All right, it's my great pleasure to introduce the next speaker, Joe Schnitz,
and he's going to cover the topics of how the social media, big data,
influence operations around those, AI, makes our future on voting in the digital age different.
With no further ado, Joe, take it off.
Wonderful. Thank you very much.
Thank you.
Actually, that's probably best reserved for Hallie, who put all of this together, so thank her.
So we're going to cover influencing voters through social media and big data.
I'm actually going to read off my presentation here. It is rather dense.
I'm going to go through. The slides are just a backdrop. I hope to get some QA at the end here.
So, without further ado, we're going to get started.
So we're going to talk about voting in the digital age.
To kind of get you started, in the last 10 years, advances in technology have changed the voter influence landscape,
making it super easy and more personal, authentic, direct contact to voters.
Through social media delivery, advertising data, and algorithmic-led content distribution,
candidates can easily and directly communicate with voters on an individual level.
With near-clairvoyance, they can address their constituents' perceptions with hyper-focused and viciously efficient results.
While this ushers in great opportunities for authenticity and creates access to traditionally marginalized groups,
it allows greater organization for activism. It also creates significant risks.
Viral disinformation, deepfakes, social media bubbles, hacktivism, all these words we actually needed to define like 10 years ago.
This interconnectedness also allows easy access to voter issues and the sentiment upon the global stage.
This invites a much greater participation from foreign governments, companies, and groups traditionally unable to compete for your time and perception.
This interconnected web currently threatens the very essence of our democracy.
The belief that we, the citizens, equipped with this information, can make decisions for the greater good of society.
But what happens when all that information is tailored, manipulated, and weaponized against you?
The stakes are immense, and if left unchecked, we risk creating societies where elections are but mere theatrical performances,
directed by puppet masters of big data, and executed by tech-savvy mercenaries.
Voters become mere participants in a play they didn't script, with outcomes predetermined by algorithms.
So before I go further, I wanted to introduce myself.
I'm Joe Schneebs, and if you haven't already realized, we are talking about voting and influence.
If you are here to hear that, then you are in the right spot.
As a brief background, I'm an Air Force veteran.
I've spent over 23 years focused on the intersection of technology, data analysis, and covert influence,
primarily supporting the intelligence community.
Today, I'm the founder and CTO of Ridgeline International, a technology company based in Northern Virginia.
We are specialists in digital identity management,
and we lead our clients in addressing the ubiquity of technical adversarial collection and surveillance in their operations.
We help our clients understand and manage and shape their digital patterns and profiles,
to enhance their operational resiliency and security.
And with that, I'll start the presentation.
So we're first going to talk about the paradigm shift, and the growing ocean of data that we're creating.
In our age of information, where every click and every scroll, every like, becomes a part of this vast digital mosaic of our lives,
we stand at this pivotal junction.
The defining moment for this era, many might argue, was the 2010 data cost inversion.
This was the inflection point when it actually became cheaper to store data than delete it.
Google actually fired all of their engineers who were there to actually delete data for them.
And with that, this ocean of data began to swell, encompassing all aspects of our human interaction and behavior.
In the evolving digital era, there's an emerging sentiment that data is not just a resource,
but rather a new form of matter altogether.
For years, we've heard that data is the new oil.
And this phrase kind of encompasses this crucial identification that it's like the oil that fueled the industrial revolution.
However, likening data to oil can be a super limiting metaphor.
Oil, once extracted and used, is depleted.
Data, on the other hand, operates under different principles.
Unlike traditional commodities, data is never truly expended.
It's a value often multiplies rather than diminishes with use and accumulation.
Each piece of data, when connected with another, can reveal patterns and trends,
and those insights that neither could produce independently start to emerge.
In this sense, data is more akin to elements coming together to form compounds,
unlocking properties and potentials previously unrealized.
As such, envisioning data as the new form of matter allows us to recognize its unique, inexhaustible, and combinatorial nature in this vast digital universe.
So why is this significant for our talk today?
It redefines the way we perceive value.
Where once data might have been discarded as this trivial, inconsequential thing,
today there's a maxim that we use to govern data, and it says,
keep everything because you never know when you're going to need it.
Even the absence of data creates this perceptible pattern and profile.
Just as the silence between musical notes is as critical as the notes themselves,
the data we don't see can be as telling as the data we do.
In a world where every digital action leaves a trace, deliberate absences become powerful signals for us.
They reveal resistances, discomforts, and areas where people don't want to leave a digital footprint.
Probably like a lot of us here.
You see, every piece of data, no matter how minute, contributes to this larger pattern, this larger tapestry.
While data of one individual might seem insignificant, when amassed, these patterns are easy to emerge.
Trends become visible, and predictive power of data comes to life.
