Facebook recently announced it was expanding its hate speech policy to include content that “denies or distorts the Holocaust,” a major shift for the social media company that has repeatedly come under fire for its inaction on hateful and false information in the past.

In announcing the policy change, Monika Bickert, Facebook’s vice president of content policy, cited a recent survey that found almost a quarter of adults in the US between the ages of 18 and 39 believed the Holocaust was a myth.

Facebook will now direct users to credible information if they search for content related to Holocaust denial on its platform.

While many will agree with Facebook’s decision to take this action, it remains a decision they made on their own without any overarching policy to serve as a framework for future decisions.

In short, they acted as their own judge, jury, and executioner.

Naturally this leaves many unanswered questions. Will Twitter, Google, and LinkedIn follow suit? Are flat-earthers next? How about Singularity deniers? Sigmund Freud deniers? Or tectonic plate deniers?

Admittedly it’s a very fine line between having free speech and being allowed to falsely yell “fire” in a crowded movie theater.

Facebook CEO, Mark Zuckerberg, has frequently said Facebook should not be the arbitrator of complex judgment calls over free speech issues, and has called for a governmental regulatory body to set universal standards. This has not happened.

For this reason, Facebook has decided to fund an independent external oversight board, dubbed their Supreme Court, which will make decisions about whether content should be removed from Facebook and play a key role in setting precedent about content policy from here on out.

But Facebook’s internal policy is not intended to regulate other social media platforms.

While most businesses on the planet have governments serving as a “checks-and-balance” agency regulating the actions of corporations, the Internet continues to operate in a “wild west” fashion where virtually everything is okay until it’s not.

Without any global authorities in place, most social media companies are now operating their own “truth meter” to decide which versions of the truth are acceptable and which ones are not.

Currently there are no global authorities for regulating internet content. This means there are no global regulatory agencies to:

• Set policy for what’s acceptable and what’s not
• Set standards
• Enforce policies
• Resolve conflict
• Insure the safety of users
• Insure the internet is a safe playing field for businesses to operate in

Promoters of Chaos and Disruption

Since 2020 is an election year, many have cast a wary eye at foreign agencies that may be trying to influence the elections. The same groups used to tilt an election are often used to promote chaos as a way of disrupting progress.

Those with a chaos mandate are typically harder to spot because their overarching agenda is far less obvious.

Over the past few months, law enforcement researchers have been tracking a number of groups promoting disinformation campaigns used to spread chaos, inflame anti-government sentiment in many communities, often to the point of inspiring violent criminal behavior.

With sites like 4Chan acting as a breeding ground for political radicalization, followers tend to move onto more mainstream platforms, like Facebook and Twitter, where they spread their ideas and build wider communities and influence.

Global Authorities

We currently have very few global authorities. The United Nations was created to resolve global conflicts. ICANN is the global authority for naming and numbering systems related to the Internet. And the World Health Organization oversees health dangers around the world.

With the concept of ownership being muddied by governments and police claiming authority to seize property, a global authority may be needed to sort out all of the issues related to ownership around the world. Simply claiming rights based on the “spoils of war theory” needs to go away.

As the number of multinational corporations grow in size and influence, we urgently need a number of global authorities to regulate emerging areas of business:

 

• Artificial Intelligence
• Privacy
• Cryptocurrency
• Intellectual property
• News vs fake news
• Human trafficking
• Business ethics
• Human incarceration
• Global banking
• Basic human rights
• Global citizenship
• Global energy

Every new form of technology adds an extra layer of complexity, and the types of dangers become exponentially more difficult to understand.

Final Thoughts

There are many benefits to having separate countries around the world. They can preserve cultures and help spawn new industries.

But the biggest benefit is the competition that takes place between countries. This competition has helped push our standard to living to increasingly higher levels.

At the same time, we are in dire need of a number of global authorities to address specific problems, and these problems will continue to fester until some type of regulatory system is put into place.

It’s important to understand, we have a very symbiotic relationship with the online world. If the human economy collapses, so will the Internet economy.

Among most of my futurist friends, it’s common thinking that most future wars will be started as cyberwars.

As we discuss this type of scenario, they begin as a series of attacks on critical infrastructure, with one country being severely undermined by state-sponsored terrorists, or a rogue band of hackers. Malicious computer code inserted into a critical system related to transportation, finance, health, or utilities, for example, can bring a nation to its knees, or even turn these systems into weapons – crashing planes, blowing up nuclear plants, releasing contagions … no doubt you’ve seen the same movies I have.

