An published this week by Business Insider informs us that there are now six members of an elite group of people whose personal fortunes are valued at more than $200 billion: Tesla CEO Elon Musk, Oracle cofounder Larry Ellison, Amazon founder Jeff Bezos, Meta cofounder Mark Zuckerberg, and Google founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin. They are all American and they all appear to align with the political logic and ideology of US President Donald Trump. It is widely believed that they have all shared phone numbers with the president.

As Devil’s Advocate, I would hardly expect — now or in the future — to receive a request for the canonization of any of this crew. Most of them were present at Trump’s inauguration and all have demonstrated an “interest” in politics. The word “interest” has at least three meanings in this sentence. Curiosity and empathetic concern is one of those meanings, but certainly not the dominant one. “Intent to influence” is closer to the mark.

Most ordinary, rational people, typically engaged in making a living, would reason that if they were in possession of a measly one billion dollars — or even a few million — they would focus on the myriad ways available to them of enjoying their good fortune, rather than spending their precious time and vast resources seeking new opportunities to exercise their skills at managing conflicts of interest.

Was there really a pre-conflict of interest world?

Although it appears to some as a novel trend, this culture built around a post conflict of interest mentality didn’t wait for Trump to be elected to become either the defining trait of the US politico-economic system or its official ideology. Michael Douglas’s character  Gordon Gekko in the 1987 film, Wall Street, famously, “Greed is good.” Moving from New York’s Wall Street to Washington, DC’s Pennsylvania Avenue, the direct translation of Gekko’s wise words would be “conflict of interest is good.”

How does the current system work? And are Republicans the exclusive practitioners? In a recent, political activist and writer Corbin Trent excoriated his fellow Democrats essentially for defending a supposed “moral order” that has long encouraged, to use his words, “selfish, narcissistic egoism” as the driving force of the economy. The difference is that what Democrats nourished passively and privately, Trump promotes brazenly and with his patented brio.

“Trump didn’t single-handedly infect our institutions. They were infected long ago. He’s just a selfish, narcissistic egotist who saw a weak government, weak institutions, a weak judiciary, and a weak opposition party, and took it over.

When Democrats focus all their energy on the exploiter rather than the rot that enabled him, they guarantee that nothing will change.”

So long as those who mastered DC decorum honored the prevailing system without advertising its flaws, they could count on the population’s resigned approval. The political custodians of the system, both Democrat and Republican, invested in defending it from criticism. Trent accuses the Democrats of identifying with an elite that wants to bring “us back to ‘normal,’” which he describes in the following terms: “Back to when people still struggled to afford the basics, when the USA was still a weakening nation, when all the broken and corrupted institutions that served their interests were humming along just fine. They just want to get rid of the madman who screwed up the good time they were having.” Trent even cites the deleterious role of “massive think tanks, policy shops, entire ecosystems dedicated to maintaining the status quo or getting us back to ‘normal.’”

In other words, any way you look — left (Democrat) or right (Republican) — candidates for sainthood among the political class will be few and far between. We are encouraged to think of think tanks as institutions that conduct high-powered research in the public interest. Many of them turn out to be exemplars of a special category: “conflict of intellectual interest.” Alas, the pattern even spills over into academia, which just as for the political class has its “.” Our intellectual establishment, private and public, finds itself at a far cry from the ideal expressed by English poet Geoffrey Chaucer seven centuries ago in the English of his time in his description of his “clerk of Oxenford” (Oxford cleric, a student and teacher):

Sownynge in moral vertu was his speche;

And gladly wolde he lerne and gladly teche.

(Resounding with moral vertu was his speech;

And gladly would he learn and gladly teach.)

I’m not claiming that conflicts of interest didn’t exist in the 14th century, but intellectuals of the time could, according to the author of The Canterbury Tales, be content to simply study and teach.

The case of Bill Gates

How bad is it, really? Are there no cases of billionaires who put virtue above interest? On the contrary, we know about one:. He died two years ago, but not before giving his entire fortune away. He apparently had the same taste for personal austerity as Chaucer’s clerk.

But wasn’t there another one, much more a household name than Feeney? Who doesn’t remember the glorious image the founder of Microsoft managed to achieve, not so many years ago, as a paragon of public virtue? Some deemed him a veritable industrial saint. This achievement was particularly notable given that in the late 1990s most people perceived him as an unflinching, monopolistic corporate bully.

The wealthy have one distinct advantage over the rest of us: the capacity to hire people skilled in recrafting their image and spreading the new, improved version across the media. The basic requirement is to build the image around a noble cause. John D Rockefeller the precedent after the in 1914, demonstrating that no-holds-barred capitalism could become sanctified through philanthropy. Rockefeller’s clever ploy, as he harnessed the talents of publicist , effectively gave birth to the modern “science” of public relations. The rehabilitation narrative for the formerly reviled Gates had the added attraction of appearing as a classic tale of .

How did Gates do it? He simply applied his business acumen to philanthropy, promoting a model that became labeled as “.” He cleverly recruited the second-richest man in the world, Berkshire Hathaway Chair Warren Buffett, to accompany him and validate his claim. (The two often traded places as the uncontested world champion of wealth). This not only burnished Gates’s image, the media fawned over it for another self-interested reason: Gates’s conspicuous philanthropy appeared to justify predatory capitalism as an effective instrument of human welfare and collective prosperity.

Buffett was the perfect foil for Gates. Avoiding the spotlight, many saw him as a kind of innocent idiot savant who had mastered all the secrets of finance but, despite his visible wealth, maintained an austere, saintly lifestyle. This contrasted with Gates whose lifestyle was clearly flamboyant, despite the man’s singular lack of charisma. The media embraced the now thoroughly reformed “good billionaire,” who openly practiced enlightened self-governance alongside the genius investor from Omaha.

For several years, the public and the media perceived Gates as a problem-solving genius applying his purportedly exceptional intellect and efficiency-focused business models to the world’s most complex problems, including what is perhaps the most complex of them all: education. In that particular field, his formulas failed to work, but his wealth permitted him to persist.

Gradually Gates’s sanctified image began fading, at first imperceptibly, but it steadily eroded, notably when people discovered that the Gates Foundation — theoretically dedicated to noble causes such as health and education — was investing its wealth in companies known for gleaning profits from ignoble practices that compromised the health of both the planet and human society.

Bill’s candidacy for canonization finally imploded spectacularly when the media revealed his close relationship with human trafficker Jeffrey Epstein. That relationship was close enough in any case to incite Melinda, his wife and philanthropic alter ego, to sue for .

During the Obama years in particular, Gates was one of the billionaires who more or less discreetly exercised disproportionate and unelected power over global policy. This became scandalously clear during the Covid-19 pandemic. His case suggests that great wealth may easily convert into an irresistible structural power that is at odds with democratic ideals, even when used for supposedly “good” ends.

The deeper roots of the post conflict of interest culture

The Trump administration has done nothing to disguise the omnipresence of conflict of interest within the political, financial and industrial world. But is it new, as Kafka and Robertson, cited above, suggest? Was it different in previous administrations? Six decades ago, President Lyndon B. Johnson had personal investment in both the defense industry and media and used his political clout to a disastrous war in Vietnam. He wasn’t being influenced by billionaires, but he was his own source of influence.

Without examining similar cases — and there are many —  we should perhaps ask ourselves a more general question. We know that the US is a nation that maintains a quasi-religious belief in the idea of a natural affinity between democracy and capitalism. Hasn’t it now become obvious, in part thanks to Trump, that conflict of interest is a feature of the system rather than a vice to be avoided?

I discussed this very question with a colleague who made the following point. While conflicts of interest have always existed, the recent apparent disavowal of traditional ethical restraints and the unprecedented scope of private financial ties at the highest levels of government have led many to conclude that the system has transitioned from attempting to manage an undesirable vice to merely accepting and working within a de facto feature.

Looking for an illustration? Just this week, the most recent Democratic presidential candidate, Kamala Harris, upon learning of former Vice President Dick Cheney’s death,:

To what was Dick Cheney “devoted” as a “public servant” under President George W. Bush? One thing is uncontestable, he had no lack of devotion to the good fortune of the company he had previously managed as chief executive: Halliburton. Cheney to receive annual payments of deferred compensation from his former energy company throughout his time as vice president. He retained a large number of unexercised Halliburton stock options upon taking office. And of course, Halliburton’s good fortune mirrored — and contributed to —   the ill fortune of millions of civilians in the Middle East.

And how did Halliburton do during his vice presidency? Halliburton’s subsidiary, Kellogg Brown & Root, billions of dollars in no-bid or limited-competition government contracts for logistics and rebuilding work related to the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq.

Thankfully, no one has yet submitted a dossier of canonization for Mr. Cheney.

*[The Devil’s Advocate pursues the tradition 51�Թ� began in 2017 with the launch of our “Devil’s Dictionary.” It does so with a slight change of focus, moving from language itself — political and journalistic rhetoric — to the substantial issues in the news. Read more of the 51�Թ� Devil’s Dictionary. The news we consume deserves to be seen from an outsider’s point of view. And who could be more outside official discourse than Old Nick himself?]

[ edited this piece.]

The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect 51�Թ�’s editorial policy.

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“Reporting on the latest act of generosity by Meta’s CEO, who is willing to dish out ‘$100M for a Top AI Engineer,’ AI thought leader Ayesha Khanna tells us the creator of Facebook is willing to part with so much cash, not on an acquisition but on a single hire. ‘Zuckerberg’s vision is to create superintelligence: AI that surpasses human capabilities in reasoning, planning, memory, and knowledge. These systems could eventually perform any intellectual task a human can.’ She links to a Bloomberg that explains what it calls Zuckerberg’s strategy ‘recruiting for the secretive new team.’

As expected, it’s all about competition among the super-wealthy. ‘Meta can and should outstrip other tech companies in achieving what’s known as artificial general intelligence or AGI, the notion that machines can perform as well as humans at many tasks.’

I’d like to start a conversation with you about a couple of things. The first is the question of ‘human capabilities in reasoning, planning, memory and knowledge.’ Does this imply that those four intellectual functions define human intelligence, or intelligence tout court? The second is the much broader question of what Zuckerberg means in social, economic and cultural terms. By that I mean, what does this tell us about the role played by money and power in today’s society, including its psychological aspects, such as the role of hubris and its possible consequences.

I think you will agree that this could lead to a wide-ranging discussion that will lead to no definitive conclusion about any of the topics, but which could serve to raise specific questions and help to define terms, stimulating an even much wider public debate. With that in mind, could you do two things: give your overview of this challenge and then suggest a possible structure for such a debate that for the moment will take place between the two of us before being extended to a wider public?”

Here is Perplexity’s response:

“The challenge you raise involves two broad but interrelated questions: the conceptualization of human intelligence in terms of reasoning, planning, memory, and knowledge, and the socio-economic-cultural implications of Zuckerberg’s large financial investment in AI talent to pursue artificial general intelligence (AGI).

Overview of the Challenge

1. Defining Human Intelligence:
The four intellectual functions—reasoning, planning, memory, and knowledge—are indeed central components of human intelligence but do not exhaustively define it. Reasoning enables drawing inferences and making predictions, planning allows goal-directed behavior, memory supports encoding, storage, and retrieval of information, and knowledge provides the content upon which reasoning operates. However, human intelligence also includes emotional intelligence, creativity, contextual understanding, social cognition, and consciousness, which are more complex and less easily reducible to these four functions. For example, contextual reasoning and mood congruence influence how memory and knowledge are applied in real-life situations, showing that intelligence is deeply embedded in social and emotional contexts. Thus, while Zuckerberg’s focus highlights core cognitive faculties essential for AGI, human intelligence is broader and more nuanced.

2. Socio-Economic and Cultural Implications:
Zuckerberg’s willingness to allocate $100 million to recruit a top AI engineer reflects the intense competition among tech billionaires to lead the development of AGI, which promises transformative power over knowledge, economy, and society. This act of generosity is less about philanthropy and more about strategic investment in technological supremacy, signaling how money and power shape innovation trajectories. It underscores the role of wealth concentration in driving technological agendas that may prioritize dominance and control over inclusive societal benefit. Psychologically, such moves may be driven by hubris—the belief in one’s exceptional ability to shape the future—raising questions about accountability and the ethical stewardship of AI development.

This scenario invites reflection on how economic power consolidates influence over emerging technologies and how this might affect societal values, equity, and governance. It also highlights the psychological dimension of ambition and risk-taking at the highest levels of tech leadership, with potential consequences for global technological ecosystems.”

In response to my second request, Perplexity proposed the following structure for a discussion, whose outline alone I reproduce here. Each part included as many as four proposed questions, which I have not reproduced.

“Suggested Structure for a Wider Debate

To foster a rich, structured conversation that can later be extended publicly, the debate could be organized as follows:

I. Conceptual Foundations of Intelligence

II. Technological Ambitions and AGI

III. Socio-Economic and Cultural Dimensions

IV. Broader Implications and Public Engagement

V. Open Questions and Future Directions”

To the same prompt, ChatGPT offered this response:

“This is an important and timely initiative. You’re touching on two deeply entangled issues: the narrowing of intelligence to quantifiable functions and the broader social meaning of vast financial power being used to shape our technological futures. These are not simply philosophical concerns or technological ones—they are political, psychological, and cultural. They affect not only what kind of AI gets built, but who gets to define “intelligence,” and in turn, what kinds of futures are rendered possible, probable, or impossible.

Overview of the Challenge

1. Reductive Conceptions of Intelligence

The framing of intelligence in terms of reasoning, planning, memory, and knowledge reflects a highly instrumental and computational definition of the mind. These functions, while essential to both human and artificial cognition, represent only a portion of what constitutes human intelligence. Missing are:

·         Emotional intelligence (empathy, intuition, social reasoning)

·         Embodied intelligence (sensorimotor understanding, aesthetic sensibility)

·         Moral and ethical reasoning (often not reducible to logical inference)

·         Temporal awareness and narrative selfhood (identity across time, historical consciousness)

By privileging only certain cognitive functions—those most easily modeled in code—this conception implicitly defines intelligence as that which can be computed. The risk is not merely philosophical. It frames the goals of AI research and development, setting boundaries on what is pursued and what is ignored.

2. The Power Politics of Superintelligence

Zuckerberg’s gambit—offering $100M salaries to elite AI researchers—is emblematic of a trend: a few ultra-wealthy individuals and corporations claiming the right to define and direct the trajectory of civilization through private investment in frontier technologies. This raises a host of structural and ethical concerns:

·         Privatization of the future: When AGI becomes a private project, public accountability is sidelined.

·         Hubris and techno-solutionism: The assumption that intelligence—artificial or otherwise—can “solve” complex problems like climate change or inequality, often ignores the socio-political roots of those problems.

·         The role of scarcity and competition: Scarce technical talent is being extracted into elite enclaves, driven by incentives that serve private profit, not public need.

At a psychological level, this may reflect what you rightly call hubris: the belief that one can engineer not just better tools, but a better world, by brute technological force and concentrated capital. Yet hubris traditionally invites nemesis—some form of reversal, collapse, or retribution.”

Here is the outline, without the more specific questions, ChatGPT proposed.

“Proposed Structure for Our Discussion

To keep our dialogue focused yet expansive, I propose the following structure. Each section can evolve into its own branch of inquiry:

Part I. What Is Intelligence?

Part II. Who Owns Intelligence?

Part III. Cultural and Psychological Dimensions

Part IV. Society, Ethics, and Democratic Imagination”

My first impressions after comparing the two dialogues

In conversation with a real human being we sense how accurately our interlocutor has assimilated our meaning, which is not reducible to the information we allude to but also contains strong elements of intention and expectation, such as emotional responses, philosophical or ideological biases and moral concerns. I’ll simply note here that ChatGPT did a better job than Perplexity at discerning my concerns.

Perplexity showed itself to be guardedly reserved and non-committal when it offered observations such as: “It underscores the role of wealth concentration in driving technological agendas that may prioritize dominance and control over inclusive societal benefit. Psychologically, such moves may be driven by hubris.”

ChatGPT is more assertive when it delves into the meaning of hubris. “At a psychological level, this may reflect what you rightly call hubris: the belief that one can engineer not just better tools, but a better world, by brute technological force and concentrated capital.” It detected my acute interest in this concept and responded in a way I found enriching.

To my surprise, Perplexity interpreted my evocation of Zuckerberg’s “generosity” literally, whereas ChatGPT not only took it on board as irony, but understood that it was a call to further probe the CEO’s true motives.

Perplexity’s timidity and ChatGPT’s boldness appear clearly in these contrasting assertions:

Perplexity: “This scenario invites reflection on how economic power consolidates influence over emerging technologies and how this might affect societal values, equity, and governance.”

ChatGPT: “Zuckerberg’s gambit—offering $100M salaries to elite AI researchers—is emblematic of a trend: a few ultra-wealthy individuals and corporations claiming the right to define and direct the trajectory of civilization through private investment in frontier technologies.”

Perplexity is doing exactly what I always hope and expect an LLM to do when it “invites reflection.” That’s a wonderful start. But ChatGPT does something that expands the horizon: It identifies a trend, the awareness of which was at the core of my initial prompt. ChatGPT’s response incited me to take a further step and enquire about evidence to support the trend it cites. Why should I suppose that its assertion about a trend is not a hallucination designed to flatter me?

As expected, in response to my new prompt, it presented a thorough case to validate and document the trend, which I will develop in another article. Interestingly its response began by citing the history of OpenAI, the company that created and manages ChatGPT. Below is its honest (and therefore not entirely flattering) paragraph concerning the company itself.

“OpenAI’s evolution: Initially a nonprofit, OpenAI transitioned to a “capped-profit” model in 2019 and entered into a $13B+ partnership with Microsoft. The governance shift illustrates how public-interest rhetoric often gives way to private corporate control over AI’s direction.”

I’ll highlight one other contrast in the styles of Perplexity and ChatGPT by comparing the chapters of the ongoing dialogue they proposed.

Perplexity’s categories sound academic, abstract. In contrast, ChatGPT’s are concrete and compelling. We should suspect that AI’s “wisdom” will always remain at a significant remove from reality. But it’s refreshing to see that some chatbots have learned to avoid the academic mentality that has a bias in favor of intellectual abstraction.

On a final note, I’ll mention that when I used the same initial prompt with Anthropic’s Claude it produced a wonderfully compact and concrete response, less detailed than ChatGPT’s but perhaps even more focused. I’ll simply quote one excerpt.

“The broader social implications are even more striking. Zuckerberg’s willingness to spend $100 million on a single hire represents a new form of feudalism where technological capability becomes the basis of power concentration. This isn’t just about competition between tech companies – it’s about a small number of individuals making unilateral decisions about humanity’s technological trajectory without democratic input or oversight.”

Calling Zuckerberg’s attitude reflective of feudalism clearly extends and enriches the debate. We’ll come back to this in the next piece.

These exchanges have opened a debate about major issues concerning the economy, technology and historical trends. My aim was to initiate this discussion and invite others to participate. I encourage you to start by using the comments section below this article or write to us at dialogue@fairobserver.com. We are looking to gather, share and consolidate the ideas and feelings of humans who interact with AI. We are happy to build your thoughts and commentaries into our ongoing dialogue.

[Artificial Intelligence is rapidly becoming a feature of everyone’s daily life. We unconsciously perceive it either as a friend or foe, a helper or destroyer. At 51�Թ�, we see it as a tool of creativity, capable of revealing the complex relationship between humans and machines.]

[ edited this piece.]

The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect 51�Թ�’s editorial policy.

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The damage screens cause

Is it possible to disentangle the damage caused by smartphones from that caused by social media? Probably not, because so much of social media appears on smartphones. From a data point of view, that’s good; we can use either one to roughly estimate the other. So first, we’ll see how screens hurt people one by one and hour by hour. Next, we’ll see how the introduction of smartphones increased suicides. Then we’ll combine those observations into an estimate of deaths caused by social media combined with phones.

The first data observation is that hours-per-day screen use directly correlates with all kinds of loneliness and mental distress, including suicidality and actual suicide. The more hours screens are used, the more mental problems worsen — year-over-year specific demographic slivers of young people that they get 1% worse per hour of screens per day.

Evidence like this shows up everywhere, undisputed in general but loudly disputed by whichever app is currently under fire. Once you know that brains need continuous three-dimensional space, the damage done by twinkly, two-dimensional screens makes sense.

The second observation is that the introduction of smartphones around 2010 coincided with a rough 50% spike in teen suicides for both girls and boys in the US. This number has continued to the current day. The point was first by social scientist Jean Twenge in 2020, and has been validated ever since. No other force right then penetrated teen lives as dramatically, so a safe estimate is that phones and the stresses brought by social media are the root of teen mental anguish. This neutral line of reasoning concludes that statistically, about 2,000 extra teen suicides per year in the US are caused by smartphones.