Imagine being able to tap into that pulse of a nation's sentiment based on what they engage with online,
or even predict societal shifts before they occur.
This is the promise and the peril of our modern digital data world.
So let's put some things into perspective real quick.
Today, the advertising technology sector alone is valued at an astonishing $680 billion.
This figure doesn't just dwarf many industries, it surpasses even the combined budgets of all governmental intelligence organizations worldwide.
Think about that for a moment.
The mechanisms and technologies designed to influence what you buy, what you feel, and ultimately how you vote,
are more funded than the entities to protect your national security.
Why such a disparity in valuation and investment?
Because influencing minds, molding opinions, and steering your decisions is big business.
And in our democratic societies, where power of the vote remains supreme,
influencing that vote has never been more lucrative or more achievable.
Take China. They've emerged not just as an economic powerhouse, but also as a forerunner in deploying surveillance technologies.
It's a vast network apparatus built around its great firewall,
monitors every click, every post, every comment, limiting access to information,
suppressing dissidence, and curating a narrative that's palatable to the ruling party.
China's approach to its technical security is more than just a shield against external cyber threats.
It's a chokehold on its citizens' freedoms.
VPNs are illegal, dissenting voices are silenced,
and even seemingly innocuous references to subjects considered sensitive by the Chinese Communist Party can result in retribution.
This has resulted in a populace that, despite being connected to the internet, is not connected to the broader global conversation.
Yet, while the Chinese apparatus is a stark reminder of an alternative to the freedom of democracy that we're afforded here in the U.S.,
there is another, more prescient threat.
Multinational companies, in their quest for market domination, shares, and profits,
have at times become great enablers of such restrictive practices.
It would be fair to say that within the last 20 years,
a majority of the apparatus used globally for digital surveillance capitalism,
censorship, influence, and modern espionage has emerged from the private sector.
Even the emergence of an entirely new form of intelligence, called Open Source Intelligence, or OSINT,
has aggressively changed the way nations and companies conduct investigations, research, and due diligence.
It's likely everyone in this room has used the great Google Oracle to search for information on themselves or others,
pulling data from this vast, indelible archive that comprises our modern digital economy.
Even Apple, a company that champions privacy and user rights in its advertising campaigns in the West,
has faced discrimination for its actions in China.
From removing VPN apps from the App Store,
from reportedly storing user data in their own Chinese data centers,
Apple has seemingly made concessions that empower Beijing's surveillance apparatus.
Most notably, in November of 2022,
Apple rolled out an iOS update to iPhones sold in mainland China that disables key features in AirDrop.
That same AirDrop feature was used crucially by protesters in China only two months prior.
While business decisions can be complex, we as consumers and as a society should be well aware of the control and influence
seemingly simple changes in technology can imply.
It's concerning when we see a company as influential as Apple,
which has historically stood for innovation and freedom, potentially aiding a regime that suppresses its own people.
More broadly, and even the architecture and the infrastructure designed to enable our modern communications is fundamentally flawed.
It wasn't built to help we, the people, communicate and express ideas and have healthy discourse.
It was designed to project ads into your brain at light speed, 24 hours a day, 365 days a year.
And the pressure to conform to this model has shaped our perception of what effective communication is.
Too often in these platforms, communication is distilled down to quippy sound bites, or humorous one-liners, or reduced to memes.
We can't help it. Our news outlets, our media feeds, our texts, and all of our streams have been trending to smaller, shorter, and less.
Our attention spans have been shrinking.
Look at all of the abbreviations modern texting has devised.
I suspect an entirely new language has been created just from the abbreviations and emojis.
To confirm, just hop on Reddit or a dating app, and you need a decoder ring and a degree in linguistics just to figure out what the hell they're talking about.
Even Twitter limits your expression to 280 characters.
The McDonald's menu in text is 5.5 times larger than that.
And it makes sense. The platforms that we use to communicate are incentivized to keep you connected and re-engaging.
More frequent, sensational content in smaller, more digestible packages creates more data.
Even content and service providers like AT&T and Verizon that serve cellular and home internet have long defended their right to limit or restrict content that they provide to their users based on their business ideologies.
These companies, along with many others, oppose concepts of net neutrality and defend the assertion that access to content must remain a corporate decision, and the companies themselves are best positioned to regulate this for consumers.
Sounds like a conflict of interest, right?
Despite that assertion, they can keep their consumers' best interests in mind. These companies quietly make millions of dollars in profit selling your personal data to advertisers.
Simultaneously, they organize, fund, and resist legislation that has the potential to offer you, the consumer, greater protection, more rights, and more inclusive access simply because it does not fit their corporate ideology.
Comparisons to China may be a bit excessive, but it is a very slippery slope.
These technologies and companies that deploy them and maintain them have become critical components of our modern lives, so integrated, in fact, that some may argue that they should fall into the categorization of a utility, like water or gas or electricity.
