Facebook has been the haven of egoists and folks who must blab about their every mundane action. "Ya gets what ya pays for", said a wise sailor once upon a time.
8
Zuckerberg is trapped. He created a digital platform that has a utility function and a monetising function. And slotted it into the free market capitalist system. The monetising function feeds off the utility function, i.e. the users. Putin's brilliance was to see this contradiction and exploit it. He has in effect hacked Facebook. And US democracy at the same time. Neither will be the same again. If Zuckerberg were a free agent, an ethical human being, he would close Facebook down. But he can't close a publically listed company on his own. Frankenstein is loose in the world and his first victim was democracy in the USA.
24
Perhaps our country was designed to be self-governing, but not in the age of instant data access by anyone who knows how to get it and can pay for it.
Even individuals these days are having a hard time governing themselves and what they say and do.
Just today, a friend told me she had to "unfriend" an old classmate of ours due to her rabid and unkind comments about Parkland and other students. In the old days, we would have chatted with that friend and she would have learned something about kindness. These days, enough is enough and we simply "unfriend" them after 50+ years. I don't blame my friend for her choice to unfriend the other woman, but I am sad about it.
Meanwhile, another friend, age 60 or so, is in the hospital after being beaten up in a Walmart parking lot because he asked a man to slow down as he drove through the lot. His face is full of contusions and he has been unable to get out of bed for 24 hours.
Online or off, we need to ask what sort of society we want to live in. Personally, I prefer the South I grew up in, other than its racial and religious discrimination. It was friendly, courteous and mostly kind, at least to my face.
5
I don't see why people are so concerned about privacy on Facebook. Are we fearful that someone will see photos of our grandkids that are not supposed to? Do people really get the latest news on Facebook?
1
Were there classic examples of voter suppression, like publishing the wrong Election Day date or falsely warning that you can be arrested at your polling place if you owe payment on a traffic ticket? We don’t know —
We'll if you don't know, don't lob the accusation.
1
Facebook’s customers are those who pay for our data. We... who use it at no charge and happily provide that data... have simply fooled ourselves into thinking that it’s free! It’s not free, folks.
10
Facebook seems to want to protect the "privacy" of its "advertisers" more than our privacy.
Also, it's more than just your "friends'" profiles that they have. Many of these apps do everything they can to get into your personal email contacts list on your computer as a prerequisite for getting the app. Even if you try to decline that access, they bombard you so much that you know that by now they have access to everything. How many times have you clicked on something only to think, what was that, a "yes" or a "no"... was it a double "negative"? And of course having no way to go back and check...
Mark Zuckerberg is so disingenuous... his entire model rests on taking advantage of you... Putin and his trolls are more important customers to him than you are.
18
Perhaps instead of merely -- even if entirely justifiably -- criticizing Zuckerberg, Facebook, Brin, Page, Google, Twitter, and all the Washington politicians for creating and allowing the internet monster to eat away our privacy and compromise our national security, we should look in a mirror and ask ourselves why we allow ourselves to accept the illusion that the internet could ever be secure and private.
Are you willing to get rid of your internet connected devices? Will you refuse to connect your car and ho me? Will you demand of politicians that vital government, especially military, communications and our electric grid be disconnected? Or will you just sit back and accept the fact that we all live in today's locked-out Atlanta, as well as food for Experian hackers and Facebook salesmen? Are you willing, sooner or later, to see people with GPS-guided drones bombing schools instead of shooting them up with AR-15s?
The choice is ours, not the tech world's snake oil salesmen nor the bedazzled or bribed politicians.
5
Anyone else tired of Zuckerberg's lame excuses and hollow apologies? Time to leave Facebook.
12
you did it to yourselves.
2
Facebook is a great way for people to communicate with friends and share pictures. It’s also a bully platform and a way that people can be incredibly mean. I use MSN as my home page. I sometimes commented on Join The Conversation and was appalled at the things people wrote by their name and picture. MSN canned it, “looking for better ways “. The ripping apart of social fabric is much deeper than political ads, data mining, and posts of fake news in an attempt to influence voters.
5
Absolutely Facebook's drive for profit and power enabled interference in the 2016 elections. Combined with other plays for power, such as the SCOTUS decision to define money as a form of free speech, such events have increasingly handed more and more power to primarily one party. That means that Facebook is acting against democracy and costing everyone in our country far more than just the loss of their privacy.
I no longer
10
There should be many class action lawsuits against Facebook and Zuckerberg similar to against the tobacco industry. Just like tobacco industry, not only did Zuckerberg know that fb was addictive but he hired psychologists to purposefully make it more addictive, destroying the generation doing precisely that, wedging walls between parents and children in the name of privacy yet itself invading privacy and exploiting personal data for the data capitalism.
There should be some very serious consequences to his actions.
17
I have always seen FB as a way to broadcast Christmas cards 365 days a year.
It's oddly personally impersonal.
8
I’ve deleted almost all everything in my FB account and am debating whether to permanently delete my account. Unfortunately many, if not most, legitimate and respected online information and media outlets have tied their comments sections through FB verification in order for a reader to post. It will be interesting to see if this relationship continues or if these sites (NYT being one of many) decide to sever ties to FB. No, wait.....they’re getting advertiser-useful data, so of course they’ll stay.
10
The problem here is not the data-mining and the misleading advertising. People who can’t be bothered to think their way through attempts to deceive them shouldn’t be voting.
The problem is Facebook’s fundamental lack of transparency, manifesting here in its refusal to publish the disappeared ads on grounds of advertiser privacy. That kind of prim pretence is ridiculously inappropriate for a behemoth. The rights of all users, and the public good as a whole, require that all social media be operated as open books.
Do what you think best for your business, Mr Zuckerberg, but do it openly.
[18.0329.1704]
9
Perhaps the fundamental "First Amendment" concept that the cure for bad free speech is good free speech need reexamination.
The gun-ban crowd says the Heller case builds on an anachronistic Second Amendment. Perhaps the Citizens United case builds on an anachronistic First Amendment.
Today's army rifles are more similar to the militia flintlocks of 1789 than the internet, TV, and radio are to the newspapers and soap boxes of 1789. Free speech in the internet age is a far greater threat to our country than free guns. It is perhaps even an existential threat.
We have not confronted that totalitarian propaganda and deception were very effective in the 20th century. Advances in media tech and techniques of persuasion have made such fakery even more effective.
The lack of a meaningful response to Russia's election hack underscores that we have been too literal and mechanical in extrapolating First Amendment protection. After all, the Constitution is not a suicide pact.
7
This is all so ridiculous. Face it, The minute you get on the Internet, whether it's Facebook, Twitter, or a nondescript web page, you lose your privacy.
9
Wait.. all this FB bashing forgets that for many great artists and show biz personalities, social media is The Way to promote themselves. For example, one of our great poets, Patricia Lockwood, would not have risen without social media. Most of these comments are written by people who have no need or desire to promote themselves. Also, most of us would prefer not have our emails filled with FB-like announcements. Social media has its place. This from someone who spends 5 minutes a day on Facebook and should be there a lot more.
1
Oddly enough, thousands of great and not so great, and even mediocre and incompetent, artists came to (at least some) public recognition prior to 02/04/2004 when Facebook began to defile the web, and, by the way, claim copyright to any words or images its sheeple posted on it. Art could and would survive if so-called "social media" disappeared down history's toilet tomorrow. The author, and I, am asking whether or not our democratic republic can survive "social media" and all the evils it has spawned. Yeah, its produced some goods on the plus side, but the price to our functioning society, which is the daily personal, social, and economic environment we all inhabit and more importantly, hope to continue inhabiting, is enormous.
4
If Cambridge Analytica, in 2008, had taken Facebook user data, and sold it to the Obama campaign in 2008 leading to a triumphant and unexpected presidential victory, NYT and all its readers would have praised Big Data and a new age of smart campaigning.
Too many people care about this issue cause Trump won and they feel violated.
4
No, Rita, the hated black president won both the popular vote (+8%) and the electoral college 2 to 1, without Cambridge Analytica on Facebook. The Obama campaign, contrary to all the truly fake news (when the Nazis or Soviet Union did it, we called it propoganda, not news, just fake) perpetrated by Rush, FOX, and of course, your dear leader, was very ethical, for a political campaign.
7
Given what we are finding out about Trump, all the more reason to be aghast at what fb data and cambridge analytica have wrought.
1
If the plug was pulled on Facebook and Twitter tomorrow, it would be a good thing. To paraphrase the words of an old song, "I got along without you before I met you, I can get along without you now".
And I'd up that a bit by saying the whole world would likely be a bit nicer to live in, we'd all be more productive and less in jeopardy of being harmed by those whose interests are not in our best interest. My idea as to how to fix Facebook would be to simply take a hammer to it, were it a tangible thing.
8
Maybe better to have a disclaimer in size 20 font every time someone opens their fb app -"Your data will be used in any way we like - are you sure you want to proceed?"
4
I just wish I could feel confident that Mr. Cohen would be as righteous about defending our democracy if the people who had bought and used Cambridge Analytica's platform were liberal instead of conservative.
After all, Christopher Wylie, the whistle-blower who co-founded CA and who was responsible for building its psychographic profile platform, only left it in 2015 because he was disillusioned that his tool was being used to help right-wing politicians instead of the left-wing politicians he intended it for.
There are no clean hands here, and it would be nice to see the people who so vociferously object to this kind of data mining and its use make it clear that they don't want it used to help Bernie Sanders or Elizabeth Warren, either.
4
"I just wish I could feel confident that Mr. Cohen would be as righteous about defending our democracy if the people who had bought and used Cambridge Analytica's platform were liberal instead of conservative."
Well, they weren't. So he is being righteously annoyed at the correct culprits - conservatives.
3
I'm still trying to get my head around the idea that people who post the most intimate details of their lives on Facebook, down to what they had for dinner and where they plan to go on vacation, then expect Facebook to protect their "privacy." Like it or not, I think they gave up their privacy when they opened a Facebook account. More egregious by far are outfits like Experian, or Wells Fargo, or Blue Cross-Blue Shield -- who have our data because we bank online, or need a credit rating, or health care -- who are then so careless with our data they lose it to hackers. Cambridge Analytica will never be able to use my profile to influence an election because I don't have a Facebook account. But I still live in fear or having my bank account cleaned out by a hacker or having my medical records fall into the wrong hands.
16
People have been encouraged to think of a Facebook posting to their group of "friends" as akin to sending a group holiday card. Most people I know have privacy settings narrowly configured so they believed they were only communicating with their chosen group. Yet we come to find, there are no teeth in the privacy setting at all, if the information can still be culled and provided for profit to third parties.
The user level public-private setting is just a placating strawman, a ruse, if one cannot really make their page accessible only to those they expressly chose to accept as "friends." I don't think anyone received a friend request from Cambridge Analytica or the myriad other groups who have, no doubt, purchased user data from Facebook.
10
The hacking debacles you mention are on a continuum with the Facebook/Cambridge Analytica scandal. All stem from the mad dash for business to turn our activity into data. Data that we are either subject to (credit rating) or coerced by (commerce/political influence). That either situation is the current state of affairs stems from the same "original sin", where corporations have been given carte blanche to reduce individual agency. We cannot hold Experian accountable if we lack the ability to hold Facebook accountable as well.
You should understand that with large scale data aggregation, it is possible for data harvesters to ascertain a great deal about your medical status without ever opening your medical file. Would they be happy to include data "accidentally" released during successful hacking incidents, sure, but with the massive data aggregation capability and lax data regulation, third parties may already know more about your medical status than you might desire.
5
Perhaps this will lead to the conversation we need to be having, about balancing the public interest, the rights of both the individual and the collective against the rights of corporations. We've had this conversation before, and on many different fronts: Utility companies, which often have an effective monopoly on the markets they serve, could make a lot more money by jacking up prices during periods of extreme heat or cold, but we do not allow them to, yet they remain profitable. Facebook is in many ways a monopoly, as there really is no direct competitor in the US--it is the social network of record. People and businesses have less and less of a choice as to whether or not they can decide to interact or share their data with Facebook, with little or no restriction on what Facebook can do with their data, or who they can share it with, and ultimately what purpose it might be used for. In the wrong hands, it's incredibly dangerous, and what we've seen so far is only the beginning.
Additionally, Mark Zuckerberg will not live forever. Although he has adopted a libertarian mentality towards his company's actions, he at least seems like a person who has, at some level, a desire to be "good". We have no guarantee that the next leader of this organization will not be terrible, or that the company won't one day be owned or controlled by a foreign power. These are things we need to protect ourselves (and our data) against.
3
The biggest need for a constitutional amendment isn’t around guns, equal pay or even the obsolete electoral college. Let’s start with invalidating the ludicrous idea that corporations have rights, just like people. If we begin with there, the rest may eventually follow.
8
No it's not backward. It's capitalism.
Why do I get the idea Zuckerberg is like a Star Trek Borg wanting to "assimilate" everyone and their data for his financial benefit? Why else would he want to launch satellites so that every country in the world would have access to Facebook unless he wanted the power to hold all this information for his benefit? Sounds like somebody has let their ego run amuck.
3
The Obama campaign famously used data on millions of Americans for microtargeting it's ground game, cable television ads, periodicals , and other vehicles f communication.
I'm Caucasian but saw plenty of ads presumably intended to suppress African American turnout. Shotgun approach rather than finely targeted?
Focusing on FB ignores the greater problem of campaign advertising in general.
FB is simply one more way the spectacular market dominates our subjective experience.
2
You are missing something fundamental here. There is nothing wrong with using data to micro target who you want to get your message out to as long as the message is a campaign statement. There is something wrong with the targeting of specific groups with false information for voter suppression purposes. I am not aware of Obama ever being accused of voter suppression.
7
I agree with those who say that we are not sharing data with Facebook, we are sharing with our FRIENDS. In my mind, there are at least two other important considerations:
Few of us understand the extent to which sites like Facebook are using our online behavior to make inferences about “who we are,” and what that means about things like our shopping and voting preferences. We might willingly provide our e-mail address and demographic data to one site or another without fully understanding that we are also consenting to give away contacts, affiliations, purchase behavior and much more. This is further obscured by the fact that this data is collected across many sites, over time and then aggregated into profiles of us behind the scenes.
Another troubling aspect of this story is the fact that Facebook originally provided the data under the pretense of academic research. Regardless of our understanding about what kind of personal information Facebook can and should collect, it is very troubling that it was inappropriately released through what seems like a fairly simple ruse. At minimum, this points to lack of sophistication and poor controls in a company that vows to protect our data.
6
This is not new. What has changed is the power and volume of the ability to reach people without their knowing what they are consuming. http://www.businessinsider.com/subliminal-ads-2011-5 " The birth of subliminal advertising as we know it dates to 1957 when a market researcher named James Vicary inserted the words "Eat Popcorn" and "Drink Coca-Cola" into a movie.
"The words appeared for a single frame, allegedly long enough for the subconscious to pick up, but too short for the viewer to be aware of it. The subliminal ads supposedly created an 18.1% increase in Coke sales and a 57.8% increase in popcorn sales."
I remember hearing about this when I was young: it was banned. Things have changed, e.g., the Manifest Destiny we all took for granted turns out to have been a lie, and the idea that Blacks were inferior also was a lie. But too many people wish to return to a simpler time without remembering what life was like without all the mod cons we take for granted, including computers and mobile phones. We got the 40 hour workweek from unions, and the gig economy is dismantling universal benefits like health care and old age insurance.
The institutional church is another form of brainwashing, all too easily exploited to distort Jesus's teachings of love and caring for each other: instead there is nothing - rape, murder, climate change, world war - worse than electing Democrats and creating communities that care for everyone, not just the successful and powerful.
3
So let me get this straight...
Social media is a threat to our democracy and national security.
But open borders and mass unchecked illegal immigration, MS-13 gangs, the cartels bringing lethal fentanyl over the border, our foreign interventionist regime-change wars brought to you by "establishment so called legit" candidates IS NOT A THREAT TO OUR DEMOCRACY???
No wonder the media and coastal elites who live in bubbles are so out of touch. It is frightening. Anything to avoid the uncomfortable truth. Unreal.
9
This is a perfect example of a victim of social media and confirmation bias. You echo exactly what you have been taught to believe. 1984 is here.
14
I agree with you, but not your response to Andy. You're not offering counter-evidence, you're just offering insults. How about writing something like..."The US does not have open borders, though its borders are porous. Most people here illegally come through official entry points and over-stay visas. In addition, according to a Pew Research Center report in 2017, the estimated number of undocumented residents in the US was peeked in 2009 and as since declined."
"No wonder the media and coastal elites who live in bubbles are so out of touch. It is frightening. Anything to avoid the uncomfortable truth. Unreal."
No - those are both problems. - signed, a coastal elite.
2
"This week, Facebook delayed the release of its home assistant devices..." Ha! Just what I need. A robot in my house listening to everything I say and parlaying it directly to Facebook and the Russian government. It will hear all my conversations, know who I plan to vote for, and probably be able to cut out the middleman and give me false election dates and intimidating threats in the comfort of my living room, even when I'm not on Facebook. Giving up one's autonomy has never been so exciting and convenient!
6
I often hear that Democrats need to play just as dirty as Republicans or all will be lost. I want so very much to believe that for the common good, we as a society can pull together and repudiate these tactics. However, it seems that Republicans (for the most part) do NOT care as long as the influence is in their favor.
This is not a recent cancer confined to modern social media; this baseline nastiness, the willingness to engage in exaggeration, the peddling of patently false allegations as truth, and the impetus to win at all cost has been growing for decades. Republican trafficking in enmity, spitefulness, and venom has been with us at least since the days of Newt Gingrich, and has grown more mainstream as Republicans increasingly embrace the notion that because it's for our own good, the end justifies the means.
If you can’t beat them, join them. The end justifies the means. Might makes right.
Do we really choose these cheap tropes over Liberty and Justice for All?
5
It might interest you to know that Christopher Wylie, the whistle blower who co-founded Cambridge Analytica and developed its psychographic profile platform, did so in the hope it would help the left-leaning candidates he favored. He only quit the company after it was supported by the Mercers and started helping conservative candidates. There are no clean hands here.
2
In the2000 election, didn't the Bush campaign spread rumors that McCain fathered a black child? What about the Willie Horton ad during the H.W. Bush campaign? This type of tactic went on before Facebook.
5
If FB, Instagram, Snapchat are done away with for the return of civility to society, what could be next - the return to unbiased reporting??
5
I still don't understand Zuck saying that we share our data with them. NO we don't. We use their framework to share with our friends. I will gladly pay $25 a year or $1 more than Facebook gets for selling my data. The phone company doesn't own my calls. Facebook doesn't own what anyone posts there.
10
Facebook sent me an invitation supposed from a cousin to join Messenger. She hasn’t had a computer and used Facebook in over three years. They also sent me a Friend request from another relative that I never communicate with and who would NEVER invite me to be a friend.
Who’s sending them? Do they have a glitch that allowed this? Or were they just trying to get me to log in so they could charge advertisers for another body?
I gave up logging in to “like” things relatives were doing a couple of years ago.