Over the whole US population, an extra 15,000 suicides per year (approximately one-third) are caused in aggregate by smartphones and social media. That’s a kind of annual body count. On one hand, it is a small fraction of the statistical half-million people killed each year by cigarettes. But the social media body count is vast by other standards. For example, 50 years ago, the Ford Motor Company was and charged with criminal homicide when a car the automakers knew to be dangerous, the Ford Pinto, killed 27 total people by exploding. A few dozen fatalities is plenty to answer for, but nowhere close to tens of thousands.

Proper responses: Executive Officer vs. Algorithm Officer

Every parent knows that phones and social media are bad for children. The Senate committee room was full of such parents, looking at Zuckerberg to put a human face on that which had killed their kid. He was there to answer for their lives.

In the US, there is a ritual when a great sin has been committed: Someone must be fired for the offense. Minutes earlier, committee member Senator Josh Hawley had just proved that Facebook knew their product was killing children, yet did nothing to stop it. Hawley bluntly confronted Zuckerberg.

Hawley: Had Facebook fired anyone for killing kids?

Zuckerberg: No. [He repeated this over and over.]

Hawley: Had Facebook compensated any grieving families?

Zuckerberg: No. Our job is to build industry-leading tools.

Hawley asked the same question over and over. He went in like a boxer, relentlessly hammering Zuckerberg about the lack of firings and his fussy deference to the privacy of employee records. He ignored Zuckerberg’s blather about building “industry-leading tools.” Finally, having destabilized his adversary, Hawley insisted that Zuckerberg physically turn around and face the crowd of grieving mothers.

Zuckerberg performed his sacrificial role ably, showing an earnest public face for the trillion-dollar Facebook. His face looked honest as he enunciated the bland apology, “No one should have to go through the things your families have suffered….” Masterful bearing, plenty of empathy and no acceptance of responsibility. That is another American ritual. It would have been a perfect CEO performance, except that it tapered into a final shout-out for his beloved industry-leading tools: “…and this is why we have invested so much in industry-leading efforts….”

Zuckerberg was only doing his job by dodging the blame. In the US, the job of CEO is to defend shareholder value, which in this case means building software that leads the industry in making money, and to defend that source of revenue against attackers. CEOs are meant to pay their owners, not admit the entire enterprise is wrong.

What would I have said had I been in his place? Not as a Chief Executive who moves fast and breaks things, but as Chief Algorithm Officer, ie Chief Truth-Teller? What truths about technology can I express that Senators and grieving parents should know? I would say:

“My Honored Senators and parents everywhere, we humans are the victims of our own success, our hands so skilled they fill the world with captivating things, our eyes so innocent they follow eagerly. That statement combining our human ability to be charmed with our ability to manufacture charming things is not just self-evidently true, it is also the text of the peer-reviewed conclusion of a theoretical neuroscience research paper in the most prestigious journal possible, as conveyed by the journal’s founder. My wife Criscillia and I spent two years alone, unpaid, writing that paper and sealing a scientific truth into the permanent record, forever.

“O�ܰ� , ‘Sensory Metrics of Neuromechanical Trust,’ in effect proves that all sensory systems — as a general mathematical principle — are subject to self-reinforcing informational addictions, such as screen addiction or social media addiction. Like our tongue’s attraction to sugar, brains are attracted to special rare things, but are at the same time damaged by too much of them. Media companies did read our paper the week it came out in 2017, yet have stayed mum ever since.

“The natural and mathematical splendor of the human sensorimotor system, and its tragic capture by digital dazzlement, is the message of ‘Sensory Metrics’ and also our message for you. Human brains need attention for our own needs, to trust our senses and ourselves. That’s how brains must work, especially childrens’ brains. Attention is meant to be used, not captured. Even a few distractions can be dangerous, but to let a corporation or machine make money stealing attention wholesale is theft of the most destructive sort, taking not your belongings but your mind.

“It is true these screens and apps kill children, so they must stop, and fast. That is why you should pass KOSA, the Kids Online Safety Act, which might have saved these children, and will save many more.

“Bills like KOSA are a necessary stopgap, but cannot be the final word. The laws of attention and economics are continuous, naturally capturing or flowing around regulatory boundaries. The problem is like nailing jelly to a wall: As long as software is allowed to look for a connection between human attention and profit, it will find it. And software is getting better every year, as Silicon Valley boasts. As a general rule, each single step inside a killer app is functional, legal and profitable. That’s why those steps are there. Get a child’s attention, keep it by keeping just one step ahead, show things the child likes, get paid by showing related things, algorithmically select and pair child with message with ad, refresh once a second…each of these steps is standard, rational business and engineering. That’s how software is supposed to work. The so-called “industry-leading tools” that Facebook claims to make would have to impede such programs. Fortunately for Facebook, the tools themselves don’t actually work, so they, in fact, do lead the industry by protecting profit through fig leaf control.

“So as long as computerized advertising or attention-grabbing remains legal, it will undermine human attention and mental health. There is no particular piece to regulate to stop collective damage. In the long run, harvesting attention is like harvesting organs. Profit must be prohibited or people will die.

“There is, in fact, a software tool technologists could build to substantially reduce that human collateral damage. Much like Facebook’s tools, and much like the dashboard tools I invented and built for businesses myself, continuous statistical algorithms fed by real-time metrics optimally fit to historical trends. The data is there, the math is there, the computing power is there, the chance for infinite transparency is there. Version 1.0 could be done in a year. The only difference is what this new tool would measure. Instead of the profit and user value and time-on-device which tools measure now, this new tool would measure the body count and misery index, a set of meters and dials of despair. How many hours of human life are reduced per dollar of advertising profit? This tool would show the only cost/benefit analysis which matters: the cost in human life offsetting the benefit of algorithmic profit. It would use and show real live data and straightforward metrics, sensory metrics, of neuromechanical trust. This tool would show the world what only executives know now. This new tool would lead the industry, but in the right direction.

“These software tool-builders are my tribe. I love being a scientist and technologist. To ask questions no one ever asked, to answer them, to build cool stuff which never before existed. It means hanging out with fun, sharp people, differently brilliant, but in ways we mutually respect. We can save the world if you invite us to.

“But only you, Honorable Senators, can make it happen. The market can’t. Our current paymasters have their own paymasters, and therefore they shackle us to wooden metrics pulling galleys of ads the wrong direction, against the needs of real live kids. Only human people, acting on behalf of human people over and above machines, can compel all of us collectively to do the job that we so want to do. The market can’t undo its damage; you can.”

That is what I would have said to the US Senators in place of Mr. Zuckerberg, had I been invited to the US Senate.

Instead, I had been invited to testify to a smaller committee: one for the Senate of the state of Vermont, which was considering banning cell phones in schools. They were deciding whether even to pass this proposal, S.284, to the full Senate for debate. I was one of four people giving testimony, mine remote from California.

The best testimony came from the principal of a private school, who explained how much happier and more productive everyone on his campus, students and teachers alike, became since the school banned phones. Every person testifying brought a different perspective: how distracting phones are to all children, how socially disruptive, how addictive, how phones enable cyberbullying. They gave reason after reason, all the way up to how phones cause mental illness and suicide. Proponents showed Senators the following graph, which illustrates both those horrors rising about 50% (as I mentioned prior) in the years since smartphones became widespread.

In particular, the boost in attempted suicide from 4% to 7% means an extra 3% per year which wouldn’t be there otherwise, presumably due to phones and online activity. Vermont’s teenage population is about 60,000, so 3% translates to 1,800 extra attempted suicides per year. Those additional almost-deaths are what the bill’s proponents are fighting.

I didn’t have those numbers when I testified. In the moment, I emphasized three firm points — not of opinion, but of undisputed scientific truth. First, all these facts about screen damage are absolutely true, interrelated, and explained by the simplest scientific understanding possible: the understanding that humans are three-dimensional creatures for whom screens are alien. That means these problems are rooted in human biology, and won’t go away or get better. Second, this quantified perspective comes courtesy of our paper, which is scientifically perfect. It’s public, peer-reviewed, based on undisputed principles and itself undisputed for over seven years. Third, only a legal structure committed to actual scientific truth, rather than to a legalistic set of rules and targets, has the power to stop technology destroying kids’ brains. For man-made law to work, natural law must trump it. Any law worth passing must first and foremost be aimed at protecting children’s health, regardless of how bad actors learn to bend the rules.

The Vermont Senators presumably did not look into that scientific proof. Within 24 hours, the proposed ban on phones was watered-down into a proposal that in two years, the Secretary of Education would gather lots of information and generate an overall policy. This would enable local schools to set their own individual policies: which phones, where, what times, what punishments etc. That is, wait two years and begin all over, but with much less urgency. In general, people trying to prevent real deaths don’t just ask for studies.

That attitude was in the air already. In the week before our hearing, there were quotes in Vermont media on behalf of school principals and the health bureau saying a ban on phones in schools was too much. Their statements sounded practical, the kind of sensible thing a good administrator says. But translated into common sense, they don’t add up.

Below are six such quotes and my translations, which I passed among the Vermont enthusiasts. The silver lining is that each dumb statement has the same structure: inflicting health problems now is okay because it’s cheaper and more administratively convenient. So to these administrators, the theme of known-effective health measures vs short-term convenience is reliable enough to lean on constantly. It doesn’t actually work, but they think it does because they measure the savings, not the damage.

Translating administrative nonsense

“Jay Nichols, executive director of the Vermont Principals’ Association, he understands the negative impact of social media on young minds. As he put it Feb. 2, the association is ‘on the front line of the negative impacts of digital addiction to social media.’ However, he said it does not support S.284.

“‘Already, most schools have social media and cell phone access completely or significantly restricted during the school day,’ he said. ‘Providing the mental health resources that students need when they need them is probably a better approach to addressing mental health needs in students than banning cell phones and social media from schools from our perspective.’”

In other words, we recognize that phones cause mental health problems, but we’re happy to allow that because we already have systems for addressing and maybe even fixing mental health problems later.

“Nichols called the opt-out element of the bill unreasonable. He told committee members that providing paper copies of digital materials is ‘a huge burden to schools and is not necessary,’ saying later that ‘it’s not appropriate to allow students to simply opt out of learning how to use technology in today’s world.’”

In other words, even though reading on paper causes less eye strain and headaches and is 400% better for comprehension, it’s slightly more expensive. So we will force harmful yet ineffective screens on all students, always.

“‘We completely support the idea of minimizing and reducing exposure to social media while in school,’ Levine members of the Senate Committee on Education. But he said the bill felt ‘unrealistic’ and a bit ‘heavy handed’ — possibly even ‘accusatory’ and ‘disempowering.’”

In other words, we know screens, phones and social media are bad for kids. But a bigger risk than children’s health is that administrators might be unfairly accused of disapproving of something someone likes.

“While Vermont’s youth may experience negative impacts due to social media, Dr. Levine said the most marginalized youth — who experience social isolation at ‘much higher’ rates than average — can find ‘hope and community’ online.”

In other words, phone and screen use increases social isolation for children everywhere, except for the most isolated kids who paradoxically will benefit from them.

“Levine added that he would like to see a focus on ‘health education’ that could give youth the skills to navigate the complexities of the digital world.”

In other words, phone and screen use is so unhealthy, we want to train them in managing these unhealthy things by doing them even more.

[ edited this piece.]

The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect 51�Թ�’s editorial policy.

The post Social Media Has a Colossal, Horrific Body Count appeared first on 51�Թ�.

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In a legal ruling that will set back the struggle to restore some order to the world of what deserves to be called antisocial media, The New York Times that a federal judge “on Monday threw out antitrust lawsuits brought against the company by the Federal Trade Commission and more than 40 states.” The Times quotes the judge’s claim that “‘monopoly power’ is a term of art under federal law with a precise economic meaning.” It turns out that recognizing what a monopoly looks like, feels like and acts like is not a matter of human perception but of legal “art.” 

Today’s Daily Devil’s Dictionary definition:

Economic meaning:

For broad-minded people, the effect on survival and well-being of people participating as producers or consumers in an economically organized system. For narrow-minded people, including judges, decisions affecting the price a customer pays.

Contextual Note

The Times quotes Senator Richard Blumenthal of Connecticut, who counters the court’s conclusion that it isn’t “clear under our current antitrust laws that Facebook has a monopoly in online networking.” He calls it “a flabbergasting assertion given Facebook’s firm grip over consumers, their data and the social media market.” The judge reasoned, in the narrowest way possible, that because access to Facebook is free, the criteria applied to monopolies were not relevant. Economic meaning, in the judge’s mind, is defined by the immediate effect of an act on someone’s pocketbook. He hadn’t noticed that Facebook’s methods are those of a vampire, sucking the blood out of their victims rather than charging them a fee.

Some commentators and lawmakers are suggesting that rather than counting on the courts to revise their criteria, it is time to engage in some serious antitrust reform. It is up to Congress to provide “additional tools and resources to our antitrust enforcers to go after Big Tech companies engaging in anticompetitive conduct.” But even that formulation, emphasizing fair competition, may be misleading. Would Tokyo be safer if Godzilla had a competitor? The deeper problem is the license Big Tech now has to capture, own, use and sell the data of its users. Even if Facebook had credible competitors, each of those companies would simply be competing in their thievery. The problem lies in Big Tech’s DNA.

The Times insists that “the ruling underscored the need for Congress to update the laws that police market concentration.” But that sounds naive. Expecting Congress to update anything or simply to recognize that the world has changed since the late 18^th century has become an impossible task. Countering its own assertion, the article correctly points out that “there is no guarantee that the two parties will be able to agree on the specifics.” 

Thanks to the complicity of the two ruling parties, Congress has reached a point at which it can neglect any specifics other than . Instead, for real issues that concern the welfare of the people and the future of democracy, it prefers to follow what it cites as general principles or universal truths. These tend to reflect a reigning ideology of capitalist militarism and imperial privilege. Some are in direct contradiction with the Constitution. Others in the list oppose the very idea of democracy.

Here are the guiding principles, almost certain to meet with the approval of the majority in Congress:

• • All defense spending is necessary and good because the military is a force for good in the world
  • All acts of war in foreign lands are justified even if not mandated by Congress
  • Anything that threatens the pillars of the stock market and the profitability of businesses is bad
  • Those who support political campaigns with donations are active participants in democracy and wise counselors
  • Competition serves to select the most meritorious, who therefore deserve any power they end up wielding
  • Punishing strong competitors sets a bad example for other future donors
  • Rich companies must be coddled because they generate thousands of low-paying jobs, boosting employment figures

Mark Zuckerberg’s company is well aware of these principles. In its courtroom defense, it argues, “We compete fairly every day to earn people’s time and attention and will continue to deliver great products for the people and businesses that use our services.”

In April, Michael Hirsch at Foreign Policy what we are now seeing. He explained that “antitrust cases move glacially, and federal judges are extremely cautious about punishing behavior deemed anti-competitive … Plus, now every case faces the prospect of being squelched by a very conservative Supreme Court.” Our civilization is still looking for economic meaning. It may still take a while to find it.

Historical Note

In an essay published this week, Greece’s former finance minister and European political activist, Yanis Varoufakis, out that “capitalism has undergone extreme makeovers at least twice since the late nineteenth century.” He describes the first transformation as the shift from competition — “Adam Smith’s baker, brewer, and butcher” — to oligopoly. He dates the beginning of the second shift to 1971 and the end of Bretton Woods, when US President Richard Nixon decoupled the dollar from the price of gold. The policy of deregulation that followed over the next three decades marked the period in which “oligopolistic capitalism morphed into financialized capitalism.”

Then, in 2008, things changed again. When the private banking sector failed spectacularly, a new global economy emerged that is now “powered by the constant generation of central bank money, not by private profit.” The banks themselves are no longer central. They are the necessary intermediaries and the direct beneficiaries of state socialism as the central banks of the world funnel money to them, money they can then distribute to the elite who control different sectors of the economy in a largely monopolistic spirit. They hoard wealth by using the cash to buy back stock, thereby inflating their own assets and reinforcing their power over their zones of influence.

Varoufakis calls this new economic order “technofeudalism.” In an with Now Then magazine, he explains how technofeudalism has simply replaced capitalism. “Amazon is not a market; it’s a fiefdom,” he says. “And it’s a fiefdom that’s connected to other fiefdoms, like Facebook, through the cloud services of Amazon, which are much greater and bigger than Amazon.com. It’s like a much more technologically advanced form of feudalism.”

Mark Zuckerberg and Jeff Bezos operate like feudal lords reigning over territories that now span the globe but constitute domains with strict boundaries. The borders are defined by the proprietary technological environment that keeps their subjects locked inside, creating an invisible bond of loyalty in which users become serfs.

But this new aristocracy is even more powerful than a typical feudal lord. The technobarons now have direct access to the king’s treasury, not because of their fealty to the king, but because the king (the state) has defined the rules by which they can draw the money they require at will. The king is thus dependent on them and lacks the power to keep them in check. As ProPublica’s recent revelations concerning systematic tax evasion by the wealthy demonstrate, the feudal lords are in effect taxing the king, who taxes the people.

Starting in the 16^th century, populations began revolting against feudal regimes and overturning their authority. They could do that because authority manifested itself through visible symbols. It stood in public spaces for all to see. It took the form of splendid palaces and imposing prisons. The Bastille was one such powerful symbol. Versailles was another. But technoestates and technorealms cannot be stormed by mobs. The people can no longer march their leaders to the scaffold. They depend on the king’s will and the judgment of the courts to oppose the reigning aristocracy’s abuses. But the kings no longer have the power, while the courts — as we have just seen — no longer have the will.

*[In the age of Oscar Wilde and Mark Twain, another American wit, the journalist Ambrose Bierce, produced a series of satirical definitions of commonly used terms, throwing light on their hidden meanings in real discourse. Bierce eventually collected and published them as a book, The Devil’s Dictionary, in 1911. We have shamelessly appropriated his title in the interest of continuing his wholesome pedagogical effort to enlighten generations of readers of the news. Read more of The Daily Devil’s Dictionary on 51�Թ�.]

The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect 51�Թ�’s editorial policy.

The post Facebook Escapes Hanging appeared first on 51�Թ�.

For four years, Americans had to deal with a similar sonic blast, namely the “music” of President Donald Trump. His voice was everywhere: on TV and radio, screaming from the headlines of newspapers, pumped out nonstop on social media. MAGAmen and women danced to the repetitive beat of his lies and distortions. Everyone else experienced the nonstop assault of Trump’s instantly recognizable accent and intonations as nails on a blackboard. After the 2016 presidential election, psychologists observed a  uptick in the fears Americans had about the future. One clinician even dubbed the &�Բ�����;“Trump anxiety disorder.”

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The volume of Trump’s assault on the senses has decreased considerably since January. Obviously, he no longer has the bully pulpit of the Oval Office to broadcast his views. The mainstream media no longer covers his every utterance. Most importantly, the major social media platforms have banned him. In the wake of the January 6 insurrection on Capitol Hill, Twitter  Trump permanently under its glorification of violence policy. Facebook made the same decision, though its oversight board is now  the former president’s deplatforming.

It’s not only Trump. The Proud Boys, QAnon, the militia movements: The social media footprint of the far right has decreased a great deal in 2021, with a  decline in the amount of misinformation available on the Web.

And it’s not just a problem of misinformation and hate speech. According to a new by the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) on domestic terrorism, right-wing extremists have been involved in 267 plots and 91 fatalities since 2015, with the number of incidents rising in 2020 to a height unseen in a quarter of a century. A large number of the perpetrators are loners who have formed their beliefs from social media. As one counterterrorism official put it, “Social media has afforded absolutely everything that’s bad out there in the world the ability to come inside your home.”

So, why did the tech giants provide Trump, his extremist followers and their global counterparts unlimited access to a growing audience over those four long years?

Facebook Helps Trump

In a new report from the Global Project Against Hate and Extremism (GPAHE), Heidi Beirich and Wendy Via : “For years, Trump violated the community standards of several platforms with relative impunity. Tech leaders had made the affirmative decision to allow exceptions for the politically powerful, usually with the excuse of ‘newsworthiness’ or under the guise of ‘political commentary’ that the public supposedly needed to see.”

Even before Trump became president, Facebook was cutting him a break. In 2015, he was using the social media platform to promote a Muslim travel ban, which generated considerable controversy, particularly within Facebook itself. The Washington Post :

“Outrage over the video led to a companywide town hall, in which employees decried the video as hate speech, in violation of the company’s policies. And in meetings about the issue, senior leaders and policy experts overwhelmingly said they felt that the video was hate speech, according to three former employees, who spoke on the condition of anonymity for fear of retribution. [Facebook CEO Mark] Zuckerberg expressed in meetings that he was personally disgusted by it and wanted it removed, the people said.”

