BREAK
UP MEDIA MONOPOLIES
Beginning with Facebook
“They’ve bulldozed the
competition, used our private information for profit, undermined our democracy
and tilted the playing field against everyone else.”
Elizabeth Warren, US Senator and
Presidential Candidate
Ten years ago
this article would have been about the television and newsprint
monopolies. To some extent it still
is. But more importantly it concerns the
social media monopolies – most notably Facebook. For while more Americans still get their news
from television, a 2018 Pew Research Center report found that the fastest
growing source of news in America is social media.
At 20% of
respondents, social media passed print newspapers (16%) as the primary source
of news. It trailed radio at 26%, news
websites at 33% and television at 49%.
Combining social media and news websites, more people got their news
online than from any other source.
Moreover, recent revelations about the role of Facebook in laundering
Russian propaganda for the election campaign of Donald Trump have alerted us to
the dangers that social media pose. It
is in fact fertile soil for unfounded propaganda, rumor, innuendo and
conspiracy theory.
As a candidate
for president, Senator Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts has proposed breaking
up media monopolies, drawing the ire of Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg. Recently, the word got out that Zuckerberg,
Founder and CEO of Facebook, recently informed his employees at a private
assembly that he would fight like hell against the “existential” threat posed
by candidate Warren.
Had he tried he could not have choreographed
a more effective endorsement of Warren’s candidacy for president. Those of us who subsist on less than ten
digits in annual income can safely assume that Zuckerberg has no concept of a
true existential crisis. He may have
dreams of global domination but he certainly has no understanding of the
scourge of monopolies on a free market economy.
It seems Warren has the audacity
to stand up to Facebook, noting that the dominant social media platform has
swallowed Instagram and WhatsApp and together they control 85% of the American
market. If Warren succeeds in breaking
up the dominant platforms, she argues that they would compete in protecting
user privacy and assert greater effort at combating the sort of mass
misinformation that corrupted the 2016 presidential election. [1]
Zuckerberg’s
counter argument is reminiscent of the big three automakers, the railroads and
Standard Oil defending their market dominance.
The historical monopolies claimed that only they had the resources to
serve the public interest. Zuckerberg
argues that only Facebook has the power and money to combat misinformation and
foreign interests. The problem of course
is that Zuck and company lack motive.
Just like John D. Rockefeller and Henry Ford, their primary motive is to
boost market share and elevate the profit margin.
Mark Zuckerberg has never
demonstrated a social consciousness. He
responds with evasion, obfuscation and misinformation every time Facebook faces
criticism. Even if we could believe in
his philanthropic values we should not.
History instructs us that corporate entities always serve their own
interests. Always. Without exception. How much power and wealth does Zuckerberg
need? The answer is and always will
be: more!
Where was Zuckerberg’s social
consciousness when Russian agents spent sizable sums creating fake accounts to
distribute false facts and scandalous propaganda to targeted populations in
Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin in the 2016 election? Did he know?
Yes. He had to know. Several members of Facebook were working
directly with Donald Trump’s campaign, working alongside rightwing data operation
Cambridge Analytica, in formulating advertisements and targeting Facebook
users. An estimated 126 million users
were exposed to Russian propaganda and 85 million had their data stolen by
Cambridge Analytica. [2]
There is no doubt that Russia used
Facebook and Zuckerberg profited. At his
appearance before congress in April 2018 he testified that “tens of thousands”
of fake accounts were identified and taken down in 2017 – after the election. His
solution for new verification requirements can easily be bypassed with shell
companies and fake identifications. [3]
Zuckerberg failed to answer
questions about the data Facebook provides Russian and other foreign agencies
where Facebook operates. Russia requires
Facebook to store their data in Russia where they can access it. The irony is rich in that Zuckerberg refuses
to share data with the US government.
I’m not suggesting that Facebook
should share its data with the US government.
I am suggesting that it should not be sharing personal data with any
government. As it now stands corporations
like Facebook operate in a Wild West environment where anything goes. We have no way of knowing what data it
retrieves and stores for analysis and what data it buries. Moreover, we have absolutely no reason to
trust Zuckerberg and his loyal minions. In
fact, we have every reason not to trust him.
No one on the congressional committee
thought to ask Zuckerberg what kind of assistance his employees provided to
Russian fronts like the Internet Research Agency. If they provided data used to target voting
populations in critical states, their complicity in defrauding the 2016 election
would rise to the critical zone.
When you take a closer look at the
services Facebook typically provides its corporate customers it becomes highly
probable that they conspired with Russian interests in tipping the
election. For example, they provide a
“custom audience” application that matches the client’s message with a
receptive audience. That is precisely
what the Trump team needed to tip the balance in the critical states.
Between barrages of tech talk that
no one outside the industry understands Zuckerberg repeatedly asserted that
users have the power to control their own data.
Really? The truth is we have no
idea what Big Brother does with the data we provide. He repeatedly said they do not sell user
data. That is only true in the most
abstract sense. They use our personal
data to feed algorithms that they then sell to advertisers who have something
to sell to the user. Without user data
there would be nothing to sell.
It goes on and on but the bottom
line is clear: Zuckerberg is no friend
to American democracy or the public interest.
He and his people are smart enough to find ways to sell us out a million
times over and make unconscionable sums of money doing it.
