The Channel 4 expose of Cambridge Analytica last week has started a firestorm of commentary.
Rightly so, but is it not ironic that the tools CA used to swing the US presidential election are now being used against them after the tactics were revealed?
Facebook, and all the other digital platforms are just wholesalers of eyeballs, in business to collect then monetise their access to personal information, freely given. This how they make their money, exchanging access to the very detailed personal information they collect on their platform users, to advertisers for money.
I wonder if any of us should be surprised at the revelations? This is what they do with our cooperation. The problem in this case is that 50 million of the people whose data was skimmed did not know it was happening and had not given permission for it to happen.The tensions inside Facebook, and the other platforms, between those whose job it is to generate the revenue, and those charged with the responsibility for data security must make for some pretty lively conversations!
The access to the a wider set of eyeballs, via the downloading Apps, games, surveys, and the rest with ‘Friends permission‘ such as the popular game ‘Farmville’ enables access to the personal data of friends of those who are engaged. This Friends access allows ‘thousands of layers of personal information on millions of accounts‘ to be collected. That data was then analysed by Dr. Aleksandr Kogan using the principles developed by the Psychometrics Centre at Cambridge University. Dr Kogan analysed the data collected for Cambridge Analytica, that had the objective of developing and delivering messages specifically targeted at an individual in order to move their voting behaviour.
Truly scary stuff, science fiction just a few years ago.
Facebook has since suspended Cambridge Analytica and associate SCL (Strategic Communication Laboratories) from facebook, while defending their own actions claiming ‘Protecting peoples information is at the heart of everything we do‘. Suspension is apparently, the ultimate sanction. I guess that we should all be grateful they are looking after our privacy so well, and not going out hawking it in the local bar.
Facebook is really under the regulatory gun in all this, coming as it does on top of the revelations about Russian troll farms and the possible influence they had on the US Presidential election results. However, they should not be the only ones under scrutiny for the use of personal data for profit. That is simply the business model that has evolved in front of us as we all use social platforms of all types and names. Facebook just happens to be the biggest, and best suited to electoral ‘management’ if not fraud.
While the personal information zealots cry about making potentially life saving medical records available on line, and politicians of all colours bleat about how important information privacy is, a hard argument to beat, we all continue to give it away happily for access to ‘cat porn’ and the menu of the local pizza shop.
The debate should be a wider one.
How much power do we want concentrated in the hands of so few providers of digital tools, and how will we regulate them to ensure they play a constructive role in the development of our communities and society. The follow up question is I suppose, do we have the political machinery with the skills and balls to do anything about the obvious answer.
Header cartoon credit: Partial ‘First dog on the moon’ cartoon The Guardian 21/3/18.
Update: March 23
Mark Zuckerberg has released a statement that acknowledges the problem, gives a timeline of what Facebook has done to secure information, but goes nowhere near an apology. I suspect there will be some flurries meant to make Facebook look better, and as a salve to those calling for regulatory action, but little if anything of any consequence will change.
Second update March 24.
I just stumbled across this editorial by Mitch Joel, to my mind one of the interesting and informed thinkers in this space, that really gives some added context to the conversation. It supports the view that none of us should be surprised, we have willingly participated in the end of privacy, and besides, use of social data to manage (code for swing) electoral outcomes in this way is well known.
Third update April 16.
I was sent this very useful explanatory video produced by the NY Times, describing the sequence of events. Thanks Geoff!
Fourth update May 24.
Aleksandr Kogan, the data scientist behind SCL has his say in an interview with Buzzfeed.