But the company’s most prominent Republican, Vice-President of Global Policy Joel Kaplan, persuaded Zuckerberg to change his position. In spring 2016, when Zuckerberg wanted to condemn Trump’s plan to build a wall on the border with Mexico, he was again persuaded to step back for fear of seeming too partisan.

Facebook went on to play a critical role in getting Trump elected. It wasn’t simply the Russian campaign to create fake accounts, fake messaging and even fake events using Facebook, or the theft of Facebook user data by Cambridge Analytica. More important was the role played by Facebook staff in helping Trump’s digital outreach team maximize its use of social media. The Trump campaign  $70 million on Facebook ads and raised much of its $250 million in online fundraising through Facebook as well.

Trump established a new paradigm through brute force and money. As he turned himself into clickbait, the social media giants applied the same “exceptionalism” to other rancid politicians. More ominously, the protection accorded politicians extended to extremists. According to an of a discussion at a Twitter staff meeting, one employee explained that “on a technical level, content from Republican politicians could get swept up by algorithms aggressively removing white supremacist material. Banning politicians wouldn’t be accepted by society as a trade-off for flagging all of the white supremacist ����DZ貹�����Ի岹.”

Of course, in the wake of the January 6 insurrection, social media organizations decided that society could indeed accept the banning of politicians, at least when it came to some politicians in the United States.

The Real Fake News

In the Philippines, an extraordinary 97% of users had accounts with Facebookas of 2019, up from 40% in 2018 (by comparison, about  of Americans have Facebook accounts). Increasingly, Filipinos get their news from social media. That’s bad news for the mainstream media in the Philippines. And that’s particularly bad news for journalists like Maria Ressa, who runs an online news site called Rappler.

At a press conference for the GPAHE report, Ressa described how the government of Rodrigo Duterte, with an assist from Facebook, has made her life a living hell. Like Trump, President Duterte came to power on a populist platform spread through Facebook. Because of her critical reporting on government affairs, Ressa felt the ire of the Duterte fan club, which generated half a million hate posts that, according to one , consisted of 60% attacks on her credibility and 40% sexist and misogynist slurs. This onslaught created a bandwagon effect that equated journalists like her with criminals.

This noxious equation on social media turned into a real case when the Philippine authorities arrested Ressa in 2019 and convicted her of the dubious charge of “cyberlibel.” She  a sentence of as much as 100 years in prison.

“O�ܰ� dystopian present is your dystopian future,” she observed. What happened in the Philippines in that first year of Duterte became the reality in the United States under Trump. It was the same life cycle of hate in which misinformation is introduced in social media, then imported into the mainstream media and supported from the top down by opportunistic politicians.

The Philippines faces another presidential election next year, and Duterte is barred from running again by term limits. Duterte’s daughter, who is currently the mayor of Davao City just like her father had been, tops the early polls, though she hasn’t thrown her hat in the ring and her father has  that women shouldn’t run for president. This time around, however, Facebook  the misinformation campaign tied to the Dutertes when it took down fake accounts coming from China that supported the daughter’s potential bid for the presidency.

President Duterte was furious. “Facebook, listen to me,” he . “We allow you to operate here hoping that you could help us. Now, if government cannot espouse or advocate something which is for the good of the people, then what is your purpose here in my country? What would be the point of allowing you to continue if you can’t help us?”

Duterte had been led to believe, based on his previous experience, that Facebook was his lapdog. Other authoritarian regimes had come to expect the same treatment. In India, according to the GPAHE , Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s Bharatiya Janata Party:

“… was Facebook India’s biggest advertising spender in 2020. Ties between the company and the Indian government run even deeper, as the company has multiple commercial ties, including partnerships with the Ministry of Tribal Affairs, the Ministry of Women and the Board of Education. Both CEO Mark Zuckerberg and COO Sheryl Sandberg have met personally with Modi, who is the most popular world leader on Facebook. Before Modi became prime minister, Zuckerberg even introduced his parents to him.”

Facebook has also cozied up to the right-wing government in Poland, helped get Jair Bolsonaro elected in Brazil, and the platform served as a vehicle for the Islamophobic content that contributed to the rise of the far right in the Netherlands. But the decision to ban Trump has set in motion a backlash. In Poland, for instance, the Law and Justice Party has  a law to fine Facebook and others for removing content if it doesn’t break Polish law, and a journalist has  to establish a pro-government alternative to Facebook called Albicla.

Back in the USA

Similarly, in the United States, the far right have suddenly become a big booster of free speech now that social media platforms have begun to deplatform high-profile users like Trump and take down posts for their questionable veracity and hate content. In the second quarter of 2020 alone, Facebook  22.5 million posts.

Facebook has tried to get ahead of this story by establishing an oversight board that includes members like Jamal Greene, a law professor at Columbia University; Julie Owono, executive director at Internet Sans Frontiere; and Nighat Dad, founder of the Digital Rights Foundation. Now, Facebook  the board to remove content.

With Facebook, Twitter, YouTube and others now removing a lot of extremist content, the far right have migrated to other , such as Gab, Telegram, and MeWe. They continue to spread conspiracy theories, anti-COVID vaccine misinformation and pro-Trump propaganda on these alternative platforms. Meanwhile, the MAGA crowd awaits the second coming of Trump in the form of a new social media platform that he plans to launch in a couple of  to remobilize his followers.

Even without such an alternative alt-right platform — Trumpbook? TrumpSpace? Trumper? — the life cycle of hate is still alive and well in the United States. Consider the “great replacement theory,” according to which immigrants and denizens of the non-white world are determined to “replace” white populations in Europe, America and elsewhere. Since its inception in France in 2010, this extremist conspiracy theory has spread far and wide on social media. It has been picked up by white nationalists and mass shooters. Now, in the second stage of the life cycle, it has landed in the mainstream media thanks to right-wing pundits like Tucker Carlson, who recently , “The Democratic Party is trying to replace the current electorate of the voters now casting ballots with new people, more obedient voters from the Third World.”

Pressure is  on Fox to fire Carlson, though the network is . Carlson and his supporters decry the campaign as yet another example of “cancel culture.” They insist on their First Amendment right to express unpopular opinions. But a privately-owned media company is under no obligation to air all views, and the definition of acceptability is constantly evolving.

Also, a deplatformed Carlson would still be able to air his crank views on the street corner or in emails to his followers. No doubt when Trumpbook debuts at some point in the future, Carlson’s biggest fan will also give him a digital megaphone to spread lies and hate all around the world. These talking heads will continue talking no matter what. The challenge is to progressively shrink the size of their global platform.

*[This article was originally published by .]

The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect 51�Թ�’s editorial policy.

The post The Spread of Global Hate appeared first on 51�Թ�.

Biddle highlights the probable legal consequences of these incidents, a problem that will require the usual fancy footwork of Facebook’s well-paid lawyers to work out. “The woman joins three others who have recently complained to the EEOC about anti-Black racism at Facebook,” he writes. As Reuters , the complaints have led the US Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) to launch what it calls a “systemic” probe into policies that “may be contributing to widespread discrimination.”

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The unhappy candidate “alleges that during one of the in-person interviews in California, she was told, ‘There’s no doubt you can do the job, but we’re really looking for a culture fit.’”

Today’s Daily Devil’s Dictionary definition:

Culture fit:

Conformity to an unstated set of values held by a certain category of people who are convinced that their own predilections and habits represent an ideal that must be protected from the profane

Contextual Note

Biddle explains that the notion of “‘culture fit’ is common in corporate tech culture, typically defined as the quality of hiring someone you’d want to hang out with socially or grab a beer with, but often criticized as little more than a euphemistic stand-in for racial or gender-based discrimination and a way for companies to deflect accusations of hiring bias.” The critics are right about the effect. But they are wrong to think that it is only an indicator of racism.

In fact, it reveals how racism itself is part of a bigger problem. We might call it the taste for “cultural exceptionalism,” similar to the idea so forcefully insisted upon by US politicians of “American exceptionalism.” If the nation can think of itself as exceptional and therefore not bound by rules it applies to others, then, why shouldn’t a powerful, domineering company like Facebook apply the same logic?

Biddle notes one aspect of the narcissistic absurdity of Facebook’s alleged practice: “[D]etermining what the ‘culture’ in question even is or how one might ‘fit’ into it can be impossible if an applicant doesn’t closely resemble a company’s founders or current staff.” This seems to indicate that this isn’t really about culture. It’s about cult.

The lawyers who formulated the complaint have identified what they envisage as the possible solution. It would be to provide “sufficient objective guidance to managers and other employees on how to determine which applicants and employees will be a good ‘culture fit’ at Facebook.”

This appears to presage that there will be a settlement no doubt including some form of compensation to buy off the plaintiffs, while also obliging Facebook’s human resources department to formulate a series of explicit descriptive rules that interviewers will be expected to respect. Those guidelines will, of course, formally exclude consideration of the actual geographic, ethnic or racial origin of the candidate. In all likelihood, once those conditions are met, Facebook and other Silicon Valley companies will evade further scrutiny simply by banishing the term “culture fit” from their discourse, especially when explaining the reasons for rejecting the candidacy of a member of an unwanted minority.

This means that “culture fit” will enter the list of politically incorrect terms never to be used in public. Even that superficial fix will annoy the people who have been pleased to use the term with a belief that it corresponds to a deep scientific truth that also furthers rational management practices. The company will carry on with the same discriminatory practice as in the past but will have to find a new formula for describing it.

Historical Note

Organizational culture became a recognized field of sociological investigation thanks in large part to the monumental of Edgar Schein. Whenever humans group together in any configuration — from a family to a nation, from a coterie of friends to a world religion — their interaction produces a set of habits, styles of communication, beliefs and expectations that become identifiable as the essential components of a specific culture. Even though we think of administrations and commercial companies as machines carrying out programmed tasks, Schein realized that even these seemingly impersonal machines cannot exist without producing a culture.  

All humans possess and adapt to the multiple cultures they become associated with. We function differently whether we are with our family, at the workplace, in school or when we participate in any kind of ritualized event, from a religious service to attendance at a live sporting event. Without consciously planning it, there are things we will think, say and do differently in situations created by those groupings.

Because of their focus on work outcomes, organizational cultures remain independent from the forces that define people’s social being. Organizational culture is structured by the patterns of interaction and expectations generated by the activity of people whose employment takes meaning from the fact that they share the objective of achieving coordinated professional and commercial goals. That is why, when they recruit, firms traditionally focus on qualifications, knowledge and existing skill sets — including thinking and communication skills — rather than the random factors that structure a candidate’s social identity.

Good recruiters know that social diversity actually helps teams focus on their professional skills and develop a collective competence that remains separate from purely social interests. A company with a strong culture has no need to seek people with a certain cultural profile. It should have the strength to integrate competent people into an ever-evolving culture that results not from a model imposed by management, but organically from the authentic interaction of its members. Specific professional practices may be imposed from the top down, but a healthy organizational culture should grow productively from the bottom up.

Facebook’s recruiters appear to be more motivated by an Orwellian taste for uniformity in thought processes, tastes and styles of social interaction than by a serious quest for professional efficacy. That has not prevented the company from becoming Mark Zuckerberg’s personal empire as well as a financial and cultural powerhouse. In fact, the two phenomena appear to be linked. Zuckerberg notoriously possesses absolute control of the company at the shareholder, board and management level. Facebook is as close to an autocracy as a publicly-owned company can be. The kind of seemingly inviolable power Elon Musk has achieved through charisma alone, Zuckerberg, lacking the Tesla CEO’s charisma, achieves through strict financial and cultural control.

Facebook’s errors and abuses are well known. But the company is too rich and powerful ever to be held truly accountable for any of its crimes or mistakes, at least until such time as a political revolt overturns its monopoly. There may be reprimands, injunctions and fines, but nothing that will destabilize the public monuments major private enterprises have become.

The innovation of the criterion of “culture fit” should make Edgar Schein and indeed anyone who has studied human culture cringe. It reveals a totalitarian mindset. It demonstrates a profound misunderstanding of organizational culture and culture tout court. Scientologists, who as “suppressive persons” those who fail to meet their criteria for “culture fit,” may feel differently. That’s because cults are always on the lookout for those who may not buy into their regimented way of thinking, behaving or being.

This controversy reveals a deeper problem infecting US society: its misunderstanding of the very notion of culture. For decades, political difference has been recast as a competitive game called “culture wars.” For one group, wishing another person “happy holidays” is an attack on Christmas. For another group, accidentally certain words, even when the intention is to denounce their use, constitutes proof of racist convictions. Even wearing the wrong mittens in cold weather can be damning.

Culture is what people share without even being aware of it. Highlighting what Schein calls a culture’s “artifacts” as proof of evil intentions denies the fundamental reality of culture and constrains any form of original thinking. In the name of some imaginary idea of morality that is built into culture, that seems to be the goal of every camp: to constrain even the possibility of creative thinking. Cultural fit? No, cult mentality.

*[In the age of Oscar Wilde and Mark Twain, another American wit, the journalist Ambrose Bierce, produced a series of satirical definitions of commonly used terms, throwing light on their hidden meanings in real discourse. Bierce eventually collected and published them as a book, The Devil’s Dictionary, in 1911. We have shamelessly appropriated his title in the interest of continuing his wholesome pedagogical effort to enlighten generations of readers of the news. Read more of The Daily Devil’s Dictionary on 51�Թ�.]

The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect 51�Թ�’s editorial policy.

The post Facebook Throws a Fit, a Culture Fit appeared first on 51�Թ�.

A Lawless Web

It is undeniable that digital platforms and social media networks provide us with essential services. Yet these services are not free as we all pay for it with our data. As Scott Goodson mentions in an for Forbes, “If you’re not paying for it … you are the product.” 

The subsequent use of data by tech giants and third-parties alike is shrouded in mystery, which Shoshana Zuboff, the author of “The Age of Surveillance Capitalism,” calls “moats of secrecy, indecipherability, and expertise.” While our data might be used in a non-transparent way for machine learning and political campaigning through ad targeting, democracies worldwide are grappling with the fallout. 

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The reason why the consequences of the growing influence of the “wild wild web” are so difficult to address is a lack of basic frameworks to address lawlessness online, which up till now relies mostly on arbitrary guidelines defined by tech giants themselves. Legal experts, scholars and policymakers have been mostly absent from the conversation, as the overarching narrative up until recently has been that any such regulation would represent unhealthy government interference into business and innovation.

The recently  Facebook Oversight Board on Removing Objectionable Content promises to go some way to remedy this problem, and observers are eager to see its impact in action. 

What’s Not Acceptable Offline Is Acceptable Online 

The discussion surrounding Holocaust denial illustrates the inconsistencies imposed on states and markets in which unregulated social media platforms operate. National legislation of many countries, such as Germany, Austria, Spain, Israel, France, Slovakia or the Czech Republic, consider the Holocaust to be a crime. In Slovakia, for example, it is punishable by up to three years in prison.

Yet content on Holocaust denial is widespread on Slovak on Facebook despite users reporting it as harmful. Furthermore, the European Court of Human Rights ruled in a landmark 2019 case, Pastörs v. Germany, that Holocaust denial is not protected by free speech.  

This understanding is not straightforwardly shared by digital platforms. In 2018, Mark Zuckerberg, the CEO of Facebook,  that content on Holocaust denial should not be taken down from the platform. There is a mismatch between what is acceptable online versus offline — i.e., what is illegal offline is not illegal online.

Theoretically, national authorities of the above-mentioned states could try to prosecute social media users for sharing content denying the Holocaust. (Some countries, such as , have adopted legislation to force digital platforms to comply.) 

Yet, in reality, that is near impossible as states simply do not have the resources to track every piece of content and then prosecute everyone who has shared it. Furthermore, by the time any case is closed, the content would remain online as it would have been undoubtedly copied and shared far and wide. It also poses an interesting question about state sovereignty and the potential complicity of service providers in criminal behavior, as they defy the national laws of countries in which they operate.

The Tide Is Turning in the EU

Partial answers on a European level may come with the passing of the Digital Services Act (DSA), which is postponed until the first quarter of  due to the coronavirus pandemic. The recently published  on the DSA recommends that “the principle of ‘what is illegal offline is also illegal online,’ as well as the principles of consumer protection and user safety, should also become guiding principles of the future regulatory framework.”

If this becomes a guiding principle of the DSA, digital platforms will no longer be able to tailor their community standards arbitrarily. Instead, social networks like Facebook would have to comply with national and European legislation.  

Such a development would be welcomed not only by those who care about the quality of democracy in the digital age, but also by digital platforms themselves. For years, social media networks have faced intense criticism and scrutiny for haphazard decision-making in policy areas which, in some places, have had .  

In 2019, Zuckerberg gave his two cents about making rules for the internet and who should be responsible for doing so. “Every day, we make decisions about what speech is harmful, what constitutes political advertising, and how to prevent sophisticated cyberattacks,” he in an op-ed for The Washington Post. “These are important for keeping our community safe. But if we were starting from scratch, we wouldn’t ask companies to make these judgments alone.” He further this point in a recent video conference with Thierry Breton, the EU commissioner for the internal market, asking for European leadership on platform regulation. 

Zuckerberg is right. Policy frameworks and regulations are not the main areas of expertise of tech companies, nor should they be. Such efforts should be led by national and international institutions in cooperation with tech companies, civil society actors and research scholars to ensure that any upcoming frameworks will strike the right balance between each stakeholder’s diverse interests. With the increasing fragmentation of the EU single market due to the implementation of new digital laws on national levels and the prevalence of hate speech online, time is of the essence.

*[ is a partner institution of 51�Թ�.]

The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect 51�Թ�’s editorial policy.

The post Who Will Make Rules for the Internet? appeared first on 51�Թ�.

Now, Bloomberg that the world boasts three centibillionaires. This means that the pressure on the language and our money-obsessed culture has increased to the point of requiring the invention of a new word to enhance everyone’s vocabulary and keep up with the times.

In an article from December 2019 with the title, “World’s Richest Gain $1.2 Trillion in 2019 as Jeff Bezos Retains Crown,” Bloomberg called the horse race and announced the surprising winner. At the time of publication of that article, it turned out that, for once, the winner was not a US citizen. The authors of the article, Tom Metcalf and Jack Witzig, wrote: “Leading the 2019 gains was France’s Bernard Arnault, who added $36.5 billion as he rose on the Bloomberg index to become the world’s third-richest person and one of three centibillionaires — those with a net worth of at least $100 billion.”

Here is today’s 3D definition:

Centibillionaire:

A desperately required neologism that allows ordinary people to appreciate the magnitude of some individuals’ fortune so as to be in a position to pity those who are mere billionaires

Contextual Note

The surest way we have found to spot an untracked neologism is to type it in a Microsoft Word document and see whether the spell checker underlines it. For the moment, Word hasn’t caught up with the global economy. But Bloomberg didn’t invent the word. The website The Gazette had already begun using the term back in June 2019 when it published with the title, “The Dawn of the Centibillionaire: Three people worth more than $100 billion – each.” The Gazette was among the first to realize that the club already included three members.

The Gazette had been paying attention to a local race between ordinary billionaires in Emmanuel Macron’s France, which now proudly boasts some of the world’s top performers in the billionaire class. By the end of the year, the local crown had been placed on LVMH’s CEO Bernard Arnault’s head. For a brief moment at the end of last year, he surpassed Bezos, who was understandably handicapped by the removal of $37 billion due to his divorce settlement. Having weathered the tempest, Bezos has now retaken the lead.

The American centibillionaires — Jeff Bezos and Bill Gates — have seen their fortunes balloon thanks to the inexorable spread of technology and their securing of a virtual monopolistic position. In contrast, French billionaires tend to emerge from the domain of luxury goods. This makes sense since Bloomberg estimates the increase in the wealth of the 500 richest people in the world for the year 2019 at $1.2 trillion. That means all the nouveaux mega-riches across the globe will be stocking up on the super-expensive products those French billionaires are offering them.

The website Observer addedof the success of the French: “[T]hanks to a bizarre shift in consumer trends in recent years, the appetite for luxury is going increasingly mainstream.” Some may see this as proof of the validity of trickle-down economics. But it’s really evidence of a marketing strategy that should perhaps be called trickle-down cultural symbolism. Purchasing the brands associated with the elite permits the high end of the middle classes — those with disposable income and the aspiration to be seen, at least potentially, as part of the elite — to buy into the fashion culture of the elite. These people can afford a Hermès handbag or a Dior perfume, maybe even a Rolex, though they may not yet be ready to drive an Aston Martin, Lamborghini or Bentley.