Now let’s imagine another kind of cyber war – an extension of the propaganda wars of the past. Not Hanoi Hanna or Tokyo Rose, but lies and misinformation spread on mainstream social media sites, maybe even seemingly by famous people. This isn’t farfetched, of course, and it’s happened already, usually on a smaller scale. We’ve all seen these messages – “Ignore that post, I’ve been hacked.” Or, “Don’t respond to a friend request from me, my account has been hacked.”

Add to this plot our mainstream media’s proclivity to use social media as a news source, and our disinformation pipeline can be amplified a hundred-fold before it’s proven false or bogus. Once it’s out there, like the evil genie, it becomes impossible to put back into the bottle.

As we’re seeing these days, people eagerly accept, believe, and share any “news item” they see that supports their viewpoint. It doesn’t take much to polarize a nation when people stop learning and choose just to “accept.”

This opens the door for foreign agents to sow discord, polarization, division, and humiliation through social media. But who needs a foreign agent to do that these days!

Let’s take things a step further. What if the Facebook, Twitter, or Instagram account of a world leader, a nation’s president for the sake of argument, is hacked? In the ten minutes before the account can be locked down, slanderous or even extremely dangerous information is presented as fact. “Prime Minister X is a predator.” “We’re sending troops to the Y country border for an imminent invasion.” “We will seek to assassinate the evil leader of country Z.” Can you imagine the international reaction and the national security/military Code Reds that would be triggered?

Is it possible that our next war could be triggered by fake news on Facebook? Keep in mind, virtually every past war has resulted from a massive communications problem, and in our world today, a little misinformation can go a long way since 1.62 billion users visit Facebook daily and most of them like to share.

Little by little, Facebook is being dominated by toxic advocates. If you unfriend the polarizing people, then you’re not left with much. If we add enough filters to manage our feed, we might get the message, “Sorry, I can’t find anything else you might want to see!”

Final Thoughts

In my mind, the biggest danger Facebook and similar sites pose is not the pre-emptive nuclear war resulting from a hacked presidential post, but how they’re dividing us and polarizing society.

Yes, virtually every technology, even those created with the best of intentions, can be used to the detriment of society. And now we can add Facebook and Twitter to that list.

Social media, as it is being pressured by its boycotting advertisers, has found itself being pushed towards an impossibly high standard.

Facebook and Twitter now have the mandate to become their own arbitrators of not only what’s true and what’s not, but also what’s demeaning, inflammatory, bullying, and mean-spirited. And they’re attempting to do so in a way that’s okay with every country, culture, religion, ethnic group, and language. In short, it’s simply not possible.

My prediction is that once we’ve seen that they’ve passed their peak, perhaps only a few months away, social media will get replaced with what comes next, something edgier and more disturbing, but a platform that insulates and removes itself from our most egregious human behavior.

Like me, you’ve probably seen news items, blog posts, and web pages that are cringe worthy for a number of reasons – including their lack of truthfulness. If we hold a “truth meter” next to every college course, Wikipedia article, or television newscast, how many of them would pass that test? Yes, truth is more important than ever since we’re consuming so much news and information online and unverified.

But “truth” is a tricky thing.

Truth is in the eye of the beholder

Except for the most basic statements, many “facts” are anything but provable or definitive. Often, their accuracy depends on the personal opinion of each reader, which, in turn, is informed by their education, status, culture, location (e.g., country of residence), upbringing, gender, race, and other factors.

Our individual perceptions of truth are also influenced by what we expect or want the truth to be. Does a narrative fit our preconceived notions? Does it validate a trend or cause that’s important to us? If so, we’re more likely to view it as true … and share it widely.

Truth can be deceptive – words matter

“Experts say the colonization of Mars could begin by 2040.”

Could that statement be considered factual? Well, using the word “could” certainly gives the writer some leeway. And you can find a person (and call them an “expert”) who will espouse pretty much anything you want to promote – including readership.

On its face, though, I’d say that that statement is not un-factual, but it certainly can be a misleading headline when our tendency as readers and social media consumers is to:

• Discount the fine print (words like “could”).
• Assign relatively equal credibility to anyone claiming to be an expert.

Thus, determining “truth” requires careful consideration of the statement and the source. (One must also decide if truth is the only standard that should be used when administering social media content. Well-intentioned censorship is a topic for another day.)

Social media administration

Social media companies like Facebook and Twitter have decided to become their own arbitrators of what’s true and what’s not, promising to remove lies and liars. But doing so in a way that takes into account every country, culture, religion, and language is simply not possible – from a logistical standpoint if nothing else. All that these companies can do, in my opinion, is remove the most egregious falsehoods, leaving in place many potentially possibly deceptive gray area posts for readers to weigh for themselves.

