Introduction

In the article “What Facebook Did to American Democracy” gives a detailed description of the behind the scenes antics of Facebook. It is believed that Facebook has a direct influence on how elections turnout. From the article there was a study done in 2012 suggesting that Facebook’s I voted/get out and vote campaign was a large reason in younger people voting. This was the first of many suspicions that caused other researchers to go out their way and study. Jonathan Zittrain wrote an essay explaining how Facebook deliberately depresses voter turnout along with analyzing personal data to push certain content that would fit the elections. His final outcome was that Facebook could decide an entire election without anyone ever knowing. It doesn’t stop there though. The Daily Dot did their own research in Florida in places that were heavily targeted with election promotion and places where there was none. The areas where Facebook ads were used noticed a 17% increase in voter turnout with actual votes of who they wanted. Despite all of these studies done on Facebook they still came out and said they would never use their platform to influence votes. They are a neutral platform. The republican party for Trump knew this information from all the available studies and used it to their advantage. They took advantage of the algorithm and personalized news feed. The algorithm would push out certain content depending on the user and would depress other content. For further clarification. Imagine you are a Democratic of course you will see Democratic news but you would never see Republican news. Not only would you never see but if it was fake news being passed you wouldn’t know that either because facebook did not filter it out and allowed it to pass. This is essentially how the Republican Party was able to take advantage of the system with the help of russian bots. In this Case Analysis I will argue that Ubuntu shows us that Facebook did engage in information warfare because they allowed for voters to be used and lied to, and further that they were partly responsible for the election outcome because they knew about the past problems of their algorithm and did nothing to fix it. 

Jarred Prier 

Jarred Prier talked about a lot of concepts dealing with information warfare from terrorist groups, social media trends, the hijacking of social media. One of his main concepts I want to focus on that relates directly to the 2016 election is the use of russian bots. He starts off giving us a background of the Russians and how they are masters of information warfare. They specialize in active measures of influencing actions, opinions, governments, and people. They have their own private sector of troops that deal with information warfare. Jarred goes on to explain that Russia uses bots and internet trolls to spread false information, mainly propaganda. They do it in a way that is efficient and nobody can really detect it. The way they do it is by spreading real information first. After they have gone through spreading the information across multiple networks. It allows them to build a following or credibility. Occasionally we will see these accounts spread fake information. It works well for them because they use bots to help push this narrative which in turn spreads it faster. Along with the trusted following of people thinking their source is real the real following also contributes to this issue. One example he uses for this is the “Pray For Mizzou” incident. It was a trend on twitter that started over a fake racial issue. Russia created fake bot accounts with one explaining how the KKK  are marching around wrecking havoc. They even went as far to create a fake story saying how they attacked his brother and provided pictures. How exactly did this fake news spread so fast? They utilize bots that spreaded similar stories along with pictures. And they all retweeted and interacted with each other’s posts causing it to spread. We know how social media is when it comes to sharing information without first verifying if it is real and this is how they were able to cause a form of information warfare. 

The problem that needs to be addressed is how does this keep happening. Russia shouldn’t be able to just create fake stories and it spreads like wildfire. This goes back to the original problem I stated before with the algorithm not only Facebook other platforms too but mainly Facebook is affected. Their algorithm relies on news and information and as long as it gets the engagements it needs it will be pushed out among related parties. Trump’s party knew this information and took advantage of it by mainly focusing their marketing towards social media campaigning. Russia was able to contribute to this by creating fake news stories towards the democratic party like attacking the American people calling them deplorable which was fake but nevertheless can have severe backlash for the party. This isn’t the only tactic they used; they also created a controversial issue regarding Hiliary’s stolen emails. This created distrust between the American people and the democratic party. Russian bots created links, and posts highlighting the emails in a negative manner despite it not being that way and it was spreaded. While this was happening to the democratic party. The republican party continued to flood the algorithm with propaganda supporting them and shedding negative light unto the democratic party. Because of this I do believe Facebook is a direct cause for the outcome of the 2016 election. They should have came out and explained the fake news stories and deleted them off their site. However they didn’t and kept them up. 

I will use the Ubuntu ethical tool to assess this case in how Facebook operates. Ubuntu is an ethical framework for moral reasoning that focuses on the interconnectedness of all human beings and their mutual responsibility for each other. It emphasizes the importance of understanding the broader social and economic contexts of any given situation and how different people may be affected by it. Ubuntu also encourages an approach to moral reasoning based on dialogue, collaboration, and mutual understanding. It encourages individuals to think beyond their own immediate interests and consider how their choices will affect others. In short terms a person is a person through other persons”. This understanding of humanity recognizes our interdependence and that our survival is granted through our community. With the way the algorithm works it goes against Ubuntu. It does this by creating separation between people. The whole point of Ubuntu holds that the denial of freedom/humanity within any one person is a denial of freedom/humanity within us all. The algorithm is a feed that operates for each specific person separately. But in a situation like this where an algorithm can be manipulated and influenced. It creates a divide within society. We can not have a divide in society like this, especially with something as important as electing who will run our country. In a situation like this we should be able to see all of the posts surrounding the election and not just the ones pushed by the algorithm. By using Ubuntu Facebook should have taken the initiative to fix the algorithm. I understand it is customized to a feed for one person. So they should have fixed it in a way where it couldn’t be manipulated and actually shows both sides of the coin. 

