Your Privacy Is Compromised. What Are You Going to Do About It?
An analysis of the recent Web Summit I attended with the former Director of Research at Cambridge Analytica
For the past three years, I’ve had the pleasure of attending Web Summit — a tech conference centered on internet technology. This year, I listened to Christopher Wylie talk about data and privacy. Wylie was previously the director of research at Cambridge Analytica. According to Wikipedia, in 2018, he became a whistleblower in the Facebook–Cambridge Analytica data scandal. The documents he turned over to The Guardian center around Cambridge Analytica’s alleged unauthorized possession of personal private data from some 87 million Facebook user accounts obtained for the purpose of creating targeted political campaigns for the 2016 US presidential elections.
In other words, the dude revolted against his own company and told Facebook what Cambridge Analytica was really doing with its users information. The sad part is, even though Wylie risked his life to at least get some discussion around data privacy started, nobody did anything.
Below are some of Wylie’s most interesting talking points. So let me break them down for you.
Wylie: It’s important for people to understand that Cambridge Analytica profiled regular people and intercepted their information the way you would go about profiling and tripping data on a terrorist organization
My analysis: Cambridge Analytica was a company that collected data and analyzed it during the elections. It was owned partly by Robert Mercer — a super conservative rich American dude, and they mined a bunch of normal people’s information using similar tactics that you would use to steal info from terrorists.
Wylie: Steve Bannon and Co. plus Cambridge Analytica created a war on culture to fracture society. They decided their arsenal of weaponry would be disinformation.
My analysis: Basically that Donald Trump’s campaign manager during the 2016 election decided that they couldn’t make a huge impact and win through standard political discourse. Instead, they needed to get into peoples’ heads and create a movement within American culture. To do this, they decided to use people’s personal data to jumpstart their movement.
Wylie: People who were most vulnerable to disinformation were small town folks.
My analysis: Using his knowledge from running media outlets for years Bannon and Co. knew people were easily swayed by disinformation. Especially those in small towns.
Wylie: Facebook’s algorithms were sensitive and could easily be used to draw people to pages with information from the Alt Right which led to relationships, which ultimately led to a movement.
My analysis: Bannon and co knew how sensitive Facebook’s algorithms were. It was easy to get alt right posts on news feeds. These posts led people to join pages (groups). They studied how many people it would take to join a page before they started meeting in person. Once they started meeting in person there were small movements being created in towns all across the country. All of this was made possible by using users’ data. Once the movement was created it spiraled. Towns started believing everything within their groups and a lot of what they saw on Facebook. As such, what they saw on TV made no sense to them anymore and therefore they thought it must be “FAKE NEWS”. Which further bolstered their position and further fueled their anger, banding them together in their ”F the fake news” approach.
Wylie: In this fractured American society, voters were treated like terrorists.
My analysis: Wylie’s point is that he was part of a program that was profiling regular people and using their data to feed them disinformation. He compared this to how the NSA profiles extremist organizations by intercepting their data and using it to profile and manipulate them.
Wylie: Facebook authorized the applications that Cambridge Analytica set up. Their data then went to a Russian researcher who did psychological profiling and research on how Cambridge Analytica’s data can be used to swing elections.
My analysis: Facebook didn’t reject Cambridge Analytica’s applications. Those applications collected personal data from Facebook profiles. That data was sent to a Russian “researcher” for what was claimed to be, “academic purposes.” But really it was used to conduct research on how to use the information to swing an election.
Wylie: Facebook threatened to sue The Guardian, and to sue Me (Chris)
My analysis: Facebook knew in advance that Wylie gave The Guardian information on the secret workings of Cambridge Analytica. They threatened to sue The Guardian for putting out false facts. Wylie called bullshit on Facebook, because the facts were true: Facebook did in fact allow the Cambridge Analytica apps on their platform.
Wylie: Facebook is making a clone of our society and putting everyone’s data into its own Artificial Intelligence (A.I.).
My analysis: Facebook is taking everything you input into its services and creating artificially intelligent algorithms so that it can target you and influence your beliefs.
