Web founder: Protect user data from politics
Sir Berners-Lee talks about Facebook scandal, targeted advertising and the impact of social media
The inventor of the World Wide Web yesterday called for greater protection of personal data and a ban on “targeted advertising” in politics in the wake of the Facebook scandal in which millions of users’ data ended up with political consultancy Cambridge Analytica.
During his talk on ‘The Future of Open Data’ at the International Government Communication Forum in Sharjah Sir Timothy John Berners-Lee said Cambridge Analytica used the data to “manipulate an election”.
Facebook is under fire from users and government officials in multiple countries for passing on ‘harvested data’ of around 50 million users to Cambridge Analytica, which allegedly used it to further US President Donald Trump’s election campaign. The consultancy firm denies this.
Sir Berners-Lee, who created the web in the 1980s, said some “abuse” of personal information can be “accidental” because of the interconnected nature of social networks.
Manipulation by the state
However, he added, “a bit separate from that is a whole chapter of things, such as when a nation state will deliberately manipulate people using social media. For when a company like Cambridge Analytica deliberately manipulates an election by using the power of targeted advertising, it turns out the power of targeted advertising is too strong, too powerful”, in politics.
Speaking about the power of social media, Sir Berners-Lee also mentioned an election in the US state of Massachusetts in which a candidate had lost partly because of a malicious campaign on Twitter. “It’s called a ‘Twitter bomb’,” he said.
“Personal data is kind of famous this week because of what is being described as the ‘Facebook disaster’. If you actually look at it, there are a lot of different things going on and it’s very important to understand what’s going on with that data. Some of those things happened accidentally and some of those things happened deliberately,” Sir Berners-Lee said.
Drawing parallels from the banking sector and its scandals, Sir Berners-Lee said better regulation and transparency in banking led to improvements. “Guess what — it’s the same thing with social media.”
He added that the creators of social media “had designed it as a platform for people to come together collaboratively, in peace and harmony and producing democratic discussion”. But, for reasons that are not fully understood, he said, “maybe the net effect is to promote nastiness and destructive discussion”.
Personal data is kind of famous this week because of what is being described as the ‘Facebook disaster’... it’s very important to understand what’s going on with that data. Some of those things happened accidentally and some of those things happened deliberately.”
Sir Timothy John Berners-Lee | Inventor of internet