Bloomberg has invented an for the entire generation of new billionaires: “atypical fortunes.” This leads us to speculate about what “typical fortunes” might be. Here’s how Bloomberg describes it: “The emergence of atypical fortunes underscores just how much money the uber-rich accumulated in 2019.” 

The contrast between typical and atypical becomes clearer when we consider this fact — that in a single year, the atypicals added $1.2 trillion to reach a total of $5.9 trillion, “boosting their collective net worth 25 per cent.” In contrast with the “atypical” fortunes of centibillionaires, typical fortunes fall into two classes. The first is composed of multi-millionaires or not quite billionaires whose fortunes typically grow at about 10% per year. The second is the class of fortunes measured in the billions or tens of billions. According to Oxfam, the, as a class (including the atypicals), “increased by 12 percent last year — or $2.5 billion a day,” which is half the rate of the atypicals.

Historical Note

The explosion of billionaire mathematics and the bloating of the biggest fortunes define a trend that has been accelerating ever since the financial crisis of 2008. Quantitative easing and negative interest rates have been major factors contributing to it. Interviewed at the World Economic Forum at Davos, US President Donald Trump recently complained that the US Federal Reserve was unwilling to push for negative interest rates, which he saw as the key to getting the economy to grow. Negative interest rates are designed to serve those who have money, making it possible for them to borrow money on extremely favorable terms, which they typically use to accumulate assets and even lock up markets.

At the same time as billionaires increased their wealth at a rate of $2.5 billion a day, Oxfam points out that “the 3.8 billion people who make up the poorest half of humanity saw their wealth decline by 11 percent.” However you analyze it, there is a transfer of wealth from both the middle class and the poor to the wealthy.

With a population of 7.53 billion human beings, the world now boasts three centibillionaires. There’s even talk of a fourth possibly making an appearance: Elon Musk. Worth only in the low $20 billions for the past few years, the apparent commercial success of Tesla as the year 2020 begins means that not only is his current net worth estimated at around $34 billion, up 30% in just a couple of months, but earlier last year his board proposed a compensation package for the CEO that could reach $55 billion. This would bring Musk within touching distance of being the next centibillionaire. Like colonies on Mars, in Musk’s mind, it must be something to aim for.

Human history has entered a new period: the age of the centibillionaires. How much power will they have? For the moment, nobody knows. Two ordinary billionaires, like the current US president but this time on the Democratic side, are angling to rule over the White House and the 50 states. Mark Zuckerberg has made noises about running for president, but he may have compromised whatever political capital he once had.

Jeff Bezos recently tried to use his commercial and financial clout to influence the politics of Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi. He failed miserably. Will he do better next time? Must Bezos wait for the shine of Modi’s recent reelection to fade, which is already happening as chaos returns to the ungovernable nation, the world’s first billionaire democracy (in people)?

Or rather, as an elite that sometimes comes together to celebrate its eliteness, will the billionaire class and its acolytes simply be content to control things in the background and find ways of staying out of the headlines? It’s what has kept them going up to now. It may be even more necessary for their survival and continued prosperity to shy away from the footlights in the future.

*[In the age of Oscar Wilde and Mark Twain, another American wit, the journalist Ambrose Bierce, produced a series of satirical definitions of commonly used terms, throwing light on their hidden meanings in real discourse. Bierce eventually collected and published them as a book,, in 1911. We have shamelessly appropriated his title in the interest of continuing his wholesome pedagogical effort to enlighten generations of readers of the news.]

The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect 51�Թ�’s editorial policy.

The post The Era of Centibillionaires Is Upon Us appeared first on 51�Թ�.

In response to what CBS called “his company’s decision to not take down political ads that contain false information,” Zuckerberg defined his understanding of democracy: “What I believe is that in a democracy, it’s really important that people can see for themselves what politicians are saying, so they can make their own judgments.”

In this statement, Zuckerberg appears to see an equivalence between false information and “what politicians are saying.” He is probably right. Political advertising does typically contain a high degree of false information coupled with devious intent. But beyond what he might admit is a sad and regrettable fact, he appears to invoke a further unstated principle. Zuckerberg suggests that exposing people to those lies is a good thing. He thinks allowing people to read politicians’ false claims, innuendos, smears and faulty logic will help his users develop their own skills at lie detecting, if not critical thinking.

Then he comes to his axiomatic principle on which all his reasoning is built: “And, you know, I don’t think that a private company should be censoring politicians or news.”

Here is today’s 3D definition:

Censoring:

In Facebook’s vocabulary, the reprehensible act of detecting outright lies that have been paid for

Contextual Note

What does Zuckerberg really think about censorship? His formulation is fuzzy, to say the least. He begins with the phrase “you know, I don’t think that.” This tactic announces from the start the lack of clarity and precision of everything that follows. It also points to the probability of a serious dose of disingenuousness. Zuckerberg’s semantic subterfuge becomes even more evident with his choice of the verb “should.” It points either to probability (pressing the button should detonate the bomb) or moral obligation (people should never lie about their age). He appears to be using it in its moral sense. But, of course, his negative formulation (“don’t think … should”) removes any residual force from his assertion. He’s literally talking to say nothing.

In such conditions, teasing out the meaning of the rest of Zuckerberg’s argument can only be a challenge. Facebook has been compared to a for the ubiquitous role it plays in society. Does it make sense for its founder and CEO to refer to it simply as a “private company?” As for censoring, in a courtroom Facebook’s own lawyers have the company is a publisher, though elsewhere they insist it’s simply a platform. The most fundamental public responsibility of a publisher is to edit. Facebook’s critics are asking it to assume that responsibility. But Zuckerberg wants us to believe that editing is the equivalent of censorship.

Most of the commentators in the media see Zuckerberg’s defense of non-intervention regarding false information as a totally disingenuous intellectual (or rather pseudo-intellectual) dodge at best. Ben Gilbert at Business Insider has made the more sinister suggestion that Zuckerberg may simply be capitulating to the wishes of US President Donald Trump imparted to him at a in Washington earlier this year. Trump’s interest in false information as an electoral tool is well documented.

Historical Note

Mark Zuckerberg majored in psychology and computer science at Harvard before dropping out, in his hurry to launch Facebook before the Winklevoss twins could beat him to the punch. Had he so much as enrolled in philosophy 101, he might have acquired a sense of the basic principles of logic and learned to avoid spouting such a speciously reasoned defense of his refusal of accountability.

Alternatively, had he studied English or the literature of any other language, Zuckerberg might have discovered the basic elements of rhetoric, which could have been useful to someone who wields so much power in the world through his control of a publishing platform used by billions of people. At some point, this master of a dominant social medium might even have become aware of Marshall McLuhan’s insight: “The medium is the message.”

But in fairness to one of the world’s richest (and, therefore, smartest) men, Zuckerberg may simply be using the strategy perfected by George W. Bush and Donald Trump. It consists of pretending to be ignorant of everything he would be expected to know about and adopting the unsophisticated rhetorical methods that have the strongest impact on an undiscerning public. Zuckerberg is probably familiar with Aristotle’s logic and McLuhan’s theory of media. He just doesn’t want to allow the conversation to reach that level because of the potential embarrassment.

A look at his other statements confirms this. For example, he counters the cogent argument put forward by his own employees that “free speech and paid speech are not the same” with a cliché that is particularly common in the US: “Well, this is a [sic] clearly a very complex issue, and a lot of people have, have a lot of different opinions.” His hesitation and repetition of “a” and “have” in this sentence reveal his embarrassment. This is the tactic of someone buying time and then producing a false and meaningless conclusion. His “pearl of wisdom” (since this is all about using clichés) amounts to the “we agree to disagree” trope that so many Americans find useful as the means of cutting off all critical thinking and marking the end of a debate. 

Like President Trump, Zuckerberg resorts to restating, with slight reformulation, the same idea over and over again in his sedulous effort to counter any specific criticisms or objections. In the same interview, Zuckerberg offers these repetitive examples of his “thinking” and “believing”:

“I believe is that in a democracy, it’s really important that people can see for themselves what politicians are saying.”

“At the end of the day, I just think that in a democracy, people should be able to see for themselves what politicians are saying.”

“I think that people should be able to judge for themselves the character of politicians.”

“I think it’s important to not lose track of just the enormous good that can be done by bringing people together and building community.”

The final example takes his thought a bit further by repeating the official Facebook credo: that the company’s sole mission, after abandoning its earlier commitment to “,” is the humanitarian goal of bringing people together and fostering community. Some might claim that his tolerance and commercial exploitation of propaganda, lies and aggressive interpersonal behavior does precisely the opposite. But he would no doubt remind us that that’s a “complex issue” subject to “a lot of different opinions.”

Understanding the limits of his charisma (or lack thereof), in this interview Zuckerberg chose to mobilize his wife Priscilla Chan’s reputation and profound wisdom based on her experience as an “educator and pediatrician that’s worked deeply with families and individuals, and all types of communities.” Chan takes the trouble to explain how her husband’s commitment to not dealing with complex issues while dedicating himself to building community is the way forward: “These are not problems that one person, one company, can fix on their own … there’s not gonna be some silver bullet, but we need to work together as a society for that steady progress.”

Working together appears to mean stonewalling in the face of Facebook’s and Zuckerberg’s critics in government, among the citizenry and even from his own employees. Or perhaps it means following Trump’s orders, since The Donald will soon be facing a tough reelection campaign. 

But more likely, it means making wishy-washy statements in public to buy the time that allows him to keep doing the same thing over and over again, just as he is committed to saying the same wishy-washy things over and over again.

*[In the age of Oscar Wilde and Mark Twain, another American wit, the journalist Ambrose Bierce, produced a series of satirical definitions of commonly used terms, throwing light on their hidden meanings in real discourse. Bierce eventually collected and published them as a book,, in 1911. We have shamelessly appropriated his title in the interest of continuing his wholesome pedagogical effort to enlighten generations of readers of the news.]

The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect 51�Թ�’s editorial policy.

The post Mark Zuckerberg’s Philosophy: I Think, Therefore I Scam appeared first on 51�Թ�.

In an with Yahoo Finance, Wylie laments the sheer level of power Facebook has attained over people’s lives. He characterizes it as an unfair battle in which Facebook’s users are inevitably the unwilling (though also quite often willing) victims.

Given Facebook’s presence and power over people’s lives, society as a whole finds itself in a position of weakness. “You are more vulnerable, because there’s an imbalance in power, because one entity, or one person, knows a lot more about you than vice versa,” he says.

Here is today’s 3D definition:

Imbalance:

The ideal and most eagerly sought situation for anyone with a taste and a reason for wielding power, the most common reason being to extract money from people who have no choice and no ability to counter their power

Contextual Note

Wylie is a true whistleblower intent on pursuing his mission to help people understand what he sees as the threat Facebook represents to the fabric of civilized society. That may sound extreme, but if the idea of democracy is to retain any credibility, Wylie’s thesis merits serious discussion. Watching the of the complete Yahoo interview can be instructive.

Wylie begins by mentioning Mark Zuckerberg’s “habit of avoiding scrutiny.” Citing the Facebook founder’s defiance of the legal authorities in the UK and Canada, he opines that Zuckerberg may feel “more comfortable at Congress because he can lobby it more effectively.” As everyone in the business world knows, corporate money talks in Washington, often tending to drown out other voices.

After considering the hubris behind Facebook’s planned launch of a universal cryptocurrency, Wylie sums up his criticism in these words: “I question the wisdom of allowing a company to concentrate so many aspects of our society into one product.” While some people defend Facebook’s right, as a profit-making enterprise to innovate in its own interest, Wylie sees its strategy as an effective attack on the cultural integrity and sovereignty of society itself.

The author focuses on the true political implications of the issue, not just the electoral ones. Influencing elections is bad enough but, according to Wylie, Facebook has been undermining public discourse. He complains that Facebook is “relegating our democracies around the world and relegating our media and our public discourse to a private company, which is not accountable to people.” In other words, in its adherence to capitalist orthodoxy, Facebook has achieved a position of virtual cultural monopoly, with the sole aim of making a profit.

His interviewers in the Yahoo team, intent on defending the principles of capitalism, remained unconvinced. They expressed a point of view that can be summed up in the idea that if it’s only about profit, then it shouldn’t be considered about abuse.

One of the interviewers asked Wylie whether he shouldn’t take into account the fact that there’s “a benefit to this as well,” on the grounds that Facebook’s capture of data allows it to deliver more personally appropriate information and advertising. “It’s all about transparency, it’s all about disclosure,” he replied. “It’s all about us understanding how this game works in the playing field.”

In his view, if Facebook informs people about how they are being manipulated, no harm will be done. Attempting to show that he wasn’t about to let Zuckerberg off the hook, he identified Facebook’s crime as simply not being transparent enough. To cap his argument, Wylie offered the classic cliché: “It’s all a question of a level playing field, isn’t it?”

Wylie countered with a telling analogy about an architect who designs a building without fire exits but posts a notice at the entrance “transparently” explaining in technical detail the lack of that essential safety feature. The main interviewer then resorted to the “opt-out” argument, claiming that there isn’t a problem if the consumer can make another choice and go somewhere else. Wylie said that the choices are limited and perhaps nonexistent. A person’s online identity has now become an essential feature of their social and professional life. Opting out is tantamount to running away to live in the wilderness. It’s possible but self-destructive. “To exist in modern society,” he tells us, “you don’t really have a choice but to use these platforms.”

He then repeats his essential point: “The internet is part and parcel of democracy now, whether you like it or not … Do we need rules that we as a society agree on, with independent regulators who are on our side, not on shareholders’ side?”

Historical Note

Christopher Wylie’s attack focuses on Facebook, but much of what he says concerns the entire historical evolution of social media and the internet and, to some extent, capitalism itself since the 18th century. Much of what he says converges with the description of current trends offered by Shoshana Zuboff, author of the recently published book, “The Age of Surveillance Capitalism.” Zuboff defines the phenomenon that Wylie calls “imbalance” as “institutionalized asymmetries of knowledge unlike anything ever seen in human history.”

Critics like Wylie and Zuboff present what may be called a traditional, pre-capitalist or humanist view of society that has now been overtaken by late-stage capitalist ideology. It has elevated aggressive profit-making and monopolistic thinking to the rank of essential public virtues, to be admired and emulated. The two authors appear to heretically believe that society can benefit from balance and symmetry, or what in Chinese and other Asian cultures people call “harmony,” the highest of their core values. What Wylie and Zuboff demonstrate is that the working principle for successful companies today — a principle that most people tacitly approve of and the ambient culture has accepted — is imbalance, asymmetry and extreme dissonance.

We can situate the origin of the current respect for dissonance, disruptive emotions and polarized thought in the triumph of an increasing radicalized economic ideology that has, over time, consistently and progressively rewarded the accumulation of power. Capitalist apologists cite the 18th-century Scottish economist Adam Smith as the founder of their ideology. Smith described the workings of national economies in his time, at the very beginning of the industrial revolution, when outside of trading companies — such as the East India Company — economic and political power was rarely concentrated.  

Over the next two centuries, the growing respect for concentrated power undermined and imperceptibly perverted Smith’s original premise. Smith’s vision reflected his adherence to the idea of a well-regulated society that, because of its internal harmony, could benefit from the famous “invisible hand,” a natural effect of local competition that permitted continual adjustment and optimization of the roles of rational economic actors. He could not imagine the degree of concentration of power that would be enabled by future industrial development. He equally could never have imagined that modern ideologues would use his theory to justify the obsessive concentration of power we see today in both politics and business, elevating the principle disharmony to the level of a coveted ideal.

Today’s big tech companies cultivate the science of creating and defending monopolies. It has become easier than in the past because superficially they do not appear to be as absolute or easily identifiable as the monopolies and trusts that early 20th-century reformers attacked and often successfully dismantled. Tech companies have to work hard to achieve their monopolistic status. Defense suppliers and banks have an easier time occupying their monopolistic niches because they depend on governments and governments depend on them. The 18th-century virtues of fair and efficient competition were basically phased out over the next two centuries.

The Yahoo interview demonstrates how thoroughly the media, and particularly its specialists of finance, have bought into the outdated capitalist ideology and use it to avoid thinking about modern problems. They believe there is “choice” when there is none. They cling to the idea of homo economicus, man as a rational decision-maker who will make the decisions that guarantee a “level playing field.” They voluntarily ignore the cynicism of monopolist leaders such as Mark Zuckerberg, even when he spells it out in his .

As a final illustration of how good theories (Smith’s) can be turned into their opposite and benevolent intentions turned into malevolent ones, in his book, Wylie describes what happened when Steve Bannon became associated with Cambridge Analytica, at a time when Wylie felt inebriated after having discovered the wonderful powers of data collection that he imagined could be mobilized to solve identified social problems, including detecting and defeating terrorism: “When Steve Bannon got introduced to the company, he realized that a lot of that work could be inverted. And rather than trying to mitigate an extremist insurgency in certain parts of the world, he wanted to essentially catalyze one in the United States.”

*[In the age of Oscar Wilde and Mark Twain, another American wit, the journalist Ambrose Bierce, produced a series of satirical definitions of commonly used terms, throwing light on their hidden meanings in real discourse. Bierce eventually collected and published them as a book,, in 1911. We have shamelessly appropriated his title in the interest of continuing his wholesome pedagogical effort to enlighten generations of readers of the news.]

The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect 51�Թ�’s editorial policy.

The post A Whistleblower Decries Facebook’s Assault on Democracy appeared first on 51�Թ�.

Facebook’s most urgent threat comes from the capital of Zuckerberg’s own nation, the United States, where senators last year demonstrated their or even understand the digital Latin spoken by Zuckerberg and the imperial elite of Silicon Valley.

Aware of the difficulty of getting his important messages across to those who fail to appreciate the fragility of his mighty empire, the CEO of Facebook is attempting a tactic that’s new to him but very familiar to the professionals in Washington. It consists of wining, dining and finding ways to dictate, with a broad smile, the terms of legislation that can respond to the deep concerns a defender of monopoly is typically faced with. Charm (and subtle promises of favors) has always been more effective than intimidation or imperial arrogance in Washington.

Axios sums up the : “With these private dinners, senatorial sit-downs and a presidential audience, Zuckerberg aims to move Facebook beyond playing defense and toward a meaningful dialogue on regulating the internet.”

Here is today’s 3D definition:

Meaningful:

Favorable to one’s interests, despite the impact on other people or the deeper meaning of one’s actions for society

Contextual Note

Ideally, Zuckerberg would like to see regulation that keeps at bay the shaggy-haired barbarians (his less respectable paying customers) and recognizes Facebook’s need to have as few constraints as possible as it manages the world’s population in ways that the US government, relying only on its military might and economic clout, cannot guarantee.

If only the senators could understand the advantages of the two uniting their powerful forces and working together. Facebook promotes “friendship” by allowing billions of people to be friends, something the US government has never managed to do. In the age of Trump, the simple truth that the US is willing to put on its nastiest face in its dedication to using its military and economic force to intimidate and reduce to submission the rest of the world has never been more apparent.

The media, reporting on Zuckerberg’s visit to Washington, agree on a shift in tactics in Facebook’s political game. Instead of “playing defense,” Zuckerberg is mounting a charm offensive. Rather than appearing as the adversary seeking to protect its power and privileges, he has finally decided to do what all lobbyists do: help the lawmakers design the legislation that will be used to regulate his industry while showing his willingness to fraternize with these honorable personalities. They want to pass new laws. Rather than asking them to refrain, Zuckerberg offers his constructive advice.

Forbes the substance of his proposals for reform: “From what I’ve learned, I believe we need new regulation in four areas: harmful content, election integrity, privacy and data portability.” In other words, not in restraint on monopolies, especially on a monopoly totally controlled by a single person.

Zuckerberg’s rhetoric provides a hint to his tactic. The clause “from what I’ve learned” that prefaces his proposal may superficially convey a message of humility, but what he really means is that now, for the first time, he understands the business culture of DC and is ready to play the game on the lawmakers’ terms. In a practical sense, this means that rather than defensively trying to fend off regulations he doesn’t like, it’s up to him to define the legislative objectives and, perhaps, as is often the case, draft the regulations that suit him best, saving the lawmakers the bother.

All of this proves not only that multibillionaires can “learn” something new — at least when they think their goose that lays the golden eggs may be taken away from them — but that inevitably those who control not just a highly-profitable monopoly touching billions of people’s lives, but also the psychology of its customers will learn to find a way to live in harmony with the elite that controls only the political machine.

