Will Russia Blackmail Mark Zuckerberg?

The news media has been running many stories lately about calls for the U.S. government to break up Facebook.  One idea is to separate Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp, all of which are owned by Facebook and all of which are controlled by Mark Zuckerberg.  These three websites together dominate social media, and advocates of a breakup express concern about monopolization, and also the potential impact on freedom of speech of having so much of the social media business under a single corporate roof.  Indeed, it's not just a concern about a single corporate holding company.  We're talking about one guy--Mark Zuckerberg--who controls all three of these dominant sites.  Zuckerberg arranged to have himself given supervoting shares of Facebook when the company went public.  So he single-handedly controls everything at these three companies even though he has taken a lot of money from public investors.

Special Robert Mueller indicted a bunch of Russians and Russian companies for interfering with the 2016 election, and his redacted report discusses this problem in some detail.  U.S. intelligence agencies are supposedly combating Russian efforts to muck around in the 2020 election.  Only time will tell how effective the countermeasures are.  We may get a preview from the European Parliament election taking place later this month, which Russia is reportedly trying to influence.

But there's a simpler strategy for Vladimir Putin:  blackmail Mark Zuckerberg.  After all, Zuckerberg controls the whole shebang, and if you control him, you're in a sweet spot.  Zuckerberg is human like the rest of us, and all Putin and his henchmen need to do is find out what his weaknesses are.  This surely has already occurred to them, and they no doubt are nosing around in Zuckerberg's past as much as they can.  They'll try to tally every beer he drank before turning 21, and everything he may have smoked or snorted.  They no doubt will be pro-active, which is an integral part of Russian spycraft.  Pro-activity in this regard could mean things like ensuring that Zuckerberg has the opportunity to meet very attractive, friendly and easy-going women wherever he is, and only later might he find out that they had tiny cameras.  If Putin succeeds in getting a pee tape or its equivalent featuring Zuckerberg, Mark will be in a bad place.

U.S. antitrust law doesn't provide that a company can be broken up because its CEO is subject to blackmail by a foreign nation.  But there seem to be good arguments for contending that Facebook satisfies the legal requirements for splitting it up.  And the distinct possibility that a hostile foreign nation would want to blackmail Zuckerberg provides additional reason to be concerned about allowing today's monolithic Facebook to keep lumbering along. 

There may be some who would suggest that Putin already controls the U.S. government, and would through his proxy (you know who) stop the Justice Department and Federal Trade Commission from taking action to break up Facebook.  Whether or not this is true, Putin would want to blackmail Zuckerberg if he can.  The government--at least those parts of the government that still adhere to their oaths to support and defend the Constitution--should do whatever is possible to stop this from happening.  The rest of us may want to consider taking a break from Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp.

A Peek Under Facebook's Rug?

There's an old saw about people sweeping dirt under the rug when they do a quick and not necessarily good job of cleaning.   Well, CNBC reports that some Facebook content reviewers are so stressed out by what they see and hear that they are developing symptoms of PTSD, or starting to believe conspiracy theories about 9/11 or the Las Vegas mass shooting.  Reviewers reportedly used drugs or alcohol at work to find relief from their stress, or had sex in bathrooms or a lactating room to escape.  One even said he brought a gun to work in order to protect himself from other employees who made him feel threatened.  See https://www.cnbc.com/2019/02/25/facebook-content-moderators-describe-a-stressful-work-environment.html.  These reviewers, employees of a contractor hired by Facebook, work for wages around $15 an hour to screen violence, threats, hate, and other extreme stuff.  Facebook's contractor says it offers counseling and other assistance to employees.

Is it any wonder Russian government intelligence operatives can use Facebook to undermine American democracy?  Is it any wonder hate groups and other weirdos can use Facebook to promote all manner of sick and extreme views?  Facebook's algorithms can't stop this stuff.  Evidently, Facebook's human reviewers, paid what many consider barely a living wage, can sometimes become so stressed they aren't really able to cope with the job.  So they probably aren't stopping it, either. 

No website is better than its content.  Facebook evidently struggles to control its content.  If its content reviewers can develop PTSD or resort to alcohol, drugs or sex in the lactating room to cope, what reaction might Facebook's users (especially its young users) have to such content?  It may be that so much content is uploaded so fast to Facebook that it cannot truly screen out the bad.  Then again, no website is irreplaceable.  Whatever excuse Facebook may offer for its content problems, no one needs to use it.  The rest of the Internet is a pretty big place, and you're the only person stopping you from exploring it.    

Are Conservatives More Gullible Than Liberals?

A recently released study from researchers at the University of Southern California found that, during the 2016 Presidential election, conservatives were about 31 times more likely to retweet Russian trolls than liberals.  See https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2018/2/24/17047880/conservatives-amplified-russian-trolls-more-often-than-liberals.  Thus, Russian tweets favoring Donald Trump were far more likely to be amplified by retweeting than Russian tweets favor Hillary Clinton.  Conservatives, the data shows, were more likely to be taken in by Russian fake news than liberals.

It's unclear why.  Perhaps conservatives are more likely to be alarmed by the fear-inducing messages that the trolls tended to send.  Or, liberals may tend to think more critically of what they read before accepting it.  Perhaps both tendencies are factors, or maybe something else is operative.  Whatever the case, anyone who participates in social media (i.e., all two billion or so of you) need to be cautious about accepting what you read.  Facebook, Twitter, Google and other social media websites don't ensure you're reading the truth or anything even remotely close to the truth.  They're starting to understand that acting as conduits for messages, however false, isn't a great business strategy because people will eventually tire of being fed falsehoods.  And social media today is way too heavily laden with falsehoods.  People will eventually go to other websites that more rigorously screen the information they display.  Traditional news services may win in the end.

 By all indications, the measures being taken by Facebook, Twitter, Google and other social media websites to combat fake news are inadequate.  Russian bots flooded Twitter with pro-gun messages after the recent shootings at Marjorie Douglas Stoneham High School in Broward County, Florida.  See https://www.cnn.com/2018/02/16/us/russian-bots-florida-shooting-intl/index.html.  No doubt they tried similar measures in other social media sites.  Don't rely on social media for the truth.  Be cautious.  Be skeptical.  You won't win a political debate by pushing messages from Russian trolls.  Truth will prevail in the end---and that means if you buy into messages from Russian trolls, you'll lose.