Keith Scott

One of Keith’s main points is the double edge sword we have in society dealing with technology. Technology allows us to do day to day tasks. But what about behind technology who is really in charge behind these big tech companies. When it comes to stories being broken out the narrative can easily be changed or controlled by them. And that is the issue that we see today. But that’s only a small piece of the picture according to Keith. The other problem we have today is the use of technology being accessed by anyone. In his own words he said “we no longer live in a mass-media world with a few centralized choke points with just a few editors in charge, operated by commercial entities and governments. There is a new, radically different mode of information and attention flow; the chaotic world of the digitally networked public sphere (or spheres) where ordinary citizens or activists can generate ideas, document and spread news of events and respond to mass media”. In other words anybody can come onto a site and make status regarding a handful of topics. People who aren’t even professionals in a field, or knowledgeable in a subject can spread their statements without any consequences. The big tech companies do nothing about this. Which leads it into Keith’s next point of the internet being the fifth domain of war. Problems like this allow for information warfare to exist and thrive. 

If we use Keith’s point to analyze the case we can see how people might elude that Facebook did engage in information warfare. It was public knowledge to Facebook that their site had flaws. They knew about it but still kept their same procedures in place. According to Statista, Facebook had 1.59 billion active users in 2016. This is a lot of people especially during an election year. If we take into account that Russia was purposely sending bots and trolls to miss spread information during the election. We also have to take into account Keith’s point. A lot of these users are just everyday people who have their opinion on their selected party with no real credentials or verified sources. If they see a link from one of these bots or trolls they will engage these links. And that’s the main flaw with Facebook’s algorithm: it thrives off engagements and views. Causing it to push these fake links onto users. Not only will these users share it but they will believe it. It’s problems like this in why people could consider Facebook to have engaged in information warfare. It is a fair assumption because why was nothing done to combat this. 

There are currently two ways we could look at this Facebook situation through Ubuntu. The first way we talked about was how Facebook operates. We know that goes against Ubuntu because it creates a divide within the community with the algorithm. Not only the algorithm but the allowance of russian bots and trolls ruin it too. However, an Ubuntu believer looking at Facebook as strictly an application I think it’s safe to say they would enjoy it. I say this because Ubuntu relates to having a strong community presence. Facebook creates a Ubuntu environment by allowing users to express themselves through the content they share. Through the use of photos, videos, posts, and other content, users can create a personal identity that is unique to them and can be shared with their friends and followers. By providing a platform for people to easily share their thoughts and experiences, Facebook encourages users to express themselves and be creative. This encourages Ubuntu by allowing users to create a personal brand that is distinct from others. Additionally, Facebook also provides users with a platform to connect with like-minded individuals, allowing them to engage in conversations and form relationships with people who share similar interests and ideas. 

Conclusion In conclusion I personally believe Facebook did engage in information warfare and was a direct influence in the 2016 election. There was too much proof in studies proving how Facebook had a hand in the 2016 election. From Jarred’s concept Russian bots and trolls were in abundance within the spread of misinformation all over the app. There is no clear excuse for how Facebook was letting these bots get by. The app then allows fake news to spread across the app and does nothing to combat it. At least with other social media platforms they give a subject line of “Fake News’ or a warning that this might not be all true. Facebook did nothing of the sort. They just sit back and let all of this unfold. The real crime in this is allowing their algorithm to be taken advantage of the way it was. They didn’t update the algorithm or try to fix it. Any possible decision they could have made to fix this situation and not cause information warfare they did not take. Instead they ignored it and let it happen. One alternative that I can see someone saying is that facebook didn’t engage in information warfare because they didn’t directly do it. If anything, Russia and the Republican party did. And yes while they are right my response to this would be the fact that Facebook still helped them even if they weren’t trying or didn’t mean to. Facebook still sold our data which was the biggest cause of this happening without our consent. They still allowed ads to be advertised throughout their site. They allowed for their algorithm to be manipulated which in turn influenced the election. Regardless of what any rebuttal is, one fact can not be denied. And that is the fact that this could have been stopped and avoided at any time and it wasn’t. That is why I think Facebook did engage in information warfare; they essentially allowed voters to be deceived and influenced.