Working Paper

Two pieces caught my attention this week: one sets up the core problem of Facebook in society today. The other sets out a (surprisingly) simple and well-thought-out way to solve it. I wrote about it on Working Paper in more detail, and started a discussion of what it might mean for news organizations, too.

While the two authors didn’t intend to speak to one another directly, they are a part of the same conversation.

Ian Bogost reviews the history of consumer data brokerage, and how we got to the modern advertising system. He describes the core problem today (accurately, in my view), that:

“The real difference between the old and the new ages of data-intelligence-driven consumer marketing, and the invasion of privacy they entail, is that lots of people are finally aware that it is taking place.”

In a fit of link-clicking on Lawfare I ended up at a 2016 Atlantic article by Jack Balkin and Jonathan Zittrain, arguing that a simple legal mechanism to regulate tech companies might be the idea of “information fiduciaries,” or companies that are shielded from some liability if they agree to act in our interest.

Historical context for our problem and an elegant update to a historical idea for the solution.

Nice.

Hope you had a great weekend,

Andrew

P.S. Media Mail worked — the library arrived.

Background on the concept of “Information Fiduciaries” and How It Might Help Align The Interests of Tech Platforms and News Organizations

As many of you know, I’ve been doing a lot of work around and thinking about the interaction between Facebook and news organizations lately. In fairness, who hasn’t?

But I’ve recently stumbled upon a years-old concept from Jack Balkin and Jonathan Zittrain that seems supremely relevant and under-discussed: information fiduciaries.

The concept, first published on Balkin’s blog, and deeply developed in an article for the UC Davis Law Review, is best explained in an Atlantic piece from 2016. (Read the whole thing. It’s worth it. But I’ll excerpt key pieces here.)

The sub-head of the article asks: “Doctors and lawyers are prohibited from using clients’ information for their own interests, so why aren’t Google and Facebook?”

Some background:

Last week, along with my colleague Yvonne, I gave a talk at the Berkman Klein Center fellows hour (which is actually two hours, don’t ask) summarizing how newspapers made money, how born-digital news organizations do today, and getting the group to help brainstorm about how to fund a BBC Media Action project.  That led to more conversation about what tech companies could do if they really wanted to help journalism.  Not surprisingly, I focused on how they could make the business model even a touch more durable.

A few of these, below: