found out that all you think you know about Hillary was made up lies, would you change your mind “. He answered NO. I hate Hillary.
How do you work with that?
3
Those of us who found Facebook objectionable from the get-go and have never participated in it are feeling a bit smug right now....
1
For more on this, see: The Venerable Tenzin Priyadarshi, Ethics as Optimization. He is president and CEO of the Dalai Lama Center for Ethics and Transformative Values at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and Director of the Ethics Initiative at the MIT Media Lab. Time for some long-term thinking.
Speaking of misguided applications, the NYT's idea of my taste makes me sick most of the time. I want to know what others are reading, not what I want to read. Yes, I know that's biased, too. But seriously, it's a much sicker version of me you force me to consider daily. Sounds much like CA's marketing.
Anyone recall the day Dianne Feinstein said in response to our Prism spied upon emails and texts, "You'll have to pay if you want a secure internet." Who is NOT ready to demand compensation for all this fenestration of our fortresses? How DARE they strip us of our legacies and then charge us? Peasants to your castles, REVOLT!
in 1964 Marshall McLuhan wrote 'The medium is the message, "mass age", "mess age", and "massage"
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_medium_is_the_message
over 50 years later we're living it, man !
Furious, yes, but what to do? Create bogus "you" personalities and insert them into the system as chaff. If there are a dozen people with your given name and surname floating around out there in cyberland, all with vastly different profiles, how can the crooks and Cambridge Analyticas tell which one is really You? This is how the Russians responded to Reagan's anti-missile threat. They threatened to drop chaff into the atmosphere so the custodians of the anti-missile would not know what was chaff and what was an incoming missile.
2
How come no one talks about all the phoney ads?
Facebook's monetization of my information has inspired me to make a few changes to the what I've posted about myself.
I've now listed my employment as "VP Operations" at "Cambridge Analytica" in "Moscow, Russia" ... and my education in "Bone Spur Therapy" at "Trump University."
Now monetize THAT, Facebook!
Excellent wake up call. This generation of geeks has lost all measurements of what their tools mean in a wider social context.
Historically my grandfather Proffesor William Stern who formulated the IQ equation also made research about how women drivers can drive buses.Instead of the men who went the front in WW1.
But he was aware that a holistic approach was needed.A lesson he passed on to Gordon Allport at Harvard. He knew that IQ tests can be abused,as they were. The total disconnect today today between humanities and tech
Creates these distorted social media monstrosity.
1
The biggest beneficiary of "Big Data" is "Big Empire"
1
Designing ethics into data technology is about as realistic as designing ethics into capitalism. They are systemically amoral systems that cannot persist without their respective forms exploitation, it is their essence.
1
Voters being manipulated? Nothing new here. Even without Facebook and Cambridge analytics the public is constantly being duped and conned by media, but also many other tribalist thought leaders, big and small. What is needed is education and training about critical thinking, recognition of bias, some basic statistical concepts, and until that's done the weakness of democracy--naive and gullible voters--will continue, and we will all suffer. That said, bad as it is, it beats alternative forms of government, as Mencken pointed out.
4
Yes, J, I fully agree with you that, "What is needed is education and training about critical thinking, recognition of bias, some basic statistical concepts, and until that's done the weakness of democracy--naive and gullible voters--will continue, and we will all suffer."
However, J, the general population in America is almost entirely 'consumed' in; working to survive, distracted by massive levels of corporate advertising (to be 'trained only as consumers), distracted, divided, lied to, and propagandized by political ads and deceit --- and thus have almost zero time for serious reading, research, or political analysis (as political theorist professors like Gilens and Page at Princeton and Northwestern in their "Democracy in America?" and Levitsky and Ziblatt at Harvard in their "How Democracies Die" have done in accurately diagnosing the complete destruction of any real democracy in America) --- not only explains why we will all suffer, but also 'give boot' to the nice thought that "it (democracy) beats alternative forms of government".
This is why leading academics are well ahead of hectored citizen/'subjects' in understanding that our proud and oft promising "experiment in democracy" is already in the "Final Phase" [Morris Berman] (or 'stage four' cancer) of being consumed by a guilefully disguised global capitalist Empire.
1
You talk about big data and tech as though tech held all the cards in this sort of monetize somebody else's data game. I won't let them off the hook scottfree, but there is more to this story.
Start with the investors who demand such business model. That's where the real issue is. Most of those investors made their money through that and the other useless, worthless arm of American capitalism--Wall street and the banks.
That worthless industry and Jack Welchian thought (all the rage at B schools!) is really the reason we are we are. The irresponsible monied class and the money managing class.
"It is not Mr. Zuckerberg’s fault that our society has given him a free pass (and a net worth of $67 billion) for inventing his platform first and asking only later what its social consequences might be. It is all of our faults."
This is utter nonsense. The profit seeking and rent seeking exploit us all for fun and profit as they have done since the first sucker was born in the first minute. The bait and switch tactics of these organizations have grown ever more sophisticated with time. I never demanded that the internet be invented. I never demanded that the smart phone be invented. These technological inventions, like all before them, are thrust upon humanity by greedy con artists. Those charged with the responsibility to construct and maintain a fair economic system have never bothered to do so as they are in on the con.
I don't happen to use facebook and now certainly never will. The surveillance apparatus of the internet and mobile communications are technological traps. This is not my fault. Resistance is futile.
It is, however, astonishing to hear the people explain why they just can't quit facebook. The greed is infectious.
Don't look to Congress or this Administration to lead on science. Many members, such as Pious Pence, are "Christians" who believe the Bible as fact. We need to look to Europe where the leaders are enlightened & believe in science.
Not sure what the cures are...so many horses out of the barn and out past the gate.
But at the heart of the problems is the gullibility of the average American.
The myth is that Americans are smart and savvy and hard to dupe...but the reality is the complete opposite. We're easily scammed, easily sold snake-oil. And there is no greater snake-oil, in recent history, then what the Tech Companies have been selling us since that first non-brick-sized, and affordable mobile phone hit the shelves.
The pitch started out safe enough. The initial cell-phone pitch; your life will be enhanced. Make calls when and where you never could. Sounds great, put one in my glove box. (oh but I can take it with me, into the mall, the restaurant, on the bus,etc. Now I need it! Cause nothing can wait.)