5
If the FTC said it would fine FB $40,000 for each instance of private data breaching, can any one, or all 50 million people whose private data were sold to Cambridge Analytica, sue FB in civil court?
How can I find out if I was one of the 50 million?
5
It won't happen, it's perfectly legal, you agreed to all this when you signed up.
2
Why so many supposedly intelligent and thoughtful people still have Facebook accounts after all we know about data misuse, teenage suicide rates and fake news, etc., is baffling to me. As if everyone is frightened to go back to the time before Facebook existed, like it was somehow the worst point in our history. Wait a second, isn’t that now? Thanks Facebook.
7
the only racism i see here is the author's, suggesting that black people are going to be swayed by ludicrous conspiracy and "dark ads."
5
Call me a weak woman, but I can say that the constant stream of anti-Clinton ads that went across my FB stream definitely diminished my enthusiasm for her. I took some time to investigate some of the claims and found them to be misleading or outright false (including reading some of the Wikileak documents), but I couldn't keep up with the incessant claims against her. Since she was the candidate who actually reflected my values and positions most closely, I voted for her, but I didn't campaign for her. I would have if I hadn't been wondering whether there was any substance to all of those claims. I don't think it's ludicrous to think that people so targeted (regardless of their race, sex, etc) would be swayed soon.
7
I think this is unfair to the Trump campaign. I say alot of dark ads and fake news as well targeting the Trump campaign. I saw more dark ads towards Trump than Hilary. let's be fair, we might not like Trump but I feel believe this is just witchunt
3
Is it even possible to be unfair to this lying, corrupt, immoral, probably treasonous, man, who is certain to go down as America’s worst president ever?
3
"unfair to the trump campaign"... hahaahaha
3
“Facebook won’t release [the dark ads], citing the privacy of its advertisers.”
You’ve got to be kidding! A public ad can’t become private - or confidential - by simply removing it from the public domain. If Facebook’s agreement with “dark ad” advertisers says that, then Facebook does more than just facilitate the deception by others. It would be one of the deceivers (propagandists).
10
But the money! Look at who it made rich! Isn't that what counts? How it benefits them? "WE, ARE THE MINIONS!"
3
If you are so easily fooled and influenced by the kinds of ads and postings given as examples in this article, then the problem is not with the medium or the platform. The problem is the inability to think critically and understand the source of your "information" and the motivation of those providing it.
3
I'm going to sound elitist and snobby, but people in general are fools, easily influenced and scared. Are we as humans really any different than any other culture at any other point in history? I don't think so, we are no better than the Roman's who cheered the gladiators or the Germans on the 1930s... I think as a culture we can be better, but we are the same easily fooled humans. We need our institutions and government to be better to protect society from the mob mentality and worst of human nature, because we've shown that as a species are easily duped.
3
Get over it - Trump the wing nut won the election, but to blame Facebook for his electoral college win misses the fact that Hillary ran a breathtakingly flawed campaign. Second, I guess everyone on this comment section thinks they have some sort of right to free connectivity to friends that Facebook provides. Hey folks, it costs money to pay the people to write the code and host the content - if you want no access to your identity information, you can buy a subscription with your own money.
6
I agree. Make it a paid subscription service like Netflix and ban all ads and sale of customer data. I'd pay.
4
An imaginary community owned by a rich billionaire. Sad that so many people bought into this scam.
5
Facebook is a sham. All that faux compassion and sincerity and down to earth by Zuckerberg, is a ruse to camouflage his real objective, increase profits. It's egregious because he pretends to be a friend of the masses. He's just some Napoleonic nerd who is out to fool and mesmerize its users. Up til now there was no sufficient safeguards in place. Don't let this monolithic social media substitute manipulate us. We now are cognizant of their real agenda, gain as much information as possible from their users and sell it to the highest bidder. Which is an egregious violation of our privacy. They need to be held accountable and fined.
7
Get off Facebook and spend your time learning something of value to yourself and the country.
9
Facebook can be helpful. Through it, I get announcements from local community groups, see pictures of my friends, etc. I have traded a bit of privacy for that opportunity. I'm okay with the fact that FB (and those to whom they sold my data) know that I have a child and a dog and that I've sought advice on rice cookers and large-sized women's shoes. Still, most of my FB feed is filled with political memes and posts, many of which are primarily false or misleading information meant to inflame emotions rather than inform thought. I have no idea how much of that material is originated from foreign instigators; unfortunately, it is passed among real live Americans with abandon. My fact checking has no doubt made me unpopular with some of my "friends."
1
Dogs and where to find size 11 summer espadrilles are one thing. But are you aware that Facebook and Google, too, follow your browsing history across the net when they are open in your browser and maybe when they are not? Are you ok with your search history being aggregated with data from other sources to ACCURATELY surmise you political views, your income, your religious ideas, your health status, whether your marriage is having difficulty or you have financial strain, whether you're kids have behavior or learning problems, whether there are drug or alcohol problems in your home?
Data dossiers from aggregate sources, one of the biggest being Facebook, compile personal information that most people would be loath to share widely within their "real" communities for obvious reasons. The fact that there are "at-a-distance" organizations seeking to compile and sell this personal information makes it no less of an affront to a personal agency and dignity. And, when used to cordon-off information and create a widespread political information vacuum, yes, it is damaging to the structure and function of democratic governance.
3
When Facebooks ads become as generic as picking up a magazine I will rejoin.
6
Facebook and the impact of data mining, "fake news" and covertly targeted political advertising on our elections (and society) is a major challenge to our democracy.
Unfortunately, this confused and superficial op-ed contribution, swinging wildly in all directions, only makes the situation more dangerous.
No doubt, Washington will "do something" about Facebook, but whatever is done in the current hyper-partisan environment will very likely only create mechanisms to be used to give one side or the other the ability to force Facebook to tilt one way or the other in the future. Evidence: Every one in Washington is against "fake news" as long as it is defined their way. Fortunately, so far, neither side has been able to enact on their version of fake news.
In this case, I see only two possible remedies:
1. Don't let Facebook and other data marketers collect the most of the information they extort from us. Of course that means wrecking the business model of our modern advertising system, so that won't be easy.
2. The other would be to apply radical transparency to the system. Individuals would be fully informed about what data is collected on them and who it is sold to. Information on all ads - who paid for them, who received them, and who was paid for them, plus the content, would be available in perpetuity for all to see.
I'm sure both of these remedies are technically almost trivial for all those smart people at Google and Facebook.
2
Here is a provocative pair of questions:
1) Should all companies which raise money by selling advertisements be regulated as media companies?
2) At what point does aggregation of personal data gathered online become equivalent in personal importance to your medical records?
I would say for the first Yes once you hit a certain size - say selling $1 million in ads. As for the second I would say - before you get to the detail of Google and Facebook profiles...
2
There is a distinct difference between preventing someone from voting, as the poll tax and the literacy tests did, and discouraging someone from voting, as these ads are alleged to have done. First, if someone suggested that I not vote I would (metaphorically) spit in their eye and be all the more likely to vote just to spite them. Second, the political parties are doing more to discourage voting by the candidates they select and the negative campaigns they run than and dark ad purveyor could ever do.
As a long time Libertarian, I vote here in NY state for statewide elections even though I know my vote will do nothing to override the NYC Democratic majority. None the less, I vote to make my voice, small as it may be, heard. No ad on Facebook, no whisper in my ear, nor any other trick can prevent me from doing so and the same should be true for any person who cares about the country.
3
This speaks to the continued focus on the individual without concern or regard for the impact on those around them. MZ's stance reflects a pampered, immature and self centered existence. The MZ's of the world have been suckered into the rights manipulation that greed is good, others are not your concern. The right uses isolation as a tool to frame "the other" in a light that devalues them and inhibits real concern for their value as equal. Until we stop allowing ourselves to be manipulated to believe that we don't owe anyone else anything because we are entitled to feel that we don't, we will lose our grip on this Democracy. Situations like Facebook being used as a political weapon against the people of this country will continue to happen. We were blessed with relative peace and prosperity since WWII and we are forgetting the value of sacrifice for the greater good. We will not survive as a Democracy if we don't teach the MZ's of the world who have such powerful platforms not even imagined 20 years ago, the value of people and the good of the whole, over profits. "That boy needs to be taken behind the barn and learned something" as my grandfather used to say....
3
Facebook cannot be fixed. No social media of any kind can be fixed. You can't put the toothepaste back in the tube or the genie back in the bottle. What is, is. What ain't, ain't. Privacy no longer exists in America. We are in the middle of a cyber-revolution none of will understand till it becomes the past.
8
Hi. I'm on Facebook. Be my friend. I am an imbecile who is always happy and the food I eat is fabulous. My life is wonderful and I go on fabulous vacations. Nothing is ever wrong and did I neglect to mention, my life is perfect?
12
Facebook is free. People choose to disclose their information on it. No one is coerced. Why are we surprised that Facebook is selling it? And why are we so upset? I don't get it. If you choose to share your information and get your "news" from Facebook, then you get what you pay for.
3
And the rest of us get the result of people deceived. Did you read the article?
10
A fundamental problem with personal social media systems is they severely deepen a user’s confirmation bias. The reality experienced doesn’t challenge fallacious views, models, and paradigms. It is quite the opposite. Filtering content away from enlightening a user’s ignorance and blindnes is the core business model. It’s like eating only candy corn and believing you’re getting your veggies.
2
As a simple point of fact, one can choose what content to access as well as your "friends". If you choose only to associate with those with whom you mostly agree, then your views will go unchallenged. For me, Facebook provides me a chance to read views that are not similar to my own, typically from sources I don't track.
What is going to happen (if it hasn't already) is that all the 'smart' people, the people with power and influence will not be on facebook except to show their public face. The 'elites' will follow because they are no fools either. What is left is the average smucks who either trust facebook or don't have the smarts to understand the danger. And once again, it is the average person upon whom the burden falls.
6
Democrats need to amp things up and play just as dirty. Campaign ads with dead kids and old white guys laughing as they blow smoke from a gun, ads with people dying on the street because they don't have insurance. Republicans crossed the line a long time ago. They don't even CARE that Russia influenced the election as long as it was influenced in their favor. Rather than this perpetual handwringing and logical studying of what's to be done, Democrats need to hit back harder. Make stuff up. Put it on Facebook and Twitter. Certainly we can lie better than Trump!
5
I'm thinking the solution may not be to HIDE from Facebook and other Social Media, but rather to confuse and overwhelm it. Maybe we can beat them at their own game with bots that make random posts from lots of different locations, that do searches online for random words and phrases, etc. The idea would be to make the data gathered by these conglomerates scattered and somewhat useless.
For example, someone with diabetes could use a LOCAL app that would search Google for 100 different diseases, only one of which would be diabetes. Trying to determine which search was "real" would be a needle in a haystack kind of thing.
5
I got Facebook to see pictures of my children and granddaughter. I don't post anything and it bothers me that Facebook even knows my birthday. It might be necessary for some people and businesses but most people should be able to get along without it. If one must use it, why is it necessary to reveal so much about oneself? To do this gratuitously and then complain about misuse reminds me of the old Jewish joke: If it hurts when you hit yourself with a hammer, stop hitting yourself with a hammer.
3
It's not Facebooks fault that humans are so incredibly stupid that they continue to use a known enemy of the state. Wake up!
5
In this day of algorythims and terrabytes of personal data being avaliable, not to mention, Aritficial Intellengence, this is only a glimpse of the future. This aint going away in our lifetime, it will only get more difficult to identify.
1
It's good to see that the focus is shifting away from harm to the individual (oh no, they can read my private texts!) to the harm to the collective (massive influence campaigns). It really brings clarity to the new rules of the smart phone/social media era.
1. everything you do online is logged as data
2. all data can be analyzed
3. findings are used to predict and influence
But the reaction right now is wrong. Deleting Facebook is symbolic at best because the new rules are going to persist with or without Zuckerberg's creation; turning into some Luddite society that is afraid of technological progress is far worse than Russian trolls.
The right reaction is to learn to be better internet citizens. Don't believe everything you hear, be aware of bias, don't share without verifying, and brace yourself against the influence campaign that is inevitably going to be waged against you. We prepare ourselves and our society for the dangers of life in the real world and we need to do it for the digital world as well.
4
There it is. The "Luddite" slur, applied to anyone who questions the uncritical acceptance of whatever new technology (and business model) someone has decided to impose on society in order to become a billionaire, no matter the disruption to individuals and degradation to society it may cause.
Technology is not a force of nature. It is a conscious human activity. Profit-making and control are not the only valid human values. We have not just the right but the duty to shape our world, including our technology, and not just be crushed by it. This is our right and duty both as individuals and as participants in a society. What is happening now makes the industrial revolution in England look like kindergarten.
3
"Well, to start, we know that Facebook, unlike a small-market TV station, didn’t care about Russians buying political ads, even when they paid in rubles. That’s a shock to our political system, which is meant to protect against foreign interference. "
I'm shocked, shocked! to learn Facebook is a global platform with no national boundaries on information and users. To think people are attempting national or - heavens! - LOCAL debate on what amounts to the World's Mudwrestling Championships.
Even smaller products are a great risk for exploitation of personal data. There is an app called Grammarly that has been heavily advertised over the last few years. Very expensive ads popped up across social media so I thought I would check it out.
This product is a multi-platform grammar checker that filters EVERYTHING you type...from texts, emails, social media comments to traditional word processor documents. Essentially everything you do on your computer and phone, everything you type anywhere, is filtered and corrected for writing errors, except reviews suggest it is a poor, dysfunctional product. A survey of the BBB, Trustpilot and Sitejabber show very low reviews, with many characterizing the app as a scam for a number of reasons.
Why would such a problematic product have so much ad capital and offer such a poor product? My only thought is that this is a product designed to harvest a vast amount of data, their grammar service only a vehicle to serve up customer data.
Further searching reveals that while this company is located in CA, it is actually the venture of a Ukranian businessman and a US engineer. The whole of this company, from product to customer service to the omniscient aspect of their personal data access is disturbing and possibly malicious. Products like this may seem appealing but I encourage people to use a copy of the MLA handbook and edit the old-fashioned way rather than deliver the complete oeuvre of personal data to a company like Grammarly.
4
In other words, for every Facebook and Google, there are probably thousands of other vehicles that are data mining under the guise of providing a nominal product, and from the outset their currency is data.
Not only are individuals at risk, but also institutions that use external products organization-wide. Imagine lawyers using a product like Grammarly. What if medical transcriptionists or doctors were text correcting with an outside product like this? Who knows how pervasive these piggy-back products have become? Would individuals even know if such vehicles were integrated into organizations that handle their private information for other reasons? Organizations ranging from businesses to government departments, education and healthcare might easily adopt software that offer some purported benefit while also data harvesting secondarily and who would be the wiser to the problem? Very disturbing developments in technology products that are becoming endemic and ubiquitous in everyday life without consideration of the consequences, but at least people are becoming more aware and seeking to act on their concerns, with changes in both personal behavior and calls for regulation.
2
" We don’t know — the dark ads have disappeared and Facebook won’t release them, citing the privacy of its advertisers."
Are you kidding? How can Facebook withhold releasing Ads that have already been in the public domain by already having been seen by millions of Facebook Users /Customers?
And how can they cite as the reason to not release those ads because of and on privacy grounds for their Advertisers.
How can ads already released to be seen by millions be private??
So those ads paid for and previously "aired" to their audience were saying and promoting "ads" without identifying who they were ...yet allowed to say/claim /advertise their message on Facebook and their identity protected by their facilitator?
This is completely WRONG and a breach of not just moral behaviour but against the interests of those who use Facebook and whose data and information is not considered private , but just the profit opportunity that Facebook desires above all else.
There is something broken in Capitalist America...and it's become the Enemy .
Of itself as it betrays us in it's own demise.
6
Frankly, I'm surprised that anyone is surprised. What did you think for profit companies were going to do? This is a problem for the ethicists and futurists. For us boomers, this is reminiscent of the TO SERVE MAN Twilight Zone episode.
5
I had a facebook account but gave it up 3 years ago as a waste of time, invasive, and far too many ugly or trolling ads, even before the 2016 election.
I sure don't miss it.
2
Facebook and other social media platforms should be subject to all of the same rules as traditional media. Period.
5
I don't think that loss of privacy and freedom will impact social media business. Their consumers are apparently dying to find out what their 'friends' are having for dinner.
3
I remember in the early days of Facebook, before it went public, questions about how it might make money in order to validate an IPO.
Obviously, the answer is selling user data.
I think users are generally aware that they feed into this money making system.
Users give something, and they get something.
However, the nefarious mechanisms that use this data have only recently been exposed.
Obviously, curtailing the activities of less than honorable data users is an admirable goal.
But, it seems there isn't a protocol in place to stymie these malevolent players.
As a business model, the data must remain open for sale, as we see is what Zuckerberg basically says is the case today.
I personally can only hope some "free" alternative app comes forward, but if it needs to be profit driven, it will take a genius to come up with the next gen.
1
The real issue is that the platform was used to help Trump. When Obama won, Chris Hughes (Facebook co-founder) was on magazine covers for his 'brilliance' in using this new media to help elect Obama. If Hillary had used FB better and won, we'd be talking about how clever her team was. There are definitely issues, but the main issue here is that people do not like the outcome (me among them) and so they are trying to blame it on some form of mendacity.
3
There is a qualitative difference. Trump used social media to suppress votes and sow fear, hatred and falsehoods. And social media is not subject to the rules that traditional media is subject to, which would have helped expose and stop such anti-democratic abuses.
Your comment creates a false equivalency.
4
I deleted my Facebook account and I encourage others to do the same. If enough of us dump Facebook the company (or an upstart competitor) will be motivated to create a safer, more secure, more responsible alternative.
20
This article speaks to Facebook's shortcomings as if this is all about social media. To Facebook and Zuckerberg, that is a second or third consideration and only when they get in trouble. The first consideration is money and lots of it, more than anyone can really imagine. Facebook uses individuals' private data as a money pump, and it (really he, Zuckerberg) is willing to do anything to maximize profits. Morality, either social or personal, is not even a consideration and then only when people get upset. What will come from all of this? Some wrinkled foreheads and feigned deep thinking. Then silence.
16
I have not looked at Facebook since the night of the election. I realized that it was full of vitriol and a waste of my scarce and valuable free time. with elections being tampered with and all of the data breach reporting, I finally said to myself, 'Why are you keeping this account open? So I can see the meal my 10th cousin once removed had? So I finally deleted my account this past Monday. Many of us have been so lax about what we share of ourselves online. There is always a consequence. This is an example of technology having advanced before we could process and ask should we be a part of this, does this make sense?
8
“Social Media” is a misnomer; better it should be, at a minimum, “Anti-Social Media,” or perhaps better yet, “Socially-Subversive Media.” Years ago a classmate from years before informed me that he had just “friended” my brother; when I gently corrected him it should be that he “befriended” my brother, he replied, “No, I Facebook ‘friended’ him,” none of which made any sense to me at the time. So much for the insidious corruption of language, the first step in undermining commonly shared societal values. When years later I signed up with Facebook to keep up with my son recently gone off to college, I immediately cancelled when in the first three minutes I received perhaps a dozen solicitations for prostitution. Call me a Luddite but I don’t Facebook, I’m not a Twitt, and I prefer secure email to textmexting as my principal method of regular communication. Ethically rudderless Mark Z and his enabler gal pal Cheryl S will just have to roll up more Billion$ for themselves without my help. By the way, love the genetically modified Norman Rockwell illustration for this worthy OpEd article!
