"those who rule data will rule the world" Masayoshi Son
I saw a fantastic cartoon strip (1) that really
brought home the choices many of us are making this year (2). FirstDog, the
author, basically said:
THERE ARE 2 APPROACHES TO ERADICATING POVERTY,
ONE OF THEM IS TO LIFT PEOPLE OUT OF POVERTY, AND THE OTHER IS TO GET KILL POOR
PEOPLE (or get rid of them from your borders).
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A third approach would be to change the
definition of poor, but we’re not cheating that much. Anyway, I am not joking,
think about it.
This comic strip has pushed me to write about a
topic I have been hesitating to blog about for a while, because, even for me,
it is quite controversial. It is the role of corporations in shaping the
political landscape.
A while ago I wrote a blog (3) where I argued
that the internet can be responsible for the fact that instead of moving
towards the mainstream beliefs/behaviours of society, people who were at the
margins now tend to stay at the margins, and even some less marginal could
become more marginal. I had then argued that this marginalization could happen
at all margins, say whether it be the extreme-right or the extreme-left.
The underlying assumption was that the internet
as an environment within which we operate was neutral; there was equal
attraction on the left as on the right. This is an incorrect assumption.
While one can probably read view-points from
all creed on the internet, it takes effort. Today, those who control what we
read/are exposed to, have a large say in what we think. Therefore, we can be
targeted to become more marginal.
Everyone has probably heard of Cambridge
Analytica. What was attempted was a multi-pronged strategy:
1 discourage people who are unlikely to vote
for the preferred candidate from voting
2 encourage less extreme people who may be
swayed to move towards and vote for the preferred candidate by exposing them to
very specific messaged
3 maintain people in the extreme who are likely
to vote for the preferred candidate in their views and encourage them to go out
and vote.
I think it is an interesting approach, and
political entities who use such tools are doing their job, as long as similar
resources are available to people of all hues.
Google (or at least
Eric Schmidt) helped Obama get elected
Before Cambridge Analytica employed dubious
techniques to access people’s inner thoughts and therefore, the pioneer of
using the web to harness votes was Barack Obama (4). It would seem there was no
false pretences used to obtain access to and collect information. Mr Obama,
after beating Ms Clinton in the democratic primaries, became President Obama.
(I am not saying this was the main reason, but it had a role to play.
Facebook helped Trump
get elected
It is no secret, the Trump campaign benefited
hugely from the efforts of Cambridge Analytica who harvested data from facebook
to benefit the Trump campaign (5). As a quick reminder, Cambridge Analytica
basically used underhand means to get data not only from people who directly
gave consent under suspect circumstances, but also that of their contacts, 10
in New Zealand exposed data of about 64.000 (6). There also was the issue of
state sponsored trolls on large scale (7)
Furthermore, Facebook knew fully well what
Cambridge Analytica was up do, way before the story broke (8)
And finally, a reminder that a facebook employee
was lauded as the MVP (Most Valued Payer) of the Trump campaign, yes, an
employee (9).
All this has been very well documented; and as
I sometimes half-joke, the elections was a battle between a half-hearted google
(Ms Clinton was no Obama) and a fully committed facebook, and the latter caught
the former with its pants down.
Facebook/Whatsapp
helped Bolsonaro get elected
In case some of you have not heard about Mr
Bolsonaro, apart from him allowing (helping?) the amzon to burn (10) and
putting the blame of Mr Leonardo Di Caprio (11). Now, Mr Bolsonaro did not come
out of the blue; he was a duly elected deputy from Rio de Janeiro. During the
attempts to impeach the then president Rousseff, he cast the vote to impeach
her, in the name of the general who lead a notorious colonel who led the Doi-Codi
torture unit (12), and who imprisoned and did horrible things to many people
including Ms Rousseff herself (13).
Ok, I guess you get the picture, I don’t really
like Mr Bolsonaro.
But the point of this blog is that Whatsapp/Facebook
were instrumental in getting him elected.
First of all, one has to understand the power
of Whatsapp in Brazil. For 25% of people surveyed, Whatsapp is the main source
of news (14). Large corporations, including those who benefit from quickly and
irreversibly clearing the amazon were great supporters of Mr Bolsonaro and used
whatsapp extensively to that end (15).
Mr Bolsonaro also had his own internet army and
ordinary Brazilians who believed the campaign spread the information further
(16).
Now, the key is not the usage of whatsapp to
spread information, but the exploitation of this channel that is used as a
source of information and to a large degree trusted, to push “fake news”.
Most of the whatsapp messages that were found,
after analysis, to be “fake news” were supportive of Mr Bolosnaro, 42% of
messages supporting him were found to contain false information as compared to
3% of messages supporting his opponent. (17) To me it’s like lying 14 times
more.
And just to illustrate that the use of
facebook/whatsapp by the Trump of Brazil (18) is not necessarily random, Mr
Bannon (19), an architect of Mr Trump’s campaign, is very close to the
Bolsonaro camp (20).
Well, the US has historically considered the
American continent its playground anyway.
To keep the blog post short, I’ll provide fewer
details for the next few politicians who have used facebook/whatsapp very
effectively to get elected.