But thru each iteration the pitch amp'd up from a simple enhancing tool, to crazier and crazier pitches to Recreate Your life by buying X. You can be a star by using X!
Then it became about staying connected, even if it means not being connected to anything important. FOMO took over.
Then came the APP life. Cant live without an App, to tell me where to eat,when to eat, how to lose weight, or meet a soul mate, or cheat on the one I have. Help me be a worse person!
We got scammed by Facebook and all the other social media platforms. Made to believe there was magic in their snake-oil. Magic that would elevate our lives to a fantastical place...all by just showing up and posting, or swiping..
11
If the responsibility lies with us and not with leaders we trust, then we're sunk.
Or ... we could always go back to a very restrictive franchise, based not on owning property but on verifiable IQ. Oh, I know -- morons have a right to an opinion as well. Silly me.
There will always be bad actors whatever the ethic. We need a consumer ethic. We need to`make these systems ineffective by not allowing ourselves to believe everything we are told and breaking our addiction to social media. Aldus Huxley predicted most of this in Brave New World in 1932. The world of robots and AI and algorithms isn't inevitable, as we are constantly told by those who profit from it, we could chose to say we won't go there.
Some basics here -- first of all, this is NOT "Big Data." The amount of data here -- 5,000 data points on 230 Million Americans can be stored on a device the size of a loaf of bread, and can be replicated in less than a day. The hardware to efficiently store this data would case a few thousand dollars.
Second, even though the invasiveness is extreme, there's no way to develop easy analytical methods to figure out much from facebook. Sure, you can probably read all someone's data and get a hunch, but hunches aren't saleable -- they aren't worth much in the psychometric arena. Suppose I listen to Metallica, like eating sushi and shop at Cabela's? What does that mean? Pretty much nothing.
The real truths in these matters are always deliberately hidden (and forgotten) from the public, and it's true in this case as well. The real invasion happened a year ago when Congress authorized ISP's to sell your web browsing history to the highest bidder.
Every click on a website is how we're being profiled, thanks to Republican majorities in Congress and the Trump administration. This is what destroyed your internet privacy -- Republicans, who deliberately made it legal for ISP's to trace your browsing history. It's the Republicans who believe you shouldn't have privacy. Remember this in 2018 when you vote.
24
Face to face meetings. Town halls. Hardcopy. Snailmail. The landline telephone. The internet is mostly a stress machine. Years ago, a virus wiped out a lot of the genealogy research of an elderly member of my family. It scared him and almost broke his heart. Meanwhile, for decades we have had to watch all these internet people from Silicon Valley going around behaving as if they were social visionaries. (What they are is Darwinian robber barons who believe that the greedy will inherit the earth.) But "low" technology actually has much more resilience and is more human. That's why the Silicon Valley people don't let their own kids use the things they invent.
8
This Democracy, this Republic, needs smarter constituents. Intellectually curious and almost eager to take hits on their beliefs.
We need less gullibility. But we're Americans, and we love our snake-oil, and the salespeople.
3
I hope in your book you'll let us know who 'we' are. The piece's title, which may have been written by an editor, suggests that 'we' refers to the population, the citizenry who should have demanded a data ethics. Then 'we' seem to be public opinion researchers and personality psychologists, the 'best minds' of a bunch of generations. Well, if they are your agent of change, we will wait a long time before we see a data ethic. How much of the income and wealth of those 'best minds' has come from the exploitation of human attention and archived data?
1
The standard for internet privacy is being set by the European Union, through its General Data Protection Regulation law, which goes into effect on May 25, 2018. The United States, half-asleep at the wheel, and given to little or no oversight to our data economy, now finds itself in the standard operating position of just reacting to events. Social media mavens like Mark Zuckerberg can't be expected to solve the inherent problems attributed to Facebook, without strong Federal regulation and enforcement. Citizens of the EU will be afforded sweeping protections of privacy that American citizens can only dream about. The hand of government is the only instrument that can act in the interests of its citizens. Look across the Atlantic for some answers. https://www.eugdpr.org/
3
We are not "all at fault."
We have not all been lockstep chanting that Silicon Valley can never be regulated or Big Brother Stalinism will envelop us.
We are not all addicted to social media. Many of us have avoided it like the plague it has long obviously been.
We are not all hooked on "something for nothing"
We are not all in denial of the reality that "if the product is free then the customer is the product."
We are not all buying "smart"phones for 11 year olds and denying how this hurts their entire generation for no good reason.
We are not all oblivious to how politics has been dumbed down by the attention deficit fostered by addiction to social media.
We are not clamoring for school administrators to continue gutting basic education and wasting money on expensive glitzy gadgets which rot kids' minds.
We've not all been pretending for years, or foolishly believing, that engineered for addiction internet gadgets and "social" media, are not different than TV 50 years ago, or comic books 50 years prior, or couple dances 50 years before that, peddling the delusion that these things are just each generation's way of doing its "own" thing. We realize that comic books did not steal reader's personal data and make them globally available to con artists and mind benders. Kids did not take TVs to bed with them and carry them around in their back pockets at school.
We don't all pretend that we need a complicated new "data ethos" in order to simply say no to blatant scams.
1
Here's some ethics: it is ethically A-OK to give misleading data to Facebook, Google, and other "big data" companies to prevent them from creating an accurate psychological profile of you.
Tell Facebook you "like" things you don't really like. Search for names of people you don't know. Click "I don't want to see this" on some random things.
Do Google searches for things you don't care about. (Then switch to DuckDuckGo or Searx for real searches.) Put made-up events in your Google calendar.
Lying to human beings is usually wrong, but it's not wrong to lie to a non-sentient computer program. It might be wrong to feed a program misleading information to get a company to infer something false (e.g. that you'll become a regular customer if they give you a discount today). It's not wrong to feed a program misleading information to prevent a company from making any inferences about you at all.
Tell Big Brother how much you "like" him!
Technology and data had little to do with the Trump phenomenon, which is happening in Europe as well. This is about demagogues scapegoating immigrants for their problems; it's about "Making America White Again" in our case. It's about Fox News making people angry, despite overwhelming evidence America is prospering as it never has before.