4
All of the network newscasts, tv programming, NYTimes, and movies all push the Democrat viewpoint, but tiny little internet posts makes Blacks decide to not vote. What a low opinion of the intelligence of Blacks.
5
Where did anyone get the idea that posting something on a global-scale computer network would be "private?"
If you don't want the world to know that you're a white supremacist who collects Pokemon cards, don't join the "Pikachu for White Power" group on Facebook. Simple.
3
Ever since Zuckerberg stole FB from those 2 white brothers, things have gone south.
3
It would be nice to see an opinion piece in the NYT where African American were not portrayed as some simplistic group of dolts who have fallen victim to the latest whatever changes in society or politics.
African American voting was off in 2016 because they did not like Hillary and eight years of Obama got them nothing as a people. Why bother. That's my spin on it, I choose to give agency to African Americans. The author uses them to set up a racist dog whistle.
11
This has been going on since the 2012 election: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2012/feb/17/obama-digital-data-machine...
3
I'm a paid nyt subscriber. I've been curious. Does the NYT do the same thing? Are the articles I read tracked and that info sold to advertisers trying to peg my interests and proclivities more specifically? Lots of finger pointing recently, and I was wondering about self examination. Particularly in light of the NYT being a paid service for many.
13
It icks me that Facebook quite literally groomed us with a lollipop idea of friends and family just keeping each other in the loop. Just sort of conveniently overlooked telling us that big data was also in the loop and told us we were the 'product' with a snide dismissive Palo Alto style grin. Facebook and its subsets are in truth is the biggest 'creepers' of all time. The whole thing is voyeuristic, exploitational and perverse. I know this is just sort of angry rager of me, but i really hope this all blows up big for these peepers and that we come up with new safer ways to be in touch - like phone calls, texts and IM. ha.
4
You are finally beginning to talk about the people that matter in terrible ways.
Marc Andreesen, that creep, and people of his ilk, are really the reason why we have the system of raping public information for private profit. People like him and Peter Thiel are the reason SV has turned into Wall street a long ago.
If you want to fix this problem, you need to start with drowning wall street by breaking up the banks into tiny pieces. Until that is done, don’t pretend your cloth bandaids will save you from the sewage of greed.
7
“Facebook is insistent on seeing its failures as harming individuals, never society as a whole”.
Facebook, the creation of Mark Frankenstein Zuckerberg, is a highly efficient delivery system for social poison. It’s a monster.
Time for people to to pick up their torches and pitchforks, march up to their computer and DELETE the beast.
2
Breathtakingly one sided. The attacks on Donald Trump as a Fire Breathing Monster had no bearing on this issue? Riiight.
2
I don't know if folks are aware of how upset the Indians are about Cambridge Analytica interfering in their 2014 election, but they found out about it by reading CA's web site.
https://ca-commercial.com/casestudies/casestudynewspaper
I did, too, and discovered an English language NEWSPAPER gave CA MILLIONS of subscribers' data.
No one in this industry wants to have this conversation. All are loath to address what they do with our data, so now we have to suffer in silence not knowing if our own paper has given CA our data?
I feel so violated, I suspended my subscription here until the NYTs can declare they did not give our data to CA. I doubt they did; they probably use Google's apps. That's for another discussion.
But no one will allow us to know which paper gave CA millions of subscribers' data because they don't want to answer the other question. Who do you give it to?
4
Abby, first of all, there's only one US newspaper with a circulation over a million: the Wall St. Journal. The NYT is a bit over 1/2 million.
Then go take a look at that CA statement about their work for a "respected English Language Newspaper" ... particularly look at the graphic they present with growth potential (of their sales) of various American city markets.
Note the strong growth potential for the NYC metro area ... and that doesn't make much sense if the newspaper is the NYT. It's got its local market saturated.
If that's not telling also note the "strong growth potential" in conservative markets -- sure not likely for the NYT!
So is it the WSJ? Only if there's an argument that it has very strong growth potential in its home market? Maybe?
I am OK with Facebook, it's a way of keeping track of old and new friends. What gives me the creeps is the illustration for this story. Are you kidding me? Why so disgusting? I wish I could delete that.
Well done.
1
Mrs. Clinton lost the election, not Mr. Zuckerberg.
2
Seems a bit breathless to me, honestly. The only example of a "dark ad" given is a truthful statement about what Hillary did in fact say (a long time ago, but the quote isn't fake). If that caused African-American voters not to vote for her...what's the problem? Who's to blame except Hillary?
Does it really matter if the ad was financed by Russia?
The whole undertone here seems to be "Americans are too dumb to think for themselves, we need protection from those dastardly Russians who confuse us by showing us ads of things our politicians actually said, it's not fair!"
But if you really believe that...may as well get rid of democracy, because if people are too stupid to think for themselves, they're, well, too stupid to think for themselves.
4
"Brad Parscale, who ran the Trump campaign’s digital advertising, is quoted in the same piece discussing his plan to use dark ad posts of an animation of Hillary Clinton referring in 1996 to some African-Americans as “super predators.”"
So are we now saying that it should not be allowed for others to present facts that are true if we do not agree with their purposes or politics? Are you sure you believe in anything?
1
What democracy?Politicians bought by big oil,NRA,the military,etc,and now Facebook and the Russians !
1
Google is good.
Facebook bad.
Again. If you use any of these services or devices, you AGREED to give your information to the company to use as they wish. It is no different than agreeing to talk to a survey or focus ground at the the mall or talking to a journalist. We are all you people complaining? Because you were suckered and now Zucker-boy is rich?
Think this is a Facebook issue? Read the CNN privacy policies for when you read an article on their website: https://www.cnn.com/privacy. Also, Comcast, AT&T, etc. also sell your information: https://www.nytimes.com/2017/03/29/opinion/how-the-republicans-sold-your....
1
The solution is simple, get off Facebook. It is not necessary, it is riddled with back doors and is full of trolls. You don't have to be on it, there are other means of keeping in touch. This is not hard or complex, people. Delete your account.
5
Its about time Americans woke up to the reality of just what "social media" really is. Hopefully its not too late to stop the Pied Piper from leaving town with all our future generations.
...
We have allowed a small group of "venture capitalists" sold us a wide-eyed hippie nirvana of "free internet" and "absolute anonymity" "privacy!" "net neutrality"!!
Thus was the commune created and re-packaged as "social media".....a faceless tribal mass with common interests and NO individuality......everyone's meta-data collected continuously updated and refined....all subsidized by various Obscure Govt Agencies for the contrived purpose of "fighting terrorism".....sold to commercial and political corporate operations...
Data used to manufacture things like "Arab Spring"....."Internet Bullying of Alabama".....CrowdFunding used to launder giant political donations......
1
The graphic is perfect.
1
Would we even be having this conversation if Hillary had won? Seems like more liberal sour grapes to me.
2
What a shame that greedy Zakerberg in his lazy ways allowed Cambridge Analytica among others allowed to destroy the world wide members of their connection.
First they allowed posters with fake names with multiple pseudo names .
They overlooked the fact that so many away from home are able to connect with their relatives an friends from other parts of the World.
1
Religion was the opiate of the masses, now facebook is the opioid of the individual.
2
"We don’t know — the dark ads have disappeared and Facebook won’t release them, citing the privacy of its advertisers."
Why do advertisers need "privacy"? They are trying to sell goods and services to people--what, are they trying to target racist, young White males for sales of white, sheets? Why does Facebook feel it's imperative to 'respect' what any company (x) sells to person (y)? Since there's no question of a 'moral' obligation to a seller, it's all about money. Wow, do these tech billionaires have chutzpah! Telling us that they TRULY wish they could expose bad actors but it would go against some ethical 'code' that the rest of us are just too dumb to respect!
2
A few ads on Facebook did not turn the election. Why pretend they did?
3
Faceplant is a media outlet. It should be regulated like a media outlet. Oh, that's right. They're not regulated much anymore either.
"But more menacing is the prospect that the Trump campaign and its allies may have been given free license by Facebook to suppress African-American turnout through 'dark ad posts' that disappeared after viewing."
"Dark ad posts"?
Sounds more like The Ministry of Truth and throwing the evidence down the Memory Hole.
My friends, we have become the proverbial frog -- tossed in a pot of cold water to be cooked, who even enjoys the water as it begins to warm up -- who doesn't realize what's happening until he's been boiled to death.
So, this is how the American experiment ends?
Who can make war with the Beast?
1
A thought-provoking article which makes me wonder why Civics and social responsibility is no longer taught in school.
2
Why have people been posting every sordid detail of their lives on facebook for the last decade and now are suddenly surprised those details were exploited?!?!?!?
But I agree with the op-ed author that it is basically a societal scourge.
1
Social contagion can play the role biology once did. When Europeans arrived in North America, their childhood diseases killed native Americans. When they arrived in Africa, fevers killed them. History unfolded differently.
I scoffed, years ago, when Chomsky claimed Soviet readers had a better idea of truth than Americans, because they knew the news was propaganda. He got it half right. A century of practice lets Russia deploy social contagion efficiently. America's lack of experience makes it vulnerable.
This isn't some minor phenomena. Comments carp that a 10 point African-American drop is incidental. Hardly. It's all small stuff. Elections are won on the margin. Diseases spread because of slight biological advantages.
Can we be inoculated?
1
For crying out loud GIVE IT A REST
This shrieking & hysterics of "ohmigawd another country tried to meddle in the US elections" is unbelievable hypocrisy
The US has been doing EXACTLY that for over 73 years! It constantly meddles in the elections of other countries - both directly & indirectly.
Having hysterics because some entity from Russia paid for some ads on Facebook (which were probably ignored by 90% of Facebook users like they ignore all ads) is ridiculous
A few internet ads doesn't even come close to the US meddling in Venezuela where the US paid for over 3000 events to push its favorite candidate and political party.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/made-by-history/wp/2018/03/07/americ...
There were far far more instances of US meddling than just that one country.
And there was Iraq & the Shah & Vietnam & the list goes on and on
And there was St Obama going to England & sticking in his 2 cents on the upcoming Brexit votes - something which the outraged British public regarded as intolerable & impertinent meddling.
And how well would go down in the US if the Marcon or Merkel came over & told the US public how they should vote on an issue?
Grow up. The US can not go around being a buttinsky & not expect others to the same to it
(And advertising is really pretty ineffective. If an ad worked, advertisers wouldn't have to keep doing more & more)
2
Ann -- you are really missing it.
There's a fundamental difference between Obama going PUBLICLY to the UK, and telling Britons that his position as POTUS is that they should stay in the EU ... and the creation of a Russian troll farm.
What do you think the consequence would have been if Putin had stated that he wanted Americans to vote for Trump?
2
Missing WHAT?
You blithely ignore all the info about the US meddling in other countries - like the 3000 sponsored events in Venuezela - NONE of which mentioned that the US was paying for the event. US HID its involvement and the money it was spending in trying to influence elections in other countries
Leave to a true-believer-in ST-Obama to ignore all of the stuff about how the US has done exactly what you are what you all are whining about - hidden money, hidden involvement, attempts to manipulate (secretly) the voters in other countries.
Sorry. Since Day One many, many people have avoided Facebook. Not everyone, as you suggest, bought in. The idea that Facebook was immediately universally accepted as the new defacto method to communicate with friends and family is false, and is representative of the instant-gratification generation that mass media elevates as "new standard". Many, many people were suspicious, and did not participate. So please stop with your rhetoric, accept the blame, and shut up. Think for yourselves.
1
A former friend of mine developed a Facebook persona that she became addicted to. Her Facebook page attracted a bunch of "friends" and now she's so enamored of it that she's become some arrogant fraud I'm tired of catching in a lie each time she spouts off some trite self-aggrandizing declaration that has nothing to do with what she knows, what she does, who she really is. I've known her for over 30 years, and now I can't find her even she she's standing right in front of me. Facebook isn't just violating our privacy, it's like one of those giant pea-pods in Invasion of the Body-Snatchers. They should call if FAKEbook.
1
Ok, I'll bite. Why do people keep using FB?
1
I couldn't agree more. One of the worst things to infect our society, it our history. Be smart, find another way, that doesn't harm people. Learn to judge the true character of the people you have mistakenly trusted, but only want to use you for their profit.
2
Facebook makes it possible to develop new friendships all over the world and to firm up old linkages. And its profiling is not so perfect: I used to see ads for Christian singles and wiping out of criminal records. Apparently I was seen as a lonely Christian ex-con.
I used Facebook for about 1 year about 5 years ago. I found some long lost friends and then deleted my account. I never had any illusions that Facebook could not care less about my privacy. I identify myself for my views here at NYT voluntary with no pseudonym. I do not mind being counted as a "subscriber." The schemes from the social media tech companies are never to be trusted.
Regulate them like television or radio.
3
STOP USING FACEBOOK
Facebook is Bad! It traffics in your private information; that is its business model. In this case it sold to Russians or their agents so they could undermine our democracy.
Facebook users are complicit. They give away their private information--Facebook's product--for free.
Forget government regulation and internal company reform--this is not going to happen.
The solution is simple: STOP USING FACEBOOK and DELETE your account.
The company is entirely dependent on users (who provide the company its labor for free). Without them, it will go out of business--as it should after committing what is at least fraud, and may be treason.
No amount of advertising from any source would have changed my vote.
1
I'm surprised that people are surprised.
1
The idea that fake ads aimed at voter suppression were the cause of low election turnout by millions of African-Americans stretches credibility so far as to break it completely. And the idea that Facebook violated the 14th amendment by allowing these ads is also absurd.
For a year before the election, NYT reporters were writing stories about the lack of interest that African Americans were showing in voting for Hillary Clinton. Real people were interviewed extensively, and gave real, legitimate reasons for their lack of interest.
No matter how much we would like to, we can't blame everything on Russia and Facebook.
2
What fun that we think we're facing some new and diabolical monster set on destroying civilization and that our outrage will call forth heroes who will slay this demon. Hogwash. Television, the diabolical monster of a past generation or two, is replete with sitcoms and dramas where we can see a monster even older than TV wreak similar destruction on small towns, hospitals, families, workplaces, police forces, the list is endless and the cause of havoc the same...a focus on petty, silly human frailties, gossip, romance, sex and envy that overtakes our senses and in the end makes us look like fools. Thanks to society's pop-culture addiction we are focused on the icing and have forgotten to bake the cake...don't we look foolish? And through Facebook, Twitter, Snapchat, CNN, FOXNews, etc. (despite their real ability to provide substantive and valuable information), we have become a nation of fools and "keeper uppers," rather than a nation dead set on doing and getting done...
"Oh, look...someone in a bikini/eating a bug/kissing somebody else's wife/smoking something, etc...stop the presses...I gotta see this."
21
Where's the harm to the individual? Your demographic was sold to an advertiser who used the data for targeting a specific group? That is not new. Should FB police what is done with the data or is that the government's job? Using data to produce fake news is like advertising your burgers are 100% beef when they are vegetable by-products. What is worse is that the data was used to target certain groups for the fake news. These ads were immediately picked up by Cable News and shown q15 minutes without verifying the truth and shown to targeted audiences. The furor that this has caused is in itself fake, designed to take down FB. A few months ago Esperian lost the data for over 100million people, that included bank accts, ss # and other financial data. Where was the outrage? What was the penalty? Nobody suggested that Esperian should be put out of business like I heard one respected host on MornJoe say today what should be done with FB..Can it survive? she said. Redirect your rage, it was not FB but the system that allows pernicious lies to be passed on as truth in Political contests. That is where the fault is and was used quite well to get Trump elected.
10
Here's a thought: Just get off Facebook. Believe it or not there are millions of us who rarely look at it and are really not missing a thing. The vast majority of people post to Facebook to say "look at me." I'm sure if anyone even reads the ads; I suspect few do. So stop using it, put down the phone, and spend a little more time in the "real world." Believe it or not, Facebook is not real life. I know--radical. Just a thought...
Facebook, Twitter, Instagram et al. have stolen something very precious from our country. They have robbed us of the anonymity, privacy, and independent thinking that is paramount to a productive life. The distraction of thousands of people "liking," "unliking," tweeting, etc. and responding to an array of others hateful, nosey, opinionated, snarky posts would wear me out. Too often and too easily people post some half-baked, from the hip, hateful comment for the world to see and regrets it.
Perhaps the first two stanzas of Desiderata says it best...especially the first two lines!
Go placidly amid the noise and haste,
and remember what peace there may be in silence.
As far as possible without surrender
be on good terms with all persons.
Speak your truth quietly and clearly;
and listen to others,
even the dull and the ignorant;
they too have their story.
Avoid loud and aggressive persons,
they are vexations to the spirit.
If you compare yourself with others,
you may become vain and bitter;
for always there will be greater and lesser persons than yourself.
Enjoy your achievements as well as your plans.
1
The past few days have been interesting to me because I’ve learned about apps linked to Facebook, survey response, and other ways users toss their personal info into the Internet, including what they voluntarily put in their Facebook profiles.
I enjoy using Facebook, but have seen how it can become a sinkhole, where your valuable day disappears as you look at photos of people’s dogs, or a muffin they baked that morning. As far as misuseage of personal data, I think, beyond blaming the 21st century tech world, we also need to take personal responsibility for our own behavior.
You posted information you didn’t want shared onto a web system used by a billion people? In order to while away your time, you installed apps you really knew nothing about that connects to that stuff? You dumped even more personal into surveys you knew nothing about to get even more apps to mess around with?
Now you want to blame the big, bad world. Well, yes, change is needed, but when thieves are in the street (and they’re always out there somewhere), maybe start with locking your own front door.
FB is a capitalist corporation. It happens to do stuff with peoples personal data which is just its raw material. It will use its raw material to maximize its profits. It's one and only purpose is to make money.
It like most capitalist operations of which the Mafia is a good example is amoral. There is absolutely no room in Capitalism for morality. What matters is money and how one gets money is seldom given a second thought as far as the Common Good and General Welfare is concerned.
This why we need governments that are free from the manipulation of the billionaires. That corporations are legally seen as humans and are allowed to put money into elections is simply flabbergasting.
1
A meandering piece that really makes, but misses expounding on the point: "What Facebook is selling to political campaigns is the same thing Uber is selling to its drivers and customers and what YouTube is selling to advertisers who hope to reach an audience of children — namely, the right to bypass longstanding rules and regulations in order to act with impunity."
This is the cause for outrage. Uber displayed thousands of taxi drivers, who waited in line for their commercial carrier license, paid special insurance rates, filed out endless paperwork, bought $250k medallions (NYC) etc., all with a slick interface and legal team saying it was software, not a common carrier subject to those regulations.