It sounds crazy to think of the apparatus that serves you all of your cat videos as critical as water, but it kind of makes sense.
So how does this all tie into influencing voters?
With this constant stream of sentiment, content, context, and metadata, a sufficiently equipped entity, not just a nation-state, can predict micro and macro trends with exacting precision.
In doubt? How often have you assumed that your cell phone's microphone must be constantly monitoring everything you're saying because of the accuracy of the advertising?
Why go to all that trouble when Google handles 2.5 exabytes of data every single day and stores 10 to 15 exabytes of useful data in their systems?
It's much easier for them to generate an algorithm than collect, transport, and process your weird conversation on a phone.
So they do all of this simply to sell you a pair of shoes, which comprises 58% of their 2022 revenue, a $225 billion industry.
So when we look back in history and reflect on our era, I think a lot will speak about this digital revolution as a seismic shift in how information flows and how it shapes our democracies.
We kind of stand at this crossroads today where the very fabric of our democratic process is woven into these threads of data and artificial intelligence and this omnipresent realm of social media that never sleeps.
The integration of technology in our daily lives, for all its conveniences and all of its advancements, has also opened up pathways for malicious actors, both foreign and domestic, to manipulate our thoughts, opinions, and even our votes.
Let's journey back for a moment when we talked about the internet as this utopia for the free exchange of ideas, a democratizing force.
Fast forward today, though, and we find ourselves grappling with this double-edged sword it's become.
In one hand, it's brought unprecedented access to information.
On the other hand, it's become a tool for manipulation, leveraging our own behaviors and biases against us.
Consider the case of the now-defunct British data-driven consulting firm Cambridge Analytica.
This company clearly demonstrated how data can be weaponized for political advantage.
In 2010, they chose the tiny Caribbean nation of Trinidad and Tobago as a testing ground for a new method of political marketing.
They're so small and obscure, in fact, that this is not Trinidad and Tobago.
This is Trinidad and Tobago.
So, in 2016, on both sides of the Atlantic, Cambridge Analytica used data harvested from millions...
Sorry, we're going to go back. Sorry.
So, Trinidad and Tobago was in a parliamentary election cycle.
The country historically voted along ethnic demographics between Afro and Indo-Trinidadians.
And that is a very hard word to say, by the way.
Although a smaller voting demographic, Cambridge Analytica focused on the Indo-Trinidadian party, the People's Partnership.
They waged a campaign of influence via TV, radio, and social media platforms,
specifically targeted and informed through their digital advertising data they collected through Facebook.
The strategy sought to explore the more nuanced and more cultural divisions among the younger male Afro-Trinidadians,
discouraging them from voting altogether.
By attacking the same social media bubble targeting this demographic,
the small, targeted influence campaign gained viral attention and propagated throughout that demographic.
That abstention, rather than persuasion, was enough to result in a historic win for the People's Partnership,
a political party that represented only about 40% of voters.
But that influence didn't stop there.
In 2016, they took their show on the road.
Both sides of the Atlantic, Cambridge Analytica used data harvested from millions of Facebook users
to develop psychographic profiles, which were then used to target ads specifically
against individuals in the 2016 U.S. election and the 2016 Brexit referendum.
The essence of this strategy?
Tailoring messages to play on specific fears, hopes, and emotions of each individual voter.
Again, targeting the same themes on polarized political views
and the echo chambers of voter-demographically aligned social media bubbles,
Cambridge Analytica significantly deviated the outcome of a historically accurate predictive model.
The Brexit referendum and the U.S. 2016 presidential election were not about policies or candidates.
For many, they were influenced subliminally.
Personalized propaganda was fed to them by this machine,
and all of it was fueled by data that we unwittingly provided them.
We observed this firsthand in the 2016 U.S. presidential election
as it showcased a formidable power around digital marketing and ad tech.
Donald Trump's campaign, with the help of Cambridge Analytica,
harnessed these exact tools with surgical precision.
Every ad, every message, everything that he said was tailored or tweaked to target maximum exerted impact.
And while critics questioned his strategy, railed against some of his messaging,
and sometimes even struggled to take him seriously, the strategy delivered him a success.
It was subtle, atraditional, and guided largely by the data.
They moneyballed it.
As such, exacting use of technology gave an unparalleled edge,
demonstrating to the world the importance of its digital battleground in modern politics.
But the threat to our democratic system isn't limited to data-driven persuasion.
The specter of voting machine hacking is also looming large.
While there are real risks to the technology, it's essential to recognize the dual danger that it represents.
It's not just the potential to alter a vote count on a machine,
but more significantly, to shatter the trust in the very system that we use to conduct our democratic process.