It’s important to keep in mind how most people use social media – especially Facebook and Twitter. First there’s commercial promotion (“Try our new menu”), entertainment (videos from Bob Dylan’s newest album), and personal life sharing (“Yay, Dwayne finally graduated from high school!”).

Then there’s the potentially darker side of social media: advocating positions and policies (and/or criticizing those of others) based on supposed sources or statements of truth.

Who’s to judge?

No doubt, posts of this type are the ones Facebook and Twitter will and should focus on. But as long as humans are making the decisions, there will be content curation biases similar to the personal biases noted (what do we want to be true, for example) plus perhaps a tendency to avoid controversial posts lest they upset a majority of readers, advertisers, or policymakers. Monitoring social media with this kind of objectivity is a tall order for a human being, but with the right training and guidance, maybe it’s possible these human editors can protect truth or move us in that direction.

What about automating the content monitoring process using artificial intelligence (AI) to separate fact from fiction? Someone will need to program the algorithms of course, and if that can be done objectively and thoroughly, this could conceivably work too – at least as well today’s automated spellcheck and grammar programs that don’t always get it right.

No doubt social media companies are using AI to some extent and will likely take bigger steps in that direction. It’s an interesting experiment in allowing machines to control societal discourse. What possibly could go wrong with that!

As always, if there is a point I missed, I’d love to hear your thoughts.

How long can you survive when your money runs out?

This is an important question today because many are seeing their remaining reserves dwindle and disappear altogether.

In general, it’s impossible to have this many top-down decisions without creating a massive number of unintended consequences.

One logical consequence will be an underground economy so people can still survive when their bank accounts hits zero.

When desperation sets in, all bets are off. Normal rules of decorum and civility get tossed out the window as survival instincts take over and food, water, shelter, and safety become a top priority.

We’ve become very dependent upon a monetary system that, for many of us, is no longer functional. The government’s intended safety net is riddled with holes.

Many of our traditional revenue streams have been abruptly changed, postponed, reduced, or halted completely. At the same time, governments around the world are scrambling to fill the gaps. But this is an imperfect world, filled with imperfect governments, resulting in gaping holes in what they intended to have happen.

When people get desperate, they’ll do whatever it takes to survive. This includes necessities like putting food on the table, finding places to live, clean water to drink, beds to sleep in, and solutions for a multitude of other problems that crop up. With an unprecedented number of changes happening all at once, the sheer volume of problems will often seem overwhelming.

For these reasons, our traditional set of rules and order used to guide our actions instantly gets grayed out in our minds as we’re reduced to primal instincts for survival.

The Unemployment Trigger

A few days ago, several friends informed me that the unemployment they recently applied for, would stay in effect until March-April of next year. This naturally raised several issues as virtually everyone will want to preserve this income stream for the full duration.

While an unemployment check will pay some of the bills, it generally won’t cover a lifestyle many have become accustomed to. So unless a particularly good job comes along, most will be looking for ways to supplement it.

Part time gigs like delivery jobs and ride sharing will help, but most will be able to leverage their skills in different ways as contractors, freelancers, and off-books labor.

Still some will choose to push the envelope, and for those truly motivated, far more money can be made in the shadow economies of the hacker world.

Underground Economies do not happen by Accident

Underground economies have traditionally shown up as a result of imperfections in an economic system or inadequacies in economic policy. While many complex factors come into play, typical causes are excessive tax burdens, government over-regulation, and poor performance by government agencies such as tax, judiciary, police, and other authorities.

In the coronavirus era, the trigger for underground economies will be the inequitable distribution of bailout money.

Never underestimate the power of devious minds!

Any entrepreneur that either gets funding or misses out will be challenging the status quo. Those with funding will attempt to leverage it far beyond anything they did in the past, and those who do not will be forced to go underground.

In general, people who feel disenfranchised or let down by “the system” become far more likely to lash out. When someone has too much time on their hands, and feels like they’ve been screwed, devious minds often percolate to the surface.

At the same time, our toolset for exploiting an underground economy has been growing exponentially. I’ll warn you in advance, there is plenty of technical jargon associated with shadow or hacker economies, yet each of these tools are only a YouTube video away from being skilled in using them

Underground Economy – Level One

We’re all aware of deals today that rarely get reported as income. In the overall scheme of things, this kind of activity has only amounted to a rounding error of significance. However, it won’t take much to move small-scale activities into much larger operations.

Barter

For the trading of goods and services, several barter apps already exist, many with significant networks already in place.

Online Marketplaces

For those selling on Amazon, eBay, Etsy, and thousands more, it will only take minor changes to shift from a traditional above-board business to one with significant off-book income.