America is the richest it's ever been, with household net worth setting records since 2013. Real (inflation adjusted) median household income was at a record level in 2016, one of the best measures of middle class income. We're close to full employment. We're not engaged in a major military conflict. Our corporations have made record profits for years.
There is no legitimate "economic grievance" with these statistics, but there sure is a lot of concern about immigrants, which is ridiculous considering our population is growing less than 1% per year, and many of those are white babies.
3
Where was all the outrage when the Obama campaign something similar to the current data collection using Facebook on their campaign
https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/2018/03/20/obama-2012-team-...
It was actually applauded as innovative back then. Now since this was done under the Trump election it is all sinister and horrible. Where was that analysis when the Obama campaign did this? Is there a media double standard on this? Do not get me wrong, Facebook and Zuckerberg are wrong here, but they were also wrong when they got away with this stuff years ago for Obama.
The underlying problem is ignorance of the voters. Where are the thinking skills such as: knowing the source? What is source’s bias? Motivation? Realizing that everything you read or see on TV isn’t true.
Civics must be required to graduate and History and basic political science are musts in High School. We cannot have a democracy or democratic republic without an educated citizenry and voters.
Bias in algorithms, yes well, lawmakers and judges can be biased too. Biased algorithms can be cleaned up. The Power of the data approach is its tailored extensive reach. Facebook, not just Cambridge Analytics is the culprit. Zuckerberg says he must clean up his act, he's clearly feigning morality, as he's happy to farm off his data to many toxic corporations.
Does this suggest that we will have to align ourselves to the political correctness of the day to defeat an unpopular algorithim ?
1
I never use Facebook or Linkin. And, I don't have a twitter account. I do research on AOL and Google. I make a decent living and otherwise have a reasonably good life. Who needs'em?
1
We continually suffer from a collective lack of imagination.
Few took seriously the threat of Bin Laden or the idea planes could be used a suicide bombs.
Then few took seriously the idea that our elections could be manipulated by a foreign power.
We need to be realistic about our vulnerabilities and then seek solutions together.
Divided we fall.
2
"Only a few years ago, the idea that for-profit companies and foreign agents could use powerful data technologies to disrupt American democracy would have seemed laughable..." What is laughable is the paranoia that some in the press have about Facebook, Cambridge Analytica, Russian bots and big data. It's not as if we are posting sensitive medical or financial data on Facebook, we are posting selfies, and the kind of mindless chatter that people broadcast about themselves without any inhibition at parties to complete strangers. If someone can take all that nonsense and figure out what makes tic, then more power to them and why should we care? Are we such mindless political zombies that Russian bots and Republican propaganda can so easily sway us to vote one way or the other? I hardly think that any of this is either new or effective. We are constantly bombarded with consumer advertising that uses the same data harvesting and analytic methods and the only way we are going end this practice is to ban advertising all together, including in the New York Times.
The simple solution? Don't use social media. I don't have any, no Facebook, Instagram, Snapchat, and I have very full and rewarding relationships with the people in my life. I've never seen how any of this is a necessity. The fact that people feel perfectly comfortable trusting a corporation with so much information about their life is just as troubling as what those corporations do with that information.
Every hospital in the country reviews its patient outcomes with their ethics teams. Every doctor in the country is subject to the ethics and practice standards of the medical licensing board. Every lawyer in the country is subject to the ethics and practice standards of the Bar Association and state regulators. The structural plans of every building or bridge or tunnel built in the country is subject to review by municipal, state, or county against the building codes established by regulators and professional associations. Every utility and media company in the country is subject to government regulation.
I think you see where this is going, but let's put a fine point on it: Facebook is a utility every bit as ubiquitous as the phone company. Facebook is an ad-supported media company every bit as liable for content standards as ABC, NBC, or CBS. So why on earth are we allowing them to go unregulated? How is it possible that a broadcast network showing political ads must have disclaimers as to the origin of the advertiser, but Facebook--with significantly greater reach--is not subject to the same rule? How is it possible they are not required to have an army of fact-checkers on staff before they allow assorted content providers to post articles? This isn't "all of our faults". It's the culture of greed and political grease that keeps technology from having to adhere to the same rules as everyone else.
19
More regulations that cost companies millions to implement and have little impact. What is it exactly that we are trying to regulate? Political manipulation of voters? Good luck trying to regulate that! The whole political system is designed to do exactly that, from gerrymandering districts to partisan opinion pieces like this one. If democrats are so easily manipulated by political ads, then I suggest that they are too simple minded to be allowed to vote or drive heavy vehicles.
1
Content standards. Every broadcast network has them both for legal and acceptability reasons.
2
Regulation of broadcast media is based on public ownership of a limited physical resource--the frequency spectrum--which otherwise would have descended into chaos as users crowded or overpowered one another. The same physical limitation will not apply to internet-based media until excessive, and mostly trivial, data input saturates the existing server network--an unlikely prospect anytime soon. This makes the broadcast analogy unhelpful and regulation, if desirable, will require a new rationale.
1
Folks, there ain't no such thing as a free lunch.
We *should* be upset about this news but the real problem isn't the bad actors *using* data. Who are the 'good actors'? Is it the folks out there who share their loved one's information for a bit more time Candy Crush or to waste some time on a survey?
It isn't just Facebook, what will we learn about those 'free' google searches?
1
We're not "all at fault". The fault lies with our corrupt and incompetent politicians who have not enacted a universal privacy law to protect all Americans.
13
Ethics, like the keys to gas station bathrooms, are inherently reactive since they are made necessary by the deliberate misconduct of a few. As we travel that road we should study Finland and see if a logical compromise can be achieved to balance the public interest in transparency with the private need for privacy. It won't be easy.
2
The internet has allowed more viewpoints to come forward. This means that the mainstream media does not filter all ideas. This is a good thing, not a bad thing. We can certainly legislate proper privacy controls without whipping up hysteria over "outsiders disrupting American democracy".
