Techlash: The Great Digital Depression

The Techlash is upon here.

People (and their gov­ern­ments) are get­ting frus­trated with algorithms and the exploits of our per­son­al inform­a­tion to influ­ence our think­ing and actions.

The Techlash is here.

Here we go:

A Strong Emotional Reaction

Where should we focus our atten­tion? Big Tech is doing what it can to earn more money, legis­lat­ors are doing what they can to secure more con­trol, and users are exchan­ging their per­son­al inform­a­tion for free services.

In a Facebook dis­cus­sion yes­ter­day, sev­er­al people I con­sider intel­li­gent and thought­ful argued that social media com­pan­ies would des­troy our soci­ety if left unchecked for ten more years.

Social media divides us, but is it also “des­troy­ing society?”

The recent Cambridge Analytica scan­dal broke the last seal and stirred our emo­tions. It broke open a can of sil­ic­on worms. And there’s no short­age of social media issues to discuss:

Were the social media pess­im­ists cor­rect?
Was Techlash always a fore­gone conclusion?

Blue State Digital and the 2004 US Election

Before closely examin­ing the Cambridge Analytica scan­dal, let’s start with Blue State Digital. ¹According to BlueState’s web­site: “We move people to elect pres­id­ents, change laws, fall in love with brands, donate mil­lions, and more.”

Blue State Digital was foun­ded by former staffers of Howard Dean’s 2004 US pres­id­en­tial cam­paign and provided digit­al ser­vices for the 2008 and 2012 US pres­id­en­tial cam­paigns for Barack Obama.

So, what does Blue State Digital’s soft­ware do for a polit­ic­al cam­paign? Well, it’s like a large-scale CRM sys­tem with pro­gram­mable auto­ma­tion rules. For instance, if someone donates $5 to the cam­paign, this per­son will be auto­mat­ic­ally tar­geted with a string of mes­sages dif­fer­ent from the series you would be tar­geted for if you donated $50 instead.

Of course, donat­ing money is one way to inter­act digit­ally with a polit­ic­al cam­paign. But there are many oth­er trig­gers, too. 

You could inter­act with the can­did­ate on social media, sign up for their news­let­ter, or be affil­i­ated with the party or the pres­id­ent in some oth­er shape or form. ²In 2010, sev­er­al Scandinavian polit­ic­al organ­isa­tions became inter­ested in Blue State Digital. However, per­haps the pop­u­la­tion of Scandinavian coun­tries was too small for these tech­no­lo­gies. I guess … Continue read­ing

I first came in con­tact with the immense power of big data in 2007. I was respons­ible for launch­ing a Swedish online ser­vice to veri­fy broad­band speeds (Bredbandskollen). Later, in 2009, my employ­er, Springtime, acquired Early October to use their pro­pri­et­ary tech­no­logy, Social Media Lounge, for online monitoring.

A few years later, around 2012, long before the Techlash, every­one talked about the poten­tial of “big data,” but few people under­stood the implications.

Beyond Basic Demographics

Cambridge Analytica was foun­ded in 2013. Their busi­ness mod­el was sim­il­ar to Blue State Digital, focus­ing on data min­ing, broker­age, and ana­lys­is — and some con­sult­ing. ³This is sim­il­ar to the social media intel­li­gence agency Whispr Group, where I served as the COO from 2010 to 2013.

Segmenting people based on their com­mu­nic­at­ive beha­viour is more power­ful than tra­di­tion­al demo­graph­ic seg­ment­a­tion. ⁴Silfwer, J. (2015, June 11). The Publics in Public Relations. Doctor Spin | The PR Blog. https://​doc​tor​spin​.net/​p​u​b​l​i​c​s​-​i​n​-​p​u​b​l​i​c​-​r​e​l​a​t​i​o​ns/

But it wasn’t only the data-min­ing com­pan­ies that could sense poten­tial. So did the social net­work­ing sites. 

As Facebook went pub­lic in 2012, it took the lead and embarked on an aggress­ive jour­ney to mon­et­ise social media usage.

In short, Facebook went hard for the advert­ising dollar.

Advertising is hardly a new mon­et­isa­tion mod­el, but Facebook trans­formed the self-ser­vi­cing tar­get­ing func­tions. With Facebook mov­ing for­ward aggress­ively, Cambridge Analytica decided to take a short­cut. ⁵Anyone involved in pro­gram­mat­ic advert­ising should know Facebook’s Business Manager and tar­get­ing cap­ab­il­it­ies.

The Cambridge Analytica Scandal

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The Cambridge Analytica Scandal

A research­er at the University of Cambridge, Alexsander Kogan, approached Facebook and told them he was col­lect­ing data for aca­dem­ic purposes.

