Professor Claims Companies Sell User Data

Emotional data, including information gathered from wearable technologies and emotional responses to products, is often sold to third parties according Professor Jonathan Albright from Columbia University.

“If you are not paying for anything, then you are the product,” stated Professor Albright. He also discussed the manipulative effects of “emotional-social engineering,” real-time location, and behavioral tracking that uses social media, email and instant messaging links to target individuals and, if clicked, their entire friend networks.

The event, hosted by Clarke Forum, took place on Thursday, Nov. 9 at 7 p.m. in Anita Tuvin Schlechter Auditorium (ATS) and was titled “The Shadow of Fake News.” Albright is the research director at Columbia University’s Tow Center for Digital Journalism and faculty associate at the Berkman Klein Center for Internet and Society at Harvard University.

According to the professor, factors that guide internet users include intermediate bias on sites such as Google, and intent distortion when search engines do not search verbatim what visitors type in.

Albright also explained that much of the internet activity is “meant to collect personal information, and a lot of it is for tracking.” While he pointed out that some data collection is intended to better personalize the internet advertisement experience, he claimed that this activity is also often manipulated for other purposes.

The event also focused on Albright’s research on what he calls “misinformation systems” and the “privacy death star” created by targeted data tracking including how they affect elections and individual lives. Additionally, the event also highlighted businesses conducting false information distributions.

The professor talked about the reasons people consume misinformation, including their failure to detect false URLs and the way new public relations operations rely on data that is meant to drive behavior. For example, according to Albright, voter targeting employed by the Republican party in the 2016 election was an important factor in the election’s outcome.

Albright’s research also focused on top-visited sites, internet usage trends and connections among social networks. This included the activity of left and right wing political trends, which he compared to the disconnect between East and West coasts that cuts off middle America.

Regarding the lack of interaction between ideologically different networks and outlets, Albright said, “I don’t see how you can win an election when the other side has essentially colonized major information sources.”

Most trafficking of fake news is done through Facebook, but Albright said that this is not the place where purveyors try to “convince” readers. Instead, Facebook is the central site that directs visitors to YouTube and other sites with more in-depth videos. Right-wing news sites, according to his data, link the most to other right-wing sites to create a network. These sites include “Conservapedia.com,” a site that Albright claimed is the alt-right version of Wikipedia. The site is targeted along with other mainstream “shared information resources” to send unknowing visitors from trusted median sites to right-wing sites.

According to Albright, the main obstacle facing journalism today is “data as the new post-truth.” He also pointed out strategies some sites use to deflect fake news, including the New York Times’ initiative to take screen shots of President Trump’s tweets rather than linking content to the actual tweets. On the future of journalism, Albright said that the problem is only becoming more serious, and would be dealt with through increased regulation and verification and artificial technology to detect bots. “We really have to be careful. There has he be a defense. We need to make the truth sexy.”

“Professor Albright’s talk was another reminder on the cost of our “free” internet is our personal information…” said Sally Matlock ’18 after the talk, “Fake news and the profiting from these lies is a parasite to our society… Professor Albright’s work is paramount in understanding the political world of today.”

“I think one of the biggest takeaways from the lecture is the concept of transparency on social media platforms,” said John Adeniran ’19, the Clarke Forum project manager for the event. “We need to know how our information is being utilized… These platforms need to be accountable, because our digital footprints tell so much about us and those in our circles.”