When all ideas are freely expressed, people will come to their own conclusions. A tiny percentage of these ideas will originate in foreign countries, including countries that have been designated our enemy du jour. If we truly believe in the value of freedom of speech, this should not be a problem. After all, it's not as if we created a utopia when only the mainstream press monopolized information. The era of mainstream press monopoly saw dramatically increased maldistribution of wealth, a dysfunctional health care system, a renewed arms race and our continual overseas wars. The mainstream media holds no monopoly on truth. The increased accessibility of diverse ideas that the internet affords should be applauded, not feared.
3
Well said. This new notion that we must control or censor speech is fundamentally changing what it means to be a liberal in this country. Censorship leads down a very dangerous path and one that will truly destroy our democracy.
So that we are clear, I am not responsible for the careless policies of Facebook and resent being told I am. Also, I am always careful online and tell my students to be careful as well. As for disrupting democracy, try looking at Rupert Murdoch who is busily disrupting in Australia, Britain and America all through ordinary media.
1
Some of out here have always been skeptical of the benefits of social media and have chosen not to live our lives immersed in them. I don't agree that "it is all of our faults."
All this great technical education, all these ingenious people building cool things. At the same time we are downgrading the teaching of the humanities, of the study of ethics, of exploration through fiction and poetry of the varieties of human experience, of art and music and love and friendship. A great poet diagnosed it well: "Where is the knowledge we have lost in information?"
Let's reclaim it!
5
We are able to innovate quite freely within the university sector, yet are required to submit what often seems an onerous, comprehensive ethics application for a clearance that proscribes and limits data acquired from human users (in our case students). The application asks a raft of basic questions concerning the ethics surrounding the acquisition and dissemination of the data and the way in which informed consent is achieved. Why is this not feasible in the private sector? We require companies to apply for licenses when dealing with information and the public in other areas; consider licensing for television and radio for example. The real problem is that of informed consent. We do not explicitly educate our students on the issues governing informed consent and one can also easily see how difficult this would be when attempting to ensure the average citizen has everything they need to give their informed consent to allow companies access to their data. Nevertheless it must be done and sooner rather than later.
2
What is so confusing about this? We need a new government agency to regulate businesses that aggregate and sell personal information about individuals. Without it, our constitution and our system of government will be sold to the highest bidder.
No inventor thinks about the long term consequences of their creation. Generally they're too busy focusing on the sheer joy of creating something of value that the public wants. Problems reveal themselves and if those problems are a serious threat to the public good then the government is responsible for stepping in and creating rules.
Once Facebook started relying on advertising to make money the government should have ensured that the same transparency rules that apply to print, radio, and television advertising applied to Facebook but our government failed to do so. Recent events have demonstrated that Facebook, Twitter, Google, and any other service that relies on our private information needs to be treated like a public utility and regulated accordingly. Yes that means creating a new agency and staffing it with people who understands this new world we're moving towards.
Every new technology is disruptive. That doesn't mean that they're bad or that they will destroy the world. We just need rules to protect the public from unintended consequences.
4
What is the evidence that big data determined the last election ? And how would one go about acquiring this evidence ? Money ? How much did Trump spend on big data compared to Clinton? . Does advertising money determine elections ? Do we know how much Clinton spent vs. Trump in terms of advertising ? Why does one voter vote for Trump and another vote for Clinton ?
So many questions , so little evidence .
2
Jared Kushner has already answered part of your questioning.
"We basically had to build a $400 million operation with 1,500 people operating in 50 states, in five months to then be taken apart."
$400 million, and yet much of the work was performed by volunteers who would receive their pay off from the ability to skew government policy for personal profit, as Trump and some of his cabinet do today. Or, as Jared put it:
"We got rid of a lot of the political people. That's not who we hired. Our best people were mostly people who volunteered pro bono, people from the business world, people from nontraditional fields. We could squeeze the margin so that nobody was getting rich on it."
1
I contend the Facebook mandarins were complicit in Cambridge Analytica’s experiment, wanting to see the power and extent their 'product' can achieve.
2
I contend NYTs will not certify they didn't give our data to CA. I have tried to ask them about this, and no one will respond. Much like Zuckerberg.
CA says some newspaper with millions of subscribers shared their profiles with them.
https://ca-commercial.com/casestudies/casestudynewspaper
My best guess would be WSJ, but this paper is where I spend my money and time, so I am seriously disturbed they will not respond.
Big data in modern society, specifically increased psychological testing, intelligence testing, every sort of test of the human emotional, mental, physical, spiritual to point of ideally Socratic self-knowledge?
I am entirely for it, but it does have its dangers. First, why I am entirely for it. All my life I have despised conventional education, psychology. There seems a clear bias in society toward the concept that at least some people in society can powerfully develop, can go through archetypal transformation experiences, develop in mind and string of works whether succession of symphonies of music or works of literature, etc. far above the average person.
This bias is so strong, we are so given to a socialistic "everybody is the same, goes through the same growth stages, everybody is equal" educational mindset that the field for coopting the better, more profound, powerfully developing minds is left to psychologists such as Jordan Peterson and the far right. I myself am sympathetic to the far right. I get no fair hearing from the left. But I also know enough to go nowhere near the far right. I know profound development if it exists today exists for INDIVIDUALS ONLY, not for people as a whole, not to mention a far right, fascistic, given to master race type mentality.
The left wing is at profound theoretical disadvantage when it comes to findings of brutal psychometric testing. People are different in many and problematic ways! So how to be Honest AND ethical?
Equal opportunity does not imply total equivalence in talent and capability. I do not believe you quite “get” the liberal philosophy.
1
Prairie populist " We let something come into the marketplace without vetting it or considering possible harmful side effects. "
That is so true about so many things about our world today. I for one wouldn't do the facebook thing, even if it does seem like "fun". I already HAVE to use many on line sites for work and other reasons. I am only trying to minimize damage. Our enemies can find us without knowing us. It used to be that one need to trust the person with which we entrust our thoughts and feeling, no loner. In fact I am doing right now.
We need trustworthy regulations and as much personal control over our data as possible. I don't see it going that way any time soon. The party is OVER.