Reuters gives us a about how the “meaningful” discussions between the two parties take place. Senator Josh Hawley, “a tough critic,” according to Reuters, “said the discussions had been ‘frank,’ often a euphemism for contentious. He urged Zuckerberg to sell Facebook’s Instagram and WhatsApp units, which would limit how much information it could compile about an individual from different sources.” Hawley challenged Zuckerberg: “Prove that you’re serious about data. Sell WhatsApp. And sell Instagram.” Hawley added this remark: “Safe to say he was not receptive to those suggestions.” What self-respecting monopolist would be?

Historical Note

Ever since the presidency of Theodore Roosevelt in the first decade of the 20th century, the US government has been officially opposed to monopolistic practices. The energy of presidents to combat monopolies and trusts in the first half of the 20th century may have something to do with the fact that the US, at that stage of history, was simply one of several competitors in the race for geopolitical power.

The race had been initiated at the end of the 15th century and largely controlled by four or five European nations throughout the 19th century. When the first round of competition disappeared following two world wars, after which Europe was forced to decolonize, the prospect of an American monopoly suddenly became possible. The spirit of monopoly was encouraged, rather than countered, by the asymmetric competition between the US — now endowed with the title “leader of the free world” — and the Soviet Union, a lumbering villain whose system finally and very logically imploded between 1989 and 1991.

The US has, in the meantime, become used to playing a monopolistic role in global politics, a veritable highly-assertive empire, though the cost of the military investment and the uniformly-bad public relations its aggressive policies have created since the Vietnam War have led to a crisis of identity. Donald Trump’s presidency has made this conflict particularly visible. On the one hand, military and financial dominance working hand in hand appear to be the key to maintaining a hyper-productive capitalist empire. On the other, the failure to master the psychology of empire — keeping the colonized happy — has led some, like Trump himself, to wish for a reduction in visibility or sheer presence on the military side while maintaining economic control.

That may well be the essence of his “America First” philosophy. Trump’s critics — especially the Democrats but also traditional establishment Republicans == sense that military presence is the key to the stability of an empire that has too many borders to defend without providing adequate force.

The military-industrial complex that grew up after World War II typifies the nature of economic monopoly today and its importance as the foundation of US power. That, in itself, explains why governments stopped breaking up monopolies in the interest of competitive capitalism. There are those like Senator Hawley, who will keep trying, but they are unlikely to succeed.

CNN reports that Democratic Senator Mark Warner last week Zuckerberg: “This is not just a tech issue. It’s about civil society, and the integrity of our political debate.” Facebook’s CEO and virtual dictator has undoubtedly learned that if he does something to defend “the integrity” of the political debate, his critics will leave him alone with his monopoly. That’s the kind of meaning that emerges from “meaningful discussions.”

*[In the age of Oscar Wilde and Mark Twain, another American wit, the journalist Ambrose Bierce, produced a series of satirical definitions of commonly used terms, throwing light on their hidden meanings in real discourse. Bierce eventually collected and published them as a book, , in 1911. We have shamelessly appropriated his title in the interest of continuing his wholesome pedagogical effort to enlighten generations of readers of the news.]

The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect 51�Թ�’s editorial policy.

The post Mark Zuckerberg Learns the Game appeared first on 51�Թ�.

Wired quotes FTC Commissioner Christine Wilson: “Millions of Americans entrusted personal information to Facebook with the understanding that Facebook would respect the laws governing consumer privacy, but Facebook’s many privacy missteps made clear that it lacked a culture of compliance in this area.”

Here is today’s 3D definition:��

Compliance:

An attitude of respect for the letter of the law designed principally to test how far one can go in violating the spirit of the law��

Contextual Note

The FTC offered a revealing metaphor when it complained about “Facebook’s many privacy missteps.” A misstep, by definition, is a minor, unintentional error that disturbs normal progress. Calling Facebook’s deliberately abusive behavior — motivated by simple greed — a “misstep” sanctioned by a fine appears to be routine for government agencies such as the FTC. Even if Facebook doesn’t respect the law, the FTC respects Facebook’s ability to generate countless billions of dollars. Ordinary people might be tempted to use a stronger term, partly because when they fail to be compliant, they may end up actually doing time and the fines they pay will seriously affect their lifestyles.

According to the FTC, it wasn’t one misstep but “many,” which would seem to signify no less than three instances of missteps. In a normal courtroom, that would likely be called recidivism. And in the culture of compliance created by legislators in the 1990s, with their “three strikes” logic borrowed from baseball, the offender would be in prison for life. It’s true, however, that US financier Jeffrey Epstein, despite his proven skill at sex trafficking, had to spend 13 full days in jail for his missteps, possibly because the prosecutor believed that, at best, he was only a billionaire, rather than a multibillionaire — and maybe not even that, as we have subsequently learned.

When the authorities decide to investigate and punish multibillion-dollar companies for their crimes — whether it’s a bank like HSBC or a tech giant like Facebook — it only happens (if at all) years after the profit from the crimes has permitted those companies not only to prosper but to grow into virtual monopolies in captive markets that no longer need to cheat as much as in the past because, by that time, they have achieved global dominance in their marketplace.

In the Facebook case, the FTC offers another revealing metaphor: “It was clear that we needed to erect speed bumps requiring both Mr. Zuckerberg and Facebook to slow down and take care with consumer privacy.” The commission thus compares Facebook’s compromising millions of people’s privacy, with dire social and economic consequences for many anonymous “users” (it would be more appropriate to call them the “used” than “users”) to a speeding violation. Democratic Senator Richard Blumenthal described the settlement as a “fig leaf deal” that “releases Facebook without requiring any real privacy protections—no restraints on future data use, no accountability for top executives, nothing more than chump change financial fines.”

Historical Note

The FTC wants to see Facebook adopt a “culture of compliance,” which would seem to be the basic condition for any enterprise acting in the public sphere with the framework of a society governed by the “rule of law.” But what do they mean by compliance?

It would seem that even etymological dictionaries can’t agree on where the word comes from, which might give us some idea of what it should mean. For example, Online Etymology Dictionary defines “” as something positive and active, claiming that from the early 14th century it has meant “to carry out, fulfill” (transitive), probably from Old French compli, before tracing that back to the��Latin complere “to fill up.”

But at the same time, it “compliant,” dating from the 1640s, in a negative and passive sense as “yielding to desire, ready to accommodate.” For the word “pliant,” to which compliant is clearly related, the website offers us an even more definition: “as deriving from the late 14th century Old French word “ploiant,” which means “‘bending, supple; compliant, fickle,’ as a noun, ‘turncoat.’”

The notion of compliance is deeply-rooted in contemporary US culture. It is also profoundly ambiguous. The idea of a culture of compliance emerges in societies, like the US, that are structured around the principle of competition. It differs radically from a culture of consent, a notion proper to societies that assume the existence of a minimum standard of cooperation, sharing and collaboration that give meaning to ordinary human relations.

Another Wired article contains an with Yael Eisenstat, who, after serving as a CIA officer, was hired by Facebook initially as the head of global elections integrity ops. After six months of being marginalized from all strategic reflection on the very topic she was hired to deal with, which clearly had to do with compliancy, she came to this conclusion: “I do feel like most of the stuff we were doing there was the bare minimum that we could get away with.” Pushing the analysis a little further, she added: “Every single solution we were trying to come up with was (a) the bare minimum for the company to be able to check that box, and (b) was still putting the responsibility on someone else.”

The FTC settlement purports to impose “a robust system of checks and balances that extinguishes [Zuckerberg’s] ability unilaterally to chart the path for consumer privacy at Facebook.” It claims to “monitor Facebook’s compliance with the order and issue biannual reports to the board and the US government, though not necessarily the public.”

Yet FTC has no power to enforce its robust system and, given the testimony of Eisenstat, it would appear unlikely that even under that kind of theoretical oversight that Facebook is unlikely to change its ingrained habits or modify its greed for monetizing every bit of data that transits through its servers. The Wired article sums it up by noting that “many observers, including within the FTC, are more skeptical that Wednesday’s agreement changes things at Facebook enough to keep the company from choosing profits over privacy in the future.”

*[In the age of Oscar Wilde and Mark Twain, another American wit, the journalist Ambrose Bierce, produced a series of satirical definitions of commonly used terms, throwing light on their hidden meanings in real discourse. Bierce eventually collected and published them as a book, , in 1911. We have shamelessly appropriated his title in the interest of continuing his wholesome pedagogical effort to enlighten generations of readers of the news.]

The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect 51�Թ�’s editorial policy.

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Former Facebook employee and best-selling author Antonio García Martínez has penned an article for to second the much-commented ��in The New York Times by Chris Hughes, a Mark Zuckerberg intimate and Facebook co-founder. Hughes has echoed Senator in calling for the of the social media giant.

Martinez explains what he observed in his time spent at the company: “Much of Zuckerberg’s limitless drive to make Facebook successful was an apparent desire to achieve “domination” rather than mere riches.”

Here is today’s 3D definition:

Domination:

The narcissistically motivated control over other people and society as a whole, to the point of achieving a feeling of invulnerability; the universal goal of modern entrepreneurs dreaming of establishing a monopoly defined not merely in economic terms

Contextual note��

Hughes complains about Zuckerberg’s “focus on growth [that] led him to sacrifice security and civility for clicks.” This sentence contains two culturally significant ideas.

The first concerns the deeply rooted bias in today’s economic and social culture in favor of growth. In December 2018, highlighted the fact that Facebook was “ruthless about growth,” which led The Daily Devil’s Dictionary to detect a parallel with the very literally growing problem of obesity in US culture. We concluded that Facebook “is driven by an insatiable appetite and the belief that bigger is not only better, but biggest is never big enough.” Unlike the , creator of heaven and earth, Zuckerberg cannot make the decision — even after seeing that “every thing that he had made … was very good” — ��to take a seventh-day break simply to rest and enjoy his accomplishments. Zuckerberg is a driven man who sees himself as the god of social media.

Growth doesn’t imply domination, as every ecologist knows. Moreover, limitless growth is an aberration in nature. And as a further reading of the Book of Genesis reveals, the wish to appropriate for oneself the fruit of the tree of knowledge (in this case, unlimited monetizable data on user behavior) can lead even the most driven of mortals to being driven from the Garden of Eden (the ancient Mesopotamian equivalent of Silicon Valley).

Because we have all adopted both the technological and social culture of the internet and become completely inured to it, few readers will notice the second significant idea that Hughes highlights: the commodification of something called “clicks.”��Imagine someone in the year 1990 reading Hughes’ accusation that a billionaire sacrificed civility for clicks. In that year, people already knew what it was to click with a mouse, but the idea of such an act having any kind of monetizable value, let alone driving and perverting a famous entrepreneur’s moral sense, would have been impossible to imagine. In 1990, you clicked to turn the page or select an item in a menu. No one was watching, and the only thing developers of web pages were concerned about was making it as easy as possible to get to where you wanted to go.

Historical note

A mere two decades of history have brought us to this point, which concerns not just Facebook — the most extreme example because of Zuckerberg’s absolute control of his board and, therefore, the company’s policies — but also Google, Amazon, Apple and Microsoft. The power acquired by these companies, in different ways and to slightly different degrees, is unquestionably a function of their size, which explains the inertia they have successfully created in the marketplace. It’s an inertia that inhibits the emergence of new, more sustainable and more democratic paradigms.

People use Facebook not because of loyalty to the social network, but because it’s the one place everyone happens to be. You might say they chose to be there, but that distorts the idea of choice. Facebook’s logic is closer to that of the neighborhood drug dealer who offers a fix and then is there to provide more at a price. Google and Facebook have been more successful than even the most reliable drug dealer by hiding the price tag, leaving the impression that the next desperately-needed fix costs nothing. Their generosity is boundless because there’s no direct exchange of money.

Everyone who wants to maintain a social identity becomes a prisoner of their eco-system, which in this case is short — not for ecological system — but for economic system. Google has categorized and tagged everything in the world, making it easier for any and every individual to become a “partaker” in global knowledge (as defined by Google and its algorithms). Facebook provides the environment in which everyone’s narcissism can play out with the personal satisfaction of displaying it in public instead of in front of a mirror.

The world changed radically somewhere around 2000, a few years after Google’s creation and four years before Facebook’s. By 2011, researchers had discovered and analyzed the phenomenon of “” in these terms: “Google’s personalized advertising strategies, its precise measurement of advertising costs based on users’ behaviors represented as ‘the number of clicks,’ and the unclear distinction between advertisements and serviced content commodify its users’ online activities.”

Clicks became not only the foundation of the new economy — the means by which some people made money — but also the basis of social recognition. Few people question the mathematics of clicks as the means of discovering the truth about anything. They will be one of the most important factors in the social and commercial logic of artificial intelligence, which of course will thrive according to the of “By their clicks you shall know them.”

Today, Senator Warren and 40% of the American people appear to approve of . More significantly, “just 15% oppose it.” Nick Clegg, Facebook’s vice-president for global affairs and communications, is one of the 15%. His to a society that worships success to the extent of electing a successful sociopath president — simply because he told people (and they believed him) that he was “a winner” — is that success “should not be penalized.” Usually that is enough to convince Americans, but the realization that the success of some relies on the submission of an entire society has begun to destabilize belief in the false equation between success and virtue.

*[In the age of Oscar Wilde and Mark Twain, another American wit, the journalist Ambrose Bierce, produced a series of satirical definitions of commonly used terms, throwing light on their hidden meanings in real discourse. Bierce eventually collected and published them as a book, , in 1911. We have shamelessly appropriated his title in the interest of continuing his wholesome pedagogical effort to enlighten generations of readers of the news.]��

The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect 51�Թ�’s editorial policy.

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After reformers, including Democratic presidential candidate , called for laws to break up the monopolies of big tech companies such as Google, Facebook and Amazon, the defenders of neoliberal economic orthodoxy have begun developing their counter-arguments in what is likely to be a long campaign to prevent a throwback to such Teddy Roosevelt-style trust-busting from ever taking place.

Michael R. Strain, in a recent , cites the “correct” way to think about the issue, defending the liberty of the tech giants to grow and grow, increasingly invading our lives. Shocked that the public might stare a gift horse in the mouth, he asks: “[A]re these companies actually stifling competition, as Cicilline and others think they may be? Not by the traditional, and correct, standard used to evaluate competition.”

Here is today’s 3D definition:

Standard:

A deliberately limited and vaguely defined criterion of judgment generally cited with the reassuring aim of justifying the status quo through an appeal to an impression of strong statistical frequency and repetitive pronouncements. The basis of an appeal to anonymous authority.

Contextual note��

Strain’s argument relies on our accepting two things: that the only reason for concern in the debate about monopoly is the question of stifling competition, and that there is a single “correct” standard to evaluate whether the requirement of free-market competition is being respected. But though Warren herself focuses on the legal question of fair competition, she also highlights the more fundamental and far-reaching problem of what we should call “digital monopoly”: unbridled power over people as well as the economy. “America’s big tech companies provide valuable products but also wield enormous power over our digital lives,” says Warren.

Strain cites three criteria for competition evaluation: “reducing the welfare of consumers by increasing the prices … decreasing the quality of products and services they enjoy [and] reducing the choices available to users.” The three pillars of the consumer society: price, enjoyment and choice. This approach reduces humanity to the status of , the rational decision-maker focused on self-interest. It singularly fails to define what value is other than the monetary price of an item. It judges quality by measurable performance at the time of use, not by impact on society over time. And it assumes that the existence of choice implies total and permanent freedom.

Even superficial analysis reveals that once a consumer has bought into a brand, especially if that brand is a widely shared self-sustaining system (e.g., Windows, Facebook), they no longer have a choice. They become prisoners of a network effect. Their freedom either disappears or becomes irrelevant.

You could compare it to learning a language. Consumers in the United States are free to learn and speak any language they like, but if at birth they (or their parents) had to choose only one and it wasn’t English, all their other choices — what to do, where to work, with whom to associate, etc. — would be severely restricted. Networks created and owned by corporations seek to lock people into programmed behavior, knowing that that behavior will become a monetizable resource for the corporation. Strain would undoubtedly argue that that’s what people want. But the only thing we know for sure is that that’s what the corporations and their shareholders want. As author says, “the goal is to automate us.”

Historical note

Facebook has been maligned for facilitating the dissemination of fake news to the point of complicity in the manipulation of the 2016 presidential election. Since then, after , it has doubled down in its stated efforts to minimize, if not completely eliminate the opportunities to spread fake news. Framed like a Weight-Watchers testimonial, in October 2018 Facebook proudly cited a multi-university academic study to that “during the 2016 – 2018 period, [its] role in the distribution of misinformation was dramatically reduced.”

Some may thus find a curious irony in ’s revelation this week that “Facebook is paying The Daily Telegraph to run a series of positive sponsored stories about it.” In October, Facebook proclaimed “we’re committed to our part in the long-term effort that fighting false news will require.”

“Sponsored stories,” as everyone should recognize, is advertising. It isn’t mere persuasion. It is consciously designed to make the reader believe that what is presented is solid and pertinent information, i.e., news. As Business Insider points out: “Some studies have been critical of the ad format, arguing they can mislead news consumers.” The purpose of all advertising is to orientate the potential consumer’s perception to create a favorable disposition for future decision-making. Sponsored stories are, quite simply, fake news with a mild and not always noticeable disclaimer attached.

This is the example Facebook wants to show us of its “commitment” to “fighting false news.” We learn from the that even the serious steps it claims to have taken to root out fake news may be lacking in seriousness. Facebook outsourced the work to external agencies, using both artificial intelligence algorithms and human readers, in an effort to detect and suppress or at least tag suspicious postings. But the results have been far from convincing. “More than two years on from its inception, and on International Fact-Checking Day, multiple sources within agencies working on Facebook’s global fact-checking initiative have told the BBC they feel underutilised, uninformed and often ineffective.”

Facebook apparently prefers to pay for its own rose-colored fake news in The Daily Telegraph than to fully support the effort to root out the real thing on its own platform. And The Telegraph, a media company like Facebook, prefers the revenue generated by the publication of Facebook’s sponsored content to the lack of said revenue, thereby demonstrating through its own example that, whatever happens, the news you get is the news that somebody paid for, without you necessarily knowing how or why.

*[In the age of Oscar Wilde and Mark Twain, another American wit, the journalist Ambrose Bierce, produced a series of satirical definitions of commonly used terms, throwing light on their hidden meanings in real discourse. Bierce eventually collected and published them as a book, , in 1911. We have shamelessly appropriated his title in the interest of continuing his wholesome pedagogical effort to enlighten generations of readers of the news.]��

The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect 51�Թ�’s editorial policy.

The post Should Big Tech Companies Be Free to Conquer the World? appeared first on 51�Թ�.

In one of its recent investigative scoops, The Guardian that “Facebook has targeted politicians around the world — including the former UK chancellor, George Osborne — promising investments and incentives while seeking to pressure them into lobbying on Facebook’s behalf against data privacy legislation.”

Although this is a scoop, the story behind it dates back to 2013, which means the culture it describes has most certainly continued developing in the shadows ever since. Where did the essential offer of “incentives” take place? In , of course.

Here is today’s 3D definition:��

Incentive:

A synonym in the world of politics for what some would consider something less than a bribe because justified by promised future economic outcomes

Contextual note

Computer Weekly partnered with The Guardian/Observer on uncovering and publishing this story. The article recounts in greater detail the stages and events in COO Sheryl Sandberg’s relationship-building efforts with key European politicians.

As with everything Facebook does, the scale of the operation that began in Davos in 2013 was anything but modest. The Guardian describes it as “a secretive global lobbying operation targeting hundreds of legislators and regulators in an attempt to procure influence across the world, including in the UK, US, Canada, India, Vietnam, Argentina, Brazil, Malaysia and all 28 states of the EU.” While some of it resembled classic PR or simple persuasion — such as using Sandberg’s reputation as a feminist activist to persuade female commissioners to be kind to them — we learn that Facebook, making its pitch to then-Irish Prime Minister Enda Kenny, “threatened to withhold investment from countries unless they supported or passed Facebook-friendly laws.”

That’s precisely why it would be deemed unreasonable to call this what it most resembles: bribery or blackmail. Instead, it’s all about those noble ideals that nowadays serve to justify any political decision: attracting corporate investments with the promise of jobs.

Ireland provided Facebook with a perfect target for this form of persuasion. More than any other European country, has benefited from the decision of US tech companies to move their European headquarters to Ireland. It means jobs and economic activity, but always at the expense of normal as well as, in the long term, national pride. Once they’re there, everyone is expected to understand who’s boss. The trope, “You’ve got a nice economy here. It would be a shame if something were to happen to it,” may sound like a cliché, but, according to Computer Weekly, “Sandberg wrote to Kenny two days after the Davos 2014 meeting, warning him that changes in data protection or taxation laws might lead Facebook to consider ‘different options for future investment and growth in Europe.’” The nation needs a little protection.

