That Mainstream Media Isn’t Understanding Facebook

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• News reports routinely identify Cambridge Analytica as "connected to the Trump campaign." That's it, Trump hacked private user data from Facebook, which no one needs to actually prove.

  Facebook has used its users' data as a political weapon, and is only outraged now because it was misused by the wrong side.

  So certain users got Trump campaign ads. Compare the misfeasance at Equifax and Wells Fargo. The Facebook story has legs only because the networks can use it to reinforce the notion that Trump's election was somehow illegitimate.

• I've been involved in elections, as has our host, and mining data is a fundamental part of election campaigns. Only the most incomeptent of election campaigns sets off with the intention of undertaking the greatest amount of work to gain the results. You use whatever data you have on the people with votes to optimise your workload to the smallest to get the greatest amount of result for the work put in.

  I've spent two decades talking to people who have votes, and then making notes of their opinions so I can later decide whether to later on remind them there's an election and ask them to vote for me or my colleagues. Complaining about the current methods is just the same as complaining about people using typewriters instead of quills.

• Like many I am grateful to the Guardian newspaper for its work on Cambridge Analytica. Its expose of the use of data trawled from Facebook to seek to subvert choice in elections is well worth another year’s voluntary payments, however much I get annoyed by the paper on occasion.

  But in amongst all the issues raised I want to point out the big one that is not being stated clearly enough. The challenge to democracy that the Guardian has exposed does not come from Russia. Nor is the issue particular to Cambridge Analytica. And I doubt it is peculiar to Facebook either. The challenge to democracy comes from capitalism itself.

  If anyone used the weaknesses in the systems of Facebook for their own ends (and it seems certain that they did: that was Cambridge Analaytica’s raison d’etre) then this was not a case of ‘bad apples’. This happened because capitalism is designed to exploit weaknesses in pursuit of profit unless prevented from doing so.

  Facebook let data be used because it thought it would profit from it.

  Cambridge Analytica looks to be a company without a moral compass. But there are a multitude of those.

  And the cost is to society at large. The fact that in this case the cost is very large indeed, maybe resulting in the world having to suffer Trump as US President and in the UK opting for Brexit. As costs go, these are staggering.

  And yet they are only the specific costs. The systemic ones may be larger still. The greater cost is to trust.

  Bizarrely, the whole edifice of capitalism has to be built on trust. In the absence of the perfect information that economists assume exists as the basis for their prescription that markets deliver the optimal allocation of resources within the global economy, trust that the purveyor of any product or service can be relied upon to supply the product as described is essential to the effective operation of markets. Ultimately, it is what we all have to rely upon. That we cannot do so is indicated by the fact that we have so much regulation. But even so, trust remains at the heart of the system. And so pervasive is that requirement that the whole edifice of governance, whether within business, or beyond in greater society is built on the same basis.

  The actions of Facebook and Cambridge Analytica shake that assumption that we might trust the corporate world to its core. Of course, they are not the first companies to have done that. They will not be the last. But their cases are exceptional in one way, and indication of what might be to come in another. Few companies have ever had data on a quarter of the world’s population before now. And few that we know of have used that so ruthlessly, and apparently with so little conscience, to seek to undermine the system of democracy that is, in my opinion, essential in providing the checks and balances that are the only things that make any form of capitalism acceptable. This can only get worse if unchecked now.

  In that case might I make a quiet plea? Might we stop obsessing about Russia? If they have exploited this they are just one of many who might have, or have been willing, to do so. Lowest common denominator market players will find customers. Instead might we ask what it is about capitalism that must be transformed (I use the word rather than reformed, wisely) to ensure that what it can do - which is provide us with choices and the opportunity for billions to work in the ways they wish using their skills in the way they want - might be of best service to human kind without putting at risk the whole of society as we know it?

  This has to start with changing the rules of the game. The idea that limited liability is sacrosanct, most especially for those who run companies, has to end. Such a provision may be appropriate for shareholders. For directors who permit wrong doing it cannot be permitted.

  Nor can the assumption that capitalism can operate behind closed doors be sustained any more. We know government has been improved by the right to know. Maybe the time for freedom of information enquiries of big business has arrived.