1
I think Mark Zuckerberg's accounting thus far is pretty good. I'm hoping that if he's asked to do so, he will share candidly with the Special Counsel. I believe that while there may have been individual lapses of judgement, and while the developers could not possibly foresee all excesses and misuses, the platform itself is essentially neutral and transparent to the intentions of those who use it. I've been a big user and try to be as helpful as I can spotting spammers, trolls, spoofers, etc., and Facebook will be a 'work-in-progress' for quite a while to come. I'm for freedom of expression and net neutrality, but when you're operating a sort of 'miracle-machine' like Facebook, which brings people closer together and builds community in many unprecedented ways, there will always be bumps in the road!
Remember when you spot spammers and trolls you are only spotting the bad ones. This you aid in the evolutionary development of the more sophisticated versions. This is similar to our current battles with infectious bacterial diseases
The author states: "But in our rush to deliver on the promises of Big Data, we have not sought one."
Exactly to whom is he referring when he says 'we' ?
Our entire professional and political life has been spent trying to secure/protect personal privacy and data security; a blanket 'we' is wildly off-base, since there are many millions of other Americans who feel the same way and no doubt also take exception to being including in such a sweeping assumption.
The gall.
8
Unfortunately there is no longer the possibility of forming a “we”.
This is illuminated in Han’s latest book which illuminates the age of social media and big data. If you really want to know what is going on it’s called “In the Swarm: Digital Prospects”
1
Are we an ethical society? Do we believe that there is something better to be striven for than profit, than the pursuit of riches? Capitalism and free marketism would posit that if a price can be put on something it has value and if not, it does not. Are we willing to put a price on ethics, on privacy? If not, then by our current standards, they are valueless. You can't make a profit on ethics.
AI and data mining could be used to understand disease, diagnose people faster and better. Or it can be used to make sure I see ads for shoes and coffee makers because I checked out shoes and coffeemakers on some website. Guess which application is up and running full tilt?
This is an area in which we cannot hope for progress without political action driving the requirement to protect citizens and protect democracy. And political action and hope in the general ethics of our political actors is at an all time low.
So I expect us to remain something akin to digital Soylent Green - ground up and used for fodder - for the foreseeable future.
3
it will take more than adding a philosophy class to an engineering degree; to keep up with our inventions, we need a more robust and serious place for ethics discussions in our daily lives.
how interesting that one of our greatest opportunities and challenges for civic discourse is digital technology itself...
3
Long before Facebook, I tried to caution my friends not to share their data too cavalierly, to use privacy settings when on the web, to download anti-tracking software...all to no avail. Most of them look at me in pity, as though I'm paranoid or have some kind of weird obsession. Since the Cambridge Analytica scandal broke, nothing has changed. As one friend of mine put it "Frankly, I don't care." Another repeated the old trope that "I'm not important for anyone to care about," which misses the whole point. There are supercomputers processing us 24/7, and it costs them nothing to "care" about each of the millions of people they monitor.
It is sad that, in the wake of Snowden, privacy advocates focused on government snooping, when the real danger is the platforms like google, ATT and facebook, which are far more powerful and distributed than any government operation. Heck, the government can only spy on us by accessing these platforms! As long as most people remain complacent, or worse, we will have to choose between staying off facebook (my choice) or being processed, packaged and sold.
9
Certainly, Ross Williams' comment is valid: A life today is largely a constellation of digital points (and smudges) that can be inexpensively harvested by Big Data. Yet some points in our constellation remain better-protected or subject to costly, error-prone harvesting methodologies. I agree with the Opinion writer, Colin Kooperman, that ethical behavior by algorithm-writers and/or data aggregating companies is sorely needed. This is an important long-term objective magnified by the current FB breach (or diversion, depending on your POV). I would like to believe that the best near-term protection for personal freedom and collective action is thoughtful selection and participation within a digital community . . . think about what YOU wish to share with said community. Opting out of an e-community is an empowering ethical, utilitarian, democratic and spiritual decision. I've fought back the urge to join FB, LinkedIn, WhatsApp, InstaGram, etc. and somehow have remained a well-connected proprietor of a successful business. Just imagine the universe of alternatives!
2
While I am surveilled in many ways, especially by the government, Facebook and Twitter have seemed inessential bad news from the get-go. Similarly I'm not going to put an Alexa-like device in my home to listen 7x24!
10
The only defense we, the people, have against these attacks on our privacy is to falsify as much data of ourselves as we can so that they are useless to whoever wants to use them. I am doing this routinely wherever possible. By obscuring/falsifying my birth date, place of birth, and other personal identifiers I make it less likely that those data can be used against me for identity theft or with other nefarious intent.
The more confusion we as a people can sow that way, the more we are all protected against the misuse of our data.
Call it herd immunization.
10
How democracy can survive big data?
The question can be rephrased to bring out the irony of the question: Can democracy can survive knowledge of itself? You would think if democracy had bravery of psychology, philosophical gumption, big data would be no problem, specifically personality testing, intelligence testing, etc.--all we mean by complete analysis of the human. But apparently it is a big problem. And the question is why.
Today the problem is ironic in multiple sense: The election of Trump is being blamed on targeting of voters, psychometric profiling, which means precisely the people in society most likely to be considered ethically questionable, not just the right wing but alt right, the extreme right, authoritarians, are willing to take such testing seriously, essentially willing to know themselves and difference of themselves from other people, than the less right wing people, not to mention the far left.
What does it mean when the bad people are willing to know themselves more than the good people? Why is it the left wing in all its science of which it constantly boasts not the party most dedicated to psychometric profiling? Why is it the left is not willing to really get to the essence of the human, know itself?
Perhaps a debate can be staged between psychologists J. Peterson and S. Pinker on this problem. And perhaps philosophers can weigh in on why it might actually be unethical for society to really know itself, the differences between humans.
1
Methinks you limp the left into one small pot. In fact, the diversity of the left is both its strength and weakness.
1
If this were redefined as a utility, it would be regulated and we would be safe.
10
Agreed. Whole-heartedly!
That one change would correct so many problems. For instance, in the days of landlines only (regulated as a utility) making threats or even just cursing on the phone was illegal. Imagine how that would change the behavior of today's trolls.
