Imagine an imminent America where citizens are bombarded with personalized political messages from every smart device – yet information is so suspect, nobody can tell what the truth is.
The coronavirus pandemic provided a foretaste of an infuriating, dystopian future. From the start Americans fought over the most basic facts of the crisis, from death tolls to quack cures to the wisdom of stay-at-home orders. The splintered digital infosphere bred confusion and delusion, some of it fatal. Now think of our campaigns and elections. The digital information age means more than hyper-targeted, just-for-you messages from insurance companies and presidential candidates alike. It means oceans of disinformation engineered to sow false beliefs or simply disorient.
Big Data is on the way to fueling information environments so fine-tuned, no two of us hold the same view of reality, and no two voters hear the same pitch. Already, citizens don’t know who to trust or what to believe – about COVID-19 or anything else. If we ask nothing more of tech providers or digital citizens, the fog will continue to thicken. Irritation will merge into despair and then numbness… and democracy teeters.
Digital pioneer Cyrus Krohn knows the territory, and in Bombarded: How to Fight Back Against the Online Assault on Democracy, Krohn locates the roots of our blooming political chaos. But he goes beyond recounting 25 years of destabilizing Internet shock waves and rolls out a provocative action plan for rescuing the American system of campaigns and elections while there is still time.
Bombarded was recently selected as a finalist for INDIE “Book of the Year” by Foreword Reviews.
You can get the book on Amazon here. Learn more about the book here.
Key Points Summary by Michelle Lee
After interning at the White House, working on CNN’s Larry King Live and Crossfire, Cyrus has insights about social media and privacy.
In 1996, Bill Gates predicated the media on paper would be out. Nowadays, we have social media instead. Contrary to the clean broadcast debate such as Crossfire, there is no single source of truth or no reliable narrator on social media.
Regarding privacy, our consumer purchase habit and financial well-being collected as 3000 attributes, can be easily bought. This was what Cambridge Analytica bought for about 300 million Americans from Facebook. Technology is being built, data are being harvested and used for political campaigns.
There are two major laws tech companies follow – CCPA from California and GDPR from EU. Washington State tried to pass a state privacy law in 3 attempts but failed. Cyrus would like to see a Federal Data Privacy Act. It would be difficult for businesses if there are 50 from the states.
Cyrus also thinks that government and civic education should be added back to the curriculum. So that people will know how our government functions and be active and viable participants. Lastly, he encourages us to participate in local journalism, attending school boards and city councils meetings, write and publish the facts, as most of the local newspapers are lost and people use social media for local news.