Roger McNamee on Silicon Valley’s obsession for building “data voodoo dolls”

The Canadian Parliament's Standing Committee on Access to Information, Privacy and Ethics hosted the hearing of the International Grand Committee on Big Data, Privacy and Democracy from Monday May 27 to Wednesday May 29.  Witnesses from at least 11 countries appeared before representatives to testify on how governments can protect democracy and citizen rights in the age of big data.

This section of the hearing, which took place on May 28, includes Roger McNamee’s take on why Silicon Valley wants to build data voodoo dolls for users.

Roger McNamee is the Author of Zucked: Waking up to the Facebook Catastrophe. His remarks in this section of the hearing builds on previous hearing presentations by Professor Zuboff, Professor Park Ben Scott and the previous talk by Jim Balsillie.

Roger McNamee’s remarks build on previous hearing presentations by Professor Zuboff, Professor Park Ben Scott and the previous talk by Jim Balsillie.

He started off by saying, “Beginning in 2004, I noticed a transformation in the culture of Silicon Valley and over the course of a decade customer focused models were replaced by the relentless pursuit of global scale, monopoly, and massive wealth.”

McNamee says that Google wants to make the world more efficient, they want to eliminate user stress that results from too many choices. Now, Google knew that society would not permit a business model based on denying consumer choice and free will, so they covered their tracks.

Beginning around 2012, Facebook adopted a similar strategy later followed by Amazon, Microsoft, and others.

For Google and Facebook, the business is behavioral prediction using which they build a high-resolution data avatar of every consumer--a voodoo doll if you will.

They gather a tiny amount of data from user posts and queries; but the vast majority of their data comes from surveillance, web tracking, scanning emails and documents, data from apps and third parties, and ambient surveillance from products like Alexa, Google assistant, sidewalk labs, and Pokemon go.

Google and Facebook used data voodoo dolls to provide their customers who are marketers with perfect information about every consumer. They use the same data to manipulate consumer choices just as in China behavioral manipulation is the goal. The algorithms of Google and Facebook are tuned to keep users on site and active; preferably by pressing emotional buttons that reveal each user's true self. For most users, this means content that provokes fear or outrage.

Hate speech, disinformation, and conspiracy theories are catnip for these algorithms.

The design of these platforms treats all content precisely the same whether it be hard news from a reliable site, a warning about an emergency, or a conspiracy theory. The platforms make no judgments, users choose aided by algorithms that reinforce past behavior. The result is, 2.5 billion Truman shows on Facebook each a unique world with its own facts. In the U.S. nearly 40% of the population identifies with at least one thing that is demonstrably false; this undermines democracy.

“The people at Google and Facebook are not evil they are the products of an American business culture with few rules where misbehavior seldom results in punishment”, he says.

Unlike industrial businesses, internet platforms are highly adaptable and this is the challenge. If you take away one opportunity they will move on to the next one and they are moving upmarket getting rid of the middlemen. Today, they apply behavioral prediction to advertising but they have already set their sights on transportation and financial services. This is not an argument against undermining their advertising business but rather a warning that it may be a Pyrrhic victory.

If a user’s goals are to protect democracy and personal liberty, McNamee tells them, they have to be bold.

They have to force a radical transformation of the business model of internet platforms. That would mean, at a minimum banning web tracking, scanning of email and documents, third party commerce

and data, and ambient surveillance.

A second option would be to tax micro targeted advertising to make it economically unattractive. But you also need to create space for alternative business models using trust that longs last. Startups can happen anywhere they can come from each of your countries.

At the end of the day, though the most effective path to reform would be to shut down the platforms at least temporarily as Sri Lanka did. Any country can go first. The platform's have left you no choice the time has come to call their bluff companies with responsible business models will emerge overnight to fill the void.

McNamee explains, “when they (organizations) gather all of this data the purpose of it is to create a high resolution avatar of each and every human being. Doesn't matter whether they use their systems or not they collect it on absolutely everybody. In the Caribbean, Voodoo was essentially this notion that you create a doll, an avatar, such that you can poke it with a pin and the person would experience that pain right and so it becomes literally a representation of the human being.”

To know more you can listen to the full hearing video titled, “Meeting No. 152 ETHI - Standing Committee on Access to Information, Privacy and Ethics” on ParlVU.

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