Facebook/Whatsapp
helped Salvini get elected
Mr Salvini is “not merely a Donald Trump
facsimile” (21); he has used and contributed to the populist playbook (note I
am not saying that “populists” are necessarily bad). But Mr Salvini is famous
for .
A nice article showing how facebook was used by
Mr Salvini, including to propagate “fake news” can be found here (22), and how
he plans to reduce poverty here (23), and similarly to Mr Trump (), Mr
Bolsonaro (under whose watch the amazon is suffering the worse fires), Mr
Salvini is a climate change skeptic, even not signing the Paris accords of 2016
(25)
Facebook/Whatsapp
helped Modi get elected
India is a huge country; it makes sense that celebrities
from India would have huge followings. Mr Modi is #1 political figure on
Facebook and Instagram, #3 on twitter (no prizes for guessing who tops twitter)
(26). That in itself is not necessarily a bad thing. Politicians who use social
media as a channel to interact with people is not a bad thing.
However, the usage of social media by Mr Modi
and his allies goes deeper.
Mr Zuckerberg of facebook has held up Mr Modi
as an example of how to use social media, “After Mr. Modi’s victory, Facebook
advised him on how to use its service to govern, including getting government
agencies and officials online. In 2015, Mark Zuckerberg, Facebook’s chief executive,
hosted Mr. Modi for a televised chat at the company’s Silicon Valley
headquarters. Facebook held India up as a model for how governments could use
the social network” (27).
And what are some of the actions Mr Modi has
taken, as they compare to the political figures above? Well 2 million people
from the state of Assam have been denied Indian citizenship (28) although Mr
Modi is advocating action against climate change (29).
Facebook helped
Duterte get elected
Another polarizing political figure (given
where I live I have friends from India and Philippines, and have friends who
are great supporters and great detractors of their current head of states, they
leave very few people ambivalent) is Mr Duterte, who is leading the Philippines
in a war against drugs.
Facebook is hugely popular in The Philippines
(one of the countries where facebook gave “free internet” in collaboration with
local telcos), add to this the geographical spread of the country, facebook is
an obvious channel. Again, nothing wrong here.
However Mr Duterte pushed the envelope further
(30) and further (31).
Facebook/Whatsapp
helped Morrison get elected
My last example will be that of Mr Morrison in
Australia, some people even call his win at the recent elections a miracle. So
how did this miracle occur?
One of the items that have been blamed was the “death
tax scare”, misinformation on the “fake news” regarding the policies of Mr
Morrison, and to which facebook then surprisingly, but today not surprisingly,
refused to do anything about (32).
This, of course, is a pattern, such as in the
case of Mr Trump’s ads (33); and facebook allows political paid ads to say
whatever they want despite facebook’s employees’ objections (34)
A side note
And a final topical note, with the UN
investigating the Myanmar Military actions in the case of rohingya refugees,
there have been allegations of campaigns run of facebook (35)(36). Even facebook
has admitted its role (37), or at least the results of its lack of activity in
policing what goes on on the platform.
But does this just
show that these politicians with common ideas are just better users of social
media
Is this simply that a group of similarly
thinking right-wing politicians simply know or have teams who know how to
leverage Facebook/Whatsapp better than their competitors? No.
This is a policy on the part of facebook.
Enter Ms Katie Harbath, Public Policy Director,
Global Elections at Facebook (38). You read correctly, Ms Harbath directs the
policies of facebook with regards to elections globally.
A couple of articles worth reading (39)(40)(41)
My summary is that facebook has been working
with selected politicians who have a similar agenda across the globe. So what
does facebook potentially get? The immediate impact of course is the political
ads that, as mentioned above, are not fact checked. Then there could possibly
be positive pieces of legislation (42) and even support certain individuals in
the legislative arm, for example Brett Kavanaugh (43), and even throwing celebratory
party for Mr Kavanaugh (44)
So what does this all
mean?
To me:
1 Data is a powerful weapon, different people
use it for different purpose. The power say of facebook lies in the data it
collects and uses for its own purposes.
2 We have to wake up to the fact that large
data businesses want to remain large and profitable, and do what it takes to do
so. I am not targeting Facebook specifically, it just seems that they are more
open about what they are doing.
3 Eventually, as I have been preaching for a
while, we, as individuals should have control over the data we generate. This
would minimize the power of behemoths.
4 However, it would be a great beginning if
people would stop, take stock, especially when about to make decisions that
will affect them and sometimes generations after them, for example Brexit, or
the elections in the UK on December 12. Afterall, especially the changes in
climate, ice sculptures will melt even faster, leaving a mess for the next
people to clean up (45).
25 https://term8.votewatch.eu/en/term8-conclusion-on-behalf-of-the-eu-of-the-paris-agreement-adopted-under-the-un-framework-convention-on-c.html
or https://www.thelocal.it/20190419/were-not-here-for-selfies-greta-thunberg-takes-on-the-italian-government
45 https://www.climatechangenews.com/2019/11/28/uk-leaders-debate-best-way-cut-emissions-boris-johnson-ice-sculpture/
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