Oh hi! Just when you thought it was okay to be poked again you remembered it was
never okay. And the creator of the world's most used social network was in
fact hiding his nefarious intentions behind a sheen of human connection and
autoplay videos where he was only a better haircut away from becoming a
supervillain. Yes, let's talk about Facebook. And let's get it out of the way.
I'm probably not gonna say anything you haven't heard before. But what I hope to
do is to have a deeper conversation about privacy and what rights we should
have as Internet citizens. So how I'm gonna structure this video is to first
talk about the revelations that were revealed from a whistleblower, how we as
people should grapple with those truths, and finally what we can do moving
forward. Before any revelation there was an understanding that Facebook, Google,
Twitter, and others were harvesting our information. But I think there is a
difference between being pretty sure something is happening, and absolute
proof that something is happening. Like, the thought that that itch on the back
of your neck is a spider. Sometimes you just have to make yourself believe it's
only an itch even while the spider's laying its eggs into your spine. And I
mean ... the understanding that we are being used is not an entirely new concept,
especially in tech. There's been this idea that if something is free then you
are the product, even before the internet. For instance, there's this 1973 short
documentary called Television Delivers People. It's about 7 minutes long – you can
actually find it on YouTube – and it's simply scrolling text that offers a huge
criticism against the TV industry. One of the messages reads, "The product of
television, commercial television, is the audience." It goes on to detail that
people are being offered up to advertisers. There's this illusion of
agency in our decisions. Man, how nice to go back to a simpler time when it was
just TV that was gonna end it all. We all watched the same thing, and it was way
before Alan Alda got all preachy on M*A*S*H. Anyway, flash forward to last week and
there was this huge revelation that a company called Cambridge Analytica has
been mining our data unknowingly. Cambridge Analytica, by the way, is also
the name of the worst album by The Police. The quick synopsis on this I am
kind of stealing from Reddit user Romulus_Novus. And when I say
kind of, I mean completely. I'm also glad their user name wasn't
something like PMMEYOURNUDES. Although I'm sure that PMMEYOURNUDES is a very
nice person as well. So what Romulus_Novus writes
is, Cambridge Analytica is a data analysis company funded by Robert Mercer that
sought to use data pulled from Facebook for 50 million users to micro-target
political ads and content at users to influence their vote. So at Cambridge a
lecturer by the name of Alexander Kogan – an expert and social media psychometrics –
was granted permission to use a specific type of app by Facebook to pull user
data. This allowed him to gain access not only to the users of the app but also to
pull the data of that user's friends, dependent on their privacy settings.
Alexander Kogan used a company called GSR, which stands for Global Science
Research to create a partnership with SCL Elections Limited, which stands for
Strategic Communication Laboratories, to allow this data to be used for
commercial purposes, as per the original agreement with Facebook. At least
according to Facebook this was not allowed. Kogan argues otherwise. Cambridge
Analytica was established as an offshoot of SCL Elections Limited in
order to create the algorithm needed to use the data set pulled by GSR to
actually create the targeted advertising. It was also headed, for a time, by Steve
Bannon. Who later went on to run Donald Trump's campaign and act as a key
advisor until the two had a falling out in mid 2017. So Cambridge Analytica
have been caught up in the election of Donald Trump and the Brexit vote in
the UK. Christopher Wiley, the whistleblower from last week,
essentially states that Cambridge Analytica took part in these activities
which they knew to be, at best, rather dubious in 2014 in order to get their
data set. Facebook became aware of this in 2015 but did not come public about it
until very recently and took little action to try and remedy the situation.
