IEEE Technology and Society Magazine - June 2018 - 31

radio and later television allowed
a communal connection between
broadcaster and audience. National
and international regulation quickly
followed these early wireless successes. Nearly simultaneous with
radio, telephone networks established information f low, mainly
between two parties. Again, regulation followed. But, not until the 21st
century did social media platforms
make it possible for billions of people
to both broadcast and communicate between themselves. Yet, virtually no regulation exists. Should it,
when it's become clear that recent
elections and democratizing events
in the Middle East, Europe and the
U.S., suggest that social media and
liberal democracy don't always point
in the same direction?
Evgeny Morozov, in his 2011 critique of the Web's political ramifications asks, "What if the liberating
potential of the Internet also contains the seeds of depoliticization
and thus dedemocratization?" [8].
We need look no further than the
Iranian revolution of 2009, energized largely by Twitter and Facebook to protest what many Iranians
considered a flawed presidential
election [9]. But, as demonstrators
messaged via Twitter, the Iranian
regime also used the Web, flush
with data, to identify protesters,
via photos and associated personal
information. The regime then widely
disseminated propaganda, which
when combined with shootings, tear
gassing and arrests, put the restive
population into a state of paranoia,
which resulted in tamping down the
marches [10].
Unlike quelling incipient revolutions, the 2016 elections in the U.S.
and the U.K. were seemingly tainted
by covert operatives, who commandeered social media platforms for
purposes of altering the political
result in two of the world's oldest
democracies. In March 2018, The
JUNE 2018

Guardian reported that "The data
analytics firm that worked with Donald Trump's election team and the
winning Brexit campaign harvested
millions of Facebook profiles of U.S.
voters, in one of the tech giant's biggest ever data breaches, and used
them to build a powerful software
program to predict and influence
choices at the ballot box" [11]. This
development has led U.K.'s Prime
Minister, Theresa May, to call for the
Information Commissioner to investigate the circumstances of one of
the most egregious invasions of personal privacy in memory, which in
this case apparently influenced the
outcome of an election.
Democracies need both a free
Internet and free speech, and judging from the election tampering that
has occurred recently throughout
Europe and the United States, time
has come to consider instituting
standards and global policies. These
should be backed up by industry
enforcement mechanisms, using both
humans and AI, to defend against
opaque algorithmic invasions of privacy and fabrication of propaganda. Social media platforms might
begin by promising a robust transparency and accountability, where
recognized international watchdog
agencies can identify incidents of
electoral maladministration, and
insure that the aggrieved have an
opportunity to be heard and to enjoin activities when justified, i.e., to
stop the infringement of the right to
choose one's political destiny without meddling. Yes, social media is a
fact of life, but ought we act now to
enforce electoral norms, what G.E.
Moore likely would have agreed is
undeniably "good?"

Author Information
Joseph Carvalko, based in Milford,
CT, is Adjunct Professor teaching
Law, Science, and Technology at
Quinnipiac University, School of Law,
∕

IEEE Technology and Society Magazine

and a Legislative Coordinator for Amnesty International. Email: Carvalko@
sbcglobal.net.

References
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Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of IEEE Technology and Society Magazine - June 2018