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THREAD The premise of Facebooks Election Integrity Initiative invites the Q: does FB threaten democracy? My thoughts beta.theglobeandmail.com/opinion/is-fac…
I don’t say this lightly, but I think something has shifted in the role platforms play, & it is increasingly apparent that the answer is yes
I explored this problem in more detail at a @CIGIonline Global Policy Forum lecture, video here
as well as in a report for @TowCenter w/ @emilybell The Platform Press: How Silicon Valley Re-engineered Journalism cjr.org/tow_center_rep…
& i wrote a book that detailed many of the empowering attributes of platforms but flagged some of these concerns global.oup.com/academic/produ…
In short, this problem is not going to be fixed by civic literacy or cybersecurity, as was announced today. Because it is structural.
FB made $26 billion last yr selling access to their audience. This is their biz. it allows anyone, anywhere to buy access to any audience
when FB hooks up foreign agitators & microtargeted US voters, or amplifies neoNazis to plan and organize the Charlottesville rally,
or offers “How to burn jews” as an automatically-generated ad purchasing group, it is actually working as designed.
It is this definition of “working” and this design for which FB needs to be held publicly accountable.
This is a problem for democracy because we are delegating the mitigation of speech to a private company which controls a defacto civic space
one that is ideally suited, and highly vulnerable, to extreme and divisive views
A financial model for which FB itself has helped to foster bloomberg.com/news/articles/…
I worry that we're loosing sight of the bigger picture: the impact of this kind of speech+data+targeting on our civic discourse
we starting to see a shift. But holding platforms accountable is made much more difficult by the cozy relationship Silicon Valley and Ottawa
Recent policy decisions have seen FB remain largely untaxed and called on to help solve the journalism problem for which it is a cause
This is fine, but if we are serious about enforcing existing election law in Canada, it is going to require big policy shifts
for eg: we could force complete transparency of all paid content of any kind shown to Cnds during the election period
we could demand disclosure of all financial, location and targeting data connected to this paid content
we could place significant fines on the failure to quickly remove misinformation and hate speech, as germany has done
we could ensure that independent researchers have access to the platform’s data to help understand our civic discourse
Parties & the govt could even model good behaviour by ceasing to spend millions of dollars of our money on FB's micro-targeted ads
whether or not these are the right steps in what is a truly complex and wicked challenge, they will require brave public policy
I think @karinagould's remarks today were strong, and lay the foundation for serious policy choices. And FP's initiative should be welcomed
But it must viewed in the context of a private corp that has strong financial interests. As an attempt to govern rather than be governed
Again, & to end this rant. This is a wicked and urgent problem. There is something wrong in the information system we have built.
I think addressing it is going to require that govs address its root causes. The integrity of the next election is a good place to start.
