WHAT YOU CAN'T SEE WON'T HURT YOU
Social Media Microtargeting and the Evolving Ministry of Truth
As social media replaces actual social interactions, our thoughts and
opinions are increasingly coming under the purview of the cybersecurity
industry and national security interests that want to regulate what and who
can see, talk to and hear in the U.S. cognitive space.
by Raul Diego
March 05th, 2021
Mint Press
By Raul Diego
WEST POINT, NEW YORK - If you've ever wondered how that cookware ad happened
across your internet browser window after you'd spent ten minutes searching
for a turkey baster last Thanksgiving, the answer is that you - or more
precisely, the devices you use to surf the net - have been microtargeted.
People's search habits, social media post history, and even retail
transaction details are among the many kinds of data up for sale in our
cybernetic Elysian Fields, to which advertisers, hackers and political
operatives can all gain access in order to sell us a coffee maker, extort
money from us, or ostensibly change our vote in an election.
The solution, according to cyber-defense researchers, is the development of
regulatory frameworks that can parse through the content and designate its
appropriateness for mass consumption. A "Ministry of Truth," so to speak,
that can mitigate any disruptions to the status quo that might seep through
in the Wild West of social media platforms.
The treasure trove of data currently being gathered through social media
networks and other electronic means is a completely unregulated space, with
microtargeting, in particular, spurring intense discussion in the wake of
widely publicized allegations of Russian "interference" in the 2016 U.S.
elections and the liberal use of data analytics, by Brexit promoters in the
UK and the Trump campaign itself, to sway voters.
Hovering in the background of the simmering debate is the growing power of
Facebook, Apple and other platform owners, whose monopolistic business
practices are facing increasing push back around the world. Nevertheless,
our content landlords still hold the key to the big-data realm by virtue of
their dominant position, and whoever wants access to the new oil must kiss
the ring of the Big Tech overlords.
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As the Biden administration gets underway, an emphasis on cybersecurity as a
matter of national security is solidifying. CIA Director nominee William
Burns, on his last day of confirmation testimony this past Wednesday, told
lawmakers that cyber threats "pose an ever greater risk to society" and
promised to "relentlessly sharpen [the CIA's] capabilities to understand how
rivals use cyber and other technological tools, anticipate, detect and deter
their use." The Senate Intelligence Committee had previously approved Burns'
appointment in a unanimous closed-door vote on Tuesday, setting up a vote by
the full Senate, where the career diplomat is expected to be confirmed.
Mitigating the "risk to society" Burns warns about is the focus of research
scientists at the Army Cyber Institute (ACI), a military think tank
established in 2012 at West Point Military Academy with a mandate to engage
the Pentagon and federal agencies with "academic and industrial cyber
communities" to "build intellectual capital . for the purpose of enabling
effective army cyber defense." A popular cybersecurity industry podcast
called CyberWire brought on Maj. Jessica Dawson, Ph.D. from ACI to discuss
her paper on microtargeting as a form of information warfare and the ideas
floating around this relatively new military outfit regarding the mitigation
of microtargeting's ostensible threat to society.
A question of legitimacy
Right off the bat, Dawson admits that "we don't actually know" what effect
political microtargeting operations like those carried out by Cambridge
Analytica in 2016 actually have and whether or not they really can serve as
forms of "manipulation or mind control." Nevertheless she believes it is a
threat that should be taken seriously. She contends that the lack of
regulatory oversight in the social media sphere leaves the door wide open to
foreign and domestic influence campaigns that "pollute" what she defines as
the "U.S. cognitive" domain.
"We are not really recognizing the way that this space can be weaponized,"
says Dawson, drawing little distinction between "normal actors, who are just
seeking to get a rise out of folks and go viral," and "domestic actors who
are seeking to use this space for power and possibly profit and . foreign
actors who are seeking to erode the United States from within."
Dawson - whose research interests on her ACI bio page include "morality,
status, culture" and "moral change" - omits advertisers from the list of
threatening actors, stating that microtargeting by "Pampers," for example,
is a totally benign use of data as a commodity that "nobody would probably
freak out about." Corporations that want to sell you a product are not, in
her eyes, any kind of menace to society (as long as they are American). But,
issues emerge when the product turns out to be an ideology and,
specifically, a foreign ideology, according to Dawson, who stresses that
content designed to "erode [social] cohesion" poses the gravest threat.
1984
A still from Peter Rathvon's film version of Orwell's 1984
The cohesion argument is immediately framed by the researcher in terms of
the Covid-19 mask protocols, which Dawson illustrates through a hypothetical
scenario where "some random soldier decides not to mask and gets exposed,
well now their whole squad has to go into quarantine." She goes on to expand
on the principle by pointing out that the "messaging" around the 2020
election, which cast a shadow of doubt over the results, can interfere with
members of the armed forces "following the orders of the office of the
President."
Curiously, Dawson concedes that social media did not originate the questions
over the legitimacy of the commander in chief, observing that such
misgivings have been around since "Bush v. Gore." Despite her candor, the
effort to corral such expressions under a potential regulatory framework
reveals the myopic nature of her approach to what is, in reality, a much
more profound existential crisis of a nation that has already lost its
legitimacy around the world.
The Ministry of Truth
One of the suggestions Dawson proposes for ways the government can "regulate
who is allowed to advertise inside of the United States' cognitive space,"
is the creation of a federal agency that would credential advertisers who
wish to promote their message on social media. Paying lip service to the
inevitable questions about free speech that such an agency would elicit,
Dawson grants that it is a "wicked problem to solve" - throwing in a
sinophobic quip for good measure, assuring listeners that "we don't want to
start regulating everything using the artificial intelligence censors that,
for example, China is rumored to be using."
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Dawson calls for a "national discussion" to figure out what the U.S. is
going to "allow to be advertised" on social media, arguing that it is
already done for "cigarettes and alcohol." She also agrees, in principle,
with the host's suggestion of an FDA-like entity to make algorithms go
through a testing and approval process before release.
As the interview was reaching its conclusion, the analogies being used to
describe the problem of messaging on social platforms veered into
puritanical territory, with certain types of social media content being
likened to "pollution," with potential solutions mirroring what was done
through environmental legislation in the 1970s to limit the toxic waste
giant corporations were releasing into the environment. Dawson
wholeheartedly embraced this particular one as a "very, very good analogy"
when it comes to the "pollution of the public sphere," and added that
putting it in terms of mental health is a "critical way of thinking about
this."
Lost in the conversation was the ability of regular people to use their own,
individual critical thinking skills to sift through the content they may
come across. For Dawson, Burns, and others in the growing cybersecurity
industry, the "U.S. cognitive space" is a new theater of war that is not to
be fought through education and open dialogue, but through hard and fast
rules about what you can and cannot think about.