The Silicon Valley idea that a free-for-all would work out well for everyone was nonsense from the start. The headlines on the front page of the Times has proven this point over and over again.
1
@ Elizabeth: And Zuckerberg would be involved in some slightly less lucrative and slightly less well disguised other scam instead.
2
Years ago the scholar Walter Ong pointed out some of the differences between purely oral cultures and cultures that rely on the technologies of writing, printing, and electronic communication. One of the differences is that oral cultures are situational and not abstract. For example, in today's schools teachers have extensive knowledge of the various ways to evaluate student learning in their classrooms that are concrete, practical, and lead to student further learning. Psychometrically scored Standardized tests totally deny the value of such practical knowledge, and abstractly pit students against each other; and through that process give an abstract number and name to each child that is supposed to tell the public which students are up to standard and which students are not. Some elements of oral culture need to be retained explicitly. Ridding ourselves of state mandated standardized tests would be a useful step to take as it would rely on the wisdom of physical, emotional and intellectual presence of teachers with their students.
7
Yes, intrusion and influence by foreign companies and governments is very worrying. Of course, our own government has done more than its fair share of intrusion in other countries' attempts to engage in Democracy.
What worries as much, or maybe more because it is very likely more prevalent and more effective, is the way American companies attempt to influence election results DIRECTLY.
Take DIEBOLD. It makes most of the electronic voting machines out there and its leadership are huge supporters of the GOP. Their machines are essentially black boxes that are not independently audited.
We need to return to paper ballots and manual counting, nationwide. Oregon has been doing paper ballots and all elections are mail-in only. It's not a system 100% resistant to tampering but it is FAR more secure than all the electronic approaches available.
I'd like to see the Times do some articles on that subject.
22
I live in Arizona and our elections depart in our county checks every machine before and after an election.
1
Once a technology enters the capitalist realm, ethics becomes irrelevant. In the past we've had politicians up to the challenge of regulating such technology and they could strike a fairly decent (usually) balance between commerce and democracy.
The two parties as they're currently constituted are the last people we would want to regulate ethical corporate behavior - they're both totally subservient to the corporate will.
5
As long as we've allowed ourselves to become a hive mind, where we chase outrage after outrage, we are going to be vulnerable to exploitation. If we had a harder shell against the kind of manipulation that went on both on Facebook and Twitter efforts to exploit the data would be futile. It is our reaction to what they did that needs improvement. We are, for the first time in our history, able to come together as a hive of millions. THAT is what we have to learn how to manage. And it isn't going to be easy. We must deal with our impulse towards mass hysteria, which is what drives the delusions we chased and were ultimately destroyed by in 2016.
1
How could anybody really think that their data wasn't being mined? Nothing's free. The cost of Facebook, Angry Birds, etc. is our data trail.
5
Speaking of duplicate data streams, how MANY trackers are out there retrieving the same data to retail from each of us? I see a two lip decline in rational valuation coming myself, myself.
1
Agreeing to be advertised to is one thing. Agreeing to be used for political gain by malevolent actors (and to unwillingly succumb our friends to the same) is another entirely.
This whole argument that we are at fault is faulty. We should demand and expect the corporations we interact with to be decent citizens. They are given rights by our government, but as with us human beings, our rights also come with responsibilities and liabilities.
3
Remember that, to a corporation, it’s only ethical obligation is to maximize returns to its investors
1
For the entirety of my experience as a voter, dating back to the dawn of the Reagan era, it has been common wisdom that elections and opinions are routinely manipulated by big, corporate spending. During that time, the pretense of a functioning representative democracy in America has been reduced to a second rate farce by by politicized Supreme Court decisions, such as Citizens United and Bush v. Gore, and focus group driven propaganda like the Willie Horton ad.
As wealth has become increasingly concentrated at the top of the corporate ownership class, corporations have succeeded in bending laws and policies to favor a stateless identity for corporations chartered or operating in the United States. As such, the money that corrupts public will and government policy is substantially divorced from concern for the best interests of the majority of voters.
It is true that the enticement of social media coupled with the exponential growth of computer processing power and artificial intelligence development has made it much cheaper and easier to debase American democracy. But to suggest that it is only recently that powerful interests not loyal to the spirit of democracy set forth in the Constitution are able to corrupt American politics is to miss what has been happening since Eisenhower expressed concern about the trajectory of the "military–industrial–congressional complex."
52
I think we should also consider that mass media is in a desperate battle with social media for advertising dollars. And they are losing.
1
When the computer industry was still young, old fashion ballot box stuffing helped decide who won elections. Think Mayor Richard Daley and the 1960 presidential election that year. And if you were black and living in the South, you probably never got to vote at all.
I am not that concerned about Big Data. I am more concerned about Big Money and people like Sheldon Edelson trying to buy election outcomes. He spent around $100 million on his favorite candidates for various offices in the 2012 election cycle. And then there are bundlers like the Koch brothers who raise lots of money from their rich friends and throw in some of their own for their favorite candidates.
1
I saw the danger that Facebook posed when it first appeared and never used it. I figured Facebook's data mining was bound to come to something like this sooner or later. The cliche that 'If something is free, you're the product' applies here.
This is what we always do. We let something come into the marketplace without vetting it or considering possible harmful side effects. Only after it injures a sizable number of people do we pay attention. By then the harmful agent or substance has usually developed a support base that can overwhelm objections. Facebook is powerful and will easily overcome any objections to its business model. Cosmetic changes will be the extent of it.
38
I also saw the danger of Facebook but use it carefully because it's an efficient way to fulfill some important life requirements. Opted out of gmail from the beginning, and my Google account is very very limited. But Facebook is only the tip of the iceberg. I'm not sure how much data my credit card companies are selling about my purchases. I'm not sure what my IP and mobile carrier are doing with my browsing histories. Yes, paying attention is good, but it's not enough.
2
Most individually identifiable information is collected to control individuals. Businesses use it to make money, either by using the information to sell goods or services or by selling it to others who can use it to do that. Of course, in our money and media-drenched political system, candidates are treated essentially like products and voters essentially as consumers, so all such information can and will be used to control or manipulate our democracy.
Likewise, governments collect individually identifiable information, everything from fingerprints, photos and license plate numbers to emails, phone records and financial transactions, about their citizens to control them.