Discrediting our electoral system, sowing seeds of doubt, and driving wedges in our societal fabric,
these are the aims of a sophisticated information operation,
regardless of the technical vulnerabilities of the balloting systems altogether.
The Russian intelligence interference of 2016 and the 2020 elections is now very well documented.
Fake accounts, targeted ads, polarizing content were all used and disseminated with precision,
aiming to sow this same discord and deepen the divides in American society.
They utilized our likes, our shares, our comments to create this mosaic in the American psyche and used it against us,
turning neighbors against one another and shaking the bedrock of how we communicate.
The new normal that we're actually witnessing today is one where data doesn't just inform,
it influences, it persuades, and sometimes it even manipulates.
Our thoughts, opinions, and crucially, our votes are coveted commodities in a high-stakes digital market.
As we move forward, we must ask ourselves, how do we navigate this vast digital ocean?
How do we ensure that democracies aren't eroded by the very tools that promise to empower them?
And we'll spend a second on this slide.
The digital era has really shifted how we think about information operations, I.O.
What we're watching a lot today is a shift from this wholesale governmental approach where you have to have a networked campaign,
and we're watching targeted marketing campaigns being done in micro-segmentation.
It's hitting you in Facebook, it's hitting you in social media, it's hitting you in text messages,
it's hitting you in all spheres of your life, all informed by the exact data you're feeding it.
It's like a mirror.
So, as we stand poised and observant in this new digital era, the intricacies of big data and artificial intelligence,
and these advanced algorithms that lead them, are more than just technological marvels.
They're formidable tools for shaping our perceptions, our decisions, and the very fabric of our societies.
The exponential rise in computing power has ushered in a paradigm where faster, more automated processes don't just detect patterns, but they enrich them.
The higher the fidelity of this data, the more nuanced the subtle insights that we receive.
But therein lies a profound challenge. In this race, the speed of influence has now surpassed the speed of our own comprehension.
And policy? The cornerstone of governance? They don't even show up to the race.
Imagine a vast ocean of social media, where every tweet, every status update, every like is like a ripple on its surface.
Big data and AI dive deep beneath that, interpreting currents, detecting these tides, enabling these corporations to navigate these waters with unprecedented precision.
Simply because they have the resources to do so.
These tools are employed both offensively, to drive perceptions, consumer behavior, and critically voter decisions.
And defensively, to guard against competitors, market shifts, and changing consumer sentiment.
You, the average citizen, you're just caught between an overwhelming resource of these powerful titans and the unstoppable onslaught of technological advancement.
However, it isn't just the corporate sector that recognizes and harnesses this power.
Competitive adversarial nations like China and Russia have weaponized these technologies and these advances, intertwining them seamlessly with their own geopolitical strategy.
China's vast infrastructure projects, such as what is up on the board, the Belt and Road Initiative, are not merely feats of engineering.
They're bridges of influence.
By acquiring pivotal transport points, infrastructure, securing mining rights, and even mining rare earth metals, China is crafting a narrative of indispensability.
But if you look closer, and you sift through those patterns in the data, the story starts to evolve.
It speaks of a strategic positioning, of a global leverage, and of a crafting of a narrative about this inevitable ascendancy that they wish to portray.
Beyond physical infrastructure, though, the digital Silk Road is a crucial component of the Belt and Road Initiative.
By laying down fiber optic cables and building 5G networks in a partner countries, China is positioning itself at the heart of the next generation of the digital world.
Control over this infrastructure provides a considerable ability to shape information flow and potentially influence how information is conveyed at all.
Critics also point to the debt diplomacy of the Belt and Road Initiative as it affects the potential for a debt trap diplomacy, where countries unable to repay loans might be influenced or manipulated into policy concessions themselves.
This not only affects the country in debt, but can also alter the regional power dynamics, indirectly impacting our own Western needs.
Additionally, this initiative engenders goodwill towards China as they invest and build infrastructure worldwide.
Positive perceptions as a governmental and consumer level might overshadow the criticisms that we provide to them over their human rights and trade practices.
Another program that China runs is the Thousand Talents Program.
It subtly shifts the focus of their technological innovation and expertise towards finding new talent.
Thousand Talents Program is an effort to cultivate high-level expertise in scientific research and innovation and entrepreneurship.
But it also serves as a mechanism for acquiring intellectual property, conducting corporate and academic espionage, and it sits at the center of their perception campaign to reimagine China as this emergent global innovation leader.
But China's endeavors in these areas are not purely economic. They serve strategic objectives for enhancing global influence, establishing themselves as an indispensable global commerce, and subtly reframing narratives around their country.
This provides them unprecedented levels of influence in commerce, translating to pressure in economic policy, as well as upon us as voters.
Consider the rise of Chinese investment in Western media. Notably, many Hollywood studios adhere to specific guidelines crafted by the Chinese government, directing only positive representation of Chinese interests in Western media.
