Yesterday the US Federal Trade Commission slammed Facebook with a $5 billion fine – but it fails to fix the catastrophic damage already done.

A record-breaking fine

The fine relates to numerous data security failings surrounding the Cambridge Analytica scandal, during which the personal information of millions of people was supplied by Facebook to the London-based political consulting firm, without consent.

Cambridge Analytica specialised in political campaigning and is thought to have decisively influenced both the US presidential election, where they managed Trump’s digital campaign, and the Brexit referendum, when they managed Vote Leave’s campaign.

Trump and Brexit

As revealed in the recent Netflix documentary ‘The Great Hack’, Cambridge Analytica went far beyond anything previously seen in terms of collecting data on users – at one point openly claiming to have 5,000 data points on every American voter.

Far from simply targeting broad interest groups, the firm used big data and AI to hone-in on what it called the ‘persuadables’ – the relatively small number of floating voters – during campaigning, and bombarded them with tailor made video, image-based and text-based content, playing on their personal triggers and fears, to get them to vote a certain way.

This was most obviously demonstrated in the 2016 presidential campaign by the outright despicable anti-Hilary content that ‘persuadables’, especially in so-called swing states, were literally bombarded with. In the Brexit campaign of 2016 it manifested in Cambridge Analytica saturating British ‘persuadables’ with content portraying the European refugee situation as far worse than it actually was, fabricating fake news about immigrant communities, and scapegoating entire nations and groups.

Despite indisputable evidence of Cambridge Analytica’s involvement in the Vote Leave Brexit campaign, the company was intransigent enough to flat out deny it for many months, despite a representative of the company being clearly visible on video at the press launch of the campaign, the campaign saying the had hired the company on its own official site, and numerous references in talks and media posts.

Facebook collusion

In is inescapable that Cambridge Analytica could only do what it did, because Facebook actively colluded with the company, allowing them to ‘scrape data’, including – at least according to former CA employees speaking on ‘The Great Hack’ – personal messages, and not only of those people who had unwittingly completed phishing ‘personality test quizzes’ and alike (apparently a tactic favoured by CA), but also those peoples’ contacts.

Witnesses have even alleged that Facebook representatives actively helped Cambridge Analytica, in-person, in campaign offices. Despite all of this, Mark Zuckerberg avoided giving straight answers to questions when called before committees in the US, UK and Europe, effectively denying knowledge of specific wrong-doing.

Cambridge Analytica, Bannon, Trump, Banks, Johnson, Farage and Russia

Things get even more sinister when you consider that one of the people sitting on the board of Cambridge Analytica was Steve Bannon – White House Chief Strategist during the first seven months of Trump’s presidency, and former executive chairman of the notoriously far right Breitbart News.

There are also well established connections to and between British millionaire businessman Aaron Banks, one of the main funders of the Vote Leave, and subject of a criminal investigation over the source of funds, Nigel Farage, former leader of the UK Independence Party, current leader of the Brexit Party, main architect of Brexit, and close friend of new British Prime Minister Boris Johnson and US President Trump.

And, to top it all off, there have been constant accusations regarding the possible involvement of the Russian government in financing the campaigns. Something that would make sense, since a Trump presidency and the UK leaving the EU would significantly weaken the European Union and NATO, clearing the way for Putin to make more moves in eastern Europe, from the Ukraine to the Baltic states.

And, all of this because of Facebook.

Too little, too late?

So, with the world hurtling towards World War 3 courtesy of Trump, and wannabe dictator Farage effectively in control of the UK (soon to be rump England, with the inevitable upcoming UDI’s of Scotland and Wales, and reunification of Ireland) through his imbesilic puppet Johnson, Zuckerberg’s apologies and $5 billion from Facebook isn’t really going to do anything to remedy the catastrophic global predicament we find ourselves in.

Of course, we all share part of the blame here. For years most of us were content to lap up the latest ‘free’ social media products and services, without going to the effort of reading the terms or thinking about the possible implications.

Sure, now we have GDPR, and there’s a raft of new rules Facebook will have to comply with, including implementing a new multi-layered privacy compliance system, and new tools to help the FTC maintain oversight of the social media giant, but the damage is already done.

As Cambridge Analytica whistleblower Christopher Wylie told a UK select committee, if an athlete is caught out in doping tests, they don’t say “ah well, they probably would have won the race anyway, and let them keep their medal.”

This article features opinion of the author only and does not necessarily reflect the views of Pentagon Digital Limited.