It Gets Even Worse For Facebook

The US social media monopoly Facebook has been forced to admit that up to 87 million users were affected by the data breach involving Cambridge Analytica – the right wing political consultancy which helped to elect Donald Trump to the US Presidency and which also assisted THE ‘Leave’ campaign in the UK Brexit referendum.

A major political scandal is currently brewing in the UK around the data misuse, with both the UK foreign secretary Boris Johnson and the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, Michael Gove, in the firing line for the part they played in the potentially illegal Brexit activities of Cambridge Analytica.

Yesterday, Mark Zuckeberg, the CEO of Facebook, claimed that there had been no discernible impact on either usage of the social media platform, or on ad sales.

Whatever the truth of that statement – and as the adage goes, the devil is in the detail – there is no hiding the fact that the huge fortune which Facebook makes from advertising (at the expense of its users) is at the heart of the story. And this is where it becomes extremely murky and problematic for Facebook.

The stark truth is that what happened with Cambridge Analytica was not just a data breach. Rather, following the data breach – and therefore adding hugely to the intricacies of its possible criminality – Facebook facilitated advertising that was itself knowingly lying and deceitful.

In other words, while right wing political reactionaries may have profited politically from what happened, Facebook was the entity which exploited the situation to make cash profits, directly from behaviour – admittedly also involving others – that was immoral, dishonest and potentially illegal.

Mark Zuckerberg’s response to the astonishing scale of the breach, and to its more sordid and damning implications, sounds far too like the special pleading of a 13 year-old who has been caught with his hand in the cookie jar to convince anyone of a sceptical disposition.

"When you're building something like Facebook that is unprecedented in the world, there are going to be things that you mess up,” he told reporters, in what might be described as typically clumsy language. And he added that the important thing was to "learn from mistakes."

To which one might well reply: "Sure, but in the meantime how much are you going to pay, in the way of compensation, to the people whose data was breached? And how much will you pay in reparation for contributing to what may well have been a critical distortion of the democratic process in both the US and the UK?"

Hot Press has been watching these development with particular interest. We have laid down a series of challenges to Facebook in relation to its proposed handling of advertising into context of the upcoming abortion referendum in Ireland. In particular, we have asked for reassurances, on behalf of the Irish people, that Facebook will not profit from ‘fake’ advertising that is unscrupulous, tells lies or otherwise attempts to mislead citizens in relation to the issue of abortion.

Already, the anti-choice movement has been engaged in a campaign of deliberate distortions, misrepresentations and untruths, via PR, press statements, posters and so on. Their position has been debunked in numerous newspaper reports and analyses. The shocking and dangerous reality, however, is that, in contrast to advertising on radio, on TV or in the press, advertising on Facebook is entirely unregulated.

We can say with certainty that the anti-choice campaign will run advertising on Facebook which is similarly deceitful and inaccurate – if they are allowed to by the social media monopoly. The only people who can prevent this deliberate attack on the democratic process are Facebook – but we are sill waiting for answers to the questions we posed.

Facebook have been in touch with Hot Press asking for an email address to which a reply to the challenges laid down by Hot Press can be sent. We will let you know as soon as we hear from Facebook.