The Cambridge Analytica scandal has revealed that data from Facebook’s massive, irreplaceable user base have become a double edged sword. Initially Facebook’s greatest asset as a multi-sided business platform, those data are increasingly viewed as a resource that might require active oversight to protect individual privacy and other social values. A national discussion transcending partisan politics about the private data generated on social media platforms has begun.
REUTERS/Dado Ruvic
In 2017, Mark Zuckerberg reported that Facebook had 2 billion active users per month around the world. Of the nonstop communication that takes place on the platform, perhaps one of the most frequent, yet least recognized, forms is that between user and advertiser. Facebook’s personalized ads demonstrate just how much data the company collects from each individual; the recent scandal showcased how insecure that data is.
According to the Wall Street Journal, Cambridge Analytica, a political consulting firm with ties to Trump’s 2016 campaign, is said to have improperly obtained Facebook data from tens of millions of Facebook users from a researcher who was not permitted to share the data he collected with any outside sources.
The New York Times article about Trump consultants exploiting Facebook Data explained that “The breach allowed the company to exploit the private social media activity of a huge swath of the American electorate, developing techniques that underpinned its work on President Trump’s campaign in 2016.” However, Fox News was quick to argue that President Obama ‘s campaign used data mining from the same Facebook developer tool even though according to Facebook’s privacy rules it was allowed at the time.
In her recent Forbes Cambridge Analytics article Jody Westby, the CEO of Global Cyber Risk, explains why Facebook users and others are concerned:
For years, Americans have shrugged their shoulders over NSA surveillance and government access to digital data and said, “I don’t care; I have nothing to hide.” Now they are starting to see that maybe they do have something to hide. They are starting to understand that their own preferences and those of their friends and family can be hoovered up and stored in perpetuity and fed through algorithms to produce manipulative messaging intended to move beliefs and influence actions.
The episode has already prompted politicians on both sides of the aisle to urge Mark Zuckerberg to testify before Congress. Regulation–like that which is nearing implementation in Europe–may follow. A non-profit alternative with a thoroughly neutral, transparent, and secure platform for citizen interaction would be even better. That’s the EnCiv vision.