For his “study”, he launched a Facebook app called Your Digital Life. The app was used by 270,000 users who were per­mit­ted to col­lect data on their friends, which allowed the app to mine data on 87 mil­lion users. ⁶Cambridge Analytica. (2024, May 13). In Wikipedia. https://​en​.wiki​pe​dia​.org/​w​i​k​i​/​C​a​m​b​r​i​d​g​e​_​A​n​a​l​y​t​ica

Soon, this data ended up in Cambridge Analytica’s database.

Among Cambridge Analytica’s founders and investors was the con­ser­vat­ive pun­dit Steve Bannon. Bannon divested his hold­ings in the com­pany in April 2017 when he was appoin­ted White House Chief Strategist. Still, at that point, he had already been work­ing as the CEO for Donald Trump’s pres­id­en­tial bid in August 2016.

And what soft­ware did they use to per­suade the American opin­ion to vote for Trump? Cambridge Analytica, of course.

To run a US pres­id­en­tial cam­paign on the back of illeg­ally (and uneth­ic­ally) acquired data was, of course, a scan­dal in its own right.

In addi­tion, with large data volumes on vari­ous online beha­viours of US cit­izens, Cambridge Analytica pro­filed voters match­ing their psy­cho­graph­ic behaviours.

Psychographic tools (such as Myers-Briggs and The Big Five Aspects Scale) allow people to be assigned to groups based on their past beha­viour and pre­dicted future activ­ity. This gave answers on who to tar­get and how to trig­ger them psychologically.

“Cambridge Analytica’s use of data ana­lyt­ics and microtar­get­ing in polit­ic­al cam­paigns, com­bined with psy­cho­lo­gic­al tac­tics, helped secure Donald Trump’s vic­tory in the 2016 U.S. Presidential Election.“
Source: Proceedings of the 1^st Pedagogika International Conference on Educational Innovation ⁷Gatra, A. (2023). The Power of Data Analytics and Microtargeting in Political Campaigns, Cambridge Analytica Strategy, Donald Trump Victory the 2016 U.S. Presidential Election. Proceedings of the … Continue read­ing

The whole scan­dal sur­round­ing Cambridge Analytica brought the gen­er­al pub­lic and politi­cians one step closer to under­stand­ing the immense power of big data.

Learn more: Techlash: The Great Digital Depression

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The Techlash is Here To Stay

Expect a power struggle between the big tech com­pan­ies on the one side — and legis­lat­ors and the news media on the other. 

In the wake of the scan­dal, Cambridge Analytica closed its oper­a­tions in 2018. Several exec­ut­ives moved to Emerdata, owned by the same par­ent com­pany and reside in the same build­ing in London.

But the Techlash has already gained too much momentum to stop. ⁸Techlash, accord­ing to Financial Times: “(noun) The grow­ing pub­lic anim­os­ity towards large Silicon Valley plat­form tech­no­logy com­pan­ies and their Chinese equi­val­ents.”

This is a war for our minds.

I think of Jan Stenbeck (1942 – 2002), the legendary Swedish entre­pren­eur. His busi­ness philo­sophy, as described by bio­graphy author Per Andersson, can be summed up: ⁹Jan Stenbeck. (2023, December 26). In Wikipedia. https://​en​.wiki​pe​dia​.org/​w​i​k​i​/​J​a​n​_​S​t​e​n​b​eck ¹⁰Per Andersson (journ­al­ist). (2024, January 10). In Wikipedia. https://​sv​.wiki​pe​dia​.org/​w​i​k​i​/​P​e​r​_​A​n​d​e​r​s​s​o​n​_​(​j​o​u​r​n​a​l​ist)

PR Resource: Social Media Issues

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List of Social Media Issues

Social media isn’t just sun­shine and rain­bows. With massive change come new social media issues we must deal with.

Here are a few examples of social media issues:

• Fake Bots, Scam Bots, Troll Bots
• Ghost Followers
• Filter Bubbles (Social Media Algorithms)
• Echo Chambers (Confirmation Bias)
• Media Logic & Social Media Logic
• The Silent Switch
• Dark Web, Dark Social
• Facebook Zero
• Cyberbullying
• Online Trolls, Online Hate
• Fake News, Alternative Facts
• Conspiracy Theories
• Online Disinformation Campaigns
• Electoral Tampering
• Government Surveillance, Facial Recognition
• Cyber Terrorism
• Spam, Phishing, Identity Theft, Online Fraud
• Cancel Culture, De-Platforming
• The Useful Idiot Syndrome
• Selfie Generation
• Online Wannabeism
• The Copyright Mafia
• The Techlash, Cambridge Analytica
• The Splinternet
• Paywalls (Journalism)
• Clickbait Journalism
• Social Media Fakers
• Fear of Screen Time
• Mental Health Issues
• Programmatic Brainwashing
• Information Overload
• Filter Failure
• Deepfake Videos
• Artificial Intelligence (Threat)

Read also: Social Media: The Good, The Bad, The Ugly

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