Historical note

Not to be outdone by its critics, Facebook recently proclaimed the moral horror its founder feels with regard to “incentives” and their role in the realm of politics. In September 2018, Mark Zuckerberg : “We’ve attacked the economic incentives to spread misinformation. We’ve worked more closely with governments — including in Germany, the US and Mexico — to improve security during elections.” At least Facebook and its critics appear to share similar moral values. It’s only Facebook’s acts that differentiate the company from its critics.

The perception is increasing in many quarters that Facebook is simply too big not to create mischief in an economy where mischief tends to pay and punishment can be avoided or made anodyne, thanks to money and influence. The effects of Facebook’s mischief are harder and harder to track and assess, though investigators such as have begun to reveal both the inner workings and the extensive impact the tech companies that have invaded our lives have on society. She writes: “It would be a grave mistake to assume this is merely a Facebook phenomenon.” Zuboff identifies the culprit as “surveillance capitalism,” which has shaped if not warped “the moral and political milieu of 21st-century society and the values of our information civilisation.”

In other words, the recent history not so much of technology itself, but especially of the adoption of technology by an uncomprehending and easily persuaded population, seduced by convenience, parallels the more deliberate process of seducing and manipulating the political class to accept this kind of evolution of an entire civilization. The users of technology are squeezed from both above and below.

Facebook hasn’t been as successful in manipulating politicians in Europe as it has in the US. It didn’t get everything it wanted. Using a similar but not quite blackmail or bribery strategy, Amazon successfully obtained the conditions it wanted to set up HQ2 in New York — at least until it decided the welcome for its taste.

The difference between these two cases tells us a lot about how our civilization now functions. Facebook did everything in secret, behind the scenes, but was eventually exposed. Amazon turned its game of influence into a political spectacle, as a demonstration of power. Both companies have seen their image seriously tarnished by a few high-profile events that increasingly reveal how much influence they have over people and how manipulative their methods have become.

Could we be entering a new age of transparency, where the schemes and ploys of the wealthy and powerful have become visible due to their overplaying their hands? There are signs that that may be happening. But the extent of their power over people’s minds and habits is such that it will take more than a few examples of investigative reporting and political protest to change the general state of awareness.

*[In the age of Oscar Wilde and Mark Twain, another American wit, the journalist Ambrose Bierce, produced a series of satirical definitions of commonly used terms, throwing light on their hidden meanings in real discourse. Bierce eventually collected and published them as a book, , in 1911. We have shamelessly appropriated his title in the interest of continuing his wholesome pedagogical effort to enlighten generations of readers of the news. Update: This article previously stated that Sheryl Sandberg was CEO of Facebook.]

The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect 51�Թ�’s editorial policy.

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No one doubts that Facebook single-handedly conquered the world of social media. When Hollywood decided to make a movie about Mark Zuckerberg’s picaresque success story, they didn’t call it “Facebook: The Story.” They called it The Social Network.

Analyzing the trove of confidential documents released by British parliamentarians, Business Insider reaches : “If you take one thing away from wading through 250 pages of Facebook documents, it is this: Here is a company that is ruthless about growth.”

Here is today’s 3D definition:

Growth:

The obesity principle as it plays out in late phase capitalism. A company’s or a wealthy person’s illusory and unnatural belief in its need to expand outward once it has reached maturity, which in the natural world defines the limit of an organism’s upward growth

Contextual note

The kind of growth objective Facebook adopted can be encapsulated in two other words: appetite and compulsion. More than traditional medical studies focused on physiological processes, Facebook may prove to be an excellent means for understanding the psychological and metabolic factors behind obesity in ordinary humans. Clearly the company is driven by an insatiable appetite and the belief that bigger is not only better, but biggest is never big enough.

The psychological factors that lead to obesity include, in most cases, a paradoxical association of the obese subject’s indifference to the judgment of others — which may be seen as a missing or suppressed social instinct — coupled with an unconscious belief that size, possibly because it increases visibility, will provoke a certain form of admiration.

Both of these have meaning within contemporary US culture, where extreme individualism has led to indifference to (if not denial of) social norms regarding size, whether it’s the food on one’s plate, one’s bodily dimensions or the height of a building. Size in general has become associated with the positive values of assertiveness, prestige through visibility and accomplishment. Size signifies the capacity to dominate and control the resources of one’s environment.

In the world of economics and business competition, growth has only positive connotations, as the journalistic game of comparing GDP figures proves. If the fictional character, , in Oliver Stone’s movie, Wall Street, famously announced that “greed is good,” in the same corporate world, it would be no exaggeration to say “obesity is good.” Rather than endangering a company, sheer bulk is seen as a security, as in being “too big to fail.”

One quote from the Facebook documents gives a good idea of how the company’s strategy was focused on — in this case, a form of data theft, the most convenient as well as valuable type of pilfering practiced today, since those who are robbed remain unaware of the transfer of value. On the debate over whether Facebook should attempt to vacuum up Android users’ call logs, one employee : “This is a pretty high-risk thing to do from a PR perspective but it appears that the growth team will charge ahead and do it.”

Historical note

Business Insider remarked, “[R]arely do we see the inner workings of a company out to make money laid bare in such detail.” In Facebook’s favor, this implies not that the network is alone, it’s simply that the company has been found out, possibly because one of the risks of growth is that there is so much more that can be exposed at any given time.

In 2013, Psychology Today looked at the question of in the US: “The obesity epidemic raises a host of questions aimed directly at the psychology of eating, especially analyzing why Americans are eating more today than they used to.” This should have led to an exploration of the myriad cultural factors at play. But the journal disappointingly concludes by blandly endorsing the American Medical Association’s judgment (AMA) that obesity is a disease “requiring a range of medical interventions to advance treatment and prevention.”

This may tell us more about the AMA’s appetite for growth and its compulsion to control what we might call the “medical media” than it does an objectively scientific point of view. Obesity is so much a part of US culture that even the medical profession is affected by it.

Can this be the real problem in the US, and a problem that affects the world? Everyone recognizes that something abnormal is occurring, but instead of seeking to understand the complex network of causes — which in fact are discernable — it looks for the means of attenuating the symptoms, in this case “interventions,” which will most likely mean new drugs to bloat the activity and profit margins of pharmaceutical companies, as well as multiplying the expensive consultations with doctors. What about the “host of questions” they mention, only to dismiss the formulation of the question themselves by anticipating a host of answers?

Don’t the experts realize that “the psychology of eating” is not just about intake, but about cultural values and rituals? If they do, they don’t seem to care, because US culture long ago gave up on trying to understand culture, and most of all its own culture.

*[In the age of Oscar Wilde and Mark Twain, another American wit, the journalist Ambrose Bierce, produced a series of satirical definitions of commonly used terms, throwing light on their hidden meanings in real discourse. Bierce eventually collected and published them as a book, , in 1911. We have shamelessly appropriated his title in the interest of continuing his wholesome pedagogical effort to enlighten generations of readers of the news.]

The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect 51�Թ�’s editorial policy.

The post Facebook Is Ruthless about Growth appeared first on 51�Թ�.

Something strange is happening. Steve Bannon, the former chief strategist of President Donald Trump, and Robert Reich, the Berkeley professor who served President Bill Clinton, are singing from the same hymn sheet. On the surface, these two characters could not be more dissimilar. Bannon is a former naval officer who rose to eminence in Goldman Sachs before creating Breitbart and breathing fire into the right-wing populist movement. Reich is a Berkeley liberal who has been agonizing over growing inequalities of income, wealth and political power. Like Romeo and Juliet, both Bannon and Reich are falling in love with the idea of breaking up big tech.

In March, the Financial Times held the FT Future of News conference. Editor Lionel Barber interviewed Bannon who , “Facebook takes your stuff for free and sells it and monetizes it for huge margins. Then they write algorithms that control your life.” Bannon castigated the audience for not asking one tough question when Mark Zuckerberg showed up, claiming the Facebook boss “sounded like a first year associate hired in corporate development.” The audience in New York was only emulating its betters. As this author observed on Gandhi’s birthday this year, even American senators kowtow to Zuckerberg instead of holding his feet to the fire.

In his many interviews, Bannon has been arguing how most people have been reduced to serfs. The party of Davos, Bannon’s catchy name for a global elite, benefits enormously from the liquidity of central banks, the impunity of big banks and obscene asset price bubbles. The young, “the deplorables” and “the little guys” are now frozen out of the system. They have few prospects of work, little chance to get their feet on the property ladder and minimal opportunities for upward social mobility.

Reich concurs with Bannon. In his tour de force for , Reich argues that “big tech has ushered in a second Gilded Age.” He points out that how “America’s Gilded Age of the late 19th century” led to “a raft of innovations — railroads, steel production, oil extraction.” However, Reich also cautions that this age “culminated in mammoth trusts owned by ‘robber barons’ who used their wealth and power to drive out competitors and corrupt American politics.” He worries that phenomenon is repeating itself.

Reich rightly observes, “Facebook and Google dominate advertising. They’re the first stops for many Americans seeking news. Apple dominates smartphones and laptop computers. Amazon is now the first stop for a third of all American consumers seeking to buy anything.” This means that most, if not all, small players get wiped out in this new winners-take-all economy.

As per Reich, this concentration of power is leading to “two big problems.”

First, it is stifling innovation. The rate of formation of new job-creating businesses has halved in the US since 2004. Why should anyone start something, live frugally and struggle when life in big tech has food cooked by chefs, fancy yoga classes and high six-figure salaries? Also, big tech has “sweeping patents, data, growing networks and dominant platforms,” not to mention expensive lawyers, unlimited pockets and oligopolistic, if not monopolistic, tendencies.

Second, Reich argues that big tech has too much information, too much money and too much power. Already, Facebook has employed a “political opposition research firm to discredit critics,” he says. The Berkeley professor asks, “How long will it be before Facebook uses its own data and platform against critics? Or before potential critics are silenced even by the possibility?”

Incidentally, this author has repeatedly made the same point as Bannon and Reich. In an article published in 2016, the author contended that the “inverse relationship between income inequality and social mobility—a phenomenon that has become known as the “Great Gatsby” curve—has come to define the US.” As inequalities in income, wealth, health, education et al. keep waxing and opportunities for social mobility keep falling, America is fast becoming “a society of tsars and serfs.”

WAITING FOR NEW TEDDY ROOSEVELTS

Bannon may be reviled and vilified, but he is bold and brilliant. Now that he is out of the White House, he has been proposing innovative solutions to some intractable problems. Earlier this month, Bannon appeared at the and argued that bankers who blew up the global financial system in 2007-08 should face criminal prosecution. When asked about big tech, Bannon declared, “Facebook should be broken up. Google should be broken up. We should take the data and drop it down to a public trust.”

Reich once served Clinton, who is infamous for ties to Wall Street. Now, the professor has parted ways with his former political master. In his article on big tech, Reich describes how the US fought back against the robber barons. He recounts how Teddy Roosevelt used antitrust laws to bust railroad trusts and John D. Rockefeller’s Standard Oil. The US Supreme Court backed Roosevelt and the rest is history. Reich argues. “It is time to use antitrust again.” He makes the case for breaking up “hi-tech behemoths, or at least require they make their proprietary technology and data publicly available and share their platforms with smaller competitors.”

Reich acknowledges that it might not be politically feasible to resurrect antitrust right now. Republicans rather like big business. Democrats get a lot of cash from big tech with progressive candidates collecting nearly $1 billion for the recent midterms. In a society where the worth of a human being is measured in dollar terms, both parties are scared of big tech. More importantly, the vast majority of people are addicted to products of big tech and do not realize the extent of their serfdom.

Yet Bannon and Reich, iconic figures of the right and the left, are the vanguard of a popular backlash about to happen. A number of people are starting to resent their serfdom bitterly. They intuitively realize that markets collapse when masters own all assets and indebted serfs can merely sell labor for a pittance, that too if they are lucky. Politics collapses too because the gulf between the haves and have-nots becomes too deep and too wide.

It would be foolish to argue that big tech is in danger today. It holds the commanding heights of the world economy. Yet the sentiment against it is growing. Countries are worrying about their sovereignty. Citizens are worrying about privacy. Journalists are worrying about survival. And small businesses are worrying about staying solvent. Not only Americans, but also others are aching for new Teddy Roosevelts who will take on big tech and break its back on a barrel.

The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect 51�Թ�’s editorial policy.

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For several years, Facebook was celebrated on Wall Street and the media for achieving the American dream. It succeeded in imposing itself as both a virtual and virtuous monopoly, despite its original motto of “Move Fast and Break Things.” People saw it as virtuous because, free of charge, it opened up a channel of communication that hadn’t existed before.

Virtual monopoly has become the implicit ideal of modern businesses competing in global markets. One of the keys to achieving it is to create the illusion that your company is just an underdog that made it to the top by its own efforts in a marketplace that is still ready to reward the next underdog. But once a company gets to the top, it will inevitably employ all its resources to defend the perception consumers have of it as a dominant player whose virtues make it an attractive choice in what still appears to be an open marketplace.

Facebook has become an example, not of “too big to fail,” but of “too big not to use its massive resources to stifle critics.” Slate the latest Facebook scandal: “The New York Times had reported in a bombshell investigation the week before that the company hired Definers to create media narratives linking anti-Facebook protestors to liberal billionaire George Soros and criticizing competitors for unsavory business practices.”

Here is today’s 3D definition:��

Narrative:

Either a real story or fake news, or something in between

Contextual note

Facebook has been under investigation for providing the channels for fake news that turned the 2016 presidential election in Donald Trump’s favor. This has had a disastrous effect on the image of a company that had achieved a virtual monopoly as the unique and universal digital meeting place for likeminded people.

But Facebook is more than just a potential vector of fake news from unknown sources. As the advocacy Freedom from Facebook claims, it goes well beyond its declared mission of connecting people and assumes the power, based on its own commercial interest, of deciding “the news that billions of people around the world see every day.” It also “buys up or bankrupts potential competitors to protect its monopoly, killing innovation and choice.” It hoards data, encourages addictive behavior and “serves up everything about us to its true customers — virtually anyone willing to pay for the ability to convince us to buy, do, or believe something.”

This is not fake news, but a description of how Facebook’s current business model is structured to work. That may not have been the model Mark Zuckerberg had in mind when he created Facebook or even when it began to dominate the marketplace, but that is the machine it has become — like all machines, a prisoner of its own systemic logic. Personal or ethical intentions on the part of its leaders, assuming they existed, could not and cannot change that logic.

The best demonstration of the systemic nature of the machine is the initiative Facebook took to “create a media narrative,” maligning Freedom from Facebook by invoking the negative image of Soros promoted by the anti-Semitic far right to call into question the integrity of its critic. This was a true example of “fake news,” as in its analysis of the real backers of Freedom for Facebook, who are not — as their message seems to imply — simply grassroots Facebook users, but a network of organized activists. An example of fighting fire with fire.

Historical note

Monopolies got a bad name during the presidency of “trust buster” Theodore Roosevelt, which was only partially redeemed by the resounding success of the board game Monopoly, demonstrating the ambiguous attitudes Americans have always had toward monopolies. In US culture, people adore two things that often become contradictory: the underdog and unchallenged success.

Despite the belief in the ideal attributed to Adam Smith of capitalism as a system founded on the principle of competitiveness and equal opportunity, the natural trend of unfettered capitalism is toward monopoly. Even when monopoly is forbidden as a result of government regulation, business strategy in modern capitalism strives toward monopoly as its ultimate objective. The recent trendy concept of “” is precisely that: a clever (i.e., devious) way of achieving monopoly without infringing the law. Professors W. Chan Kim and Renee Mauborgne launched the idea in a , whose wisdom is summed up in the title and subtitle: Blue Ocean Strategy: How to Create Uncontested Market Space and Make Competition Irrelevant.

That is what Facebook achieved: domination of the blue ocean, where competition became effectively irrelevant. What the authors don’t describe is how blue ocean success leads to the defensive instinct to stifle criticism by any means available. Facebook is of course a special case because unlike Amazon or Home Depot, the social media network is a vector for narrative, including its own fake news.

*[In the age of Oscar Wilde and Mark Twain, another American wit, the journalist Ambrose Bierce, produced a series of satirical definitions of commonly used terms, throwing light on their hidden meanings in real discourse. Bierce eventually collected and published them as a book,��, in 1911. We have shamelessly appropriated his title in the interest of continuing his wholesome pedagogical effort to enlighten generations of readers of the news.]

The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect 51�Թ�’s editorial policy.

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Instagram co-founders Kevin Systrom and Mike Krieger are resigning amid reports of rising tension with parent company Facebook, a decision that ends their six-year relationship with the social media giant and fuels speculation about the future of the popular photo-sharing app.

The founders sold their fledging app to Facebook in 2012 for nearly $1 billion and stayed on — Systrom as chief executive and Krieger as chief technical officer — while Facebook transformed the platform into a mega-success and one of its main sources of advertising revenue. According to Bloomberg News, Instagram grew from 30 million registered users when it was acquired to 1 billion monthly users in 2018. The media outlet in June estimated Instagram’s worth at more than $100 billion.

While Systrom, 34, and Krieger, 32, have not commented publicly on their reasons for leaving, they said in a statement that they want to take some time off and regroup: “Building new things requires that we step back, understand what inspires us and match that with what the world needs; that’s what we plan to do.”

Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg also issued a statement praising the founders’ talents and leadership, but he made no mention of the reported clashes over changes to the product.

Knowledge@Wharton invited��, Wharton professor of legal studies and business ethics, and Jennifer Golbeck, an information studies professor and director of the Social Intelligence Lab at the University of Maryland, to discuss the resignation on the��. They also looked ahead to what might happen next for Facebook, which is dealing with����and��. The following are five key points from the conversation.

Promises Are Made to Be Broken

It’s not uncommon for founders to leave in the months or years after an acquisition as their creative control deteriorates and product vision shifts. The business landscape is littered with examples, including previous resignations at Facebook. Zuckerberg purchased messaging platform WhatsApp in 2014 and retained founding member Jan Koum, who also joined Facebook’s board of directors. But Koum announced in April 2018 he was leaving amid unconfirmed reports of conflict over the direction of the company.

“Facebook gets in there, and they promise to leave them alone and let them do their thing, then Facebook eventually starts meddling with them and trying to make them Facebook-like,” Golbeck said. “If you’ve built this thing and really have a vision for it as something different than Facebook, that can be disheartening. And that’s what we’ve seen now for the second time.”

She said the departure of Systrom and Krieger wasn’t much of a surprise, considering how Facebook changed Instagram “in ways that nobody really liked.” For example, the Instagram founders were proud that they did not include a three-line “hamburger menu” on the app, but Facebook later added it.

“On the one hand, that’s a little thing,” Golbeck said. “On the other hand, if you are guaranteed that you have control over your app and Facebook’s just going to own you, then they start messing around with things like that or throwing Facebook notifications into Instagram and kind of ruining the experience that you’ve created, I’m not at all surprised that that frustration reached a boiling point and led us to this spot.”

Werbach said most founders have a creative drive and entrepreneurial spirit that simply doesn’t go away because of an acquisition. Ambition often leads them to seek the next thing in their professional lives.

“We shouldn’t make too much of these executives leaving because the reality is, the vast majority of the time when founders get bought, eventually they leave those acquiring companies because they want to be entrepreneurs,” he said. “They want to run small, interesting companies. They get bored when this thing is the same thing week after week or they’re in a huge organization. So, that’s not that shocking. The timing is such that anything that happens around Facebook is going to get scrutiny and be controversial.”

The real issue going forward is competition, he said. Instagram has 1 billion users and Facebook has 2.2 billion, so where do they go from there?

“There’s no way to segment the market,” Werbach said. “There are not that many 2 or 3-billion-people markets in the world. There are only 7 or 8 billion people on the planet, so everyone’s going after the same things.”

As Always, Money Talks

Werbach suspects that Systrom and Krieger had no financial reason to stay at Facebook. The pair founded Instagram in 2010 as a location check-in app, working out of a humble office in San Francisco. The deal with Zuckerberg made them instantly wealthy.

“I think they understood what they were getting into, getting bought by Facebook. A billion dollars is a lot of money,” Werbach said, reminding observers that money is at the heart of any business transaction.

“It’s part of this larger maturation process that we all need to stop thinking about these companies as somehow different, inherently, from normal businesses,” he said. “Mark Zuckerberg really is idealistic. These people really do believe they are changing the world for the better. But, ultimately, you’re going to make a business decision. You’re going to do things with a financial incentive, and that’s true for the people buying and the people selling.”