Russia's tactical prowess in this realm is equally notable. In the bleak landscapes of Ukraine, it wasn't just a physical battle that played out.
A digital onslaught sought to mold perceptions and narratives. When Russian-led forces took control of the Crimean, waves of disinformation followed, reframing and reshaping that narrative itself.
This had ripple effects far beyond Ukraine's borders. Many American voters were inundated with skewed perceptions and found themselves thinking about foreign policy and having their beliefs involuntarily swayed.
This is actually a billboard from Moscow in 2014. The same narrative that they used today to cross the border into Ukraine in 2022 was Nazism inside of Ukraine.
So this is a constant theme that they have. They have a very tight information operations campaign.
Extending those narratives in the 2022 invasion of Ukraine, Russia leverages its sophisticated information operation mechanisms with a beautiful effective recipe.
They took one part of depicting the Ukrainian government as this inherently corrupt, fascist and ineffective state through their state-controlled media and they aligned it with the domestic support and the flood of media channels for these alternative facts that they were providing.
They added in a dash of casting doubt on the motives of entities like NATO or the EU to undermine faith in the Western democratic model.
They whisked in a little bit of deterrence to the American support for Ukraine by portraying it as a lost cause or a pawn in a larger Western game.
Add in one at a time, the application and divisive messaging spreading false stories and exacerbating political divisions within the US via the use of bots, trolls and fake accounts on platforms like Facebook, Twitter and YouTube and the effect really accelerates.
Knead this mixture together with the use of technologies like deepfakes.
They have highly realistic but entirely fake content to ensure misinformation is dramatically difficult to identify.
Add in a separate bowl, a combined campaign based on open source digital data and digital advertising to direct messages towards fringe groups that are predisposed to skepticism about international interventions and have isolationist tendencies.
Top that with narratives about purported Ukraine interference in US elections and that distracts us and drives wedges into the American political discourse.
Finally, bake this in with some erosion of the coherence of US foreign policy by exaggerating and amplifying real issues inside the US and voila, you have a perfectly efficient and deliciously effective campaign.
Both nations have mastered the art of shaping this digital narrative, influencing policy and perception and swaying voting populations both domestically and internationally.
In our rapidly growing digital world, every click, every share, every search is a piece of a vast puzzle that paints a vivid portrait of who we are.
The challenges presented by big data and artificial intelligence are this complex web of social media advertising and digital technology.
It is undeniable their value. However, rather than standing passively in the face of these challenges that we see around them, we can and we must take concrete actions to fortify our democracy and preserve the sanctity of our own choices.
So let's break it down into three realms which we can exercise our own power of influence. The individual, the community and the government. Each of them playing a critical role together.
Firstly, the individual. Personal empowerment begins with awareness. Recognizing that digital identities are extensions of ourselves is the first step.
We need to be discerning about the information we share, the permissions we grant and the digital trails we leave.
Just as we wouldn't freely give away keys to our homes, we must guard access to our digital selves.
This requires constant education and a proactive approach to digital hygiene.
Curate our own personal information that's available to virtual platforms. Manage the emissions of our digital activities and our devices.
And be vigilant of manipulative content.
There are numerous presentations just at this conference alone to help inform you and equip you with effective methods to safeguard your most precious data and activities.
Remember, you vote with your ballot, with your wallet and now with your data.
The next is the community. In the age of the echo chamber and the divisive algorithms that we see, it's crucial for communities to champion healthy, open communication.
We must remember, through our collective voices, that we have the power to shape our own narratives and counteract misinformation and promote informed choices.
We do this by fostering platforms and forums for genuine dialogue.
We can create these spaces resistant to manipulation.
When we actively engage in conversations with those holding differing viewpoints, we not only broaden our own understanding, but we also dilute the potency of divisive digital tactics.
And finally, at the government level, the onus of building a robust, resilient digital infrastructure falls upon our governments.
This means not only investing in cybersecurity frameworks, but also implementing policies that protect citizen data.
Addressing these skewed frameworks of incentivized data and monetization is crucial.
Perhaps it's time we reevaluate the economics of data altogether, asking the challenging questions about who truly profits from its extraction and use.
Furthermore, our governments can play pivotal roles in media literacy campaigns, ensuring that from school age onward, citizens are equipped to navigate the digital realm that we connect to.
So, we're living in a digital era where our digital footprints often leave unwittingly, echo, that we leave unwittingly, and that echo loudly in the vast chambers of the internet and rest quietly in the vast sea of server farms that they reside.
The silent undercurrents of big data, artificial intelligence, and intricate algorithms have made voter influence a nuanced and deeply complex subject.
To many, the idea of being influenced seems almost foreign.
After all, our thoughts feel like our own.