YouTube has become this generations' TV, without any controls. Facebook and Google are basically Standard Oil, growing, wealthy, arrogant and dominant private companies violating the Sherman Act, Section One's prohibition on monopolies.
Silicon valley sells shortcuts, convenience and ways around regulations, laws and business and social norms all in the name of "tech" and profits. Convenience will be the downfall of society, and such brazen disregard for laws, regulations and everyday boundaries tools necessary for a collective society in the name of the individual, as Zuck things is so paramount, will leave us not much removed from a Mad Max dystopian future...
2
"Facebook won’t release them, citing the privacy of its advertisers" ??? This is the first time I ever heard about advertisers wanting privacy. Hiding their advertising content from prying eyes !?
I haven't looked at Facebook in a web browser in probably a month and a half. I refuse to put their intrusive, annoying app on my mobile phone. That must be why I can't comprehend what Trump's supporters see in him.
1
The author is forgetting that we allow this. I have a friend who I receive things from on a regular basis on Facebook. He's too lazy to call me on the phone. We did this to ourselves and Facebook loves how we are addicted to our phones.
1
Facebook shouldn't to do anything.
They have done too much to our country already.
There's a French proverb that goes something like this...
We'd kill the man who warned of fire. 'We would do nothing to the man who sets the blaze.'
The U.S. citizens long checked out of the political process. We don't want to think, we don't want to read, and we surely don't want to know both sides of an issue because we may lose something.
Facebook tapped into a nation's who's citizenry willfully ill-informed, easily manipulated, and I'd argue believe being a know nothing is a right. Facebook isn't responsible for Americans checking their brains at the door: If an issue isn't black or white, a quick fix, some simplified explanation of who's to blame, forget about it... we zone out.
We had American's and whistle-blowers warning and questioning the scope of the data being gathered on the Internet by everyone. What did we do? Nada. The band played on and we continued to burn a whole into our computer screens.
When you don't stay alert, seek more information, don't ask questions, this is what happens. We sign Terms & Agreements and don't read or understand them: The powers already know this, then F.B. and others making decisions that benefit Only them and compromise us and our Constitution.
This has been our story in the United States for sometime. Go ahead, scapegoat Facebook why don't we... that's what we are good at.
1
What is my private data? My name, birthday...what else? Address, email, phone number? How to get it back? Quitting FB won't get back that data. It's already out there. Hmm...
1
Instead of making public statements and taking out full page ads to apologize for what his company failed to do, Mark Zuckerman ought to be retaining the services of an expert legal team. He presents himself as an altruistic, grown up college kid whose FaceBook media empire got away from him too fast. It's an image that doesn't work. He's protecting his advertiser's identities because a lot of money is involved. That's the bottom line. It's always the bottom line.
If Facebook won't release the dark ads "citing the privacy of its advertisers", then Facebook is as complicit in subverting democracy as those who paid for the dark ads. It is an abomination and no amount of contrite full page ads, semantic discussions, or legal jousting will change that. Targeted political dark ads that disappear and cannot be shared are a bold blatant attempt to manipulate segments of the population. Propaganda should be available for everyone to see and ridicule, or for none at all.
3
The manipulation and theft of our democracy is brought to you by ....
Instead of making apps and websites tailored for the benefit of users, they have hijacked the experience force feeding us what they want based on what they know about us - not what they think we want. There's a difference. They hunt us down, stalk us, spy on us and corral us where ever we go on the Internet. Indeed, they've infected our computers, smart phones, smart TVs, cable boxes to track everything we do - under the guise of giving us an "improved experience" and no way to truly opt out, even if you pay for a service (look at cable TV and ISPs) - they do it surreptitiously.
Ads can be "tailored" for or against us, yet the claim is the ads a tailored "for" us. Are voter suppression and discriminatory ads really what the user is interested in, as advertisers claim for using cookies? How many ads for mortgages and credit cards are actually against the interests of disadvantaged and minority users? How about big pharma pushing costlier drugs to ask your doctor about. Is it in your interest to go bankrupt in exchange for all those onerous side effects?
Instead of the voters analyzing and evaluating the candidates, it is the candidates who are trying to manipulate them. Why do we give the Mercers, Kochs, Adelsons, Putins, Agalarovs, Nixs and others so much power, technology and politicians to use AGAINST us? There is too much wealth able to buy our government, democracy and technology out from under us.
2
I think the historically low black turnout can be attributed more to Hillary Clinton's unpopularity. Combine this with the fact that Barack Obama drew historically large number of Blacks to vote for him, I am not at all surprised that HRC had lower turnout. I think this type of "dark ad" targeting played a minimal role at best. It does not forgive the transgression, I am simply stating that the primary root cause of low black turnout is not being addressed by this article.
1
It is a murky area how much responsibility a platform like Facebook should have to "push back" against the seeding of intimidating misinformation by a bad actor such as the Trump campaign. What is much clearer is the culpability of the campaign itself and of the political operatives who put into practice schemes that violate due process and voting rights laws and constitutional protections.
What I would like to see in this case is a suit for violation of these rights brought (either by a class of voter-plaintiffs or by state attorney general(s) on their behalf) against the scheming operatives and the Trump campaign. As part of that suit, discovery would force Facebook to reveal the content of the "dark ads."
Politically, the abandonment of Clinton by voters of color remains unexplained and suspect. Although a certain drop-off from the support enjoyed by Obama would be expected, the argument that Clinton was suddenly anathema to voters of color completely flies in the face of her performance in the 2016 primaries, where those very same voters flocked to her and accounted for her victory over Bernie Sanders.
Certainly Trump did nothing in his campaign to win them over - or keep them home. He could not have been more disparaging and threatening. So his campaign found some OTHER ways to suppress their votes, none of which were legal or acceptable in a genuine democracy.
5
This country is all about choice. One is not forced to join Facebook like I was forced to join the Soviet pioneers in 3rd grade because not doing so would have led to immense harm for me and my family. When you create a profile on Facebook, even the one that is limited to only your friends being able to see your posts, you are still opening up the door. A simply solution to having privacy is to keep things private. You want to update your friends on something interesting and new in your life? Pick up a phone and call them! Here is a short poem I wrote a few year ago to describe our current state:
"Life has become a collection of user names, passwords, and RSA’s,
Fake Facebooks friends, call me old-fashioned, but I long for the days,
When we lived so close, but not anymore
And the only login to your life was a key that opened the door."
2
Interaction through a computer or phone instead of in person is the thing that is tearing the social fabric apart. It promotes inhuman behavior.
Facebook's chief privacy officer was hired in 2011 promising to protect user's privacy. Who thinks she is the one to fix the problem?
3
1) Many others have noted the obvious problem created when a profit-driven corporation being expected to maintain users' privacy--in spite of the fact that it's precisely their business model to collect that data and sell it to others. But who's going to police them? I sure don't expect FB execs to do it out of the kindness of their hearts. But my point is, I also don't expect those who have benefited the most from this "security breach" in the 2016 election to do anything, either. Meaning, the entire GOP controlling our government aside from the few who understand what a menace FB and DJT are to democracy. I'm not hopeful.
2) People like Christopher Wylie and Robert Mercer of Cambridge Analytica really are different. They are both brilliant, outstanding mathematicians, and that's a problem when 99.99% of the populace can't begin to understand how they've applied their skills to manipulate the electorate. That was obvious in Wylie's testimony in the UK. It's clear to me, as a mathematician myself and having worked with two Nobel physicists, that SCOTUS, for example, will have a very difficult time doing anything constructive since judges generally don't understand math--to the point of disdain, as exhibited by many statements (e.g., Roberts' "sociological gobbledygook" comment about gerrymandering math). And a majority of them are subject to #1 above.
3) It's not just FB but all of social media--and Fox, which might as well be social media since it's not about "news."
3
I recall seeing a particularly vicious ad about HRC that I wanted to share with a pro-Trump acquaintance as an example of the tactics the Trump campaign was using. Neither of us were ever able to open the link again. Now I know why. Facebook has an obligation to reveal these ads. Given what they’ve done with our data, the “right to privacy” claim is a sham. Subpoena them, for the sake of transparency and democracy!
5
This is a country where DMVs enthusiastically sell your drivers license information to marketers, and your name and address is published for all by local governments (property tax records).
In America, privacy is prohibited by design.
1
Citizens of the world have simply become the pawns of the wealthy and those aspiring to be wealthy. Soon enough, SCOTUS might rule that only companies are people and make citizens 3/5 of a person. The current direction of our country is openly promoting the benefit of the wealthiest few and most corrupt companies over the well-being of citizens.
1
Why don't more users of Facebook recognize the inherent oversharing quality of their own activity? Over-curated images of your dinner, vacation, or new house might not be what your family and closest friends really care about. Even your closest relatives--maybe especially your closest relatives--can do without the photos of your kids you share. If you really want to communicate with me, pick up the phone. Given this fundamental pointlessness of the platform, it's especially ironic that such a waste of time has caused so much havoc.
1
This is just politically motivated nonsense. What Facebook does or doesn't do is of little importance to the majority of Americans, myself included. My profile includes where I went to college, where I work and where I live. These are not exactly deep secrets.
1
All of this makes me very happy that I've never been on Facebook.
Why would I intentionally open up my personal information to a completely uncontrolled universe of voyeurs, cons, and scammers? Why would anybody?
1
I think this whole issue of Facebook is overblown. No one can violate our privacy without our consent. I don't know anyone who posts anything on Facebook that is so private that they would consider it a violation of privacy if it were known. It is almost like the Media and some politicians who want to make more of this than it is, think Facebook and other Social Media users are lacking in intelligence.
And furthermore, at some fundamental level The ads that Facebook and Google sell are fraudulent. Here’s how: last month we went shopping on line for a used car. Immediately our Internet viewing, including the NYT, was flooded with car ads. After a couple of weeks of looking we bought a used car - no longer in the marketplace. But the ads, each of which somebody is paying a micro penny for, have not stopped. It would interesting to know just how much Internet advertising is bought and paid for after the “target” has left the field.
3
Maybe Facebook knows your new used car has a rotten transmission...and you’ll be back in the market very soon...
Never having set up a Facebook page, I feel a bit smug about those friends who kept complaining about the Facebook deluge of bitter campaign stuff they were receiving from friends and frenemies during the election season.
This article does explain why my normally liberal son is convinced that Hillary Clinton was both a terrible person and the worst candidate in the history of candidates. I could not figure out where he got his animus. Now I see that he was targeted with anti-Hillary slime by Russians and other thugs allied with Trump. Dilbert's Scott Adams' constant theme of what a masterful communicator/manipulator Trump was didn't help either.
1
Time for Mueller to subpoena Facebook executives, issue a record preservation order and seize a bunch of servers. The lack of any moral compass in an organization with access to the personal lives of billions should scare the wits out its users.
I haven't visited Facebook in almost a month, and I don't miss it one iota.
Pass it on.
1
first of all,this may be the single most disgusting illustration I have ever seen in the ny times.second,once you decide to
open a Facebook account,you decide
automatically to sacrifice a slice of your
privacy.even a relatively older person
like myself who publishes neither pictures
nor illustration of my dinner,but only my
writing,understands it will be made public.
I get that it should not be subverted for
political purposes,but the way these- on-
the make politicians are acting, you would
think Armageddon had arrived without
warning(not to speak of the Hollywood
frauds who jump on every bandwagon
they can find.) in conclusion, if you value
your privacy, don't open a Facebook
account.if you do open one,stop griping.
I stopped using FACEBOOK 2 years ago. Having worked in the media world since the beginning of the Internet, I was well aware that FACEBOOK was making billions of dollars by mining the data of User's and selling to as many groups and organizations as it could. Mr. Zuckerberg and his group KNEW what they were doing. They KNEW what Russia was doing. They were well aware that they influenced and undermined the 2016 Presidential Election. Sorry, placing full place ads in the NYT and other online news publications doesn't "UNDO" the travesty that has occurred. My assessment is that the only thing FACEBOOK is sorry about is that they got caught. I encourage American Citizens and Global Citizens to take their individual power back. Get off FACEBOOK.
2
FB (and others) have basically turned the US into a modern day version of the USSR. But worse.
Imagine if Stalin had FB?
2
The emphasis on Facebook as the enemy is misguided. Facebook generates a ton of data which the users freely provide knowing they are doing this. Individual users are not generally hurt by providing this data and the average user really doesn't care. So lets stop with the fake outrage. Targeted advertising, one could argue, might be to ones advantage. I know I would rather see relevant ads than irrelevant ads. The anger and ire should be directed at the companies that abuse the data. The ratio of angry editorials targeted at Facebook to those targeted to the Russian's or even Cambridge Analytica, or even the Trump campaign and their voter suppression drive, is deeply disproportional. Don't blame the data - blame the people who misuse the data. Could Facebook do better - yes - and they should. But they're not the primary villains here.
Perhaps instead of quite justifiably but merely criticizing Zuckerberg, Facebook, Brin, Page, Google, Twitter, and all the politicians for creating and allowing the internet monster to eat away our privacy and compromise our national security, we should look in a mirror and ask ourselves why we allow ourselves to accept the illusion that the internet could ever be secure and private.
Unless you are willing to get rid of your internet connected devices, refuse to connect your car and household, and demand of politicians that vital government, especially military, communications and our electric grid be disconnected, then just sit back and accept the fact that we all live in today's Atlanta, are food for Experian, and will sooner or later see people with drones bombing schools instead of shooting them up with AR-15s.
2
If all it takes to rip apart our social fabric is a couple of heavily slanted political ads on facebook, it seems that our social fabric is not very strong to begin with. So let it be ripped apart! At the very least, we won't be living in an idealized snow globe.
2
It's always been an insidiously destructive instrument, alienating intimacy from privity, and propagating anomie.
Facebook's business depends on selling our individual and collective information to advertisers, so they can sell their products to 'vulnerable' credulous folks...that what is for sale is to our advantage. If the propaganda weren't effective, Facebook's business model couldn't exist. Now, the misuse of public's information by entities that buy space in Facebook may be difficult to control or, at the least, add cost, cutting into profits. The more powerful a business model the more it should demands responsibility to do the right thing, right? Not necessarily, it appears. Greed is a nasty beast to dislodge, as money is power in too many minds. Freedom of speech and association may need some reasonable regulation after all. Machiavello knew we humans might use our station by justifying, in our minds (and pockets), abusive means...if it led to a noble end. Now, don't we feel a bit naive that we could keep our privacy intact, and have truly free elections from graft, when we are ready to sell ourselves for the goodies on offer?
We can blame Facebook, yes. But we can also blame the individuals that use Facebook. Individuals within a community use Facebook to perpetuate and influence group-think. It takes one Alpha poster to control the scene, muffle dissenters, and dictate culture. This can be done by bullying in the comments or by simply deleting a disagreeable "friend". Multiply these small actions by two billion users and one can see how community can be infected, families destroyed, neighbors become enemies. FB is corrupt not just by how it exploits our info. Even without ads or data breach the dynamic would still be corrupt for it would still tap into our individual primal instinct to be the leader of the pack, or a follower in the pack on a massive, digital scale. It's much easier to delete or block digital "friends" and keep the party going.
It doesn't seem that bad. Hillary Clinton really did refer to certain black men as "super predators" and she also had choice comments to make about illegal immigrants while she was First Lady. These clips could easily have been placed as TV ads but were instead targeted more precisely on Facebook because technology allows more precise marketing than the blanket approach of television. Nothing was falsified in these instances.
1
There are two primary threats to the future of humanity. They both far outweigh any threat due to terrorism or immigration or anything else: global climate change and addiction to technology. Facebook, Twitter and the like are highly addictive and unless used very carefully, bad for our brains and erode our capacity for focus, empathy and critical thinking. We need face to face time more than screen time for a sense of well being.
Barack Obama, in his first State of the Union address after Citizens United, pointed out that the decision in that case could allow foreign money to influence American elections, and Justice Samuel Alito, sitting in the audience, shook his head and mouthed "no". Clearly, Justice Alito was mistaken.
The other alternative which must be considered is that the five "conservative" justices knew full well that they were now allowing foreign money into American elections and didn't care.
1
It's true that Facebook has turned to the Dark Side more or less completely. I for one trace this back to their decision to use algorithms to determine what we see, instead of just showing things chronologically.
Thanks but no thanks, Zuckerberg. I'm reminded of the "don't delete Facebook" article the NYT published a week or so ago, arguing that for some reason we shouldn't do that, saying that it wouldn't help.
On the contrary, since FB thrives on network effects of having many users, a lot of us dumping it is the right answer. They will lose their power, or be forced to truly repent and behave well. Probably the former, though, since they clearly have no souls.
In short, Facebook behaved like a Trump Republican partisan entity. The Facebook data for tens of millions of Americans was stolen and used by the Trump campaign. The Kremlin and other bad actors coopted Facebook's algorithms and full market power, on behalf of the Trump campaign. Facebook hid the data theft. They called the Kremlin project fake news. They said we could control our Facebook data. That was a lie.
Thank you for the disturbing and wonderful illustration. The cockroaches swarming out of the Facebook "f" perfectly sum up my feelings about that company and its problematic business model.
2
I have never joined Facebook to the amazement of many - and feel that haven't missed a thing. And always relieved (with a smile) when I hear about all the continued nonsense.
1
Selling personal information by companies for profit, is really an inversion of the moral order.
Here's the issue as I see it: Personal information IS personal property, AND a fundamental human right.
A person can no more "sell" their own or other's information, anymore than sell their children into slavery.
Information can and should be made available under uniform commercial codes, with the express permission of the person. The idea that companies can create their own privacy policies is a sick joke.
But contrary to the conventions of today, people should be PAID for temporary and limited access to their information. Companies should not be able to take and sell information for free.
And no, companies supplying free internet services is not a license to steal.
Facebook, like any giant company with such a long reach, deserves serious scrutiny. Their privacy and security regimes deserve the same. With this sentiment, I agree completely.
We cannot, however, scapegoat Facebook or any similar company for the prevalence of low-information voters, or for apathetic voters either. If your decision of who to vote for, or whether to vote at all, is impacted significantly by ads on Facebook, you're not doing your civic duty. You're not utilizing your right to vote. You're not exercising critical thinking.
To compare, even at a glance, Facebook ads to actual statutory efforts to curtail voting by African Americans is heinous. Semi-intelligent people can understand that they shouldn't believe everything on Facebook. Local officials infringing on availability of and access to polling places is in a completely different league.
When FB sells the ability to use subliminal messaging, which include disinformation attacks, to Russia this tells me that they don`t recognize the Sovereign status of our country. Are we a Soverneign Nation or just a state in Global Government run by libertarian Oligarchs. It`s obvious FB see`s it`s self as outside and above our laws and is willing to sell our Sovereignty to the highest bidder. Individual responsibility always sounds so pioneer-ish. But when used as a way for manipulators to destroy the cohesion of our citizenry it is more effective than an army. I don`t fear a Global economy, I fear a Manchurian candidate style attack on our Nation.
1
It’s a little off topic, but I notice that the COO of Facebook write a book called “Lean In”, effectively blaming female victims for their inability to overcome hostile working environments.
