“We have a responsibility to protect your data, and if we can't then we don't deserve to serve you,” said Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg when he finally broke his silence on the Cambridge Analytica scandal.
Yes, the 33-year-old billionaire who invented the social network when he was a student graced us with the profound wisdom of societies and great thinkers throughout human history - that people in positions of great power have a responsibility to protect people – as though he’d thought of it first.
What we’ve learned from the CA scandal is how little regard Facebook truly has for its users. CA’s services are thought to have played a huge role in Donald Trump’s presidential victory, and in all that time citizens had no idea Facebook had allowed firms like CA access to their data without explicit permission.
But what Facebook sees as datasets and profiles that it can use to sell to companies or further develop its increasing array of what can only be described as digital mind control tools, are created from the things and people we care about - we’ve become cogs in a machine to be studied by tech geeks who’ve amassed unregulated power.
And it’s not just young Zuck who’s been letting the cat out of the bag when it comes to breathtaking ignorance. Last year, Twitter co-founder Evan Williams admitted in an astonishing interview that he and his colleagues had simply assumed that open, unregulated digital platforms would bring a natural end to thousands of years of violence, intolerance and tribalism, and all in 140 characters.
“I thought once everybody could speak freely and exchange information and ideas, the world is automatically going to be a better place,” he said.
But as the UK and US reeled from the Cambridge Analytica files last week, Twitter might have been feeling a bit more buoyant as it prepared to celebrate its 12th birthday – at least, that was, until Amnesty decided enough was enough and launched a #ToxicTwitter campaign to mark the occasion, slamming the social network for failing to make the platform a substantially safer place for women despite constant pleas for change.
Scottish political leaders Nicola Sturgeon, Kezia Dugdale and Ruth Davidson were among those to back the campaign, but Twitter seemed nonplussed. Twitter “cannot delete hatred and prejudice from society”, said the social network in response, like it was run by a bunch of children screaming “but it’s not our fault!”.
It’s astonishing that we’ve actually allowed small pools of relatively inexperienced, unqualified and unelected individuals such substantial power over tools with a frightening reach over our minds and behaviours. In fairness, they probably could never have imagined they’d become so powerful – and in turn neither could our politicians – but the direction of travel became clear years ago. The problem is that authorities seem utterly crippled and clueless when it comes to dealing with them.
Global governments have barely even reached the question of regulation seriously at this point, let alone much bigger philosophical, social and political ideas about just what the hell is being created, and who benefits.
Data capitalism is rife, and it amounts to a digital form of exploitation. It may not be our labour these giant tech firms are profiting from, but make no mistake, it is us they are profiting from – so insidiously that we have barely even been aware of it.
We’ve become pawns in capitalist games; marketing and advertising companies play around with all this juicy data to figure out how they can manipulate people into buying their products (this really is a step much further than old-fashioned billboard advertising); firms like Cambridge Analytica are harvesting data to attempt to influence voters, while suspected Russian troll farms – and it won’t just be the Russians, let’s not be naïve here – are thought to be deliberately creating divisions in society to further their geo-political agendas.
This is one hell of a mess. It’s almost beyond comprehension.
But with a crisis comes an opportunity, and this could be a turning point if the will is strong enough. Facebook’s value is plummeting, the information commissioner has Cambridge Analytica in its sights and the tech world is watching closely, observing the public mood – most likely through their smartphones ... no laughing at the back.
At this stage, a tokenistic move towards regulation, and government demands for a few tweaks here or there, would be a gravely missed chance to radically redesign our new data world and reorganise the power. Right now, the private sector has almost free rein in this digital world. Will the public wake up in time?
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