Our choices seem to be born from our personal convictions, and the messages we receive often resonate with our deepest held beliefs.
That's actually the brilliance and the danger of modern digital influence.
It wraps itself so seamlessly around our own values and beliefs, it feels indistinguishable from our own inner voice.
And this is where the challenge lies.
In this digital landscape, influence doesn't manifest with overt calls to action, but with subtle nudges, seemingly harmless suggestions, and content that aligns so closely with our worldviews, we embrace it without question.
To navigate this intricate web, we must reclaim that voice.
And in an age where opinions are often magnified by algorithms and echo chambers, we must learn to differentiate between our own authentic voices and those sculpted by external influences.
This requires introspection, media literacy, and the relentless pursuit of diverse perspectives.
And just as importantly, to do this, we must learn to truly listen to one another.
In our hyper-connected world, genuine listening is becoming a lost art.
We must relearn to engage with others without prejudice, to understand those opposing viewpoints without immediate refutation, and to engage in discourse that enriches rather than divides.
It's through these such dialogues that we can start to see the subtle contours of the external influence that we are being fed, and begin to differentiate that from our genuine beliefs.
But all of that will be for naught if we don't also change the way our media platforms value the consumer and take the responsibility for the role they play in delivering information.
While these companies may simply view us as revenue generation, we rely on the connectivity in content.
We must demand authenticity and transparency and trust.
Many companies have instituted methodologies to enhance these aspects, but the lack of standardization and benchmarks leave this to the ill-informed consumer.
This is actually Facebook's attempt to get rid of a lot of the influence campaigns they find online.
But yet we still see news article after news article after news article of the same influence being applied against us, because it is done so well by massively funded entities.
I am personally an advocate for regulations similar to the investment and banking industry's evolution, via the Office of the Comptroller of Currency or the Security and Exchange Commission, with policies and regulations like Know Your Customer and the Consumer Financial Protection Act.
I know it's a radical idea to remove some of the anonymity and the security that we all enjoy as freedom on the internet.
But let's be honest, our most valuable perceptions are super vulnerable and are actively being influenced and weaponized using these ubiquitous tools, and our reliance upon them in our daily lives is undeniable.
In holding our social media and digital services platform providers to a more responsible, at a federal level of course, for the activities by their consumers on their platform, we then share the burden of combating misinformation influence with the platform itself.
To safeguard our digital identities and to reinforce our resistance to influence, we must be proactive in managing our online personas, our likes, our shares, our searches, and our interactions.
We must recognize the inherent value of this data and treat it with the care and protection it deserves.
This means being more discerning with the permissions we grant, questioning the platforms that ask for our data, and holding these entities to a higher standard of transparency and accountability.
In closing, in an era where influence operates faster than our ability to understand it, our foundational challenge is to bridge the gap between comprehension and policy.
The very tenets of our democracies, free markets, and our global strategies hinge upon it.
As we continue our journey in the digital age, it is imperative that we recognize these patterns, adapt, and ensure that the tools designed to enrich our lives don't undermine our own core values.
As we navigate these uncharted waters, we must remain vigilant.
For every marvel that big data promises, there is a potential pitfall.
Let us remember that technology is merely a tool. It is neither inherently good nor inherently evil, and its impact on our lives, our societies, and our democracies will be shaped by how we choose to wield it.
The tools that can predict our favorite movies, streamline our shopping, and enhance our online experiences are the same tools that manipulate our perceptions, invade our privacy, and undermine our own democratic process.
The digital age presents both immense promise and profound challenges.
As we navigate, let us remember that our thoughts, voices, and identities are sovereign.
With the digital currents in the digital age, we need awareness, responsibility, and genuine engagement.
We can steer this course confidently and with integrity.
As we stand at this intersection, let us choose a path of empowerment and collaboration.
Let's take a proactive approach for our own protection.
For this choice lies the promise of a democracy that thrives, both online and off.
Let us remember that while technology evolves rapidly, the core principles of democracy—trust, transparency, and the power of the people—must remain unbroken.
Thank you all, and I'm happy to take questions if you have them.
I think we're getting a microphone, is that right?
That way I don't have to yell whatever you yell back at me.
Right here.
So the power of data that we're talking about here.
Do you think that privacy law, the enforcement arm, the financial enforcement arm of privacy law, and data governance that is enforced by that privacy law can help with this problem?
The data's out there, but storing the data forever and ever...
A person I follow named Michelle Dennedy, who's a privacy professional, she calls it a data swamp.
Because the data actually has increased liability with time.
It doesn't have perpetual increasing value.
It actually has perpetual increasing liability.
And the value is just a potential, not a guarantee.
So the combination of thinking in that way and the proactive action that you are speaking about, which is policy and an enforcement arm, can it actually make a difference to our elections?