Golbeck agreed. “When there’s $1 billion on the table, I think they have tried to negotiate the right agreement so they could keep building the thing that they love and not have it just become Facebook,” she said. “That works for a while and despite the agreements, it doesn’t last forever.”

Facebook Is a Ruthless Competitor

Many social networks have come and gone, and nascent Instagram could easily have been one of them. But Zuckerberg saw its appeal, and he went in for the kill.

“Instagram was a company that could have been a very serious competitor to Facebook. It didn’t look like it at the time. It was tiny, but Facebook bought it … and then built it up into something big,” Werbach said. “It’s just inherent in the logic of a company like Facebook that is so relentlessly focused on growth, that you can’t avoid the kind of meddling that we’re talking about. Again, if you don’t want to be part of that, then you can’t really change Facebook from the inside.”

By their very nature, technology companies must evolve quickly, so they are constantly searching for the next big thing. When Instagram began, smartphones were just getting started — along with selfies. Facebook began falling out of favor with the younger generation, which flocked to photo and video-based apps such as Instagram and Snapchat. For the professors, it makes sense that Facebook wanted to acquire Instagram, much in the same way that Google wanted to purchase YouTube.

“Allowing Google to buy YouTube also seemed like, ‘Oh my God, they’re crazy! Why are they spending $1.5 billion on this little video-sharing site?’” Werbach said. “It was hugely important to Google as Google, and to Google in terms of preventing certain kinds of competition.”

What Happens If Facebook and Instagram Merge?

While Facebook and Instagram still maintain their separate identities, some of their functions are starting to become similar, such as the “stories” feature that allows users to create video and photo collections on either platform.

The professors say convergence is somewhat inevitable in business.

“The issue is, will what comes next be something fundamentally different, or will it be the same kind of platform that’s making the same kinds of trade-offs and focusing in on the same kinds of techniques to just ramp up engagement at all costs, which is what has led to some of the problems, some of the controversies?” Werbach said. “I think Instagram as part of Facebook can’t escape from that, even though it’s a different platform. It’s going to essentially converge with Facebook.”

While Golbeck thinks it was smart for Facebook to acquire Instagram, she doesn’t think merging the platforms would work. If they become too similar, there is no reason for people to use both.

Golbeck added that she’s often asked to predict the future of social media — not an easy task. Eight or nine years ago, she was predicting that people would want to separate their activities into different applications with different contexts, “because they don’t want one behemoth of Facebook where everybody they know is looking at everything they do.”

She believes that trend will continue. “Merging into the main Facebook, to just have it be another feature, is the thing that upset the WhatsApp founders. It upset the Instagram founders. It upset the users,” she said. “I’m not sure Facebook is going to be successful if they push that as their main strategy.”

Don’t Forget About AT&T

The headlines about Facebook’s business transactions underscore a looming issue for the social network: the potential for federal regulation as the company grows even bigger. Facebook is valued at more than $500 billion. But regulation isn’t just a threat for Facebook. Alphabet, which is the parent company of Google, is closing in on��, and Amazon became the second US company to reach that mark in September. The amassed financial and technological power of these companies reminds Werbach of what happened to AT&T. In perhaps the nation’s best-known case of antitrust law, the federal government broke up the communications monopoly in 1982.

“Obviously, it’s hard to make any kind of policy predictions, given the current environment in Washington,” Werbach said. “Although this issue of antitrust is one that crosses over party lines. It’s one where Trump himself has been very aggressive in seeking oversight of the technology companies, for example.”

It would be easier for policymakers to prevent mergers from happening to begin with, but it would not be unthinkable for them to try to break up big companies in the name of competition. The professors said they also expect policymakers will come up with new mechanisms to encourage competition, rather than just regulations to block acquisitions.

Facebook’s recent troubles over data security have increased regulatory attention on tech companies, which are being accused of pursuing profits over safeguarding user information. In April, Zuckerberg testified before Congress to answer questions about how Cambridge Analytica was able to interfere with the 2016 presidential elections using data from Facebook. Facebook recently disclosed that the personal information of almost 50 million users��, the largest in its 14-year history.

Golbeck said both Facebook and Google are starting to get antitrust “pushback” in Europe, and she believes the United States will also ramp up pressure.

“Their issues are more on the privacy side in Europe, but we’ve certainly seen that,” she said. “We saw it with Microsoft in the 1990s and 2000s. It will be interesting to see how that plays out here, especially as we hopefully move towards the space where we get some privacy regulation, or some regulation around personal data holding, because I think that is going to show just how centralized the personal data is in the Facebook space … and how much influence that has over the industry of online advertising.”

*[This article was originally published by , a partner institution of 51�Թ�.]��

The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect 51�Թ�’s editorial policy.

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Six months after the Cambridge Analytica scandal became public, Business Insider a new security breach due to a feature of Facebook that gave hackers access to millions of profiles. Shona Ghosh, the author of the article, opines that “Facebook’s latest security blunder is a disgrace” and suggests that the company could potentially “have many billions wiped off its value.”

Here is today’s 3D definition:

Blunder:

The polite, euphemistic name given to a fatally flawed act initially undertaken by a supposedly reputable institution to advance its own interests, while consciously running a risk of massive damage or destruction affecting those whom it is intended to serve. But, hey, what did you expect? That’s the way businesses and governments get things done, isn’t it?

Contextual note

Business Insider attributes this blunder, very much like those that came it, “to the company’s early, hacky approach to growth and its apparently boundless greed.” This sounds like a combination of willing neglect and amoral (i.e., not consciously immoral) ambition, an attitude associated with the Silicon Valley ethos. This description seems anodyne until we reach the conclusion and final recommendation: “The company doesn’t deserve billions of users’ trust, and the only way to effect change is to leave in droves.”

In an acerbic column at 51�Թ�, Atul Singh compares Facebook’s methods to those of the British East India Company in the 19th century. He says, “Opium was the drug of choice for the British East India Company. Social attention is what billions crave today” who feed their habit through Facebook. But the assumption that people in the throes of addiction can decide to “leave in droves” simply because their trust has been betrayed underestimates the force of the addiction.

Without the invention of methadone, would curing heroin addiction for many people be the reality it has become? Do we need something similar for Facebook? It may not be coincidental that the creator of the internet, Tim Berners-Lee, has to “upend the World Wide Web,” to deliver it from the clutches of the corporate mastodons by launching an alternative system that will change the rules of the game on data collection and privacy. Fast Company defines Berners-Lee’s ambition as “to decentralize the web and take back power from the forces that have profited from centralizing it. In other words, it’s game on for Facebook, Google, Amazon.”

No one is better placed morally to get this job done than Berners-Lee, who — violating all the principles of “good capitalist judgment” — designed the World Wide Web and then simply launched it for everyone to use, like a toll-free road. But taxpayers pay for their toll-free roads. And the taxpayers of the web end up paying the toll to the likes of Facebook, Google and Amazon in the form of data and access to advertisers. Parodying Mark Zuckerberg and the masters he hopes to “upend,” Berners-Lee made his position clear: “The intent is world domination.”

The app will be called Inrupt and uses a decentralized technology called Solid. The result is “like a mashup of Google Drive, Microsoft Outlook, Slack, Spotify, and WhatsApp.”

All the data is located in an online personal data store, well beyond the reach of anyone named Mark Zuckerberg, Jeff Bezos or Tim Cook. Glasswing, the venture capital firm backing Inrupt, explains that “individuals and enterprises have control of their data and data is freed from silos, able to be linked across apps and products.” And it’s the owner of the data who will do the linking… and the blundering, if it comes to that, without affecting millions of other users.

Historical note

The notion of blunder has been used in many contexts, often with understatement. Chris Hedges, one of the most cutting and honest critics of the US establishment and its foreign policy, showed himself far too generous, kind and forgiving , earlier this year, “The endless wars in the Middle East are the biggest strategic blunder in American history and herald the death of the empire.”

Should wars that have cost officially (with another $21 trillion for), destabilized an entire region of the globe, provoked massive, tragic waves of migration with the Middle East and Europe, and continue to engage huge military resources be called a blunder or a crime? To call them a crime would require the existence of a tribunal capable of judging them, which of course doesn’t exist in the minds of Americans, even if it does in reality (it’s call the International Criminal Court or ICC).

Everyone has the right to blunder, eventually be forgiven for it and then try to do better. There is, however, one prominent public speaker who never uses a word like blunder: Donald Trump. He prefers to use terms like “con job,” which he has trotted out to describe the Democrats’ criticism of his “outstanding,” “wonderful” candidate for the Supreme Court, Brett Kavanaugh. The Atlantic analyzed his and pointed out his predilection for this idea: “[P]erhaps the most significant word of all for Trump was a three-letter one: con. More than a dozen times he used it in the phrases con artist, con job, or con game.”

In Trump’s universe everyone is trying to con everyone else, which tells us something about himself. For him, there are no blunders, just failed con jobs.

*[In the age of Oscar Wilde and Mark Twain, another American wit, the journalist Ambrose Bierce, produced a series of satirical definitions of commonly used terms, throwing light on their hidden meanings in real discourse. Bierce eventually collected and published them as a book,, in 1911. We have shamelessly appropriated his title in the interest of continuing his wholesome pedagogical effort to enlighten generations of readers of the news.]��

The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect 51�Թ�’s editorial policy.

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Mark Zuckerberg finally that Facebook looks less like a corporation and more like a government. He even appears to be acting on this new acceptance. Facebook recently announced an with social scientists to develop new ethical frameworks for research and suggested the need for third parties to make the company’s most contentious normative calls. Admitting that he runs a quasi-government is the claim that Zuckerberg is a king, running the nation-state Rebecca MacKinnon famously called “.”

Zuckerberg’s problem is that his company’s dominance across national borders makes him less like a king and more like an emperor. The contradictory ways Facebook deals with formal governments is leaving Zuckerberg vulnerable to attacks that ordinary monarchs can easily ignore. The standard struggles of running an empire are now Facebook’s existential threats.

People generally argue that Zuckerberg is the king of a nation-state for complementary reasons. First, the company is so dominant in its industry that it de facto exercises control over the entire social media landscape, giving it sovereign-like control over its users. Second, the remarkable of the publicly traded entity gives Zuckerberg a veto over any major decisions. With no real checks and balances from fellow shareholders, and only public opinion an occasional bulwark, Zuckerberg starts to rival France’s Sun King.

Finally, although technically subservient to rules of formal governments like the United States, Facebook is often left in complete control due to limited political will and the inability of regulators to keep up with technological innovation. Assuming Facebook is beyond government regulation, a key part of Silicon Valley mythology, is the most debatable aspect of Zuckerberg’s king status and is where the analogy starts falling apart.

Government Whims

Watching the recent congressional hearings, you could have easily forgotten that Zuckerberg’s company operates in a plethora of countries outside the United States, governed by their own rules and jurisdiction. In some cases, the company is free to do as it pleases, like in the Philippines or Indonesia, where and, in other instances, like with the European Union, Facebook alters its rules in line with government interests.

Although Facebook has repeatedly escaped American regulations, it is becoming further indebted to foreign government whims. While formally banned in just two countries, Facebook has been or blocked in a range of jurisdictions, from to , which we would assume have limited leverage on the multi-billion-dollar behemoth. Most of these shut downs occur when Facebook inadvertently undercuts the ruling party. With the company’s giant global user base, it needs to bargain with governments over the rules of the platform to maintain access to consumers. These bargains, or what users see as “terms of service,” regulate what data can be collected, how much can be sent abroad and even the nature of what may be shared through the platform. The bargains generally vary by country.

Zuckerberg is certainly not bound by shareholders, and such raw control is a prerequisite for both kings and emperors. He does, however, rely on negotiating heterogeneous outcomes with governments in order to govern his far-flung, foreign subjects. Whether he likes it or not, Zuckerberg is engaging in a divide-and-rule strategy to maximize his company’s economic gains. In other words, he is following the fundamental , with Facebook as the hub, giving its local brokers (national governments), the spokes, discordant deals and quid-pro-quos to keep both parties content and in power.

When we shift from thinking of Facebook as a company, or a nation-state, to an empire, it highlights some of the unique challenges Zuckerberg faces. When speaking to American politicians or consumers, Facebook labels itself the bastion of liberal, enlightenment values; claiming openness and debate via the Facebook platform can cure us of all our ills. But its love for openness is regularly providing illiberal governments means to spread mass violence, like in , while it famously surrendered masses of personal information to its ultimate overlord, the . Not to mention the blatant contradiction of telling advertisers it is the holy grail of consumer control despite simultaneously denying its ability to influence voting decisions. What the company does, and how its platform is used, regularly contradicts its purported liberal values, and it’s struggling to keep the story straight.

In any imperial system, subjects and brokers value consistency, but governing often requires exceptions and strategic side payments. According to a host of academic work, one of the key threats to an emperor’s legitimacy comes from the details of these heterogeneous deals with local rulers becoming exposed. For Zuckerberg, exposure could lead his local brokers —��national governments — to lose faith in the deals Facebook has already struck. As while studying the US’s informal military basing empire, “When audiences perceive central authorities as engaging in inconsistent practices they may come to view central authorities commitments as less credible or to believe that central authorities are actively committed to policies inconsistent with local preferences.”

Game Changer

When engaging in multi-vocal signaling, sending different messages depending on the audience —��as Facebook has been forced to do — an imperial ruler eventually suffers costs for such hypocrisy. The United States tried to balance its international liberal agenda while negotiating military deals with autocratic regimes in Uzbekistan and Kyrgyzstan. This lead to the former kicking them out in fear of being assaulted by American values, giving the latter greater leverage to demand a hundred-fold increase in rent from the United States. Facebook’s existential angst stems from its hypocrisy becoming increasingly apparent, leading to a similar loss of control over its local brokers.

In the United States, the fact that Edward Snowden exposed mass government surveillance aided by America’s tech giants seems to have changed little, but nothing could be further from the truth in Europe. The European Union has always had stronger privacy regulation than its American counterparts due a series of leading bureaucrats to build up substantial capacity for technological regulation. Just as Snowden released the surveillance treasure trove, the European Union was upgrading its privacy rules through the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR). Many American companies considered the GDPR an opportunity to water down the regulations that had been hindering their European development. Hiring a battery of former EU regulators as their lobbyists, Silicon Valley was succeeding, until .

As the GDPR moved into the public spotlight, European civil society, armed with the details of Facebook’s hypocrisy, was able to strike back. Using American corporate influence as their own rhetorical weapon in the lobbying fight, consumers advocates like Jan Albrecht turned the GDPR into a substantial set of gains for European consumers. The regulation includes increasing penalties for corporate data breaches, standardizing the rules for all EU countries, thereby preventing tech giants from evading rules by setting up shop in countries with weak regulators like Ireland, and even forcing all European data transferred outside the EU to be governed by the GDPR. Facebook’s bargain with one host, the US government, unraveled its deal with its other biggest local broker, the European Union.

As have repeatedly pointed out, the game hardly stopped with the GDPR. Hypocrisy keeps biting Facebook. The details of the surveillance operation were used by Austrian lawyer and privacy advocate Max Schrems to undo one of the key bargains that makes Facebook’s business model possible. Schrems argued that American companies handing over data to the US government was a breach of European law, violating the Safe Harbor agreement that governed EU-US data transfers. Companies and the courts are still dealing with the aftermath.

Safe Harbor was replaced by the so-called Privacy Shield, but Facebook’s behavior under the new stop-gap measure was also deemed illegal, this time in . The measure was sent for review to the European Court of Justice, putting a core piece of Facebook’s business under threat. The key point is that, again, the asymmetric deals Facebook has with various governments are being weaponized by civil advocates to curb Zuckerberg’s extensive power.

Blatant Contradictions

Under American political fire, that his company is going to adopt the GDPR for its US consumers. But only a few days later, surfaced that they are going to move the processing of African, Latin American and Middle Eastern consumer data from its current port in the EU to the United States. This would allow Facebook to avoid the new GDPR rules so that it can continue to exploit its less mobilized subjects. As consumers and civil society groups learn more about these blatant contradictions between Facebook’s image and practice, it is going to only increase the pressure on Facebook to choose between its values and profit.

Facebook has over 2 billion users worldwide, a large fraction of whom think the company is the internet. Its valuation, currently hovering around $500 billion, is larger than the GDP of most of the countries it operates in. Facebook’s size and geographical reach, and Zuckerberg’s power, cannot be underestimated, but governments are waking up and capitalizing on the chaos created by a company that believes in moving fast and breaking things with little regard for the consequences.

recently detailed yet another abhorrent use of Facebook’s platform to incite conflict between religious groups in Sri Lanka. Its role in spreading violence against the Rohingya in Myanmar is tragic, and its (mis)use in the 2016 US presidential election barely needs repeating. Facebook is finally recognizing that the vision Zuckerberg had of a frictionless, connected world was at the very least remarkably flawed, and yet the company has done little to react to these well-documented abuses.

If it does react, just like any imperial power it risks being thrown out by the local brokers that are benefitting from inaction. If it doesn’t, civil society actors, be it in the afflicted countries, the EU or even in the United States, could rise up together. These stories are going to be shared through Facebook, only making the hypocrisy more visible. If Mark Zuckerberg wants to keep connecting people, he is going to have to start acting on his liberal philosophy, which will almost certainly come with economic costs. Facebook will need to renegotiate ties with, or even get kicked out by, some governments, but it is the only way to ensure the long-term viability of the empire.

*[Young Professionals in Foreign Policy is a of 51�Թ�.]

The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect 51�Թ�’s editorial policy.

Photo Credit:����/

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Recent “breaking news” coverage of the Mueller investigation of Trump and his cabal and everything Stormy leaves the impression that lawyers of every stripe have their tentacles in all aspects of the sordid Trump drama. And just when you tire of legal insight from actual lawyers, up pop the non-lawyers to offer their “legal” insight, including the almost daily fountain of lies from the White House Press Office and the occasional “legal” tidbit from Trump himself.

Next up is the Zuckerberg performance before Congress. Three things were abundantly clear: 1) Mark Zuckerberg listened to his wife and got a suit to wear; 2) Zuckerberg listened to real lawyers about never admitting anything of legal import after you apologize for being a way too trusting type of guy; and 3) virtually none of the senators and representatives took the time to learn anything from their tech-savvy staffers before embarrassing themselves in front of the cameras.

As if this isn’t enough, the speaker of the House of Representatives has decided not to run for re-election so he can spend more time with the family he says he has neglected because he cared so much about us.��This is the same guy who led the charge against access to meaningful health care for millions of other people’s family members and designed a massive corporate tax cut that largely favors wealthy individuals at the expense of the infrastructure, health care and education investments so critical to the rest of us. I guess he values his family a lot, but doesn’t want to waste any more of his time making life “better” for other people’s families.

Oh, and just to complete the picture, there is the rogues gallery of cabinet officials who seem to believe that America is so lucky to have each of them on the job that we should overlook their ethical shortcomings.��With Scott Pruitt at the Environmental Protection Agency at the head of the class, there is a cascading sense that even Trump can’t believe that his swamp is filled with so many petty thieves who only serve themselves while shinning a bright light on Trump’s ethical void.

There is a common thread in all of this depressing imagery — the morally blank stare from venal “leaders” as they fleece a nation unwilling to gather itself to collectively demand something better.

Americans seem unable to perceive the peril to the vitality of the nation as a whole. But, at the least, they ought to be able to understand that the public institutions at the core of the nation’s governance are under attack and failing. Meanwhile, as the Facebook saga indicates, corporate behemoths rise to fight for themselves with neither regard for, nor interest in, the public good.

So we are adrift with no life raft in sight.��Trump will fall before long, but already weakened public institutions will be slow to respond to calm the storm.��Practiced political paralysis is likely to ensure an uneven response at best and a dangerous drift to violence at worst. Those looking to find solace in Mike Pence will find a moral midget enthralled with his own rapturous glow.

With key players already lawyered up and a public dumbing itself down by feeding on lies and false narratives, it is hard to see how this ends well. I have been among those suggesting the likelihood that Americans will awaken only when the nation hits some unspecified rock bottom. I now think that we have hit that bottom, so this would a mighty fine time to collectively smarten up. There isn’t enough time to educate too many more folks, nor is there a collective willingness to be educated.

Even the public spectacle of the fired former FBI director, James Comey, engaged in a personal food fight with Trump doesn’t seem to have awakened those who have remained silent for so long.��This is in part because Trump tweets and the press chirps, each avoiding seriously confronting the significant conclusions that Comey has reached.��As a former high-level public servant, a Republican and a lawyer trained to collect and analyze evidence, his willingness to provide public testimony has put on the record what so many others are too cowardly to say: The president of the United States is and a pathological liar who is corrupting the very institutions he is charged with managing.