  And, of course, the interests of shareholders cannot come first. They are important, but only amongst equals. That means employees, suppliers, customers, government, communities and civil society rank equal alongside them. As does the environment, even if it has to rely on human custodians to act for it.

  Whilst the boundaries of what companies may do may have to be re-written.

  And the whole idea of audit may need to come in to vogue once more, with a focus not just on accounting but on governance, ethics and community risk. And it is not an activity that could be done in pursuit of commercial profit.

  Whilst if we are serious about defending democracy - and I am - the idea that seeking to subvert democratic choice must be an offence has to be taken seriously.

  I accept these ideas need development, and discussion. But my point is clear. Let’s not get lost in the detail of the abuse Cambridge Analytica has undertaken. Let’s look as well at the systemic issues that they and Facebook raise. They are much more important. And existential in nature.

  • In length and content, this is most likely a Murphy copypaste than a reply from Gamecock.

  • Nope, not buying.

    I need to see another successful alternative before we ditch the current model. We all know it has flaws. But nothing evenly remotely better is on offer.

    It's like a person ranting that there's not enough resources on this planet and we should move to another planet. Correct, but useless.

• Plus for a user advertising is a service- how else does Joe Soap find out what's on offer, be it goods, services or politics. And seeing adverts for things one has an interest in is better than seeing adverts for things one has no interest in.
  The complaints about targeted advertising seem to come from those who can't do it plus those whose stuff doesn't sell.

• 2012: OBAMA IS MINING FACEBOOK DATA AND HERE'S WHY THAT'S AWESOME AND COOL:
  https://www.theguardian.com/world/2012/feb/17/obama-digital-data-machine-facebook-election

  2018: HALP! EVIL DONALD TRUMP MINED FACEBOOK DATA!!!1!

  https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2018/mar/21/cambridge-analytica-facebook-exploited-trust?CMP=fb_gu

  • Yup, if these guys didn't have double standards, they'd have no standards at all. Obama also "mined" the IRS, imposing on nonprofit organizations with "Tea Party" or similar in their names the costs of proving they merited nonprofit status, including disclosure of contributors' names (which surely made contributions dry up right before the 2012 re-election). Nothing to see here, folks, move along.

• Only to be expected from the scum of the left Steve.

  How much contradiction and hypocrisy has that fat slug Richard Murphy flung in the reading public's faces over the years.

• How Guardian readers' minds* work: people have voted in ways of which I don't personally approve; this cannot be because I am woefully out of touch with how most people see the world; therefore it must be the result of interference by pesky Rooskies/evil businesses exploiting 'big data'/lizard-people from Venus**.

  * I use the term in its loosest possible sense
  ** delete whichever is inapplicable

• If you own a business and you want more customers, you use Google Ads or Facebook Ads. They both have what we used to call a mailing list, which is finely divided demographically so that you don't waste money contacting consumers who probably won't buy your product or service. You also avoid peeing off customers who don't want to see your ads.

  The concept has been around for yonks and I'm struggling to see where Facebook crossed a line here. Is the Don the first politician who ever used social media in an election campaign?

• I use Facebook regularly - it is a great way of keeping in touch with friends and family who are dotted around the world. I don't, however, pay to use Facebook; yet Facebook appears to make money and remain in business. This means that somebody else is Facebook's customer and my meagre and occasional drivellings, Facebook's product.

  I have absolutely no problem with this whatsoever. I'm getting something that I value in return for giving up something that I don't value as much.

  The only reason that the mainstream media and a bunch of screaming lefties even care about this story is that Trump and Brexit are against everything that they stand for. They have thrown the blame around everywhere but, once you look into it, nothing has stuck. Rather than taking a long, hard look at themselves and why they aren't electable, they'll continue to search for some reason that stupid people voted the way that they did.

• "Facebook has used its users’ data as a political weapon, and is only outraged now because it was misused by the wrong side."

  Exactly. And, as they say "If you're not paying for the product, you are the product". Our data is worth money, and apparently revealed preferences show that most people think the trade-off is worth it.

  • American talk host Erick Erickson makes those same points today, also the one above that the media is hyping this mainly as another excuse to de-legitimize Trump: https://townhall.com/columnists/erickerickson/2018/03/23/another-excuse-to-avoid-blaming-hillary-clinton-n2463698