Meanwhile, Facebook is making billions from selling off access to people’s personal data, not caring how that data is used or for what purpose.
Facebook seemd like a company with complete contempt for the average person.
1
Facebook was from the beginning a marketing tool,and the people who gave their data thought it was an idealistic tool.I'm not sure but I think Zuckerberg also had problems with college mates about the ownership of Facebook.A crooked owner of a crooked "social" application.
The writer repeatedly uses the word 'dark' to describe ads on FB. We should all reconsider the use of this word to describe falsehoods, distortions, sinister manipulations and flat out lies. It seems especially glaring in an article that shares the importance of suppressing black voters and overall is wrong and does not give a truthful description of the facts and gives weight to a word that associates darkness with negativity.
I am very suspicious of people who claim to speak for “the good of society”. In most cases, they are demagogues, pushing an ideological agenda, while trying to silence dissenting voices. I love the social media. It is a great tool for self-promotion, long-distance interaction, professional networking, and sheer fun. Can it be misused? Of course. Should it be regulated? Probably. But everything said against Facebook applies equally to books, newspapers, and print media of any kind. So should we institute censorship to “protect” minorities? Should we abolish freedom of speech because people are apt to say stupid, hateful or false things? The only defense against fake news and propaganda is the informed electorate. Teach people critical thinking before rushing to take away their First Amendment rights. And no, the social media are not going anywhere, and for every account deleted in the US, ten more are created in the rest of the world.
I'm reading this online and my ad blocker found 10 trackers on this one NYT page - that I pay to subscribe to. Every online company is seeking to monetize everything they can from their users - how do people think that "free" online services became the most profitable companies in the world?
4
Because of Facebook it appears that now we have trump I don’t belong to any social network and never will .
This way of communication has invaded our lives like a metastasis . No thank you !
1
So Facebook won't release any of the "dark ads" citing the privacy of its advertisers. What privacy? The ads have already been seen by many people, so why are they deemed to be private now?
It's obvious that Facebook does not want the public to see the content of the ads. . . No doubt we would be shocked at what Facebook allowed to be presented to the target audience.
It's ironic that Facebook is so concerned about the privacy of its valued advertisers, while the privacy of its product. . . Sorry, I mean the privacy of Facebook users is of little concern to Zuckerberg and Company.
3
What's sad to me is that a company like Facebook is merely a gossip supply chain. It does not sell any tangible goods. It appears as a major holding in large mutual funds. Why is it worth so much money when it does not seem like a "real" company that sells a product? The days when the US was an industrial power are gone. All we sell now is terabytes of dust.
Meh. I don't really like negative campaigning, such as using Clinton's "super-predator" rhetoric against her. But negative campaigning has been with us for a long, long time. It is not illegal, nor should it be.
I'm very upset that Facebook lost control of the data for 50 million users. But I'm struggling to understand the problem with the negative advertising, other than it was used to elect a candidate that none of us like.
4
The software engineer that came up with some of the algorithms Cambridge Analytica used said something I truly hate: "we now live in a post-privacy world." And, basically, get used to it.
I strenuously object and hope he is wrong.
5
"Facebook’s vast and well-designed platform ....
Well it's vast, but to this enterprise software architect it is NOT well designed. Not by a longshot.
Zuckerberg is promising "to do better". I hope this means ripping the thing apart and doing it right. He can't de-bug, de=glitch, patch, kludge, or add "pray-ware" to fix what he has.
If privacy was not a design goal in the begining (and it was not, just the opposite) you can't add it later. What FB built, was designed, as this author points out, as a Surveillance platform. That's what it is in the hands of a government, police force, or National security Agency.
It's built, it runs, it works. For the moment it's owned by a for profit ccompany, but it cound readily be "nationalized" in a emergency for "national security". Shoud we even be building something like this?
4
"Perhaps these are the wrong reasons for outrage, but that doesn’t mean we shouldn’t be outraged." There are few good reasons for outrage. It should be felt and expressed sparingly, in meaningful and focused ways. Excessive outrage and clickbait headlines/subheads for articles like this are what is really "ripping apart the social fabric."
2
The art of advertising and the science of psychology have been working together for many decades. Living under republicanism, as we do, there there are few restrictions on making money or mass media messaging. The privacy of the messengers has been protected for too long. Punishment for mass deception has been weak to non-existent. I believe these crimes of mass lying should rise to the level of murder in some cases.
A couple of years ago GNC, Target, Walgreens and Wal-Mart all received cease-and-desist letters demanding that they stop selling a number of their dietary supplements, few of which were found to contain the herbs shown on their labels and many of which included potential allergens not identified in the ingredients list. Contrast this with China's executing a person for embezzling $200,000 in public funds. Our laws with regard to business are too lax.
1
Cohen really hits it when he contrasts SV libertarianism with civic values (and the notion of the common good)--all but lost in SV now to the idol of the individual. This libertarianism is baked into higher ed in SV today, notably at Stanford (my alma mater). A deeper ethical consciousness has succumbed to a libertarian ideology fueled by the craving for big money. And, by the way, the notion that this is a blue stronghold is pure myth: the outflow of black people from SV over the years is testament to that. It's even worse if you are poor. Poor people, especially poor black people, can't survive in a place where people are sleeping in campers. The Zuckerbergs of this SV world, earning billions a year, can't wrap their minds around this because they are locked into their SV worldview, where tech is king-- right?
33
I find that the Libertarian Party is mostly a party of guys, few females, who are not socially aware/developed and rather adolescent. They don't want to be classified as Republicans (not cool) so they gravitate to the "no rules" Libertarian Party.....sounds like an adolescent boy's dream come true rather then a party for thinking adults who have real life responsibilities......and it's hard to get past that silly boy's club culture now that we are finally in the age of #metoo.
Social media was always meant to be an illustrated map of human relationships. The big surprise was that so many people were willing to hurl themselves and loved ones into the infrastructure of narcissism. The world never knew how much loneliness was in it, until Facebook opened its jaws and a billion victims marched in with their babies, dogs, cats, etc.
2
Another way this is complicated is I know a ton of people who use FB and Instagram to run businesses, so it is very difficult at this point for them to stop and not pay a price. All this free stuff was way too easy to get into, and will be much harder to get out of. Maybe people like Branson are right and it will come down to this being a regulated area. Which would effectively bust FB. But then as I think about it. If the whole idea of putting ourselves out there persists as a goal, or an addiction. How can you regulate people creeping us and analyzing us FB or no FB?
1
I don't use Facebook and never have. I am thus immune to these attempts at manipulation - and others would be, too, if they gave up their addiction to social networks. The problem is ultimately with a society that has become lost in these many forms of superficial diversion.
7
I don't think Zuckerbeg and Facebook view their pool of users as citizens and members of society as Tom Friedman pointed out in his article.To Facebook they are a pool of people whose data is to be mined for commerce and now it seems political purpose. They along with Twitter, Instagram, Google an the other internet companies need to be regulated just as we regulate the mail, television and radio. Since that is unlikely to happen under the trump administration and current congress the best and easiest solution is just to not use Facebook.
4
The image of engineers who won't sit near the microwave in the lunchroom comes into my mind. Wonder what personal info the execs at FB are sharing with their company. (likely nothing). Do as I say but not as I do.
3
Hoping that the general public is aware of the fact that it is not just FB alone who is exploiting and selling your personal data. All of them do it. Including your internet and cable providers, bank/credit card, insurance, Amazon et al. We give away our info all too cheaply or basically for free.
If you're still on social media sites, you are not paying attention and have no one to blame but yourself.
7
What if we really aren't that polarized and that the image of polarity is just a Facebook et al. contrivance? It would confirm the age old American maxim to subsume everything to the all mighty dollar.
1
We need to learn how to redefine our engagement with the digital world. For me, that starts with quitting Facebook. Some aspects of our lives are integrated with the web in a good and useful way - purchases, payments, the paperless economy, health consultations, weather alerts, some news feeds, etc. But in other areas, we need to wise up fast. We need to stop assuming that putting our lives out there is without consequence. As the recent Facebook data issues have shown, aggregating personal data from millions of people can lead to social engineering. Hari Seldon couldn't have designed a better system to influence masses of humans over long periods of time. It's time to start working hard to disengage from this voluntary surrender of our lives - it isn't that difficult. Use your phone to call and text but first get rid of every app that uses your personal information and tracks those very calls and texts. Get out there more - engage with the world physically not virtually. It's time to take power away from the virtual domain - get real again and we may have a better world.
13
Why is anyone surprised by this? Facebook is an advertising company, and the purpose of advertising is to distort the viewer’s perception. The commercial advertiser succeeds when Joe Consumer pays $9.99 for something worth $4.44. The political advertiser is identical, save that their product frequently has zero or negative value. The greater the distortion, the greater the value captured by the advertiser, and the larger the fee earned by the advertising company. There is no incentive for reform from within, and no real desire to impose it from without, given how “Facebook is free and always will be”, a deceptive message if ever there was one.
6
One can only feel sorry for those who have the need to use Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and other social media platforms.
Presumably, these people are so lacking in authentic human relationships and intimacy in their daily lives that they are forced to satisfy their unmet social needs through the artificial stimulus and community provided by Facebook.
Get off the computer and go for a walk, read a book, exercise, take your spouse to dinner or just simply meditate on the beauty of life and how lucky you are to be alive. You don't need a computer or smartphone to do all these things.
Signing off now. Time for my daily run at the local park...
11
Nothing is as simple as it seems. Many people, like myself, use FB to keep in contact with friends scattered across the globe, share recipes and movie recommendations, and hear views from other folks. While I agree that less screen time is a great idea, it's not the be all end all.
1
I kind of agree, except you're feeling sorry for about like 80 or 90% of the population.
I have friends all over the world and I am an IT professional. There are many apps that can do that. I do not have a personal facebook account and never will. I made a couple of dummy facebook profiles because otherwise I am unable to comment on line. Many sites require a facebook account to comment, so I give them a dummy one. But I am not putting my personal information or pictures of my family there.
"[T]he dark ads have disappeared and Facebook won’t release them, citing the privacy of its advertisers."
How can an ad which was made public (even if only to one targeted person) now be considered private? That in itself should be illegal.
13
Here's the thing: Facebook has allowed me to reconnect with people I had lost touch with, and make a couple of new friendships besides. I'm not going to give that up just because of a(nother) scandal involving the Trump campaing. Phones survived telemarketers. Email is still around in spite of spam. If friends and family connect through Facebook, it and the social fabric will survive.
2
I have always said that if I need a facebook profile for someone to contact me then they must not be close enough to me to matter.
The article identifies the paradoxes of individuality and freedom. FB offers us a opportunities to celebrate our individuality, then processes our responses into group manipulation. The GOP offers a celebration of freedom, then restricts us by guaranteeing opportunity but not ability.
I agree w those who complain that human beings are susceptible to emotional factors over rational logic. Consuming information is difficult. It requires time, concentration, and skepticism. It also requires an open mind, and the ability to consider the shortcomings of one’s own understanding. FB gives humans a free way to bypass all that hard work, so people jump at it. This is nothing new, but in the digital age, more people have fallen into this trap. It’s wonderful to see now how knowledge is causing realization.
2
This is a very good opening for discussion. One of the more pernicious aspects is that, for many people, facebook is their social space for connecting with friends and family. It appears that the facebook company allowed people to pay money to insert bot "people" into these communal spaces where actual people allow themselves to be more vulnerable, and to spread toxic "facts" and "ideas" based on inside knowledge of people's vulnerabilities, and then disappear without a trace. If money hadn't changed hands, facebook might not have as much to answer for, but now they need to be accountable.
4
There is no "free will" when it comes to signing away your rights in order to use FB, visit a doctor, buy something on Amazon, even visit a website. I have tried to cross off items in the ER of a hospital, and was told either I signed as written or me and my medical emergency could leave.
Let's stop pretending that we have any control over what is done with our private information. The only fix would be legal, and most of us have very little influence in that regard.
(PS - ever wonder what you just signed at the bank or hospital when they have you sign electronically? You can't see the document, and often you aren't given a copy afterwards)
13
When I first got an account on Facebook, years ago, I found it insidious, mining (without my permission) my computer for potential "friends." I was astonished at how it was able to discover people I had not had contact with for a long time. It was creepy. I've never understood Facebook's popularity--the awkward mess of its interface reminds me of the stuff you'd see on electronic bulletin boards in the late nineties---but I'm definitely disturbed by all the manipulation of personal data that it's doing behind the scenes.
23
There was a reason why the fabulous Zuckerberg and the fabulous Winklevoss twins got entangled with each other in the first place.
Birds of a feather flock together.
3
First, I really appreciate the illustration at the top. Nice work. Second, don't underestimate how undesirable Hillary Clinton was to the generally election. Propaganda requires a receptive audience in order to be effective. To the point: Facebook is making profiles public while keeping advertisers private. I see a simple solution. Ask an advertiser that contracted with Facebook during the 2016 campaign to voluntarily release their add placements. I guarantee the Discover Lancaster ad buyer is not going to have a problem releasing their banner ads. Target the companies that refuse to comply for public scrutiny. Omission becomes confirmation of guilt. Problem solved.
6
There is no "fixing" Facebook. The business model that makes it profitable is evil. Fixing the model eliminates the profit, driving the company out of business. As long as Facebook remains profitable, our privacy, our social fabric, our elections and, thereby, the legitimacy of our government will remain at risk.
19
There is absolutely no reason why they couldn't make a profit without spying on us and stealing our data. They could simply show generic ads, like a newspaper, and not steal and spy, and they'd make plenty. The whole thing could be configured in the interests of the consumer, and be straightforward and transparent. If facebook won't do that, another company could.
2
With inexpensive health clubs seemingly on every corner and more diets one can count, being warned at every turn about obesity. Why can't we influenced by FB to stop overeating ?
This article rightly points out the abuses of FB, and the need to regulate personal information more securely. However, it's simply disingenuous, and the writer loses significant credibility to state the following:
The election of 2016, the first after Barack Obama’s presidency, was notable for a seven-percentage-point decrease in African-American turnout, from 66.6 percent in 2012 to 59.6 percent, according to the Pew Research Center.
I don't even have to look at the math to know that there would be a seismic decrease in the black vote without a black candidate. I'm nearly positive that Bernie Sanders would had faced the same apathy from black voters had he won the ticket (regardless of "dark ads").
6
I agree. I saw that and questioned the writers intention. Seems like a cheap way to make Hillary a victim. I am black and there's no way I was going to vote for Hillary after she said those horrible things about Obama when she was running against him. Also, I think she's corrupt.
You din't read. The 59.6% is lower than when John Kerry was running for president.
Regulations do not seem to protect us from ourselves in many instances. All the deaths and maimings from jaywalking comes to mind as a common problem of individuals acting irresponsibly to their own detriment. Investing life savings is another area where personal responsibilities and eternal vigilance and judgement are more important than some of the regulations that help todull our due vigilance needs.
At 86, I marvel at all the ways we can communicate instantly all around the globe. It is a far cry from the old party line phones we had were many other folks could sometimes, and very quietly, listen to our private conversations. Evidently, it was possible to learn how we might vote then. However, the inefficiency of such an endeavor would be laughably ridiculous. With ease of almost unlimited communication we are paying a price too high for our own good.
6
"Facebook Isn’t Just Violating Our Privacy
It is also ripping apart the social fabric. " Very misleading title, implying the old news about the internet's erosion of personal relationships. It's about much more than that and the title or subtitle should reflect it.
3
Not so unconcerned. Political divisiveness, underhanded dealings, near constant lying, and the hundred million fools on the other side who believe it are definitely tearing us apart.
It's class war anyway, but how often do you hear that truth?
We need to hold our politicians accountable for not passing a universal privacy law. As with all our major problems, the easy and obvious solutions are ignored, due to corruption and incompetence.
9
I'm tired of hearing the fake news about governmental corruption and incompetance. This is a Republican talking point.
Corruption and incompetence is most certainly a characteristic Republican politicians.
And literally tons of $$$.
One could go further than Mr Cohen in understanding the pernicious effects of social media upon our democracy. The corrosive effects of "fake news", which is training the public to question the very concept of objective truth, are abetted by the ready acceptance, by all of these platforms, of unlimited fake accounts - in effect, "fake people". Thus, a tsunami of invented and/or erroneous "facts" and outrageous opinions can be injected into the public domain with literal irresponsibility - this material is authored and "owned" by no one (as we have seen, often originated by bots). This is the obverse of the speech envisaged by the First Amendment which, like a giant fatberg in a sewer, impedes and distorts the exchange of information and ideas expressed by individuals and derived from reality.
It seems that there is no complete solution to this problem. Although an individual may insulate herself from the local effects of it by avoiding social media (as many are increasingly doing), this does not easily control the effects of fakery in the population while the platforms maintain their current business models based upon free and uncontrolled access. Notwithstanding, I suggest that a subscription model with validation of the identities of account owners would go some way towards minimizing it, with the added benefit that such a platform could build a differentiated reputation for integrity in the marketplace.
12
The problem is people getting their news from Facebook! What a ridiculous idea. Facebook is for getting in touch with friends, period. Get your news from a real source.
What a thoughtful, passionate essay. Great job Mr. Cohen.
10
Bingo.
I deleted my Facebook account last Friday. Not just because the Cambridge Analytica fiasco threatens our democracy, but also because I no longer feel comfortable contributing to a system that is both manipulative and destructive to societal norms. Further, the idea that Silicon Valley engineers technology first and asks the hard questions later is particularly concerning in a world in which our laws are notoriously behind the curve. Kumail Nanjiani, one of the actors on the show "Silicon Valley" posted a Twitter thread recently that discussed the cast's research into start-up culture. And time and again, the focus is on "can we do this?" instead of "should we do this?" It became clear to them the techies, just like their Wall St. counterparts, are more focused on the payoff and not the implications. Not coincidentally, those two industries--tech and finance--are largely responsible for the gross income inequality we're experiencing in this country. Are we as a country really willing to see where this will lead before enacting significant regulation? Are we waiting for civil unrest before this is taken seriously? I say this as a current resident of San Francisco, living in the shadows of both the new gleaming Salesforce Tower and rampant homelessness: It's only a matter of time.
62
Facebook won't release dark ads that have disappeared, citing privacy of their advertisers? It appears that Facebook is more concerned with advertiser privacy than the privacy of millions of account holders whose personal history and information was misused.
57
My life is an open book read by few. Apart from my banking passwords, I have abandoned most online privacy long ago. Mr. Zuckerberg can have and sell my data all he wants. [... and yes I do have a financial interest in the company and some other tech stocks]. It is my hope that the pop-up ads will get better and political ads of all types are welcome. Congress and the AG have already gone too far.
5
Wow.
1
Fair Housing groups filed a lawsuit in federal court on Tuesday saying that Facebook continues to discriminate against certain groups, including women, disabled veterans and single mothers . This article was written by Charles V. Bagli read it if you haven't. There is nothing good to be said by these technology companies that are out to destroy democracy and your freedoms. Everything in America has been rigged for decades against certain groups to the vast profit of others. For people who refuse to stop using these platforms and giving away your information I don't know what else you need to know.
