The Economist - USA (2021-10-09)

26 United States The Economist October 9th 2021

This  new  whistleblowing  incident

could be a turning point, says Blair Levin, a

former  chief­of­staff  to  the  Federal  Com­

munications Commission and now of New

Street Research, a private company. Social

media’s  harmful  effects  on  children  and

teenagers is a concern that transcends par­

tisanship and is easier to understand than

sneaky  data­gathering,  viral  misinforma­

tion and other social­networking sins. 

If  Congress  does  follow  through  with

legislation, it is likely to focus narrowly on

protecting  children  online,  as  opposed  to

broader reforms, for which there is still no

political  consensus.  For  example,  Con­

gress  could  update  and  strengthen  the

Children’s  Online  Privacy  Protection  Act

(coppa), which was passed in 1998 and bars

data­collection  of  children  under  the  age

of  13.  Some  want  to  extend  protections  to

teenagers over the age of 13, as well. Other

legislative proposals take aim at marketing

and design features that make social media

so addictive for the young.

However, Ms Haugen’s most significant

impact on big tech may be inspiring others

to  come  forward  and  blow  the  whistle  on

their  employers’  practices.  Whistleblower

Aid, a legal support group that has helped

Ms Haugen’s case, has seen more inbound

calls since her revelations were made pub­

lic.  “A  case  like  this  one  opens  the  flood­

gates  and  will  trigger  hundreds  more  cas­

es,” predicts Steve Kohn, a lawyer who has

represented  several  high­profile  whistle­

blowers.  Just  look  at  Swiss  banking  or

pharma  to  understand  the  viral  spread  of

whistleblowing, he says. According to Siri

Nelson of the National Whistleblower Cen­

tre, a legal defence firm, whistleblowers do

not  just  change  companies:  they  “change

whole industries.” 

There are several factors that make tech

ripe for whistleblowing. One is the indus­

try’s culture of flouting rules. Another is a

legal  framework  that  makes  whistleblow­

ing lessintimidating than it used to be. The

Dodd­Frank  Act,  which  was  enacted  in

2010,  gives  greater  protections  to  whistle­

blowers  by  preventing  retaliation  from

employers  and  by  offering  monetary  re­

wards  to  successful  cases  of  up  to  30%  of

the  money  collected  from  sanctions

against  a  firm.  To  date,  the  Securities  and

Exchange  Commission  has  paid  out  $1bn

to  207  whistleblowers,  including  more

than $500m in its 2021 fiscal year. 

If the threat of public shaming encour­

ages  corporate  accountability,  that  is  a

good thing. But it could also make tech less

inclusive  and  transparent,  predicts  Matt

Perault,  a  former  Facebook  executive  who

is  director  of  the  Centre  for  Technology

Policy  at  the  University  of  North  Carolina

at  Chapel  Hill.  People  may  become  less

willing  to  share  ideas  if  they  worry  about

public  leaks;  companies  may  become  less

open with their staff; and executives could

start  including  only  a  handful  of  trusted

senior  staff  in  meetings  that  might  have

otherwise been less restricted. 

Executives are going to have to get used

to more leaks. Nick Clegg, Facebook’s vice­

president  of  policy  and  global  affairs,  has

defended  the  company  and  pushed  back

against Ms Haugen’s allegations in a memo

to the company’s staff, in which he pointed

out  that  last  year  the  company  removed

30m posts that violated its policies on ter­

rorism and 19m posts that crossed compa­

ny  lines  for  inciting  hatred.  It  was  barely

any time at all before the memo was shared

with  journalists.  Facebook  and  other  big

tech  firms,  which  have  been  criticisedfor

violating  people’s  privacy  online,can no

longer count on any privacy either.n

We can tidy up the place

Politicalscience

Polarisation explorers

T

he taglinefor  the  annual  meeting  of

the American Political Science Associa­

tion  (apsa)  held  in  Seattle  last  weekend

read  “Promoting  Pluralism.”  Under  the

sunny  geometric  windows  of  the  city’s

convention centre, and through the poorly

lit rectangles of Zoom rooms, scholars met

to discuss, among other things, the various

threats  to  American  democracy,  and

whether  the  country’s  polarised  political

parties  could  peacefully  coexist.  Like  ex­

perts on the use of nuclear weapons during

the  Cold  War,  the  spectre  of  some  disas­

trous future hung over the discussions and

was  made  only  slightly  less  alarming  by

the technical language used to describe it. 

Scholars  of  American  politics  are  par­

ticularly  dismayed  by  rising  levels  of  “af­

fective  polarisation,”  the  political  science

term  for  the  hostility  one  person  feels  to­

wards members of the other party relative

to the feelings they have towards members

of their own party. Levels of affective polar­

isation  have  risen  more  than  two­fold

since the 1970s when the American Nation­

al Election Studies, a quadrennial academ­

ic survey started at the University of Michi­

gan, began asking citizens to rate how they

felt  about  members  of  either  major  party.

In 1978, according to the survey, the differ­

ence between Americans’ ratings of mem­

bers  of  their  own  and  ratings  of  members

of  the  other  party  on  a  100­point  “feeling

thermometer” scale was 27 points. The gap

had widened to 56 by 2020.

Lilliana  Mason  of  Johns  Hopkins  Uni­

versity  calls  this  phenomenon  “identity­

based” polarisation. In her 2018 book “Un­

civil  Agreement”  Ms  Mason  crunched  a

mass of survey data to reveal how ideologi­

cal, religious and racial identities have be­

come  “sorted”  into  overlapping  mega­

identities  captured  almost  entirely  by  the

words  “Democrat”  and  “Republican.”  One

result,  she  concludes,  is  that  isolated  and

warring tribes have become “relatively un­

responsive to changing information or real

national problems.”

That  problem—that  people’s  political

affiliations  determine  what  information

S EATTLE

America’s political scientists are worried about “lethal partisanship”

Empathy building