Elizabeth
Warren is right. The big tech companies should
be broken up. The data monopolies they
hold strictly for profit need to be placed under some form of public scrutiny
and oversight. Facebook and its
enigmatic leader have earned our distrust.
Zuckerberg has established his place in history as a primary conspirator
with Vladimir Putin in getting Donald Trump elected to office.
If there were a way to put him and
his operators in jail for what they did, I’d be all for it. Unfortunately, the law has not begun to
address the wilderness of technology – no less social media.
Warren’s proposal is just a beginning. To the extent possible we should break up the
media monopolies. We should also make
sure that political ads are delivered with absolute transparency. If the source is Russian it should be clearly
stated. If the source is Facebook, it
should say that as well. Never again
should we be inundated by anonymous popup ads that inform us what to believe
without regard for the facts.
Google, the ubiquitous search
engine and owner of YouTube, is even more dominant than Facebook. In twenty years of existence it has grown to
control nearly 90% of all searches on the global market. [1]
It is clear that the algorithms
that Google employs to generate sources and their order of presentation have
the power to effect our opinions and perspective on the news of the day. Conservatives complain that Google
demonstrates a liberal bias and researchers have found some basis for that
complaint. A media organization called
AllSides found in late 2018 that roughly 65% of news sources generated by
Google searches yield left-leaning results while only 16% were from the
right. The organization also found that
the bias was not intentional per se.
Their algorithms were designed to serve their users and their users tend
to be younger and more progressive than the general public. [2]
While we should be more concerned
with the validity of news content than perceived political bias, we should be
able to access unbiased news through our primary news sources. It seems to me that some form of user control
should be offered if indeed we are unable to break up the monopoly of
news.
Once again, as we transition from
traditional news providers to internet-based news sources, we are entering a
bold new world of information dissemination.
We need new tools to ensure that what we once called news is not
transformed into pure bias-controlled propaganda. We need standards of journalism to apply to
web-based news and we need a non-partisan government agency to monitor the news
and enforce fundamental standards of journalism. That which is not news should be clearly
labeled as opinion.
What do we do about the more
traditional news providers? We know that
only a handful of massive corporations with international corporate interests
own the primary news sources via television, radio and print media. We know that the corps of serious journalists
and reporters has suffered major cutbacks.
We know that large corporations are nearly impossible to sue for
unsubstantiated news or biased reporting due to their deep pockets and scores
of high-powered attorneys. [3]
As a consequence, news
organizations get away with murder. Fox
News reports one set of facts – adhering closely to the Republican Party
talking points – and MSNBC reports another set of facts that too often bear a close
resemblance to the Democratic Party talking points. We suspect that every news organization has a
hidden economic and/or political agenda and too often we are right.
What can we do?
The first
thing that comes to mind is separating news media and journalism from all other
corporate entities. Knowing that
opposition will be fierce and buttressed by deep pockets and legions of
litigators, multinational corporations with inherent conflicts of interest
should have no control of the news industry.
Noting that only media is protected by the first amendment to the
constitution, AT&T should be forced to divest itself of CNN. Walt Disney should be compelled to divest
itself of ABC. Comcast should divest
itself of ABC and Media Networks. In
print media, Amazon should divest itself of the venerated Washington Post.
In radio the
picture is even more complex. The worlds
of entertainment, propaganda, news and commentary often overlap. The same principle should apply. If we can force the separation of news and
journalism from all other corporate interests, we should do so. To the extent that we cannot separate them,
we should require an impenetrable firewall that prevents the corporate masters
from influencing the news or informed editorial content.
The corporate
world has spent a lot of time and resources gaining control of the flow of
information. They will not give up that
control without a fight. They hold the
reigns of mass messaging. They will
offer dozens of established experts and commentators that will offer a vast
array of arguments why it is neither possible nor advisable to break up the
media monopolies and separate the news from corporate interests. They have the money and they have the
platforms to deliver their message. We
only have ourselves and common sense.
In its 2019
report, Reporters without Borders ranked the United States of America 48th
in the world for upholding the principles of a free media. The report noted that our president has
declared the press enemies of the people and consistently labels news reports
unfavorable to his interests as “fake news.”
The report also notes the failure of the Trump administration to condemn
the Saudi Arabian government for the brutal assassination of Washington Post
contributor and Saudi critic Jamal Khashoggi. [4]
Forty-eighth
out of 180 countries is hardly good enough for the land of the free.
If we believe
in democracy we must do all we can to ensure a free flow of unbiased
information. Democracy depends on an
informed citizenry and an informed citizenry depends on a free and fair press –
including the media.
- “18+ stats that show how search and SEO are changing.” By Rebecca Sentence.
Econsultancy, October 28, 2019.
- “AllSides Report on Google News Bias: Analysis of political bias of Google News and
Google News search
results.” AllSides. October 16, 2018.
3. “These
15 Billionaires Own America’s News Media Companies.” By Kate Vinton. Forbes, June 1, 2016.
4. “2019
World Press Freedom Index.” Reporters
without Borders.
Jack Random is the author of Hard Times: The Wrath of an
Angry God and the Jazzman Chronicles – a collection of 99 commentaries on
American and International Affairs from 2000 to 2014 (Crow Dog Press).