Between what governments collect themselves and can buy or demand from businesses and the immense computing power now available, it would be all but trivial to come up with a numerical "threat" index for virtually every identifiable individual in our nation.
The answer is not some vague notions of "ethical" data collection and use. Once collected, such data can and will be used against us. The only answer is to very closely limit the collection of personally identifiable information by both governments and businesses and to store it in a way that makes it impossible to share and analyze without very tight legal and practical controls on its use. (Think filing cabinets and individual subpoenas signed by judges, that is, approximately as it was only a few decades ago.)
13
What you call control, I call organization. If some idiot runs over me with his car and a camera catches the license plate, I want the police to arrest that idiot and hold him accountable. I also want our government to ensure that said car passes inspection yearly so that I can count on the brakes working when he slams on them to avoid hitting me.
My emails, phone records and financial transactions are available only by subpoena if and only if a judge warrants it. We are a nation of laws, last I checked. Our personal information is ours unless we stand accused of breaking a law. Getting information requires probable cause.
Sometimes, collected data can and will be used to help us. The people most worried about this are usually the ones with something to hide.
Facebook is just beginning to suffer from the general public realizing that users are their product, not their consumers. The reality is that there exist technologies that protect privacy. They simply are not marketed as aggressively. Because they lack the mass appeal, they are also less addictive.
More generally, this is the result of a corporate-centered capitalist system in which people are bombarded by aggressive advertising of anything that makes those corporations a buck today. Government regulation is inadequate everywhere, but the US prides itself on being the LEAST regulated. Might there be bad consequences for our customers years from now? Ask Big Tobacco. Just don't expect an acknowledgment of wrongdoing in response.
15
@ Sad for Sailors:
The operative difference between a safe socially productive Facebook and the current wrecking ball Facebook is 99% of Zuckerberg's wealth. It's all about unbounded greed taking advantage of 50 million small suckers, and one big sucker of a voting public.
3
Yes, we need a better sense of ethics. But in our uber-business-friendly culture, we also need regulation to protect consumer privacy. Outright data breaches by Equifax and others are one thing, and regulations around those are lax. Facebook, Google, and the other internet giants are allowed to run amok with our data. Yes, we users mindlessly checked the "I agree" box to get in on the game. But we need better protections as a society from those companies who then stretch the limits of that data. Europe is much closer to achieving a better balance on this. As a democracy, we should emulate them.
28
I doubt many could have predicted that Facebook would have the effects it has had and how it has been misused. The idea of developing the equivalent of a building code when the unintended effects are so unpredictable seems destined to fail. A more viable approach would be to require all companies holding aggregated data from the population to submit an annual public report saying how they use the data, and report any issues and complaints they have had about their use of the data, and how they responded. Companies who treat the public poorly are then open to sanctions or revocation of their rights to hold some or all of their data. Facebook should be facing penalties because it enabled foreign manipulation of our election process.
2
What the author calls fact is anything but. I don't buy the premise that American democracy has been disrupted.
1
Pretend Hillary Clinton was the one responsible for it; pretty sure you'd be up in arms THEN.
1
We made a big turn around when someone finally shot Joe McCarthy down. That clown abused the Congress to foment distress. These disinformation idiots are gonna rue the day Saul switched servers. How to operate in a digital jungle without really frying. Don't subscribe to anything!
1
This sounds positive, but it seems to gloss over the fact that corporations by design are structured to generate profits at all costs. The only mediating factors in any corporation are the consciences of those who work there. However----As quoted by Upton Sinclair: "It is difficult to get a man to understand something, when his salary depends upon his not understanding it!" Moral purity is among the first things to get thrown out of any business when it costs profit dollars.
4
"the idea that the American system would be compromised enough to allow outside meddling with the most basic of its democratic functions — the election of its leaders — would have seemed even more absurd."
Really? And here I thought that was conventional wisdom during the cold war that the Russians were using the Communist Party to influence our government. As for big data, politicians have been commonly using data to target voters for at least the last 40 years when personal computers became available. And they have been using data, focus groups and polling to craft messages that would influence voters.
Not only is this not new, its working as designed. There is a whole industry called public relations that is dedicated to manipulating people's behavior using mass media. And there are regular seminars for all sorts of businesses and organizations how to use social media both to gather information to manipulate an audience for their purposes.
Mostly this is just pure hysteria. The sun rises in the east!
10
We can survive big data by not being stupid. We can read, study, inform ourselves (not on Infowars) and get our news someplace besides Facebook, Twitter and FOX.
It was infuriating seeing Facebook friends buying into obvious lies during the 2016 election.
Now they feel stupid.
Well they should.
64
Actually, they don’t feel stupid. They ought to, and I certainly wish they did, but do they ever?
Unsurprisingly, the word on Planet Right Wing is “But Obama did it first! Main-stream media hypocrites bleating again.” Or “This is what advertisers / campaigns always have done. We just have better technology now.”
2
The idea of data ethics is as old as the idea of privacy itself. Facebook data is simply a subset of our societal interactions. An analysis of my Facebook data would arguably reach a similar conclusion as the analysis of data collected from my personal interactions with friends, my professional interactions with co-workers, my shopping habits, my entertainment habits, etc.
You won't find that second analysis because social norms and laws have arisen over the years that provide some modicum of privacy in those settings, to a degree.
It is debatable whether the impersonal void of the internet has simply not kept up with our inherent social standards, or whether the internet's volume amplifies the lack of privacy inherent in all social interactions to a level where our standards no longer fit.
Regardless, we don't need to reinvent the wheel when it comes to online privacy. We just need to figure out how to transfer or amplify our current real-life norms.
The real question is how... (And that is a truly, frighteningly vast question, one which may lead to answers that defeat the question itself.)
2
Exactly why would anyone take Mr. Zuckerberg seriously when he promises to protect their privacy?? The man built his business on invading your privacy. It would be like taking Mr. Trump seriously when he promised to clean up corruption. Facebook didn't make mistakes; Facebook is a mistake. Simply put, there is no honest, legitimate reason for any corporation or government to collect & control that much personal information about that many people.
