Algorithm and blues for social media behemoths
Facebook and Google’s stunningly successful run of unfettered access to our data seems to be coming to an end.
Facebook and Google’s stunningly successful run of unfettered access to our data seems to be coming to an end.
The Australian Competition & Consumer Commission has flagged changes to the tech giants that represent existential threats to their core business models in this country.
Fronting the media — the more traditional media outlets, not the algorithm-driven tech behemoths that don’t hire human journalists — regulation tsar Rod Sims yesterday said he will fight for not only the media’s jobs but for the right to privacy for Australia’s social media addicted masses.
That will require sweeping changes to Australia’s privacy laws, as well as lifting the lid for the first time on the tech giants’ secret algorithms, which learn what we do and don’t like, and then sell us products accordingly.
The ACCC recommends a regulator, either new or existing, be given the power to investigate, monitor and report on how large digital platforms rank and display news and advertising content through their algorithms.
The algorithms are Google and Facebook’s “secret sauce”. Much like KFC’s secret herbs and spices, they are kept under lock and key, and although they are talked about often, little is known about what’s actually in them.
The ACCC says a lack of transparency on the algorithms that are used to rank and display ads and news content gives Google and Facebook the ability and incentive to favour businesses with which they have commercial relationships.
Sims says Facebook and Google have been “stunningly successful” at what they do, which is monetising our attention, in exchange for our data and privacy.
But it’s time for a new regulator and ombudsman to step in and examine what the algorithms are doing, and what their impacts are on society, he says.
“(The regulator) will be doing its own research on how those algorithms work and what they do, but it will also be able to require information from Facebook and Google about the way the algorithms work,” Sims says.
“So it’ll be both looking at the outputs, by doing its own work, and getting hold of the inputs via Facebook and Google, and piecing that together so that, firstly, the regulator can determine whether there’s any preferencing of Facebook and Google’s own businesses over others, and that’s really hard to work out at the moment.”
Facebook did once hire journalists. It had its own human newsroom, which would determine what stories surfaced under a “trending news” sidebar on the website.
The company then fired all of them, replacing them with an algorithm that many say has allowed fake news to flourish.
Google does not have humans curating its popular Google News, instead letting technology decide what we read and watch.
One key question facing the ACCC is whether Facebook and Google are publishers, something the social media giants deny.
“You’d have to say ‘almost’,” Sims says. “In the sense that they do have a large role in what people do and don’t see, how they see it, and the order they see it in.
“Publishers, of course, do a bit more about sourcing the information, but there is a strong overlap between traditional publishers and many of the roles Google and Facebook do.”
The ACCC is sometimes criticised as a toothless tiger, but Sims went to lengths yesterday to say Facebook and Google, as companies that do business in Australia, will have to comply with Australian consumer law.
“The penalties we now have are very large,” he says. “They’re up to a maximum of $10 million per breach or 10 per cent of turnover.”
The mammoth potential fines are in line with Google and Facebook’s outsized impact on advertising, and society more broadly. For the first time, the ACCC report shines a light on those companies’ impact on the contemporary advertising market.
According to the regulator, Google hoovers up $47 of every $100 spent by advertisers on digital channels. Facebook scoops up $21, leaving $32 for all other websites to fight over.
Google and Facebook can exercise such dominance because their distribution footprint is unparalleled in history, but that’s only part of the story.
Both companies also harvest vast volumes of user data, which is leveraged in order to direct content in a highly targeted manner.
While the collection and use of personal data has been heavily regulated in government circles in the US, Google and Facebook evolved in an environment where there was no accountability imposed on the private sector.
This user data is broken down to the minutest detail, which then allows Google and Facebook to offer up the highly targeted ads. The algorithms are also critical to the performance of Google and Facebook as gatekeepers between published content and consumers.
The way these algorithms work is a secret but the data analytics that allow targeted advertising also dictate what content is pushed to a particular consumer.
Unlike traditional mass media advertising, the digital platforms and processing prowess Facebook and Google use also allow them to test market sentiment very quickly.
User feedback can be absorbed instantaneously and the messaging adjusted accordingly.
It all adds up to a perfect combination of wholesale surveillance and an engine of mass influence that leaves consumers unwittingly susceptible to manipulation.