If the government doesn't want to regulate people walk with you pocketbooks, what Facebook is paying for full page ads don't get it, his world of technology is a world of corruption and the politicians who dont stand up will be voted out. How much money have they received from the technology companies ? I want to hold onto my democracy, as I have stated before, how could there be so many rich people in this country, its because they are busy selling Americans to the Russians.
5
I wonder about the intelligence of voters allowing ads to influence them. Where do voters actively look for information on their candidates? I would never ever be swayed by a facebook ad. Are we thinking at all people?
15
@Juliana, these "ads" were often presented as news editorial which made the content feel legitimate. Unless one was really scrutinizing the source, one could easily be led to think the content was true.
10
It's a bit more subtle than that, Juliana.
After the fact, it seems easy to dismiss these attempts to influence, but when it is actually happening, even otherwise intelligent people can be caught up, since there is a known tendency to believe what confirms our already held views.
Influence campaigns have always worked; long before the Internet, Madison Avenue confirmed this, using slick advertising to play on our emotions.
If we're thinking at all, we'd better appreciate just how easily we can be manipulated, and we'd better take steps to curb unethical behavior by modern media.
12
I agree with you that there needs to be a conscious effort by voters to research info on candidates and issues, apart from what is fed to us in ads and banners. But I think the majority of voters do NOT make the effort to do this. I can't tell you the number of people I know who either 1) rely on Facebook for their "news", or 2) what they saw on a TV ad.
I think only a small minority of people take time to vote based on some digging.
Not sure how to overcome this superficial level of knowledge, other than education. And we know how much our current admin values that.
1
This issue on the "Privacy" of American's personal data goes far beyond Facebook, it encompasses AT&T, Microsoft, Google, Yahoo, Comcast, Amazon and a myriad of other commercial entities who "DINE" 24/7 and gorge themselves on our most personal financial and medical information. This is done without any compensation to the consumer and is performed within a shadow unavailable to the consumer.
Federal action is needed as this issue now on the table is much larger than the NRA debate currently usurping today's headlines.
12
Even in the most "innocent" version, with social networks and other big webisites (not only FB) politicians can make conflicting promises to opposite interest groups without being detected. The first counter-measure should be requiring all website to make all political advertisement public, with the target they were addressed to.
10
While we’re at it, let’s ban political bumper stickers as well! I don’t know how many times I’ve changed the way I was going to vote based on whatever was stuck on the car I was stuck behind for the longest in heavy traffic said. One less nuisance to have to try and scrape off as well.
10
Facebook, Twitter...the monopolists in each format...have a fundamental and critical role in the lives of Americans - in fact, in the lives of the citizens of every country with Internet access - just as the suppliers of water and electricity do. Mark Zuckerberg and the other "platform" titans might not have realized (and now resist the fact) that they were helming what would become public utilities, but that's what they are. Frankly, it's unbelievable that these dominating drivers of public and private life worldwide operate without public involvement and with ultimate accountability only to their financial shareholders and not to the world of stakeholders.
11
I have only used facebook to see photos placed by family, friends and some professional photographer friends. One has announced the end of his facebook use. I'm sure more will follow as there are other places to share photos that could be just as easy and not steal data.
8
Since I do not and never have used Facebook, I am not part of any 'our' whose privacy was violated.
But I am an American and thus I am concerned and impacted by Facebook's greed and ineptitude in allowing itself to be exploited by malign foreign interests in the United Kingdom and Russia interfering in our political campaigns and elections.
Resolving this problem requires a threefold approach.
First, the law needs to catch up with and control the costs that arise from the benefits of social media.
Second, America's national defense intelligence security apparatus must deter, detect and defeat any foreign cyberwar attacks intent on influencing American voters.
Third, the American people must decide what they want from the social media industry.
9
You're exactly right. Government is there to look out for citizens. It's the only entity that can effectively manage society if we are to ameliorate the drawbacks of our capitalist economic system as well as recognize its benefits. Democracy must be an acknowledged check on capitalism. Regulation is important.
14
Remember, governments power is in the hands of humans. This means fallibility and all that accompanies it. Add in that there is a Democratic way of governing and a Republicsn way of governing and you have a mess over time. Further, we like to use the phrase, " In God we trust". We do not act as if we do.
Government hasn't and won't do anything about the harvesting and monetizing of private personal information.
Why?
Because, the government can now simply buy and/or hack the information these companies harvest -- which the government is normally (nominally, mind you) forbidden by law to do themselves.
We have to understand that Privacy has been long gone for a lot of us. We are under cameras at stores, banks, schools, hospitals. Everything that is digitized and stored on a computer can be hacked. However, that does not mean we can't get our Privacy back. Facebook is not the only guilty player out there.
7
If Zuckerberg wants Facebook to ever be allowed in China, he better addresses those questions of how the facebook affects the society as a whole, how does it disrupt the collective consciousness... This is precisely why Chinese banned FB, and now when they see what FB did to the US, they will be even more convinced they did the right thing to ban FB. The US, based on this experience has to pass laws limiting FB ability to disrupt the communal, political process. Kind of like we have anti-trust laws. Kind of like big mainstream media eschews dark ads targetting minorities. We need laws preventing special interests from abusing social networks for their own gains. And we need tech-savvy FBI teams adept on preventing this from happening again.
6
Classic Facebook pattern: massive overreach, "apologize", "improve" user controls over privacy. The pattern goes back at least to their launch of Beacon in 2007 (a fiasco worth looking up, because it is clear that the company has not changed in the last ten years). They have and continue to obfuscate in the name of profits, no matter what they may tell us or each other, and the timeline of their response to Cambridge Analytics (and the 2016 elections more generally) illustrates the depth of their self-interest at the expense of their users, and perhaps of our democracy.
18
If a voter can be dissuaded from exercising their constitutional rights by a Facebook ad, then they shouldn't be voting. Full stop. Convince me otherwise.
12
If a person believes they aren't influenced by the things they see and hear, full stop. Convince me they understand our neurobiology.
22
They often don't look like ads, but editorial opinion.
And whatever the source and whatever the medium, advertising apparently works, or campaigns wouldn't bother with them.
5
Ever hear of the Milgram experiment? People can be convinced to do just about anything. And by the way, everybody should be voting. That's the point of democracy. You don't have to be smart or sophisticated, or some kind of uninfluenced blank slate.
1
Mr. Cohen, author of "The Know-it-Alls", presents an expansive cultural revelation of Silicon Valley ideology in his book. Beginning with Stanford Uni., he journals the hackers' goals for universal shared data at any cost, unregulated, zero accountability. Racism, sexism - and now foreign interference - perfectly align with their entrepreneurialism. I highly recommend Mr. Cohen's book.
11
Thank you NYTfor steering the conversation back onto the road.
"Facebook can’t be allowed to be a tool for enemies of democracy because it fears that regulation could hurt its bottom line."
I listened to an hour of blather on NPR yesterday about technology and privacy when the real issue is the overthrow of democracy in the United States that is underway right now.
45
From the very beginning, I always referred to Facebook and its likes (pun intended) as the ANTI-Social Media. And so it has repeatedly proved itself to be.
19
Bach--That's another "me too."
2
ChesBay--I just recently learned that a scholar of such matters is bringing out a book entitled: The Anti-Social Media.
Facebook is headed and directed in great part by Mark Zuckerberg who is arguably among the most rapacious capitalists in history. He simply had no moral compass when it comes to the welfare of the country that has afforded him the privilege to be a successful entrepreneur. He is Dr. Evil. His goals are singularly influence and money. The powers of the computer, if not regulated, will be abused and we are beginning to see the effects. Privacy down to a single person need be protected and not by way of documents to which any user is compelled to "agree" and which nearly nobody can read or understand because they are constructed precisely for that purpose. Incidence of 'dark' information which disappears shortly after viewing should be regulated out of existence and acts of knowingly selling service to anyone that is materials false, misleading or injurious to the political system should be deemed acts of sedition or treason depending upon the content and country from which it has come. The computer is a phenomenal device and it's powers to do good are boundless. By the same token it can also be a vehicle for incomprehensible damage. The internet must be strictly and fairly regulated lest the computer becomes Armageddon In A Box.
20
Mark Z is the King of 21st century Snake-Oil [or make that Sneak-Oil?] Salesmen, always dressing up his insatiable desire for more money with fatuous blather about bringing people closer together. He's got a compass all right, and it points directly to the bank.
And let's not forget the back story of Zuckerberg's so-called "invention" of Facebook while at Harvard.
I did not know about Beacon 2007-09...wow, thanks for that tip...an eye opener well worth looking up....interesting that it coincided w/ the global economic crash.
We have a flexible and evolving notion of privacy. Up until about 30-35 years ago, telephone directories and city directories provided personal data that would be considered private data under many, if not most, state data practices acts today. Citizens had a contractual relationship with the telephone companies and could request that their names, addresses and telephone numbers be excluded from the telephone directories. The phone companies were monopolies and could not demand the unrestricted ability to publish names, addresses and phone numbers as a condition of having a telephone.
City directories that were compiled by private companies, from publicly available data and the work of their employees. They were not limited by their contractual relationship with persons whose names, addresses, telephone numbers and occupations were listed in their directories.
Credit reporting agencies accepted and data about consumers from financial and business entities. They had no contractual relationship with individual consumers and no obligation to ensure that their reports were objectively accurate. They were concerned only about whether the banks and businesses found their reports sufficiently useful to be worth the price of the report. Congress has enacted laws governing credit agencies.
Today, Facebook, Google and other internet companies are collecting and reporting data on citizens who use their internet services. They can and should be regulated.
39
Old--Telephone directories never had access to your social security number, or your credit card accounts, or all the people in your family and of your acquaintance. They didn't have a record of every call you ever made, every product you ever bought, every vote you exercised. I keep hearing Sting's "I'll be watching you."
If your mother says she loves you or tries to control your offline behavior in other ways on Facebook, check it out. Facebook is rigged to show you only what you will like, and if racism and xenophobia help in that effort, Facebook doesn't care. You are the only media filter you can depend on.
8
In other words:
"I am the DJ / I am what I play"
Facebook is only the most notable, high profile example of selling personal data about citizens and voters. From what I can tell, everyone who encounters personal data is making tons of money by selling it. This likely includes that friendly, somewhat bored clerk at a store who asks for your email address or phone number when making a routine purchase. It includes that really cool flat screen television you bought in the last few years (our new set by Samsung asked me if I wanted to opt out of data collection! How about asking me if I want to opt-in and giving me some reason to do so?)
It also appears that cable television systems gathering information on your viewing habits and aggregate the data so that political and commercial organizations can build a profile. If you tuned in to the re-boot of "Roseanne" the other night (I didn't), it might show that you are a person who either supports Trump or is tolerant of his chaotic form of attempted government. Bingo. They got you.
Campaign political reporters have been slow to pick up on what is going on. They seem to be stuck using old templates to report on campaigns while the consultants and the candidates have run 500 miles ahead of them and keep on going.
Privacy has been stripped away from 96% or more of Americans. It is an old dead concept, a joke. Wake up. Wake up. Wake up. Corporations are the new KGB and they know more about you than you do about yourself.
27
Re: making a simple purchase and the clerk asks for all your info....I say: I am paying cash, no thanks. They insist....then I ask them if they are going to complete my purchase, they insist and I have to say I will walk away now and go elsewhere if you continue to refuse to complete my cash purchase. Not to give the clerk a hard time, they are being pressured by their management to do this obviously, but it really is not necessary for them to know anything, it's cash. I try to make most of my purchases w/ cash after the Target hacking,(wow and gave me a free year of credit watch via Equifax which compromised my data again but in a much bigger way) and all the others that followed....the merchant only needs to know what items are selling and for how much...anything else is really none of their business. Thankfully the grocery stores do not insist on getting my info when I pay cash for some milk & eggs. Why should they?
Finger pointing Facebook won't change the fact that countless enterprises are capitalizing on our personal data. I believe that to solve that problem each and everyone of us should exercise its judgment and have a more skeptical approach to ANYTHING they see, especially on Facebook and Co. That way people will be at least harder to dupe.
8
This piece really misses the mark. Facebook is indeed "ripping apart the social fabric," but that has very little to do with Russians, or shady campaign ads, or even data leaks. The meme-ification of our political discourse and the ever escalating tribal culture war about everything are a direct result of the pervasiveness of social media. Social media and smartphones are rapidly and dramatically changing the nature of our society in ways that historians will be trying to understand for generations, just as the printing press and mass media changed society when they were introduced. But rather than explore these critical questions, this article is yet another exercise in blaming everyone and everything for the fact that Trump won the election. When the definitive history of American politics in the early 21st Century is written, Facebook's ad policy is not going to the dominant theme. Surely the author realizes this.
7
This is the author's thesis:
"How do first we make sure everyone is able to speak through free, fair elections before we argue about what they can say?"
But everyone is so centered on their personal privacy, this point is getting missed. These are not normal times, it was not a normal election, the current Republican Party has changed into something much more dangerous and this is not a normal administration.
7
But Shawn, here's the thing: Trump DIDN'T win the election, not by 3 million votes. The investigations and fingerprinting are concerning the WHY that happened.
He won the election, like it or not. (I don't.) He didn't win the popular vote, but as you know the popular vote is irrelevant. Both campaigns knew this, of course, and strategized accordingly. Facebook may have played a large role in the election, but it wasn't "dark ads" or anything of the sort.
Facebook began as something fundamentally ugly and it's not that much different now. It's about herd mentality, insecurity, boredom, and the personal vanity of thinking that your opinion, your "like", has any true weight or value on the internet or elsewhere.
I admit I've never used it. I prefer to interact with fewer people in real life and also on the internet. My life is good, I'm fine, and the lack of FB means late information or no information and that tradeoff is definitely worth it. I find my own information and make my own decisions about its value.
Happy to be out of step on this one. Just too useless and ugly.
54
Exactly. Spot on assessment.
2
I'm with you, LS. I have never had a FB account, and have staunchly resisted the well-meant efforts of a dear friend who has promised/threatened to come to my place to set up an account. I do have a LinkedIn account that I've ignored for years, for the same reason: I don't trust them to not use my information for their own purposes. I'm old enough to realize you don't get something for nothing.
I'm curious about how much FB and other social media companies get paid to sell huge blocks of information to corporations, PR companies, marketers, etc. NYT - want to do an expose on that?
Mark Zuckerberg and Sheryl Sandburg - the faces of FB - have damaged America’s democracy by overlooking the obvious breach and abuse of private data for several years. Their response or lack thereof is straight from the Sarah Huckabee Sanders School of Communications. I’m surprised Trump hasn’t added them as Senior WH Advisors. Shame on you both.
21
Not convinced that people are duped by Facebook. People put up photos of their families, vacations, homes, and yet expect privacy? Nobody is forcing you to use Facebook, I'm not on it. After watching the film, the Social Network, Facebook appears to be a place for gossip. Zuckerberg started the thing because he was nosey about his ex-girlfriend.
18
Regardless of the Facebook's positive aspects, such as closer contact with distant friends and relatives, it was developed by a young privileged white male for college students. It's maintained that operating mentality ever since.
Facebook users never questioned what they were giving up for this "free" service. Did no one else wonder how this company made money? It seemed like a too-good-to-be-true cool thing. And it clearly was!
Facebook's management and eventually share holders, perpetuated a clueless college age mentality. Management had to have known the potential for abuse. Clearly, they allowed greed to trump character and responsibility. Capitalism at it's finest!!!!
Zuckerberg and Facebook should be prosecuted for aiding and abetting foreign interests to manipulate reality for it's users resulting in election interference. They failed to protect our most sacred democratic foundation, elections. Their failure to monitor their platform allowed this to happen. This was cyber warfare . They were negligent and arguably treasonous!
14
Incredible!. Yesterday, I had a chance conversation with a woman who was clearly brainwashed into thinking that all Muslims were evil. I told her that she had no values. She was shocked by my statement. I explained that when you do not value something, that is the same as having no values.
Facebook has enabled the spread of the culture of hate by placing all of its value on the individual and none on the collective.
I have said before that I don't care what others know about me, what is important is what they do with that knowledge. And I will tell them personal things about myself as a means of testing their veracity.
Surreptitiously using personal knowledge to glean another's weaknesses in order manipulate and intimidate is not freedom of speech, it is freedom of hate. This does not serve the greater good. This is not Democracy. It is morally repugnant and a sign that you are dealing with a person who has no values.
14
When Bannon, Flynn, Mercer, Thiel, Assange, Lewandowski, Cruz, Carson, worked with Cambridge Analytica that used FB, Snapchat, Twitter, and others to microtarget between 50 and 230 million voters, one must wonder how FB is innocent of subverting our election and how FB and others profited from empowering Russia to subvert our elections using their platforms and data. Privacy? Contracts with digital providers, with ISPs are absurdly deceiving and coercive. Congress, State governments have failed to protect us from predation by all of them. They must be categorized as Utilities and regulated. All media must be regulated to provide a free press and privacy. Reinstituting the Fairness Doctrine would be a good first step.
16
While I am staying on Internet databases since 1988, I am really glad I never started Facebook on my devices.
You know what. Shut it down by user self restriction. If Your argument might be: „we can‘t because .....“.
THAT reminds me on „SkyNet“ (see Terminator franchise. ). Pull the plug.
6
Do you (the Facebook using public) realize that every time you get in some stupid argument in the comments section or over a “controversial” post, you are not only wasting time, but are also serving up more delicious morsels of private information to advertisers?
Go to Facebook, click on your menu, and ask to download your data. Look through what they have on you. It takes a lot of the mystery out of what Cambridge Analytica did when you see the depth and breadth of what FB and their (paying) ad partners already know or suspect about you.
I have a pro-forma profile for sake of being a searchable name on their for my more distant relatives and despite the fact that I log in perhaps once a month at most and use a Facebook tracking block plugin, there is an insane amount of information and accurate guesses about me in the system.
So when you post, when you like, when you get bogged down in some online version of the shirtless argument in the front lawn, YOU, not some spooky company with evil Russians dancing around in back are healing more coal onto the fire.
Don’t be surprised if you get burned.
3
Pure and Simple: Facebook is a danger to the Republic!
13
Yes it’s a danger when it was not helping the Obama campaign.
Until the U.S. has a law protecting user information from "Internet collection" nothing will change.
It is not just Facebook. Look at what Google collects. Every youtube you have ever watched. Call history. Google agents are active 24/7. A simple search I did on improving my French led to the NYT showing up in French the next day.
Add to this plea for more regulation that radio and TV content characterized as "news" must be "full fact" based or loose its access to our public airwaves. "Full" is the key because currently half facts are used to create false interpretation.
Attacking Hillary over the uranium mining sale to Russian interests left out that it is illegal to export uranium from the U.S. Suddenly she was a traitor. Compared to Manafort or the Mercers?
7
‘Consumer protection’ is an oxymoron given that all of our personal data—both psychological and financial—is available to any hacker with the skillset to breach the information that corporate giants like Facebook, Google and Equifax gather and hold. Our constitutional right to privacy is laughable and indefensible. The only ones with those protections remaining are the corporations monetizing our information and donating—under legal cover—to our politicians.
