Cambridge Analytica whistleblower appears before Senate – as it happened

Jamison: New regulations are likely to harm FB users. They would likely serve to protect FB from new competition.

Jamison says that Europe’s new GDPR regulations are stifling competition and driving small firms out of Europe.

Jamison: Each of Facebook’s steps over the years probably made sense at the time, but taken as a whole, there’s a broader problem.

Jamison: Facebook has pivoted from being a connector of communities to someone that investigates people’s lives and filters their messages.

Now for Jamison who sums up his testimony with three points:

• Using Facebook and other social media data in ways that are not transparent to users is not unusual.
• Facebook has allowed itself to drift from serving users to serving advertisers, which is not a regulatory problem.
• New regulations are more likely to benefit Facebook than to rein it in.

Wylie: My Facebook ban reveals the unchecked power of technology companies, when they can delete my entire digital presence because I spoke out.

“Social platforms are no longer safe for users.”

Wylie: The work of CA is not comparable to other political marketers, because it used rumor, misinformation, and kompromat.

Wylie: I have seen documents where the firm sought to obtain hacked materials. Some of the subjects were heads of state...

Wylie: Data is being used to algorithmically segregate us. Cambridge Analytica is the canary in the coal mine.

Hersh is casting doubt on whether Cambridge Analytica’s psychographic targeting claims. He says campaigns that attempt to predict race of voters are wrong 25% of the time. If campaigns get race wrong a quarter of the time, how can we expect them to predict psychographic traits like neuroticism?

Hersh: “Every election brings exaggerated claims about the technological feats of campaigns.”

Hersh points out that this occurs both because new technology is an easy story for the media, and because political consulting firms need to market their wares.