Wake Up, America

So, the present challenge is how to awaken the nation from its dumbed down slumber and quickly galvanize an awakened populace to forcefully respond. Normally this takes leadership, but I can’t find any.

The most hopeful sign that I see is a growing awareness among progressive activists that this time around it is time to put our litmus tests on hold and find candidates who say they are Democrats and can win in the coming November elections. Democratic Party control of the Congress is not a choice any longer; it is an imperative.

It can only be hoped that women of conscience will continue to express their fear and loathing of the Republican agenda in general and Trump in particular.��Whatever it takes, these women must lead the march to the polls.

Meanwhile, the kids from Parkland and the movement they have birthed can’t take a summer vacation.��Every day, in every way they can, they and their young allies must work hard on voter registration of the many young lives that matter in every state in the nation, but with a clear and well-organized focus on districts with vulnerable Republican Party representatives.��Then, through astute use of social media, they have to deliver those votes, their parent’s votes, and the votes of the millennials who have been galvanized by their younger brethren.

If somehow the women lead and the kids vote, there should be enough additional caring men and still-committed baby boomers to sweep the trash out of Washington this November.��I, for one, will happily volunteer to help remove the resulting sewage from Washington’s beloved Potomac River.

*[A version of this article was also featured on the author’s blog, .]

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A tepid band of senators had a go at putting monopolist Mark Zuckerberg on the hot seat, without actually knowing why they were doing so. Their ignorance was manifest in the questioning, which ranged between fawning admiration of a successful monopoly (Orin Hatch) to annoyance with popup ads promoting chocolate (Bill Nelson), apparently even more annoying because he loves chocolate.

One , demonstrated some awareness of the real scandal of Facebook: It is a monopoly and acts like a monopoly.

Here is today’s 3D definition:

Monopoly:

1) A popular board game in which players purchase and exploit real estate in order to ruin the other players

2) The fundamental psychological driving force of the capitalist economy, a game in which entrepreneurs dream of being alone in their marketplace, protected from competition, and spend most of their waking lives struggling to deal with competition

Contextual note

At one moment of the questioning, Graham and Zuckerberg had the following exchange:

Graham: “You don’t think you have a monopoly?”

Zuckerberg: (long pause) “Ah, it certainly doesn’t feel like that to me!”

In US culture, “feeling” often takes priority over knowing. Zuckerberg gave a superficially clever response that provoked not only the audience’s laughter, but also Graham’s capitulation when he responded, “OK, so it doesn’t” and then altered the line of questioning.

However successful Zuckerberg was in dodging the question of monopoly, his words may come back to haunt him. Because by the same token his statement could be taken to be an admission, since he denied the feeling but not the fact.

Before giving up the floor, Graham showed that his respect for the success and power of Facebook was equal to Orin Hatch’s, as he requested that Zuckerberg be the one to propose the regulations Facebook will be bound by.

Historical note

Theodore Roosevelt made his reputation as a heroic president by going after what he considered abusive monopolies and trusts and not backing down. When that he was being “treated like a common criminal,” Roosevelt told him the question would be settled in the courts under the 1890 outlawing monopolies. Despite his reputation as a muckraker, Roosevelt was quite comfortable with monopolies that he believed were not using their privileged position to do evil things, which could explain why Google had the prescience to proclaim as its motto back in 2000, “Don’t be evil.” In contrast, until 2014 was “move fast and break things.”

Bill Clinton’s Justice Department successfully sued Microsoft for monopolistic practices, but after appeal and various transactions, the initial decision to break Microsoft in two was never implemented. Google, Apple, Facebook and Amazon are, in practice, successful monopolies and exercise disproportionate power over their marketplace. But they only become vulnerable to anti-trust enforcement when something scandalous happens. The Teddy Roosevelt standard still applies: If you want to keep your monopoly, show us that your hands are clean. Senator Nelson expressed it perfectly: “I think you are genuine. I got that sense in conversing with you. You want to do the right thing.”

Emily Stewart in in the Senate hearing. Referring to Graham’s and Dick Durbin’s attempt to home in on serious issues, she said, “Both lines of inquiry might have been strong had they been sustained.”

The hearing leaves the overall impression that the Washington elite is more embarrassed than concerned by the uproar about a powerful business doing what it can to succeed and make more money. As if attacking it amounted to undermining “the American way.” Most of the senators claimed to be relaying the questions of their constituents rather investigating a scandal that could have an impact on the health of the nation, the integrity of democracy and the future of the national economy. Zuckerberg may seem like an outsider from within the Beltway, but he’s certainly seen as a bon fide member of the same oligarchic political and economic family as the senators belong to.

The following day, members of the House of Representatives had a go at Zuckerberg, . Congressman John Sarbanes asked: “Facebook is becoming a self-regulated superstructure for political discourse. Are we, the American people, going to regulate the political dialogue or are you, Mark Zuckerberg?” Kathy Castor spoke of “a devil’s bargain.”

The Guardian reveals Zuckerberg’s ultimate answer to the real problems signaled at the hearing: “his belief that artificial intelligence was needed to help police activity on Facebook.”

Human intelligence, which includes moral reasoning, is obviously not enough.

*[In the age of Oscar Wilde and Mark Twain, another American wit, the journalist Ambrose Bierce, produced a series of satirical definitions of commonly used terms, throwing light on their hidden meanings in real discourse. Bierce eventually collected and published them as a book,, in 1911. We have shamelessly appropriated his title in the interest of continuing his wholesome pedagogical effort to enlighten generations of readers of the news.]

The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect 51�Թ�’s editorial policy.

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A sense of history always helps us to understand contemporary phenomena. Wired has published a scathing article on Facebook culture, reminding us of Mark Zuckerberg’s penchant for over the past 14 years. The pattern has been clearly established. He apologizes, though less and less promptly, promises a fix and then waits for the next occasion for a new fix. Could it be an addiction?

Here is today’s 3D definition:

Apology:

A carefully worded strategic statement allowing public personalities to strengthen their image and position in such a way as to increase their ability to get away with more serious mistakes in the future

Contextual note

Here are the apologies listed up until 2013 as reported by the Wired article cited above, and 51�Թ�:

1) “I apologize for any harm done as a result of my neglect to consider how quickly the site would spread and its consequences thereafter.” (2003)

2) “This was a big mistake on our part, and I’m sorry for it. We really messed this one up.” (2004)

3) “Somehow we missed this point with News Feed and Mini-Feed and we didn’t build in the proper privacy controls right away. This was a big mistake on our part, and I’m sorry for it.” (2006)

4) “We simply did a bad job with this release and I apologize for it. I’m not proud of the way we’ve handled this situation and I know we can do better.” (2007)

5) “We just missed the mark. We heard the feedback. There needs to be a simpler way to control your information. In the coming weeks, we will add privacy controls that are much simpler to use” (2010)

6) “Personally, I think the idea that fake news on Facebook, of which it’s a very small amount of the content, influenced the election in any way is a pretty crazy idea.” (2016)

7) “Calling that crazy was dismissive and I regret it. This is too important an issue to be dismissive.” (2017)

8) “This was a breach of trust and I’m sorry we didn’t do more at the time.” (2018)

Note that in number 5, Zuckerberg makes a promise rather than an offering an apology, though it still sounds apologetic, and in number 6 he expresses regret rather than contrition. Perhaps by 2016 he felt he had made one apology too many and that he needed to change his style. That would explain why, after such a major scandal as the one that broke around Cambridge Analytica, it took him five days to make any kind of statement, and the apology initially appeared in the form of an ad — i.e., a professional PR operation.

Historical note

The US has produced a culture of celebrities apologizing, which applies in particular to entertainers and politicians. Here is how in a 2016 article in Salon:

“First there is the collective outrage and consequent shaming from social and traditional media alike. This is followed by the celebrity’s insistence that (a) he or she doesn’t really hold those despicable views and (b) they are genuinely contrite for anyone who may have been offended or hurt by their remarks; and finally, more often than not, the public moves on after having added a metaphorical asterisk next to the reputation and/or legacy of the famous person in question.”

He could have noted other common features, such as saying “that’s not who I am” and volunteering for rehab in very serious cases, such as or or politician .

Zuckerberg’s case is different because his apologies concern not his own acts, but the behavior of the company he founded and controls. It’s also different because he’s a multi-billionaire and belongs to the astronomically wealthy class that normally doesn’t have to apologize because the level of admiration they achieve allows them to brush things off without showing any formal regret. Donald Trump is the brightest (though not the wealthiest) star in that constellation.

Many would say Zuckerberg has more direct power over more people’s lives than Trump, especially as there is no four-year limit on his term of office. That explains why, for many people, this has become, in some ways, a more serious issue than Trump’s lies and shenanigans, while also providing a convenient explanation of how he actually got elected.

Having said that, we now apologize in case we have offended anyone at Facebook or in the 2-billion-strong��Facebook “community,” including its CEO.

*[In the age of Oscar Wilde and Mark Twain, another American wit, the journalist Ambrose Bierce, produced a series of satirical definitions of commonly used terms, throwing light on their hidden meanings in real discourse. Bierce eventually collected and published them as a book,, in 1911. We have shamelessly appropriated his title in the interest of continuing his wholesome pedagogical effort to enlighten generations of readers of the news.]

The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect 51�Թ�’s editorial policy.

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Recent weeks have not been kind to Facebook. Since the over��Cambridge Analytica��erupted in mid-March, the world’s biggest social network has lost $41 billion in market value as investors unfriended it. While Facebook certainly is not the only tech giant that lets marketers mine the data of its users and their friends — and politicians from both parties also����to better target voters — the firm is taking the brunt of the public’s anger, especially after the fake news fiasco.

Federal and state agencies are investigating Facebook. Congress has asked CEO Mark Zuckerberg to testify. A growing group of companies have����on Facebook. Tesla CEO Elon Musk, along with celebrities such as Cher and Will Ferrell, joined the #DeleteFacebook movement and closed their accounts. Nearly 175,000 people have signed a Change.org����asking Facebook to better protect their data and be more transparent. It is arguably the biggest PR crisis the company has ever faced.

How can Facebook regain the public’s trust? Wharton management Professor David Hsu said the social network should deploy a lot more resources to protect user data and think more deeply about the different ways its platform could be abused. But it seems that Facebook has been more concerned with monetizing its mobile platform, especially since it’s a public company. “All the [Wall Street] analysts are saying this is the metric we pay attention to. So it’s not surprising that, up and down, executives are focused on that rather than” safeguarding consumer data.

But it turns out that privacy concerns affect its core product: user content. By not paying attention to this macro-risk, it has cost the company dearly. “This probably reflects on managerial experience,” Hsu said. Zuckerberg’s����is to make many of the decisions himself about the user experience. While a founder-CEO can learn on the job as a company grows, it is critical, however, to recognize one’s strengths and weaknesses. “It’s not just a one-person show,” he said. Founders and leaders need to “be realistic about their domain of expertise and where they need wise counsel.”

What Went Wrong

At the heart of the grievance is that in 2013, a university researcher collected data from 270,000 users who opted to take a personality quiz. At the time, Facebook allowed third parties to collect information about users as well as those of their friends. Thus, the researcher was able to get data on millions of Facebook users without having to ask permission. Facebook����it ended the policy in 2014. A year later, reporters told Facebook that the researcher shared the data with Cambridge Analytica, a UK target marketing firm hired by the Trump campaign. Such sharing without authorization is against Facebook’s policy.

Facebook said it demanded that the researcher and Cambridge Analytica certify that the unauthorized data was deleted, which they did. But in March, journalists said����after all. Facebook, which booted the two parties from its network, said Cambridge Analytica agreed to be audited. Meanwhile, Facebook also moved to����other data controls: Now, friends of users must authorize third parties to collect their information. Developers also must get Facebook’s permission before they can ask users for sensitive information.

On March 29, Facebook executives met with reporters and����to protect the integrity of data, especially those related to elections. The company detailed a series of improvements to better fight foreign interference, remove fake accounts, boost ad transparency and hamper the spread of fake news. “None of us can turn back the clock, but we are all responsible for making sure the same kind of attack on our democracy does not happen again,” said Guy Rosen, vice president of product management. “We are taking our role in that effort very, very seriously.”

Fixing the Problem

Lyle Ungar, professor of computer and information science at the University of Pennsylvania, said Facebook erred in the following: It should not have let organizations collect information on people without their consent, such as a user’s friends, and organizations collecting the data should not be able to sell it without people’s consent; it should have required that political ads be more transparent so people know who is paying for them; it needs to take more responsibility for what third parties do on its platform; and it needs to be more sensitive to how people feel about their data being used in different ways.

, Wharton professor of operations, information and decisions, said Facebook also could take a page from Google in making it easier for users to know what data is captured. “If you log onto your Google profile, you can actually see what they know about you and your interests and you can modify and change it as you see fit,” she said. In addition, Facebook could send out summary statistics about the users’ social graph regularly. “This is what we know about you. These are your friends. This is how your data is shared,” she said. “And maybe you can control that.”

Wharton marketing Professor Ron Berman added that “part of the issue Facebook had is that it went beyond just storing user information. It was collecting and adding additional data to help advertisers target users on Facebook.” The company should have asked users if they wanted their data to be augmented with third-party information and shared with advertisers, he added. Credit card companies, for example, are required to disclose how they share their data, and consumers can opt out of this practice.

While Facebook stands accused in the public discourse of letting content slip in that might have helped elect Trump, Berman is not convinced people are that susceptible. “It is very hard to change someone’s opinion about voting. First, they would need to be undecided voters — and there aren’t that many of those, surveys show. Second, they need to be exposed to only one side of the political spectrum,” he said. But being undecided means the voter will seek different political views, so that means the opposition can also present its information. “I am just not convinced the impact [on the election] has been as big as people claim it was,” he said.

Move Fast and Break Things?

But there is a larger issue to consider than fixing Facebook’s foibles with more privacy controls. Its famous dictum is to “move fast and break things.” But it is so big now — with 2.1 billion users — that breaking things could have wide repercussions. As such, Facebook has to go through “a real cultural shift,” said��, Wharton professor of legal studies and business ethics, on the��.

Werbach compared Facebook’s troubles with Microsoft’s situation in the 1990s under Co-Founder and CEO Bill Gates, when the government sued it for antitrust violations. The company was accused of acting monopolistically by bundling software with its Windows operating system, used by most of the world’s personal computers. Today, Microsoft has learned from its experience. Led by CEO Satya Nadella, it is a “fundamentally different company — not at a product level, but at a cultural level,” he said.

But Werbach also pondered whether a much more drastic change might be needed for Facebook than a culture shift. The company “understands that there are now fundamental questions being asked by users and by governments around the world about not just the specifics of what Facebook did in this case — but also about what Facebook is,” Werbach said. “Is there something inherently problematic in the kind of information platform that Facebook has created? And that’s a fundamental challenge to the company.

“Will Facebook and companies like it — either on their own or being forced by governments — have to fundamentally change their business model?” Werbach asked. “And not even just at the level of what data do they share with third party apps. Will they be forced to give users control of their data? Will they be forced to share their social graph with competitors, as some are calling for in Europe? These would be fundamental changes that would have huge impacts on their business, but they are the kinds of things that go with this basic question about whether the business model is ethical and trustworthy.”

Make Facebook a Public Utility?

Werbach floated the idea that perhaps digital platforms should be regulated as public utilities such as railroads, electricity, communications and broadband. “We have a whole body of law and regulatory oversight based on the idea that these are fundamental infrastructural platforms for society and for public discourse,” he said. The US chose not to strictly regulate digital platforms to let them innovate and disrupt incumbents. “But we’re, I think, long past the point where it makes sense to talk about Comcast as a big, powerful company and not also talk about Facebook and Google as big and powerful companies.”

Wu has another idea: Consider making Facebook a decentralized social network using the blockchain. That means there is no central authority like Facebook making decisions about the network for its users. Rather, users decide what they want to see on the platform, how it operates and how data sharing is handled. She pointed to the open-source Linux operating system — similar to Windows or Mac OS X — as an analogy. Users decide what features to put into the software. And even if Facebook becomes decentralized, it can still make a profit. Linux is free, Wu said, but applications can be built on top of it that make money.

However, the drawback to decentralization is that there could be less incentive for users to keep innovating on new features. Wu noted that even though Linux is free, the dominant system for PCs is still Windows, and it’s Mac OS X for Apple computers. Also, there already are decentralized social networks out there for people who care deeply about privacy — but they haven’t become very popular. “They’re still pretty small and they’re very much in startup mode,” she said. To get the best of both worlds, someone has to come up with a new business model. But “I don’t think Facebook is necessarily the right one to do it,” Wu added.

Of course, Facebook could also start charging users instead of relying on advertisers to make money. Berman said the company was only making about $18 per year per user before expenses — or $7 per user after deducting the cost of running the platform. “This isn’t a terribly high number, but consumers are often not willing to pay even this amount to maintain their privacy,” he said. Another option is to limit which companies can advertise, such as allowing only brands whose users opt in to see ads.

Privacy Leak Fallout

Facebook is far from alone in monetizing user data in exchange for free services. But the current uproar over Cambridge Analytica could lead to the tightening of privacy laws that will affect many companies going forward, especially the tech giants. “It’s a problem for Google, it’s a problem for Amazon and any other large online company which has been collecting and using data for various reasons,” said Wharton marketing Professor��, who joined Werbach on the Knowledge@Wharton radio show. “They will all be exposed to any regulation that may come out of this incident.”

It will also affect consumers “in a drastic way,” Yildirim continued. “Consumers are used to using their products or services for free, in exchange for providing their information to advertisers. If we start to build walls [around] third-party developers or advertisers for use of that data, that’s also going to shift the way that services are provided to consumers.”

Just take a look at the European Union, which has more stringent privacy rules than in the US. A few years ago, there was a study on the impact of Europe’s new rule, where consumers have to opt-in for cookies to track them on the web rather than opt out. Apps, websites and other online services remained free, but ads became more irritating, Wu said. Since most people did not opt in, that means marketers cannot target individuals with smaller, specialized ads. The result? Big pop-up ads, ads that takeover whole screens and the like became more prevalent. “Because they can’t target you effectively anymore, they give you the screen-takeover [ad], which is annoying,” she said.

When the EU’s new����(GDPR) takes effect on May 25, it will even be tougher for marketers, Wu said. A key change in this legislation is that any company anywhere in the world that targets anyone in the European Union must actively get that person’s consent before collecting their personal data. The penalties are severe: Up to 4% of annual global revenues or 20 million euros, whichever is greater. Moreover, cloud storage companies are not exempt.

With companies thus constrained, it stands to reason that EU consumers will not be exposed to as many products and services as other citizens. But at least their data will remain private. “There’s going to be some kind of consumer welfare loss,” Wu said. “At the same time, maybe people care about privacy more, so we have to think about the costs and benefits of doing that.”

In a recent interview with CNN, Zuckerberg said Facebook is��. “I actually think the question is more what is the right regulation rather than” whether or not the industry should be regulated, he noted. For example, he said there’s plenty of regulation of ads on TV and print. “It’s just not clear why there should be less on the internet. You should have the same level of transparency required.” He said Facebook is proactively rolling out tools that let users know who bought the ads and whom they’re targeting.

Wharton marketing Professor����said Facebook has become the symbol of personalized targeting when other companies are doing similar things. Moreover, personalized targeting has been around for ages — the new thing here is just the improvement in campaign efficiency. “If you publish an ad in a golf magazine based on the demographic and psychographic characteristics of people who like golf, you’re targeting, too,” he said. The advent of the internet and platforms like Facebook and Google “gives us a capacity to do it in a better way because we can target each person individually,” Nave added. “But the idea itself is not new.”

The Facebook imbroglio inflamed public sentiment because it exposed how people could be manipulated. “People don’t like to feel they’re being manipulated,” Nave said. “In reality, we are manipulated all the time from the moment we’re born. We’re manipulated to like specific brands of soft drinks and computers” even though inside the package, the products may be almost identical to each other. “Advertising makes you focus on things [such as emotions] that you will associate with specific products,” he said.

In the long run, Nave believes Facebook will weather this crisis. “People forget about the past and many people still don’t care that much about privacy,” he said. “Facebook’s API policy that had allowed third parties such as Cambridge Analytica to exploit its data has already been changed years ago, and at the time nobody seemed to care,” Nave pointed out. Millennials also have a more relaxed attitude about data privacy since they’re used to giving out personal information to get free services. Indeed, 40% of people choose to keep their Facebook likes public. “It’s possible a few weeks from now everyone will forget about it,” Nave said. “It could be temporary.”

*[This article was originally published by , a partner institution of 51�Թ�.]

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