6
why wasn't this sort of thing "evil" when presidential candidate Obama was mining FB data during his campaign?
8
Cite your sources, please.
Probably because Obama didn't employ Russian trolls and bots to influence the outcome of the elction like Donald Trump has.
1
So now Tucker Carlson and his like are all on the hate Facebook train because it targeted conservatives...translation, "we know our people believe anything we tell them we just don't want them to know that we know."
1
Please diagram this sentence for me: Marc Andreessen, the venture capitalist and a Facebook board member, doesn’t tweet anymore, but he “likes” hundreds of tweets a week, a group that recently included a string that mocked the public’s fear that new media forms can be turned into “weapons of total mind control.”
6
How is accepting rubles from a foreign government to push fabricated and misleading stories about presidential candidates not treason? That these ads "disappear" after viewing says it all.
18
It is the nature of revolutions that they make nonsense of all that went before them.
1
Do advertisers make use of Cambridge Analytica data? It might be useful for them.
Would Donald Trump be president today if Facebook didn't exist? Unfortunately yes. The left will never be able to accept the fact that HRC lost to a former reality star. A year & half after the election they continue to manufacture reasons for her defeat. Hillary had the entire Democratic, Republican, media, business, tech, & global establishment on her side. She had had the most formidable political machine of the past 30 years. She raised more money than any other Democratic candidate for President...over 900 million dollars. She out spent Trump 3-1. She had substantially more troops on the ground. She had President Obama at the height of his popularity not only anoint her as his successor but campaign by her side. She had her husband as well as Michelle Obama pleading her case. She won all three debates. Her opponent put his foot in his mouth every time he walked out the door. She had every conceivable advantage...more advantages than anyone who has ever run or probably ever will run for President. She still lost. It's time for her supporters to accept the fact she ran a poor campaign that borders on political malfeasance. To blame her defeat on Facebook —is utterly ridiculous. HRC had enough baggage to crush 100 glass ceilings. Practically any other Democratic candidate man or women with all of these built in advantages would have won by a landslide. HRC was a bad candidate. The overwhelming majority of people made up their mind about her long before she announced.
5
Except that the majority of people who voted, voted for her. So, there goes that "argument".
10
This article is not blaming her defeat on Facebook. It is showing how it was effectively used against her and was a factor in the outcome. Foreign adversaries played a role. This should disturb us all regardless of party. It will happen again. We need to fix it without rehashing the 2016 race.
10
She received a plurality not a majority. 8 million voted other.
Very impressive work by the Trump campaign. It’s hard to argue with victory.
2
You call this "victory"? -- But how, and what what cost???
I joined twice,both times it gave me the creeps. I was gone in days.
The whole place reminds me of monkey studies where in lower class monkeys are just enamored of the behavior of the upper class monkeys.
4
Delete Facebook. I did. One is left with more time and space for what's truly good and meaningful in life.
13
Curtailing speech as Noam Cohen prescribes would harm the community far more than allowing free speech.
3
There is strong element of 'the Devil made me do it' with social media. 'It made me filter my news feeds so I become more ignorant, it made me read and pass on those suspect postings, it appealed to my baser instincts and made me act less civil than I really am'. Right. The impact of social media is just a form of a Litmus test of who people really are, and unfortunately a large number don't appear to be able to resist the dark side.
1
It's not FB that's wrecking America; it's everyone who uses the service to micro-blog their every thought and action for the world to see. And Like! Nothing is too venial to be polished by group validation. And it's free. Stop whinning, at least someone is paying attention to your quotidian life and all you have to do is trade a certain amount of your privacy.
5
Conclusion: Facebook does not offer a service worth the price we are paying. Action item: Delete your account; dump the app.
5
No.
1
This is yet another corporate-funded-mainstream-media hit piece against social media. Facebook has its problems, but unlike the NY Times, Facebook at least gives ordinary people a platform and a voice. Far from tearing apart the social fabric, Facebook is empowering it -- and that is apparently a threat to the Times, WaPo, the and pharma-beholden TV networks. As an American, I disdain the idea of surreptitious foreign election advertising. But who pays that much attention to anonymous Facebook ads anyway? Not anyone I know. Let get real. We have plenty of election interference from the American media right here at home. The mainstream media made Donald Trump viable by giving him nearly limited amounts of free air time, while giving very light coverage to the surging grassroots campaign of Bernie Sanders. And where was the American media when the American Democrat party pulled out all the stops to scuttle Sanders? Nowhere to be found. So please, let's tone down the hypocrisy a few notches a let social media be for the people.
5
"But unlike the NYTimes, Facebook at least gives ordinary people a platform and a voice." I'm an ordinary person and I imagine most of those commenting here are, too. Do these reader comment and letters to the editor sections not provide us a platform and voice?
Such sheer propaganda I have not seen since 2016 election day "polls" on AOL suggesting that Hillary Clinton was such a clear leader that no opponent should bother voting.
2
The Facebook motto has always been "Move fast and break things." Well, they broke our regulations, elections, privacy, and trust.
13
"What Facebook is selling to political campaigns is the same thing Uber is selling to its drivers and customers and what YouTube is selling to advertisers who hope to reach an audience of children — namely, the right to bypass longstanding rules and regulations in order to act with impunity."
Exactly!!! Which is why they should be regulated the same as any public utility or broadcast entity.
17
In Orwell's 1984, he wrote, “If you want a picture of the future, imagine a boot stamping on a human face—for ever.” That boot is social media and that face is your identity. One of the most important books to read is the Shallows: What the Internet is Doing to Our Brains by Nicholas Carr. Every House and Senate reader needs to read such books. In the 1930s and 1940s, the radio was seen as a tool for spreading information to millions of people rather quickly. It was the form of social media back in the day. But today's social media is used for more than simply relaying information (truths or lies), it mines information and compromises individuals personal rights. It intrudes on you and compromises you. It makes you vulnerable to fraud and theft. The radio never did those things on such a massive scale.
13
Sadly they read the laughably bad adolescent writings of Russian immigrant Ayn Rand...not the brilliant works of George Orwell and Aldous Huxley. You a are what you read.
Facebook is exactly what it was intended to be, a plague on society, a tool of revenge, and making money. It is unclear how willingly Americans participated in this charade, they eagerly shared all aspects of their personal lifes. All this personal information resides in the Internet for all to see, study and act on.
Zuckerberg stole this idea from two fellow students and than used it to harrass a young woman who refused to date him. He then discovered his ability to market all this information and made a fortune. This is the current CEO of Facebook.
The question is, can we get this Genie back into the bottle?
10
Oh for heaven's sakes, enough with the hysterics already. Facebook was NOT intended to be a plague on society. Why would you even say such a thing?
1
To our congress: when Mark Zuckerberg comes before you to testify, please realize not only has he weaponized user information, he has also used his baby face to perpetrate the farce that he "just didn't know". His innocent looking face and golly, gee shucks acting is hiding a calculating person that very well did know.
Please follow the facts and do not be taken in by his obsequiousness. His company was, and is, involved in what will turn out to be one of the darkest chapters in American history. The knowing collusion with Russia that they were instrumental in facilitating using dark psyops against American citizens with their own data. Data that was stolen I might add. Please ask pertinent questions and make sure the gravity of what was done dawns on him and his company.
9
Facebook is Orwell's nightmare -- just far more dehumanizing than anything Orwell could conjure up in 1948 based on the most advanced communication technology of 1948.
15
These platforms give a mirror to the human condition, all the bad that comes from them is a reflection of who we are as a species. Religion calls it original sin, I call it something darker that cannot be printed in these papers
There is inherent in our US Constitution...the right to
communicate ; BUT that "right" does not give us this
right to communicate without our right to privacy.
Facebook; has violated our constitution right to communicate without guarantee of the invasion of
our privacy....and our government has failed to oversee
facebook's illegal trespass on our privacy rights..
No one is allowed to listen to our phone calls;
No one is allowed to read our e mails.
and so no one should be allowed to see or read our
communications between our selected communicators
on facebook.
Now that facebook has violated our
FCC laws...facebook MUST pay fines to those whose
privacy has been violated.
7
I'm an old lady and I think of Zuckerberg at age 34 or 35 as a young very smart young man who lacks the wisdom age can bring. Typical of his youth he dismisses the concerns of his elders. I grant that older is not always wiser but Zuckerberg needs some gravitas perhaps from Bill Gates who is now in his 60's!
6
At some level this issue has become over intellectualized. Facebook is a private company in which you enter a contract with and supply as much personal information as you deem admissible.
The whole issue can best be summed up rather tongue and cheek:
Facebook isn’t destroying democracy. The fear comes from the same generation that clicks banner adds to win a free iPad and then wonder why it didn’t come but their credit cards are being used in a TJ Maxx in South Carolina. #maxxinista
6
What did you think was going to happen? Participation in the vast global Facebook cult is 100% voluntary. Who told you to put your most personal information in a centralized database owned by a corporation? Who told you to document your lives in mind-numbingly mundane detail... your family, your vacations, your puppy, your cat, what you at for dinner last night ...? Who told you to get your news and information from FB feeds instead of through validated sources like the NYTimes and other professional media and news enterprises?
Not a tear shed by me about this...
11
It's telling that the various apologists for Facebook have a financial interest in seeing this scandal diminished or gone away. Facebook sells an individual experience while monetizing data and social manipulation. Its not "mind control" as one Facebook advocate disparaging referred to it, its individually targeted emotional manipulation based on social group to create a desired result. Facebook is being deliberately disingenuous about its intent in these matters and cleverly redirecting to things like "privacy" and promoting a shallow type of transparency that revels nothing. The dark ads that remain hidden tell the real intent and display the foot dragging that has informed Facebook's approach all along.
9
A United States that can’t regulate commerce, build infrastructure, secure elections, and protect its citizens does not remain a functioning democracy, or a world power.
24
Facebook, along with other social interaction engines, isn't JUST "ripping apart our social fabric" -- it's transforming it, yet again, this time to better align with the potentials technology offers today, as opposed to a century ago.
The universal connectedness it offers clearly has its trivial aspects, just as it has cautionary aspects, but it also has an immense potential to take us to the next level of human collaboration. The prices those who participate will pay are personal privacy and the need to be more cynical and informed in order to guard against predation. However, other factors today are rendering personal privacy impractical, as well, and it seems that focusing solely on Facebook is irrational. We’re not about to put this genii back in the bottle.
Let’s get on with the conversation that results in reasonable regulation of this technology and these platforms, but let’s also cease the willful demonization.
5
People love Facebook which has morphed from a connection vehicle, needed and appropriate, on a college campus. Now it is a vehicle for the "look at me crowd" posting to their hundreds of "friends" and self supporting groups engaging in mutual admiration. This is not to say that here are not some "friends", particularly those geographically separated, and some groups for which Facebook is worthwhile but for the most part it simply is not true.
And regarding ads, posts, whatever, far to many do not ask for sourcing -- remember these are your pals and buddies so it must be true.
And if one wants privacy, stay off line an make a call, send a text, or write a letter.
5
SCOTUS 'sold' relief from government scrutiny of elections in its 'Citizen United' ruling. This ruling is a much more real and larger threat to the social fabric and democracy of the US than Facebook. Decades of persistent gerrymandering by both political parties has further eroded fair and equal voting power.
US corporations have proven time and time again that their interests are squarely and completely with shareholder value and not in preserving or protecting the social fabric of any nation. Perhaps this Facebook/Analytica episode will be an awakening for some that there is really no such thing as a commercially 'free' product anymore than we can think that our electoral system is free from legally endorsed bias.
48
The problem is not with Facebook itself, but with the foolish, superficial people who use the platform, posting every detail of their otherwise ordinary lives to create a sense of self importance. Zuckerberg knows this and exploits it for financial gain. Beyond the information people post on the site, Facebook collects statistics about the people who use it, building a digital picture of them, which it sells to others for whatever purpose, good or bad. I do not use Facebook, or any type of social media. I oppose social media. Thank you.
12
Facebook is evil.
Do not use it.
This is not an attack on the real and vibrant human communities that use Facebook to communicate. People communicated quite well among themselves and with others long before Facebook; they will continue to do so long afterwards.
While Facebook's pernicious influence on America's electoral politics is absolutely real (and not nearly as explicitly partisan as some assert), this so-called social network is undermining the civic relationship among citizens in countries across the globe. Perversely one of the defenses raised on Facebook's behalf is that in some parts of the developing world, Facebook IS the internet.
That is not a defense; it is more evidence of the definitional over-reach that has been baked into Facebook from its early days.
Unfortunately, Facebook is not the only offender among the darling disrupters that Silicon Valley has nurtured, even if it is-- at the moment-- the most visible. Facebook may not even be the worst. But let's leave that for later and deal with Facebook today.
28
The Facebook sensory implant rollout delayed until the current controversy dies down.
The long term goal from Project X “Going Galt” is to sensory wrap a Facebook interface. This will prompt subliminal ques for the implantee.
The Facebook edge in product placement and impaired decision making a bonanza in wealth generation.
The passive, active control of the user community to guide their decision making a fundamental goal in Facebook Next-Gen.
Thank you Mark and Sheryl while I lean in for the journey.
2
Facebook is a shareholder-owned for-profit company, not a charity. We're not forced to use it. So if it's ruining your life, just stop.
23
Does the author know that millions of groups also use Facebook as a forum for meeting, discussion, and sharing of information vital to communities, families, neighbors and friends? Many of these groups were only able to form easily and closely because of Facebook. I participate in about a dozen of them that have a material benefit to my life and my community's well-being -- even including the rapid sharing of emergency information long before it arrives from the police alerts. I also use Facebook to read the updates from over a hundred non-profit organizations that are benefiting my town and state. Far from tearing apart the social fabric, Facebook has enabled us to create whole cloth from thread.
8
Yes, I agree with you. It can be a very useful tool for communication and for non-profit groups to get the word out about events. The trick is to use it and avoid being used by it. And to avoid spending an excess of time mindlessly clicking through it.
2
Thank you. I get the sense that no one with an opinion on this issue has ever actually used Facebook.
It is not clear to me that TV wasn't the main guilty party in 2016. Les Moonves conceded that Trump was bad for the country but great for TV. And so TV kept giving him free airtime, and didn't hold his feet to the fire.
11
As usual, it is about money, and nothing but money. The root of all evil.
And it’s not just Facebook. All social media and e-commerce platforms collect and use and sell and leave vulnerable to hackers an enormous amount of personal data. “Big Data” is the new frontier, and quickly becoming a professional career track.
Yes, the consumer should beware. But the consumer should also vote for lawmakers who will enact sensible legislation to protect consumers from fraud and propaganda.
If the values of these companies tank because regulations clip their ability to sell out our society, so be it. I would rather see death to the Silicon Valley unicorn than death to our democracy.
29
Facebook is a tool designed for and by adolescent autism-spectrum, libertarian boys with undeveloped consciences. Facilitating Trump's election, people's addiction to the tool (to spying on "friends" they don't actually talk with), and all the other unintended consequences are a result of that origin.
50
The only good thing about what's happening to Facebook now, is that people are beginning to realize it for what it is -- and that has little to do with being 'social'.
In fact, Facebook and all the other social media platforms out there have ultimately become little more than glorified echo chambers that marginalize specific communities, while cashing in on it.
In a way, it's amazing that Mark Zuckerberg and all his other genius cohorts didn't foresee the dark side of what they were unleashing onto the public, and at least take steps to limit its disasterous effects.
As is, Facebook has now become the Frankenstein monster that has overtaken its creator and is now running rampant about the village, unable to be contained.
I've never subscribed to it because I believe one should be in charge of one's own privacy -- some things are just non-negotiable.
But now that it has been exposed as the marketing device and political tool that it is, hopefully others will come to the same conclusion for themselves -- even though it's already too late.
14
Zuckerberg is no "genius" ....far from it. He just wanted to get a hooked up at college, nothing wrong w/ that...so much for him having imagination, vision and "genius". The early internet people were quite altruistic. Not the case w/ FB & Twitter.
Facebook, as this disagreeable story unfolds, more and more resembles a juvenile prank since from its inception it has always relied on the unsuspecting to assume everything is on the up and up, until, after gratefully seating oneself down on the so helpfully offered chair and hearing the explosive sound of breaking wind from the whoopie cushion hidden thereon (and the distant sound of juvenile delinquents cackling in delight) does one begin to comprehend how thoroughly one has been played. Zuckerberg, Thiel, et al, have had they laughs - now, all the fates willing, may they find their just reward.
22
"the dark ads have disappeared and Facebook won’t release them, citing the privacy of its advertisers". That really tells you something about Facebook. My data is public, its advertisers' is private. That is simply backwards.
750
Not only that but they're willing to cover for the Russian government and other agents who sought to undermine our democracy or suppress turnout using racism. Zuckerberg hasn't learned anything from this Cambridge Analytica fiasco or the racism that was used to suppress votes in 2016.
4
There is something fundamentally wrong in allowing what is effectively anonymous and ephemeral ads. If the advertiser doesn’t have enough integrity to put their name to it and let it persist, then it shouldn’t be allowed.
Facebook has in its Terms of Service that faking your birthday is grounds for having your account shut down. It demands far more integrity from the ad target than the advertiser.
Facebook and Zuckerberg need to be adults, and treat us accordingly.
9
The data of Facebook's customers is private. The data of Facebook's users is for sale.
7
"Shortly before the election, a senior official with the Trump campaign bragged to the Bloomberg reporters Joshua Green and Sasha Issenberg, “We have three major voter suppression operations underway,” which the article described as targeting “idealistic white liberals, young women, and African-Americans.”"
The dark, disappearing ads are disturbing. Almost as disturbing as the statistic showing 50% of Americans get their news from Facebook.
News from Facebook? It sounds laughable, but Facebooks has dominated cyberspace for so long, and with so much power, that one could almost view it as a form of mind control.
Except for one thing: in this country we still have free will.
Zuckerberg, often in the defense of his "platform's" laxity, maintains that the right of the individual is more important than obligations to society.
But don't citizens have a duty to query what they see and what they read? Have we become such a nation of sheep that the willingness and ability to challenge crazy stuff on Facebook has gone missing?
To some extent, Facebook mirrors societal values. When citizens have lost the ability to distinguish truth from fiction, well, you get what we have today.
For American democracy to survive, we need better educated, more engaged citizens. But only if people themselves demand that.
116
Yes, we HAVE become a nation of sheep.
1
The USA should follow the lead of the EU and develop some regulations -- of course that is unlikely in the age of the Great Dysregulated. The DIY way is to not join it.
15
Facebook has always played loose and fast with privacy, that is no secret. They have a familiar playbook, used by others also: produce a long, arcane terms of service policy, then each time they change it to take more privacy away, have some representative put out a statement that basically says nothing but is enough to placate a frustrated public. The public seems a little harder to placate this time, but Facebook likely is betting that the surge will die down once some other random incident (or Trump tweet) distracts people enough.
A bill addressing rights for consumer data and overall terms of service agreements is in order. There are other ongoing practices in ToS that are likely to do harm and haven't been fixed by market forces (e. g., forced arbitration in the case of dispute).