Wylie: We will lose control of our own information
My analysis: Once the A.I. grows it will start influencing you. It will know you inside and out. Your decisions will be impacted by the information it presents you so that your decisions will be influenced by Facebook, Google, Amazon, etc.
Wylie: How do we get a handle on this? Have we held anyone accountable? We as a society have not come to appreciate what it is we are doing. Europeans came to America slaughtering indigenous people. They sought, they conquered and they exploited their resources. Are we letting these tech companies colonize our societies?
My analysis: Basically Wylie is saying there is no control over the behemoths like Facebook, Google etc. They are taking our information and exploiting us. It’s not regulated well, so they can seek and conquer us as they wish. We can’t live without them or operate normally within our society so we are beholden to them. You can’t really get a job if you refuse to use a phone or the internet or a computer that’s online, right?
Wylie: Facebook mines data everywhere in the world. In Burma they’re taking data and REAL PEOPLE DIE. The new Facebook is seeking to exploit people. Our governments are not equipped to handle this.
My analysis: Facebook is setting up shop all over the world. Disinformation spreads in volatile areas like Burma and REAL PEOPLE die because of the disinformation they spread. But governments are too slow and knowledgeable to deal with the complexities of the situation.
Wylie: One congresswoman who was partly in charge of regulating data asked me “where in America do we store the Internet?” Another in charge of regulations told me I’m just an old guy I’m too old to understand this computer stuff.
My analysis: Speaks for itself but basically, the people responsible for regulations are a bunch of old farts who don’t take this seriously and even if they did, they wouldn’t even know where to start. This is scary.
Wylie: When you go to the doctor you feel safe, when you step on an airplane you feel safe because of how regulation works. We can regulate nuclear power, why can’t we regulate CODE?
My analysis: Doctors, teachers, airlines, nukes etc all have regulations. Why can’t we regulate code? He is calling for laws to be put in place to protect the people from being exploited.
Wylie: Doctors and teachers have ethical codes of conducts. Coders don’t have to consider ethical codes of conduct. They are touching people’s lives intimately and people can get hurt.
My analysis: The fact that coders don’t have any code of conduct to abide by even though their services are intimately involved in our lives is unsafe.
Wylie: When I approach the government with action points on how to start to regulate privacy issues, I become a man simply explaining technology to the nations leaders and protectors….I can’t even get to the regulation points because they don’t understand technology basics in the first place. Our police are not equipped to handle data crime and politicians don’t understand what the Internet is.
My analysis: Speaks for itself and that’s scary shit.
Wylie: Data is being stored on everyone no matter if you’re politically on the left, right or center. Which is fine because its siloed but what about when it gets out and starts influencing you? For example on Alexa or Google home. What will we do when your house starts to think about you or your car starts thinking about you and making decisions for you based on what it’s learned about you. This is literally disrupting the meaning of being a human.
My analysis: All these companies are going to collect data on us and put it into smart algorithms that study us. These algorithms are artificially intelligent. They can predict your thoughts via millions of computations per millisecond by studying your actions, purchases, tone of voice, times you wake up, start your car, and the list goes on. When the company who owns this A.I. studies it and has intentions to influence your actions — like say encourage you to buy one of their products, or attend one of their events, or vote for the person they want you to vote for — they will know how to manipulate you. And once artificial intelligence of various devices begin talking to each other, our entire lives will be run by a machine. Unless of course you think it’s possible to live without a phone, car, or anything with a computer in it.
Wylie: Am I ok with what I did? Yes, because at least there’s now a burgeoning conversation about data and privacy.
My analysis: He’s telling us that this is a big deal especially considering he felt it was worth risking his life to make this information public. He’s telling us straight up that our information is being STOLEN and that we are being USED, studied, and manipulated.
I couldn’t agree more with Chris, so let’s do something before it’s too late. You can start by paying attention and asking questions about regulations otherwise, we’re screwed in the long term.
If you have any questions or want more info Dust me +ryanozo
