From NYRB, Tamsin Shaw on the new military-industrial complex of big data psy-ops. How Cambridge Analytica’s psychological warfare subverts democracy. Did Cambridge Analytica leverage Russian disinformation for Trump? Russiagate has reached Steve Bannon’s doorstep. There’s an open secret about Cambridge Analytica in the political world: It doesn’t have the “secret sauce” it claims. Facebook was letting down users years before Cambridge Analytica — and not even a prescient crackdown by federal regulators stopped it. Mark Zuckerberg said Facebook “made mistakes” on the Cambridge Analytica scandal — he’s not apologizing. Facebook will never change unless we force it to.
We can’t trust Facebook to police itself: Sean Illing interviews Sally Hubbard on the case for regulating big tech companies. Section 230: A key legal shield for Facebook, Google is about to change. Silicon Valley has failed to protect our data — here’s how to fix it. Want to fix Facebook? That’ll cost you about $75 a year. The case against Facebook: It’s not just about privacy; its core function makes people lonely and sad.
Is Facebook going to take Silicon Valley down with it? What the Cambridge Analytica scandal means for the rest of the tech industry. Welcome to Zucktown, where everything is just Zucky: In Menlo Park, Calif., Facebook is building a real community and testing the proposition — do people love tech companies so much they will live inside them?
