The following by Melissa Ryan was posted on the Media Matters website May 17, 2018:
Mr. Wylie goes to Washington to help America better understand what we’re facing from social media
Christopher Wylie testified before the Senate Judiciary Committee on May 16, warning of “resegregation of society that’s catalyzed by algorithms” and speaking at length about how Cambridge Analytica exploited Americans on Facebook.
Wylie, the whistleblower who helped expose Cambridge Analytica’s exploitation of 87 million Facebook users’ data, had met privately with House Democrats last month but the Republican majority refused to allow an open hearing. He has testified before Parliament in the U.K., but yesterday’s hearing was Wylie’s first public appearance in the U.S. He spoke about Cambridge Analytica’s U.S. election work, the systemic failures of tech companies that led to the data breach, and what the future holds if said failures remain unaddressed. Wylie emphasized that Americans are simply unable to opt out of using the internet and that regulation is the only protection available. Senators on the committee asked Wylie about some of Cambridge Analytica’s practices that will likely be adopted by other entities, such as voter suppression ads and predictive algorithms. Continue reading “Christopher Wylie warns Congress of “resegregation of society that’s catalyzed by algorithms””
