Social media sites aren’t the only online systems that can secretly influence people’s votes. Search engines can too and may be even more successful – and undetectable.
Cambridge Analytica whistleblower, Christopher Wylie.
EPA-EFE/Neil Hall
Social media platforms and data analytics companies need the world to believe in the election-swaying power of big data.
A protester wears a mask with the face of Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg, in between men wearing angry face emoji masks, during a protest against Facebook in London in April 2018.
(AP Photo/Alastair Grant)
Gordon Hull, University of North Carolina – Charlotte
An expert explains how Facebook’s privacy issues are linked to a bigger problem – a ‘hostile information architecture,’ largely controlled by corporate interests.
A cell phone user thumbs through the privacy settings on a Facebook account in Ottawa in March 2018. Canadians need to start making companies accountable for mining and using their personal data without their consent.
THE CANADIAN PRESS/Sean Kilpatrick
Canadians — and consumers around the world — have the power to hold industries accountable for misuse or unauthorized use of our data. It’s time to use it.
Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg departs after testifying on Capitol Hill in Washington, D.C., in April 2018 about the use of Facebook data to target American voters in the 2016 presidential election and data privacy.
(AP Photo/Andrew Harnik)
Knowledge of our selves, quantified in big data and transformed into affective algorithms, is exploited by corporations and political parties to give us our 15 minutes of fame.
Iryna Kuksa, Nottingham Trent University and Tom Fisher, Nottingham Trent University
Personalisation has made decisions easier and quicker – but it is still large corporations, rather than individual users, who benefit most.
A lack of transparency by Facebook Canada officials about how the Facebook News Feed works means upcoming elections in Canada could be influenced by fake news.
((AP Photo/Thibault Camus)
What kind of information do Canadian voters get through Facebook? It’s time for the social media giant to let researchers see exactly what it sends its 23 million users in Canada.
Experts reviewed more than five hours of testimony Facebook’s notoriously reserved CEO gave to Congress, searching for nonverbal clues to understand what he’s really thinking.
Social media companies combine many pieces of information into a complex digital profile.
Tetiana Yurchenko/Shutterstock.com
Aram Sinnreich, American University School of Communication and Barbara Romzek, American University School of Public Affairs
For years, watchdogs have warned of the potential problems of sharing data with online companies. The Facebook data crisis has made these concerns much more real. What should be done now?
SHARP Professor, Vitalities Lab, Centre for Social Research in Health and Social Policy Centre, and the ARC Centre of Excellence for Automated Decision-Making and Society, UNSW Sydney