Specifically Wiley accuses them of not actually checking to see whether these
data sets have been actually deleted. There is some other stuff wrapped up
into that but that's the long and short of it. Again thanks to Romulus_Novus,
may your trade talks with Starfleet go well. So in traditional
advertising you go after segments. You make a magazine ad, or TV commercial, or a
radio spot that is meant to appeal to: men over 40, or black women, or children
under 10. You are throwing on a message that you hope resonates with a
small segment of the people who see or hear it. But as you can see with social
media, and Facebook in particular, you can be much more targeted by seeing what
we've liked, looked at, commented on. A database has been created so that they
can know, without doing a deep dive on my profile, how I lean politically, what is
gonna make me angry, and what is gonna drive me to vote. If you need to know
it's, of course, free charcoal ice cream. I think we always knew that Facebook was
probably not the most trustworthy of companies. Their privacy settings have
always been a little hard to navigate, and defaulted to providing more
information rather than less. This also proves a recent Reply All episode
correct. Reply All is one of my favorite podcasts, where they do deep dives on
certain questions in the technology space. One of the hosts, Alex Goldman,
showed that the somewhat conspiracy theory that Facebook is listening
through the microphones of our smart devices, so that they can serve us ads is
not true. And this proves their conclusion that they don't need to
listen through the microphones because they already have all the information
they need. So now what?Facebook is lost around a hundred billion dollars in the
last week. That's billion with a B. CEO Mark Zuckerberg will be appearing before
Congress. There are claims and threats that people are going to delete their
Facebook accounts. Actual winged monkeys are capturing Facebook employees
to imprison. So, at least in the short term people seem to be taking action. But
with everything in the modern world I wonder how long we will care about this
story. I've never been a huge fan of Facebook the company, but the service
they provide I am. And there are downsides to all of social media, sure.
Let's save that for another video. The good is that I can connect and stay
involved with people all over the world. There are many people who I originally
met online, or a convention, so I probably speak to every few months. But I can
still see what's going on and the good they are doing. I enjoy our brief
interactions and it feels like we are still involved with each other even
though there are thousands of kilometers separating us right now. We just don't have
another platform that does all the things Facebook does, and as well as Facebook
does it. We absolutely need and deserve competition, no question about it.
However, Facebook has the consumer base. And I know that sounds gross, but as
a new business owner, Facebook does great work at
marketing. I know, I'm a corporate stooge. Twitter is ephemeral,
pictures don't necessarily drive sales on Instagram, and I can only shout
outside my window for so long before the neighbors call the cops again. What's
your problem Margaret? It's truly unfortunate that the social internet,
which was meant to connect us and improve our discourse, has been corrupted.
The exact opposite has happened. And I don't know if there's a way to really
fix that. In the end I go back to the idea that I mentioned at the beginning
of this video. If something is free, you are the product. And by knowing that,you
can only share what you are comfortable with and customize your privacy settings.
Also, you should back companies that value privacy and security. Say what you will
about Apple, there's many criticisms you can level at them. And I'm not
necessarily unbiased, but part of the reason I'm such a fan boy is because
they have championed privacy for years. STEVE JOBS: Privacy means people know what they're
signing up for. In plain English, and repeatedly. That's what it means. I'm an
optimist. I believe people are smart and some people want to share more data than
other people. So ask them. Ask them every time. Make them tell you to stop asking
them if they get tired of your asking them. Let them know precisely what you're
gonna do with their data. That's what we think. KYLE: Apple wants your
money. So much of your money. Which is why it seems that it's lagged behind the
competition for the last few years on voice and other metrics. But it's because
they don't want to store your personal information, or to know what it even is.
Amazon is probably the worst, but Facebook, Twitter, Google all want your
information. Not that I'm saying anything bad about Google. I personally love my
corporate master! Please let my subscribers know when I upload a video.
Why do they have to click on the bell? Please click the bell, by the way. I'll
say that I love Google Plus! Seriously, the best <throw up noise> the best is Google <throw up noise>
The best is Google Plus. Oh, why is that so hard to say? So that's that, I suppose.
What do you think? Which company should we support? How do we
hold them accountable? Should we regulate them? What information are you
comfortable with sharing? Why is Google Plus <throw up noise> why is Google Plus the
best? Let me know down in the comments below.
Thanks so much for watching! My name is Kyle. I upload videos every Monday and
Thursday. Of course there's the liking, commenting, and subscribing that I'm
supposed to tell you about. But if you want to help me even more, you can become
one of my Patreon supporters for as little as $1 a month.
Listen, I promise to only use your personal information for my personal
gain. Wait ... I wasn't supposed to say that out loud...
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