Counting the Cost
Facebook and the big data business
A look at the Facebook data breach scandal and how our information is being bought and sold without us knowing.
Data is being hoovered from our connected devices every day. But when it emerged that that information could be used to manipulate our political views for money, regulators around the world started paying attention.
It’s called psychosocial profiling and it’s put Facebook and the business of big data in the spotlight. Facebook makes money out of selling digital advertising space – with an annual revenue of $40bn.
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Over 1.4 billion people log into Facebook every day, but we don’t know what they’re selling about us, and it’s totally unregulated.
Last week, Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg had to answer accusations that 50 million users had their data harvested and passed on to a UK political consultancy. Cambridge Analytica is accused of using that data to target US voters during the 2016 US election campaign.
Facebook’s business model is now under scrutiny on both sides of the Atlantic, and by Thursday, shares lost $50bn in market value.
“This is much bigger than Facebook itself. We have for decades now let social media define how we get our information, it was driven by computer scientists without really looking at the broader ethical and social implications. So with the recent Facebook scandal …. this is a much bigger thing where society is now trying to claim back control over social media,” says Daniel Knapp, a senior director of TMT Research & Analytics at IHS Markit, a global information company.
“I think we are seeing this outrage right now, because suddenly all these data harvesting practices that are commonplace in the industry, are connected to political outcomes, to a controversial figure, to a controversial election in the US, and even to the Brexit campaign,” says Knapp.
“So it is the conflation of data harvesting and the political implications which actually facilitate this wake-up call. But honestly, people should have woken up much earlier than this.”
#NeverAgain and the multibillion-dollar US firearms industry
From Washington, DC, to Tokyo, students in over 800 cities and towns are calling for tougher gun laws in the US, demanding an end to gun violence. The March for Our Lives in Washington is led by students from the school in Florida where 17 people were killed last month.
Meanwhile, the CEO’s of the biggest gunmakers rarely give interviews and live lives far removed from the whole issue. But they’re still profiting from the biggest unregulated gun market in the developed world.
The multibillion-dollar US firearms industry has been largely shielded by the US Constitution, which allows people the right to own a gun.
But in the wake of #NeverAgain, the investment community is also waking up to its role in the weapons economy.
Calls have been growing for Wall Street to dump gun stocks. Fund managers including BlackRock have said they are having another look at their relationship with gunmakers. And more than a dozen companies have ended partnerships with the National Rifle Association (NRA), the pro-gun lobby.
But why does this huge unregulated market continue to thrive, despite calls for gun control?
Joining us via skype from Raleigh North Carolina is Jeffrey Moore, a senior analyst with Global Risk Insights.
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