Cash and Cash Alternatives

Working with under-the-table payments of cash, money orders, bonds, gift cards, prepaid credit cards, and other non-traditional forms of payment.

Crypto Transfers

Our rapidly advancing crypto world, with thousands of currencies each with their own advantages and disadvantages. Every breed of crypto offers its own degree of anonymity. As expected, crypto exchanges are experiencing a massive surge in new users as bailout packages flood the traditional exchanges with new money.

Underground Economy – Level Two

Level two takes us deep into the hacker underworld, where risks appear relatively low and new tools are being developed on a daily basis.

Database Breaches

Cyber attacks often start by hacking a database full of credentials. This gives them access to a network, and the ability to sell credentials on various dark web forums. Through a series of privilege escalation hacks, they can start reading business emails, send ransomware demands, and stage other types of attacks.

Instant Shell Corps

A shell corporation is a company with no office and no employees. They typically have a bank account, passive investments, or serve as the registered owner of assets. Shell corps are a common tool to mask who the true owners actually are, and used to launder money through currency exchanges.

Keyloggers

A keylogger is a type of monitoring software or hardware designed to record what you write. It can either be a program on your computer or a small device connected to your PC and keyboard, but its purpose is to keep track of everything you’ve been typing.

Banking Injects

Banking injects are widely published, popular, and powerful tools for performing fraud. They often involve fake overlays that are used with banking trojans to inject code that collects sensitive information before redirecting the user to a legitimate website.

Exploit Kits

Exploit kits are automated programs used by attackers to exploit known vulnerabilities. They can be used to secretly launch attacks while victims are browsing the web, with the goal being to download and execute some type of malware.

Spam and Phishing

These types of attacks generally involve email campaigns to gain access to hundreds of thousands of victims for the purpose of deploying malware or to gain further access into a network.

Credential Stuffing

This is where hackers take a massive trove of usernames and passwords, often from a corporate megabreach, and try to “stuff” those credentials into the login page for other companies. Since people often reuse the same username and password across multiple sites, hackers can often use one piece of credential info to unlock multiple accounts.

Loaders and Crypters

Hackers will also apply “loaders and crypters” to elude detection by antivirus software, and then download and execute one or more malicious programs, such as malware.

Sniffers

In an underground economy, sniffers refer to a type of malware written in JavaScript designed to infiltrate and steal card-not-present (CNP) data from the checkout pages of e-commerce websites.

Automated Marketplaces

If the goal is to monetize the data that hackers have acquired, there are tons of online credit card shops and marketplaces. Yes, there is a huge market for the buying and selling of banking credentials, cell phone accounts, online store accounts, dating accounts, and even digital fingerprints of compromised systems, all in an attempt to facilitate further breaches.

Underground Economy – Level Three

If we combine everything above with news manipulation techniques like misrepresented experts, data distortions, twisting facts, false claims, and deceptive headlines, we have a true recipe for disaster. This will become the proving ground for next generation puppet-masters.

Fake News and Fake Cover ups

On top of all the other hacker tools and techniques, people will figure out how to exploit the use of fake news, fake people, and fake reality to cover their trail and cast blame on innocent parties simply to make them look bad. As always, our biggest danger comes when these tools find their way into the hands of devious people.

My guess is that literally millions of cons are already in play and we won’t hear about them until several people and companies have lost their life savings.

Even more perplexing will be those who are operating in the grey areas of the law, using just enough fake-ness and fuzziness and staying somewhat legal.

Could some form of universal basic income be a solution?

Final Thoughts

Wherever we draw the line separating the legal from the illegal, there’s money to be made on both sides of the line.

Please understand that I’m not advocating doing anything illegal. But we need to acknowledge the likelihood of these possibilities.

One thing that could prevent many from going down this path is some form of guaranteed minimum income.

Will the prospects of a full year of unemployment, that may be extended even longer, set the stage for a “guaranteed minimum income” program? If all adults were given a survivable income of $2,000-$2,500 a month, no questions asked, how would that change society?

The Spanish government is working to roll out a universal basic income (UBI) as soon as possible, as part of a battery of actions aimed at countering the impact of the coronavirus pandemic.

But the government’s broader ambition is that basic income becomes an instrument that stays forever, that becomes a structural instrument, a permanent instrument of change.

Spain is dealing with the second worst coronavirus outbreak in Europe, and the pandemic has pushed the government to order a state of emergency, which has put the country in lockdown and driven the economy to a stand-still. The government has announced a barrage of policies to assist self-employed workers and companies, mainly small and medium-sized, but has also said that more measures will be required.

As always, I’d love to hear your thoughts so feel free to weigh in if you have opinions on this topic.