Technology companies continue to maintain that they are connecting people to services that they want and the algorithm-powered efficiency is by and large delivering a benefit to consumers.
But that myth is now under clear threat by regulators across the globe. The EU’s General Data Protection Regulation is setting the pace for other regulators to follow.
Launched in May, GDPR imposes rules on how a company can collect, store and use personal data. Most significantly, it forces Facebook and Google to seek explicit permission from consumers before using their data for advertising purposes. If a consumer refuses to provide the permission, the tech companies are still obliged to provide the service.
At its heart, the GDPR takes the whip hand away from the tech companies and aims to give control back to the consumers.
Consumers, until recently, have had no way to control who gets to access their data. The ACCC is testing the limits of informed consent in its review.
Consent, or lack thereof, has been at the heart of outrage about Facebook and Google and it’s a conversation the tech giants can no longer avoid.
Sims says one of his key goals is to allow consumers to have confidence in their ability to interact with technology platforms, and have some comfort over what happens to their data.
He suggests the federal government will have a crucial role in making sure that happens.
“When you wrap all that up, it’s governments thinking about what’s going on here and ‘How do we prepare ourselves for this more digital world that we entering into?’,” Sims says.
“Should we just leave it all up to the companies, or should we think about this and get ahead of the game?
“Over the next six months we’ll be settling our recommendations to give governments something to think about in terms of how they might stay ahead of the game.”
Most Australians would have little idea just how much information the social media giants have about us. When The Australian downloaded a copy of its entire Facebook history last year, it was a 1GB file including every phone contact, email address, past relationship and photo documented in eight years using the website.
And walking around Facebook’s offices in Menlo Park, California, it’s clear the company and its employees are in an all-engulfing bubble. Workers have access to unlimited free food, including Zuckerburgers, which have led Facebook employees to joke about the “Facebook 15”, code for the inescapable weight gain in pounds that comes with working there.
Other perks at Facebook include a bike repair shop, an arcade full of video games, an on-site barber shop, dry cleaning and valet parking.
Google pioneered the self-contained tech campus model. As of last year it employed 20,000 people in Mountain View, California, which has a population of 80,000.
While the set-up is enticing, what the perks amount to is companies finding ways to make their employees stay at work as long as possible, and, on a deeper level, for them to not engage as much with the outside world.
The result is inward-looking companies that shirk their responsibilities on every level.
And those responsibilities are massive, given 17 million Australians use Facebook every month, and 11 million use Instagram, which is owned by Facebook.
A total of 19 million Australians use Google every day.
The pressure facing Facebook and Google is not limited to Australia.
Just last month, Google workers revolted over allegations that complaints of sexual misconduct within its senior ranks were hushed up. A mass walkout of 20,000 employees took place in 40 global offices, including in Sydney.
The hashtag #GoogleWalkout trended on Twitter.
Facebook has just endured its most difficult year since its founding. The strife started when it disclosed British political consulting outfit Cambridge Analytica had used data on Facebook users without their knowledge.
Morale is reportedly down. Amid a plunge in the stock price, leadership turmoil and critical media coverage, just over half of employees said in a survey last month they were optimistic about Facebook’s future, down 32 percentage points from the previous year. The survey was taken by nearly 29,000 employees.
Fifty-three per cent said Facebook was making the world better, down 19 percentage points from a year earlier. Employees are reportedly calling former colleagues to ask about job openings or to get references, and New York magazinereported last week that employees are so paranoid, they are using burner phones to gossip and complain to each other.
If the ACCC has its way, things will get worse before they get better for Google and Facebook, two companies that are unrecognisable, in scope and reason for existence, from when they were founded.
The changes are likely to be a profound shift in users’ favour. For a decade now, Facebook and Google have held us in their grip, dominating our attention and our advertising dollars, at the expense of our privacy.
One potential outcome is Facebook and Google could start charging for their services and make them ad-free.
It may seem odd to pay for something that has been free since day one, but it will mean we will pay with our own dollars, as with Netflix, rather than with our privacy.
Whatever the case, if what the ACCC is proposing comes to fruition, no longer will Facebook and Google be able to take for granted the granular data they have had access to for so long.
These are changes the regulator says will make journalism, and our society, stronger.