The Not So Great Hack — Why We Need Safe Discussion Tools
If you’ve seen the recent Netflix documentary The Great Hack you’re familiar with Cambridge Analytica’s involvement in the 2016 election. If you haven’t seen it yet, then I highly recommend watching it.
The Great Hack
The crux of the documentary is that through identifying “persuadable” populations in different voting precincts, Cambridge Analytica was able to utilize advertising to heavily influence the populations and ultimately shift the election. The majority of this influence came through $44M work of advertising on Facebook.
Data, which came from third-party Facebook data, was used to create a highly targeted campaign directed at the persuadables, dedicating a majority portion of their overall Facebook ad spending at the demographic. Through extensive use of audience matching, retargeting, and data leveraging, the campaign successfully shifted the vote and changed people’s entire outlook on the future of the US.
What that means for data privacy and social media
Not only did this mean backlash for Cambridge Analytica, which has since shut down, but the investigations into Facebook and data privacy, in general, have caused a huge debate over the misuse of personal data.
The implications of how Cambridge Analytica exploited voter’s personal information and beliefs from Facebook — utilizing not only profile data of those who opted into a survey but also the data of the Facebook friends of those people — have now caused national debates that compare the threat of data misuse to that of deadly weapons. In addition, it has caused debate over what the misuse of data means for democracy as we know it.
Can we have a fair democracy?
With personal information being leveraged to manipulate voters, Facebook data has been able to sway the vote and ultimately impede our ability to have a fair democracy. And, because the information was so tactically used to create marketing campaigns that convinced persuadables that information about candidates, policies, and American populations was true, the backlash of the 2016 Presidential election won’t be isolated to that election.
The question posed in The Great Hack stands: are we capable of having a fair, unbiased democracy ever again?
An ad-free social tool
The reality of the 2016 election is that Facebook advertising was utilized in a way that gave a direct line of sight to persuadable populations, allowing candidates to target and manipulate registered voters.
But what if there was a way to engage with others online in an ad-free space?
With the Google Chrome Extension Zeeker you can engage with other visitors on any webpage in an ad-free environment. That means you’re safe to discuss candidates, policies, poll results and more without manipulative ads popping up as you scroll. If you aren’t a Chrome user, there is also a web version of Zeeker, allowing you to still participate in discussions.
Plus, because every webpage has its own discussion window, Zeeker users can engage in decentralized conversations not affected by black-box algorithms or targeted advertising. Instead, you’re free to engage in highly-specific, timely political discourse — for example, a dedicated conversation on a democratic candidate’s thoughts on the Flint water crisis — free from ads and biased moderators.
While the impact of social media advertising on this last election is undeniable, by understanding what took place and the implications of the misuse of data we can take steps to protect ourselves and our democracy.
