Wylie appeared before the Senate judiciary committee, expressing concern about true informed consent when it comes to social platforms
We’re returning to Senator Kennedy, who already asked questions earlier.
Kennedy: Did the Facebook co-founder share data with the Obama campaign that it didn’t share with the Romney campaign because he wanted Obama to win?
Jamison explains that this is not true. Chris Hughes was working for the Obama campaign. But he understood how Facebook worked and was able to teach the Obama campaign how to use it.
Booker: It was stunning to me that big data was used not to rally voters but to suppress voters? Was this a determined effort to suppress votes not just of African Americans or other groups?
Wylie: My understanding was that it was to suppress any group of voters that would go for Democracts, especially African Americans.
Booker: Was this about inflaming differences?
Wylie: The US went through a civil rights movement in an attempt to desegregate society. What we’re seeing now is a resegregation of society by algorithms. Some people call that echo chambers. CA was looking to exploit certain vulnerabilites in certain segments to send them information that will remove them from the public forum, and feed them conspiracies and they’ll never see mainstream media ... We have destroyed the public forum.
Wylie describes videos created by CA as “sadistic and Islamophobic”.
Corey Booker, Democrat from New Jersey, is raising the New York Times’ reporting on Facebook’s role in spreading violence and misinformation in Sri Lanka. He’s now quoting SCL’s Nigel Oakes speaking approvingly of Hitler’s propaganda tools.
Hirono is raising concerns about predictive technology that the government is seeking to do to forecast criminality.
Wylie points out that biased data produces biased results.
Senator Mazie Hirono, Democrat from Hawaii, addresses Hersh.
Hirono: If we were to consider regulating anything, should we focus on regulating ads or messages that demobilize people.
Hersh: I’ve worked for the ACLU on government voter suppression, but this is different. What’s the line for demobilization by a campaign? What if a campaign is just describing a candidate’s shortcomings? Is that demobilization?
Hirono: We’re talking about people paying to suppress votes? That’s different from someone just saying don’t vote for so-and-so.
Hirono seems to be suggesting that ads aimed at voter suppression could be regulated, but that seems highly questionable from a First Amendment point of view.
Durbin: Did you have any guidance from CA in terms of secrecy?
Wylie: Everybody had to sign a very thorough non-disclosure agreement.
Durbin: Alexander Nix was clearly involved in Cambridge Analytica.
Wylie: He was the CEO, so yes.
Durbin: Notes that federal law prohibits the direction of campaign work by foreigh nationals: “There is a red flag, or a red Union Jack.”
Senator Dick Durbin, Democrat from Illinois: I asked a question of Mr Zuckerberg, whether he felt comfortable telling me the name of the hotel that night, and after a couple seconds he said no. It really got to the heart of the issue about Mr Zuckerberg and his feelings about personal privacy and where he draws the line. The right of Facebook or any entity to use my information without my permission, I think is over the line. We have now put a little piece of electric tape over the camera on my laptop. People are watching.
Wylie: Good.
Harris: What should Facebook have done to ensure you deleted the data?
Wylie: In 2016, they sent me a letter that requested me to delete the data and sign a certification that I did it.
Harris: Did you need a notary?
Wylie: No notary or legal procedure. So I signed the notification and sent it back.