20
No doubt Facebook's privacy policy is bulky and employs "legalese" that makes everyone's eyes gloss over, but every other website is guilty of the same.
While FB and others could definitely do more to make its policies easy to understand, the bigger issue is that many consumers don't even read the privacy policies when signing up or when they assent to changes. If a policy change will allow greater data collection/less privacy, the users must consent to that, and do so without reading.
We as users of the social networking service must fulfill our own obligations to read the fine print, and ultimately decide whether to continue using the platform.
5
So Facebook enables political actors to microtarget dark propaganda that exploits people's fears and prejudices, and furthermore to do so secretly. I accept that this is hurting America and will do even more damage in the rest of the world. Regulation might help, but will be insufficient. For example, in the US, the dominant party has an interest in promoting division and has refined dark political psyops for years. They will not give up this powerful new tool willingly, and they have control of SCOTUS for the forseeable future, who will block regulation on 1A grounds. Similarly, in the rest of the world governments cannot be trusted to regulate that which consolidates their power. The only hope is for Facebook to choose the side of good in the human future and adjust their platform rules accordingly. But why would a publicly traded corporation voluntarily give up that money?
24
The depth of the difficulties with Facebook and other forms of social media are sometimes difficult to fathom: http://www.pewinternet.org/topics/social-networking/ . We have knows this was coming.
Twitter has been weaponized. Fake visual propaganda are staples of YouTube (the military recognized this some time ago) and Facebook.
As a backdrop to all this are the long known and corrosive effects of advertising. I remember a section of a 1993 book ("Around the Cragged Hill") by George Kennan discussing the dangers of advertising--he could not have imagined where we've gone. These problems are technologically refined and facilitated by Facebook and others. I am reasonably confident that we do not have the will to install an effective regulatory framework: too much money is involved.
Opioids kill more people (and deceptive advertising features in that story as well), but our addictions to social media are helping us wreck our own governmental system. They are a source of mass confirmation bias. They provide a mechanism for demeaning expertise and individuals.
24
People have blamed the Clinton campaign for not paying enough attention to the three swing states where 77,000 votes gave Donald Trump the electoral college.
People also seem to misunderstand how social media affected voting. It wasn't just lies and distortions. There was also a sophisticated campaign to make people decide not to vote.
Campaign strategists know a lot about how to affect elections. Karl Rove sliced and diced. Social media put that technique on steroids.
The Obama campaign reportedly used social media more effectively than the Romney campaign. Some of the same people were hired by the opposition to influence campaigns at state and local levels as well as national elections.
Big money buys the best, but big money doesn't care more about integrity than victory. So you get Cambridge Analytica. And the Russians who clearly were not inhibited by morality.
The segue to the Supreme Court decision making money the equivalent of speech seems obvious. It was a perfect storm and, almost accidentally, Donald Trump ended up elected.
I doubt that changes to Facebook will change the environment. Maybe the passions that we see in the kids from Parkland will make a difference, but I'm skeptical. Passions are too easily manipulated.
21
....and Brexit leaving the EU.....this is serious damage being done.
There is only one effective way to counter vote suppression, and that is to emulate some other democracies like Australia and Belgium by make voting mandatory. It would bring its own problems, but it would end voter suppression.
45
Exactly where and how is all this "voter suppression" you decry? In the South voters vote several times in a single election. How suppressed is that?
1
This essay reveals how vulnerable democracy is because of the vulnerability of the human mind. A key misconception of conservatism is that people are rational and make decisions based on their own self interests. They are not. People are emotional and do whatever pleases their emotional needs. This is how marketing controls human behavior.
Our emotional nature causes us to become pawns of advertisers. This weakness has allowed Facebook to enslave us. Other digital platforms have followed, but Facebook is the king manipulator.
It doesn't matter how well educated a person is or how much money one has, we can all succumb to the right marketing. Life has become a battle between the individual being under constant attack from advertising and marketing, all intended to separate people from their money.
Politics is marketing, period. Facebook has become a tool of that marketing and hence instrumental in our political enslavement.
Freedom is at stake here. We can't have a democratic republic if our minds are being controlled by bots. That's how serious this is. Want proof? People can't put their phones down. That phone is the pathway to their submission to the bots and the manipulators know that only too well.
61
Facebook has "enslaved" us? You mean smart-phones, right?
5
Facebook was built on and is most profitable today because of its use in harvesting, monetizing and overall commodification of its user community and content-- even content it does not own or license because most users only know to give it for free. Humans, valued by their ability to generate and proliferate content and ad revenue. Vital in maintaining this new consumer driven economy we live in. The financial benefit and foundation of Mark Zuckerberg's billions has also enriched a plethora of bottom feeders, brokers, and affiliate networks who are using Facebook as a mere repository of addict users influenced to buy things they don't need, and yes, vote along with whatever group think mentality of "influencers" infiltrating the site. There are many private forums that do all this too, they just don't have Facebook's market cap or short interest. And, for those who think they're not impacted by any of this because like me, you avoid Facebook, review your ETF, mutual fund, or other investments for FB debt or equity. You're most likely a Facebook owner, if not its mere commodity.
7
Perhaps if our kids are taught critical thinking in school, they would have a better grip on how they are being manipulated by corporations and marketeers. My father taught me at an early age to not believe everything I read or see, especially advertising. I question almost everything and give extra thought to what I read. It just takes a little more effort to get to the truth. Nowadays, with severely reduced attention spans, these kids do not have time to seek the truth. They also have no problem with relinquishing their privacy. I once heard young adult shout out his social security number and the spelling of his name into his cell phone on a crowded commuter train. Millions of people do not care about their privacy especially if they get stuff for free. That's why we need to regulate social media.
31
All well and good, but only in a highly abstract sense. Now ask yourself: "To what degree do the economic powers that be, the huge conglomerates that choose what will be marketed to us, be it Doritos or drugs, want schools to be teaching critical thinking? Their job, that of selling, thereby enriching themselves and their stakeholders, is made a helluva lot easier by having in place a cowed, submissive, unquestioning, undereducated, distracted mass of relatively thoughtless consumers, rather than an educated, critical, skeptical, questioning public. "Sic 'em with overwork; then they won't have time to think." The true education of the nation's youth will go absolutely nowhere without pushing back hard on the "biggies" who control our economic life. And who, who on the planet, has the wherewithal to do that?
3
While the headline sounds hyperbolic, the author makes many good points. It's easy to blame FB users for being gullible and not taking ownership of their voting rights and responsibilities. But, there is a vast diversity of people in this great country, and people have different resources, educations, priorities, etc. FB became experts at exploiting these differences. To say that FB users had it coming misses the point. I am not a FB user, by the way but I know many people who have become addicted to it.
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So, my phone carrier gives me the message "Scam Likely" when I get phone calls from questionable sources. This is helpful. I don't know how they differentiate between "Unknown" callers and "Scam Likely" callers but, since the scammers don't leave messages, I'm convinced my carrier is doing a good job of filtering unwanted calls. Facebook might consider a similar process. They could stamp a "Propaganda Likely" label--written in see-through red--over any post (personal or on the news feed) that 1) is based on rumor, or 2) is a partisan attack, or 3) is robo-generated, or 4) comes from a questionable, link-less news source, or 5) comes from a data-harvesting service. Since garden variety facebook users do not bother to distinguish propaganda from objective information, or fact from opinion--or are in a sweat to believe anything that reinforces the beliefs they already hold--facebook, like my phone carrier, might do their customers a service and tell them "Scam Likely!"
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R. Adelman,
Facebook will never do what you suggest because they made lots of money from allowing all the questionable sources you list here. Facebook now says it is concerned about your privacy but it has refused to give investigators information about the dark ads, citing the advertisers' privacy. Zuckerberg helped Trump win the election. Surely he knows that.
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Maybe it is time for Big Brother to warn us about "propaganda" and include in that the NYTimes "opinions" whose readers believe to be fact.
In this meandering narrative about "how to fix Facebook" did I find not one declarative statement calling for government regulation. These social media giants are not going to self regulate. They must be compelled by force of law. TV and radio broadcasters have had to acquire licenses from the FCC for the privilege of using their respective frequencies over the public airwaves. It is high time that the big internet companies-- and I am not referring to just so-called social media-- be obligated to secure licenses to use broad-band internet channels. Only through such licenses can the public expect that rule-breakers would then be subjecting themselves to criminal liability. In the meantime embarrassing PR amounts to nothing more than a little slap on the wrist.
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Not to be outdone, our friends at Apple have the answer -- self-regulation. Is this like self-deportation?
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The Europeans are way ahead of us on regs
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Regarding Apple: Their business model is very different from Facebook's. Apple makes most of its money by selling (expensive) stuff to people, so the incentives to sell information about people is very low. Facebook makes most of its money by selling information about people, that's basically all it does.
So it's easy for Apple to talk about self-regulation as it has no incentive to do the sorts of things that Facebook has been doing. Facebook, on the other hand, needs government regulation or it's going to continue to put its bottom line first, to the detriment of its users ("the product").
This is not nearly as complicated as Mr. Cohen makes it out to be.
Facebook is a market research company that sells information to advertisers. It has managed to reduce the cost of material to zero, thus becoming a caricature of capitalism.
At the end of the day, no matter what Zuckerberg or Andreessen say about social responsibility, its all about money.
As Upton Sinclar sait "It is difficult to get a man to understand something, when his salary depends on his not understanding it.
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"It has managed to reduce the cost of material to zero, thus becoming a caricature of capitalism."
Hardly. The data centers are not free, and I've heard the programmers working for them are paid quite well.
What they've done is create an enticing product, getting people to give them information in order to use it. Not much different really than the old contests where you mailed in a recipe for a contest or entered a drawing by clipping a coupon off a product box.
It does happen to be working much better than the contests of old, but to call this "a caricature of capitalism" says more about your politics than about what Facebook is doing.
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I think the vast majority of people simply do not want people spying on their activities and communications, or recording them, or selling them to 3rd parties. Even if it means they have to, say, google their search for a new car instead of having the ads follow them. The "agreements" that everyone signs without reading in order to participate in our world are meaningless. It isn't just about privacy, it's about restoring a culture where people & businesses are up front with each other.
And to all the mindless people who will say that if you don't want your information recorded & sold you should just stay off the internet, or off Facebook, I would remind you that this is a democracy, and we get to decide the rules that our economy runs on. For everyone's interest, not just for a particular business. Blaming individual customers for what Facebook does to them is like blaming individual drivers for climate change. It might make you feel morally superior, but it doesn't address the problem.
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Excellent point. And the "agreements" aren't real agreements because all the power resides on one unlawful side (Facebook's not ours).
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I refrain from using the social media discussed here, including Google, another data miner, and in no way feel disadvantaged or left out. There are alternatives that DON’T collect and sell our data.
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"..., the right to bypass longstanding rules and regulations in order to act with impunity. ..."
This is the thought I have had in the back of my mind which I had not allowed to move to the front. Thank you. There is a lot to consider about the implications of that phrase.
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I am not a user, but I am not at all surprised FB privacy management features have been "obscured". The tension between protecting users and delivering those same users to advertisers is now illuminated for all FB stakeholders ... and it now is safe to acknowledge that elusive privacy management features go much further providing protection and succor for advertisers - clearly FB's most important, most valued stakeholders - than they do to protect users.
These presumptions square neatly with the internet's tendency that everybody is "Opted In" whether they want to or not ... whether they know it or not.
FBs obfuscation of privacy management is very much intentional and indicative of the "help yourself" attitude that - historically - permeates far too much www based enterprise. For FB, it appears that particular history is catching up with them.
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Tomo,
I think it is a pretty simple fix, which we shall never see in my lifetime. All of this should be protected by a law that insists that everything on the internet is on an “Opt In” basis, rather than the other way around.
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All citizens need to take responsibility for thinking critically, for taking seriously their right to to vote. This means not blindly believing everything you hear or everything you see. It means seeking out the most objective news sources and reading from more than one or two sources. Basing decisions on FB or other ads is ridiculous, and blaming only those who try to mislead without holding responsible the individuals on the receiving end of those efforts isn’t going to solve this problem.
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We do not all have same level of cognitive functioning. Some are easily tricked this how propaganda works. FB knows this and chose mind control for profit over our country. Their actions are treasonous and they need to be prosecuted and punished.
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I don`t think you are aware of the power of brain washing and subliminal messaging. If this is just " advertising "then why are they refusing to release these "ads". And as far as individual responsibilities, how resposible can a citizen be when the KGB shows up at your door disguised as the cable guy.
1
Do you know any Trump voters? "FAKE NEWS!" You expect them to discern between fact and fiction? It's not just Facebook, it is the means of communication, but the internet makes it easier to shut out things you don't want to hear.
When privacy goes up, profits go down. And they go up when privacy is minimized. That is the fundamental driver, as well as fundamental flaw, in Facebook’s business model.
The ethics and opinions of Facebook execs are irrelevant to this discussion. Whether they are good people or bad people doesn’t matter. They are cogs in a mindless profit algorithm that ignores external costs.
Selling personnel data cannot be squared with the need to protect privacy, if the system is designed to maximize profits. Facebook must convert to a subscription model, or be put out of business in the interests of the common good.
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And who gets to decide what the common good is? You are in effect saying only the liberals can decide what the common good is. That is a very dangerous path.
3
If most of the people delete their Facebook pages, that would be who decides.
The next thing is convincing your relatives they have been the target of the Russians or other propaganda.
How many FB users actually knowingly gave FB the rights to use and sell for a profit your personal data, images etc? I would say none. So how about FB sending each & every FB user a BIG check for all the profits FB received selling our data. That would be a start.
Facebook, in particular Mark Zuckerberg, has repeatedly lied about protecting users' privacy and about agents, foreign and domestic, using it as a propaganda tool. Only when they are found out do they reboot and go on to the next lie. They make some patch, but it's feeble and easily circumvented.
Facebook willingly allows itself to be used as an agent of social division because it earns them revenue, and revenue is the name of the game. They hand over users' data to advertisers because it earns them revenue; it's their business model. Users are revenue sources, not "friends." A recent article on Bloomberg described a huge convention of internet trolls and sleazy operators in Berlin. In attendance were high level Facebook personnel rubbing elbows with phishers and shady operators.
www.bloomberg.com/news/features/2018-03-27/ad-scammers-need-suckers-and-...
Does this sound like Facebook cares about its users? You decide.
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"Facebook willingly allows itself to be used as an agent of social division because it earns them revenue, and revenue is the name of the game." Willingly? worse, FB makes more money by raising your fears and anxiety, getting you ever more glued to the screen. And if the Facebook algorithms are tweaked to maximize profit by artificial intelligence software bots then no human, no policy, no management person need be involved. I hope the preeceeding is a wild eyed conspiracy theory. But if I am right, Facebook and my hypothetical software writing bots could lead to the end of enlightened civilization.
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Thank you for the link. Just appaling. I got scammed by these thugs.... it’s sad to realize how society’s greed and emptiness is allowing these practices to take place. 1994 is here in full swing. Scary Times.
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I appreciate this article's ambition to frame Facebook's deceptive practices as attacks against not just individual privacy but the integrity of the electoral system.
However, as long the USA are unwilling or unable to take a new hard look at how money is allowed to be used in US politics I think the situation won't change. If not Facebook, new ways will be found to achieve similar goals.
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I decided to quit Facebook the morning after the election, I had a queazy feeling all along during the election cycle of 2016. And then, when Donald Trump won, I could not shake the idea, that he was not really suppose to be the winner, but that he got there by some sinister plot! I have been depressed ever since!
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I have never had a Facebook account, precisely because I did not and do not trust them. Unfortunately, my instincts have been proven correct by these recent revelations.
9
Despite the usefulness of social media in keeping me in contact with my far flung family and friends, it's sinister side is too much to ignore. I'll be deleting my account as soon as I'm able to figure out how to eliminate it entirely. Government oversight has become a comforting concept when I realize that corporations and the men who run them have no conscience and no loyalty to any flag or any institution and they answer to no one. They simply can't be trusted to do the right thing.
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Go to help and type in ‘delete my account’. Look for how to permanently delete my account. Then scroll down and look for ‘ let’s us know’ - in bold blue colour- click it and then enter your password and you just started the process how to delete your account! It may take one month to fully erase. You are most welcome.
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Dump the social network, recover your life.
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"They simply can't be trusted to do the right thing."
Can you, Geraldine?
If yes, why can or should you be trusted?
Can the gov? If yes, which gov?
It's very hard for me to have sympathy with FB users here. The platform has never been anything other than an advertising device. Doesn't anyone remember Zuckerberg's famous declaration, "Privacy is dead. People don't care about privacy anymore."
The fact is, FB fed off of people's insecurities, and it turns out we are a deeply insecure people at the moment. The fact that people signed up for FB knowing full well that every single thing they posted would become the permanent property of Zuckerberg shows that the desire to do what everyone else was doing blinded people to the obvious problems with social media's business plan.
Given these realities, I have no idea why anyone is surprised by what happened here. FB is a business interested in power and money. And they will do anything they can to get both. And FB is correct to think that the people who remain on FB are those who are the most easily manipulatable - and this is exactly what advertisers are paying for.
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"The fact that people signed up for Facebook knowing full well that every single thing they posted would become the permanent property of Zuckerberg shows that the desire to do what everyone else was doing blinded people to the obvious problems with social media's business plan."
We *didn't* all know that all of our activity "would become the permanent property of Zuckerberg." I was a teenager when I signed up for Facebook in 2007, and my peers and I had no idea how our information would come to be used. Those were the early days of social media, and as friends and family scattered further afield across the country and the world, it has become difficult to disentangle from Facebook. Skewering the users misplaces the blame for the company's bad behavior. Having a visual, centralized place where we can connect with those we care about has become an essential feature of the internet for many, many people, myself included. The #deletefacebook movement should also include a conversation about what this kind of "digital town square" can look like without it compromising our individual rights or the fabric of our democracy. Don't get me wrong, I am deeply disturbed by Facebook's blatant lack of ethics, and I would much rather have the "internet town square" out of their hands. But chastising all of us sheeple isn't going to solve anything.
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It's clear by now that Facebook has zero intention of making any significant change to their product. Their one goal is to make a profit, no matter the cost to their users and our society.
Deleting Facebook is a first step. But government regulation of huge tech corporations like Facebook and Google are the only way to effectively fix these problems. Europe is already using regulations to protect users' privacy.
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"Europe is already using regulations to protect users' privacy. "
It's idiotic. FB's popularity is based on people's desire for visibility. It serves their narcissistic and affiliation needs.
So, you want to be visible and at the same time private? The cake you're eating is shrinking.
Don't blame the baker, he's just eking a living.
I do think it is up to Facebook to ensure user privacy, it shouldn't be elective because too many users likely don't read or set settings. It is the responsibility of the user to realize internet posts are public and to not post anything they wouldn't want shared.
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The problem is they share everything, not just your posts. What you like, what you read, who your friends are, who your neighbors are, and they add to that by purchasing third party data. Controlling what you post won’t protect your privacy much.
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