I think the answer is yes.
But if you look at our political system today, most of the politicians that are there making these decisions or voting upon them, they don't understand the technology itself.
If you watch Mark Zuckerberg sit up and talk about how Facebook uses advertising, most of the people on those panels don't understand what he's talking about.
The experts that we put in front of them are poorly received.
They can't get into the technical weeds.
We need a lot more time, I think, and a cohesion policy around this.
A lot of states are actually running their own data governance policies.
If you look at the states of California and New York, you see this.
But look at the EU. They have a netted policy across an entire region.
We don't have anything like that yet.
So I think really it's time that we need to invest in it.
We need to start these conversations.
But we start that at the consumer level and say, this is how I'm voting with my feet, with my wallet, with my data.
And then we actually get the discourse that we want from our politicians.
But today, just saying that we want it, I don't think we're going to see something tomorrow.
You have to build policy.
Yes, you do. And you have to build the ability to participate in that policy system as well.
You need education from consumers.
I mean, my mother lives in Florida and has been the target of several cyber scams.
Believes very clearly in several different misinformation campaigns.
And that's a commitment that she's made because she doesn't understand the literacy that it takes to actually get online and sift through this data.
So I think that's really the issue. It's like the education and the policy meeting together.
So I got a question for you based sort of on what...
I'm sorry?
So on what you were talking about in there, you were talking about misinformation.
Yep.
And the mic wasn't picking me up for him.
Okay.
Anyways, so have you seen where voice generative AI is being used in election, U.S. elections, right?
So this is my political message and I approve it.
So we are seeing deep fakes.
We've seen it in the global theater.
We've seen it in the Russian-Ukrainian conflict.
When it comes to voting specifically, I don't think we've identified like this specific thing was done in a campaign.
But it's much more subtle than that because I don't have to actually hit you with a campaign ad.
I can hit you with something else.
I can hit you with other influence mechanisms that then have a second or third order effect about how you'll vote.
And so I think that's actually how we're seeing this applied today.
It's much more subtle and much more complex.
It's not that direct message of like, here's the headline that I want you to read.
It's just inundating you with little bits of information and slowly manipulating and slowly moving your perception.
Hi, is this working? Great.
Yeah, I think so.
So given your background, you might be able to talk to this as well.
How do you see this playing out on a global stage between the superpowers of the world and their influence in their areas?
And especially in particular, how one superpower influences voting in another country and how that becomes an advantage or disadvantage in certain perspectives.
Yeah, so it's a careful topic, but I think we're watching it live right now.
And I think we have several examples of how it plays out.
If you looked at what happened over COVID with supply chain challenges, the factories that China shut down meant that you couldn't buy milk.
You couldn't buy plastic goods that they were shipping.
We couldn't build houses like Home Depot was empty.
And you, the consumer, felt that. And you were willing to do damn near anything to get those products back.
And so your voting actually was shifted by that simple policy, economic policy change in China.
Was that the intent? Was that the effect?
Potentially. Potentially, they knew the impact that shutting down trade transport would have.
And they had a ready-made excuse inside of COVID to say, hey, we got to do this obviously for health and safety.
So if you think about the impact that that has globally on our global stage, China has a very well netted, as does Russia, a very well netted information operations campaign and geopolitical strategy.
In the US, we don't have that. We don't share that. Our companies aren't as close to the government as we see in China and Russia.
In China, a lot of the companies kowtow to exactly what the government asks them to do. That's just part of policy and part of their culture.
So we're at a supreme disadvantage when it comes to influence at all. I don't think they actually think about influencing you as a voter.
I think they think about putting pressure on us as a nation. And in that pressure, then we make choices.
So if you think about Putin and his choice over which candidate he may want next to alleviate the pressure that US has applied in Ukraine to combat him, which candidate would you think he might want to support?
I guarantee you the Kremlin thinks about this. I guarantee you his intelligence apparatus thinks about this.
So they are already starting their strategy in information operations and several other methods to ensure that we feel that pressure and that stress for manipulating our perspectives as well.
So yes, we are at a supreme disadvantage, I believe, because of that netting framework. Does that answer your question right?
Yes, it does. A little bit of a follow-on.
So what I think I'm understanding is maybe China considers economic factors strongly in how they might exert influence across the globe.
And Russia maybe uses political factors, more social factors in their influence across the globe.
What is your perspective on what we do? Because we've, or as the United States, maybe not we, but the United States, has traditionally done such things as well, but I don't know too much about it.
So we'll start, actually we'll back up just a hair and cover China as a model. It's an interesting thought to think about China as being equivalent to the U.S.
And if you look at their low, medium, and high income demographics, their economic demographics, and the population density size, it's very similar to the U.S.
The difference is they have another billion ultra poor people bolted onto the bottom of that.
