Zuck did a Great Job Fighting an Illiterate Board of Representation.
After watching 5 hours worth of testimony yesterday, I thought I’d share my thoughts on what went down so any of you who may have missed it can know what’s going on.
Just know this is only a small glimpse into what’s going on, but I have a lot more to say about it. Much of which I’ve been discussing with people in the industry as well as leaders across the world.. which is why I will be in Europe for the next six weeks, starting Sunday.
1. Advertising Is Not The Issue
What Cambridge Analytica did feels terrible to anyone who did not want Trump in office, but take a second and think about this. First, what they did was strategic advertising. Hillary, Bernie or any other candidate could have done the same. And, in fact, this is also a big part of how the Obama administration got into office. MILLIONS of orgs (95% according to statistics) do this.
And in terms of getting the data, just know that anytime you’ve logged into ANYTHING with Facebook in the past most of those orgs have very similar, if not the same information on you. So ask yourself how many places have you “Signed in with Facebook”?
If you need a reminder, click the down arrow at the top of your screen, select “Settings” and then select “Apps and Websites in the side bar menu. This will show you just how many sites you’ve logged into via Facebook. Now imagine that for BILLIONS of people around the globe — some who may use less, but many of whom probably use more. And then consider most of these sites/data collectors haven’t been “malicious” with the data.
Also, in terms of ads, we’ve had microtargeted ads since direct mailers in the Nixon campaign in the 1960s. Pissed at Cambridge Analytica still? Don’t shut down FB, shut down the advertising industry. But good luck with that one.
The real problem here is a military assault by Russia — not $100,000 in ads. Facebook made $40 BILLION on ads last year. What the Russians spent was literally not even pennies to Facebook. This was a strategic military operation to spread disinformation within the Internet, across the globe. Some of the most “developed” nations in the world are now battling internally, distracted from what’s really happening, which is a new war.
We are in the middle of a new war and it is psychological, spurred by the manipulation of information. And, in fact, we actually need these big corps to be involved in fighting back because they have taken the hits and now have the experience to fight back. They also have some of the best talent in the world to do that. Trust me, I worked with them, and they are brilliant people.
A small handful of these people may have helped the Trump campaign figure out how to use their tools, but that doesn’t mean they knew what may have been going on between the Trump campaign and Russia. Also, to be fair, that behavior is still being investigated so in following the American stance of innocent until proven guilty, let’s not focus on that just yet.
Just know these people were hired by the Trump campaign the same as any other business (or political campaign) could contact/hire Facebook, Google, Twitter or other platform employees to teach them how to use the tools.
Set up a call with Google to chat about your best ad strategy here: https://adwords.google.com/home/contact-us/
Do the same with Facebook, here: https://www.facebook.com/business/resources
As you all know by now, I do not support Trump and am not stoked about him being in office or about what’s going on with the potential for collusion with Russia, but here’s the real question in this one: Do you blame our military for what happened in Pearl Harbor? Because they got blindsided by an attack too. It was just physical and visible, which is easier to understand. But this attack was very much the same. So if you don’t blame our military on that one, reconsider your stance on Facebook’s involvement in the 2016 election.
These platforms were strategically attacked by a power-hungry militia of Russian operatives who were (at the time) relatively unknown and this will only get worse if we think shutting down FB, Google, or any of these other services will help because we won’t have the experienced members to help fight back. We really need to recognize that these operations play a big role in the future of our security and in this sense we need to reinforce them appropriately in order to push them to help protect us and secure our nation, as well as many others.
2. Data/Privacy Controls and Restriction of Free Trade
If we force FB, Google, Twitter or any other to stop sharing data or make it impossible for other businesses to get access to the data we will actually reinforce their monopoly. If they are the only ones who have access to the data we will surely put all other businesses in a stranglehold because there’s no way they’ll be capable of keeping up.
Also, Zuckerberg said yesterday, they do not sell data, they sell ads. And he told the truth. The data for the ads does stay in their platform. When you purchase an ad, they do not give that data to you.. they simply allow you to use their tools and data to point ads where you want them to go. The issue with Cambridge Analytica comes down to the fact that they created an app to mine data. And they did it in a way nobody would have looked at and said, “ya this is going to be terrible.” They made a personality test.
Also, as mentioned in the hearing yesterday, Facebook did approach them and make them sign a legal agreement saying they would shut their operations down. Cambridge Analytica signed the paperwork. But they didn’t shut it down. You can’t stop criminals who won’t abide by the law or other legal agreements. Facebook didn’t report this because it wasn’t a breach and, to their defense, they thought the agreement would have stopped any bad behavior — something they should have been able to trust.
Oh, and PS it is legal in the United States and many other countries to actively buy and sell data. This was going to be restricted and the Obama administration had set up legislation by the end of the term, but it did not get signed before the administration left office and was in fact shut down by the Trump administration. So that means once CA had the data they could buy more from others and sell theirs if they wanted to. This is why there are so many dangerous dark pools of data floating around the web. This is why hackers break into places like Equifax, Target, and many others.
We do need some restriction on these exchanges, but forcing these companies to be the sole owners of this data would be like going to the oil companies and telling them to hoard their oil wells from the public, only letting their companies use it. You know what those companies would do? The same thing we saw Mark Zuckerberg do yesterday while testifying: say “Yes, we do need to make it harder to get access to the data, we agree.” Because it will reinforce their ability to own a monopoly.
We do need restrictions, but we also need to be careful with how strictly we regulate the controls over free exchange of data because it is the infrastructure for the modern INFORMATION (aka data) economy. And if we restrict it too much, it will damage the opportunity for innovation.
3. Data Literacy Issues
The Honest Ads Act, increased privacy controls, and increased contextual agreements/easy consent forms are a few of the most blatantly obvious reason these Senators have no clue what’s going on. Nobody is going to waste their days exploring what ads each company is running. Most people don’t actually care about access to their data until it’s too late.. and even then most people don’t know what to do with it to make it safe — no offense to those of you who don’t. Because of this though, we need to recognize that what these Senators are proposing is a motion to appease their constituents because their world is on fire.. it is not a real solution to the problem.
Creating better privacy controls and expecting it to make the Internet safer is like putting nutrition labels on processed food and expecting it to make the food less fattening. Instead, we need consumer education.
We need classrooms of children being taught data and web literacy at a young age, the same as how they learn any other language. We also need an educated public, which is much more difficult. But we need these giants to pay for at least part of this education, the same way Big Tobacco has to educate the public about the dangers of tobacco.
These are just a few bites to digest for now, but I do have a lot more to say about this and, in fact, that’s why I stepped away from Google last year to finish writing my book and create a 501(c)(3) non-profit to help fight back. There are many other questions that need to be asked that the Senators and governments around the world clearly don’t understand but we can’t even begin asking these questions until the public understands the situation better.
If you really want to learn what’s going on and learn how you can help make a change, pre-order my book, which will be coming out in September, reach out and ask me questions, and help support the non-profit I’ve created to help push back on these companies, Design Good. My global network of insiders and I are ready to make change, but we need your help. Change won’t happen from a small handful of people, we need help from everyone: http://www.designgood.tech
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