Make no mistake: Facebook is feeling the pressure. Scarred by criticism that it enabled Russian meddling during the 2016 U.S. presidential election, the social media giant summoned its biggest tech peers to a summit late last month, meeting behind closed doors with Google, Microsoft, Snapchat and others at Twitter headquarters in San Francisco.
The meeting’s objective was proactive –compare and co-ordinate plans of action on how the platforms can best prevent similar foreign attacks, distortions and disinformation campaigns targeting the upcoming American midterm elections.
But even as the companies huddled, one of their own senior security leaders sounded a sobering warning: It’s already too late to protect the 2018 election, declared Alex Stamos, Facebook’s recently departed chief security officer.
The best the United States can hope for now, said Stamos, is to shift its security effort beyond the vulnerable midterms as “there is still a chance to defend American democracy in 2020,” when Americans choose their next president.
...
Take the warning at face value and then ask yourself: What about the integrity of Canada’s next federal election? If America democracy stands vulnerable in 2018, are the risks likely to be any less for Canada in 2019?
So far, the only policing underway on either side of the border involves the tech giants themselves – and that is not nearly adequate. In late August, for example, Facebook announced it deleted more than 600 accounts for building misinformation campaigns.
Separately, Microsoft announced the closure of several web domains believed to be registered by Russian intelligence for phishing operations. And Google busted what it called fake news accounts on YouTube.
Imagine the outcry if these same companies sent self-deputized teams into polling stations during next year’s federal election in Canada to serve as scrutineers, the last line of defence in ensuring a fair vote. If we lack faith in tech firms to safeguard our ballot boxes in the physical world, why would we trust them any further as the only defence in the digital world, which is fast becoming the battleground for everyone’s vote?
Ideas are flying fast and furious on how new policy can best address the crisis of digital democracy. Canada’s Public Policy Forum lays out a range of them in its recent report, “Democracy Divided: Countering Disinformation and Hate in the Digital Public Sphere.”
One important proposal that should be implemented quickly: Updating Canada’s Elections Act to shine disinfecting sunlight upon digital advertising. Let Facebook and friends stand alongside publishers (including the Star) in full transparency with full details on who is paying for digital election ads.
Equally important is the need to reclaim sovereignty over our data, which can be monetized, sold and resold with impunity. Consent over the trade in information that accrues every time you click a button must be freely and clearly given. And we need a far clearer understanding of the price of consent.
What about new legal sanctions? Should there be a law against actual fake news? The idea is already falling flat in the unrestrainedly free-speaking United States, where a president who already categorizes anything unflattering as “fake news” baselessly accused “Social Media Giants” of “silencing millions of people.” Donald Trump’s tweet concluded that, “People have to figure out what is real, and what is not, without censorship!”
The idea of empowering anyone to label some news as “fake” is fraught. But Canada should at least explore whether there’s a place for a new law to prevent organized, willful manipulation that puts in front of your eyes false information designed to capture your vote.
Any actor, foreign or domestic, that intentionally damages Canadian democracy needs to be held to account. It’s all well and good that Facebook is taking the problem seriously enough to police itself. But how do we police Facebook?
Online: https://www.thestar.com/