Facebook, along with Google & the rest of big tech, envision a future in which all human experience, thought and interaction takes place on the devices they sell us, formatted for the purposes of their profit. We are to be dependent on them for everything: our thoughts, our social interactions, our political & economic activity. Our lives will be commodities they sell to marketers, who will sell them back to us, dumbing us relentlessly down to maximize markets. This is not paranoia. The tech gurus are quite open about their aspirations when they aren't doing damage control. The more we dismantle our cultural and economic infrastructure to migrate to their platforms, the more we adapt our pychological habits to fit their programs, the harder it becomes to imagine a different future. We, not they, should be setting the boundaries & purposes of technology. The time to start is now.
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I'm not dependent on them for anything. I have never used, or even looked at, any of these "social media".
Google is useful for looking up things like piezoelectric coefficients or the density of glycerin. If it keeps track of my web searches, I don't care. I doubt it would do anyone any good. Perhaps someone will try to sell me some glycerin.
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@Jonathan Katz
'I have never used, or even looked at, any of these "social media".'
Neither have I. But they likely have data on both of us.
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Jonathan Katz: you are commenting on a NYT article online, using your name and your location. You had to register (and pay for) that privilege using additional personal data. Anyone reading this can share the article to Facebook. You have an online footprint whether you directly use social media or not.
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It takes a certain sang froid and calculated social insouciance to build a network that dupes people out of their most intimate information for commercial or political purposes in return for an ephemeral soap box or a place to swap recipes. This morass is not the fault of the average Facebook user; this is the fault of the individual who would plunder the intrinsic good nature of the average Facebook user, the same good nature that allows society to exist on a daily basis without anarchy in the streets.
People have weaknesses and vulnerabilities. Democracy, as the will of the people, is beset with the same issues. It takes statesmanship to not exploit societal frailty. It takes reckless disregard to engage in social exploitation. This is what Facebook et al have done, enriching the cold blooded insouciant, leaving the rest of us in political and social desolation.
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No, it is not "all of our faults". I (and many of my colleagues) got off of Facebook when I learned of Facebooks bad actions regarding privacy in 2011, for which they entered a consent decree with the FTC... Facebook agreed to change their ways but I didn't trust them and deleted to the best of my ability all trace of my Facebook account (which was rather complicated).
Mark Zuckerberg promised incredible safety for user data, with no commercial sharing in 2009 in this BBC interview: https://youtu.be/2GuHVZx4OwU .
Facebook has been intentionally deceptive. Period. That is not "all of our" faults".
20
We are inclined to remain Luddites in this. We have enough personal data out there through normal financial activity- house loan, credit cards- and see no utility for us in ‘social media’. So, everyone- delete your account. Of course it is too late.
Is the true threat to our democracy not the fact that we so dislike, distrust, and often hate each other that we believe such obvious falsehoods about one another? People wouldn't be so easily fooled by algorithms if they had good faith in their fellow citizens, but they clearly do not. We are in an age where a disturbing number of people are content to sit inside their homes listening to TV programs that tell them what to think, to get around their world in the isolation of a private vehicle that robs them of contact with their neighbors, and an age where open their minds to belief-affirming strangers on the internet over their own family members. What Cambridge Analytica did was simply develop a new tool in the constant culture war. Perhaps we should be many smaller countries instead of one large one.
26
That's a good point. I've personally been a victim of gossip. Gossip and innuendo are as old as the caves. But why are people so mean?
The stuff being said about HRC, the real hatred against her drummed up by lies, really was appalling and people with sense should have ignored it.
Why didn't they?
7
The things I believe about Trump supporters are not "falsehoods." They will proudly admit to you that they advocate for them. Their representatives' horrendous and cruel voting records are also not "falsehood," but a matter of public record, easily obtained by you and me.
No, as much as I want to share your sunny picture of reality, it is certainly the people themselves who are a threat to democracy.
5
It is not isolation from each that has driven us to elect truly dangerous leaders (including the American President) rather it is our new ability to connect otherwise geographically and culturally remote populations together in ways that had been previously buffered by reason and a diversity of opinion. For almost 250 years we have built a nation of unparalleled wealth, knowledge and intellect. Imperfect yes, yet there is no brighter beacon of individual freedom to guide the world. We are at a most critical juncture, for this is not a political crisis, it is an existential crisis.
Isolation into small units is a form of quarantine and quarantines mostly serve only to re-direct, not to reduce viral transmission. Our primary goal must be therefore not to eliminate the source of information, but to inoculate as much of the public as quickly as possible.
The first step is to protect the Mueller investigation from political interference form any source. This is why individual Republicans must now honor their oath to preserve, protect and defend the Constitution above all else, whatever the political cost, by joining together with colleagues across the aisle to support the process of investigation. It is precisely this potential sacrifice of political cost that is the clearest true signal capable of reestablishing trust among us all, and with this trust sway the course of history.
2
We can whine and cry and point fingers at Facebook and others as much as we want for the use and abuse our personal data, but the reality is we have as much responsibility for it as they do for failing to read terms and conditions, and by indiscriminately sharing our personal information and friend lists, so we can quickly gain access to content and the "latest and greatest" new apps.
Facebook is an easy target but it's our fault too.
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@Jon
No. it isn't our fault. If you want to vote, drive a car, have a child, go to the doctor, travel on a plane, make a phone call, use a credit card, have a bank account, work for a living ... you are leaving a data trail that is being tracked. What "big data" means is that it is now possible to connect all the dots of your data trail with, or without your "permission" at very little cost. Social media is just one small element of your profile.
16
@Jon
Are you saying that anyone who uses Facebook doesn't deserve privacy? If someone shops at Walmart, are they endorsing the idea that employers shouldn't give workers benefits--and should they sacrifice theirs? Is anyone who drives a car voting for climate change?
Consumers are not citizens. Sometimes individual actions have broad social consequences, and should be regulated politically by citizens--not by consumers, not by markets.
3
I am saying that consumers share responsibility by readily and often carelessly sharing their personal information, without taking the time to read terms and conditions, or even just the simple text shown when they are asked to approve access to friend lists, and that not all of the blame rests with Facebook and other companies.
5