And so that creates a lot of pressure and stress for their government because you're not going to stop a billion people who are hungry.
And they know this. So what they really are concerned with and what they really care about is ensuring that that country runs smoothly.
Again, I don't think they think about us and our voting politics. I think they think about their own infrastructure, their own ability to survive, their own ability to propagate their own ideals.
And so in doing so, they want a stronger voice than we have. And they've done a phenomenal job in aligning their geopolitical strategy and their industrial strategies around that.
If you look at these programs like Thousand Talents and Belt and Road Initiative, they own ports here in the U.S. They own several ports inside of the U.S.
Through investment, they have access to our Hollywood media outlets. They influence what we see in movies and what we see on TV.
They influence all the products we receive and the updates that those pieces of software get.
Because they're a large part of our manufacturing base, and we don't do that here, Apple has to say, OK, well, I guess we'll put a server farm in China and give you all the data because who else is going to make an iPhone for me?
So if you think about all that, that's actually what we're combating against. I don't think they think about us adversarially in that way. Does that make sense?
Russia, however, does. I think a lot of the old regime is still closely netted into the government, and I believe they think about their own world-stage superpower.
I don't think they think of the country the same way that, say, China thinks about themselves. I think they think of themselves as a regional, approaching superpower level.
So a lot of what you're seeing is a projection of a strategy to build buffers around their country so that the pro-West ideologies and the pro-West influence has basically a bulwark between them and their citizens.
When it comes to U.S. strategy, I think we're super diverse. We give a lot of power to corporations, to companies. I mean, we have, I think, the top 10 list of the most lucrative digital data advertising.
Seven of them are U.S. companies. Two of them are Chinese, and one, I think, is a Russian company. But if you think about that, most of the media, most of the information, most of the data is generated, held, and driven by us.
So we give a lot of power to those companies who set policy, who lobby, who put money into politics. And that changes and sways the way we, the voting constituents, the people who actually submit our vote, get offered options or choices or even presented with facts.
So I think a lot of that is cloudy and probably could be cleaned up a lot around policy and a lot of the other things that we talk about where we can start to set guardrails and say, look, this shouldn't be a factor that influences us as a voting constituency.
Should you have free and open access to the Internet? Should you be able to see information? Should we require platforms that we use to allow politicians to solicit your vote? Should we see a verification that they are who they say they are? Should we have authenticity in that platform? Those are the types of things I think that we need to clean up on our end.
Any other questions?
So as the United States, what, in your opinion, can we do to keep up with the predatory loaner homogenistic strategies of China whenever it's so easy for strategic partnerships to accept the give a man a fish versus teach a man to fish strategy? And in your opinion, kind of a two-part question, does that give credence to the actual effectiveness of those partnerships developed?
Meaning dwindling influences of those countries over time based on money versus on upbringing and long-term campaign?
That's a great question. I think if we're talking about in realistic terms, we're already behind. We're very far behind. And we've watched a lot of the economic influence occur across Africa, across the Middle East, even here in the US.
So we have to figure out how to re-engage those partnerships. We have to think about reaching out externally. And if you think about how the US played politics post-World War II, we did have a very overt campaign of reaching out globally.
Over the past probably 20 years, we've really restricted that. We've brought it back home and focused a lot more on domestic issues. Yes, we fought wars. Yes, we've been in foreign countries. Yes, we are still there. But we don't have that same global presence that we used to have, nor do we have the relationships and the influence.
That vacuum that that created, China stepped right inside and filled. And some of the things I think that are most important to think about in that is, from a superpower standpoint, our ability to wage economic warfare is probably one of our strongest talents.
We have the dollar standard. It is the gold standard. It is a global standard. But if you watch just recently with the embargoes and the sanctions that we placed on Russia, they started trading oil in rupees. They started trading oil in Chinese currency. That challenges our own economic superpower status.
So in doing so, you then provide an alternative currency. Sanctions don't mean anything. We have no way of actually combating in warfare, in soft power projection. We have to actually go to war now. When you think about our nation from a competitive standpoint, we start to lose that advantage. We see China pulling further ahead.
So I think really what we have to do is we have to find that coalition of the willing. We have to find people who share those similar ideologies. And we have to figure out how to partner with them much closer like we once were.
The European Union is an interesting one. We have started to rebuild a lot of relationships there, but we still have very fractured relationships with a lot of those countries. And we see that play out in a lot of the politics, even around the Ukrainian war, right? We're not going to vote to support the Ukrainian war. We're not going to allow them into NATO and things like that. They're holding out because we don't have that relationship or that partnership. And because China is paying for a lot of infrastructure and resources in those countries. Does that answer your question?
Oh yeah, that was good. Yeah, you hit every point.
That's it? Thank you all. That was fun. Thank you. Thank you.