Is Facebook a 'Bug' in Our Democracy? Part 1

[Analysis] Is it time to recognize that Facebook, and ‘Big Tech’ at large, may be a bug in our democracy? The Cambridge Analytica story reveals the harmful effects of business models that rely on massive data collection. What is lost is our privacy, contributing to the declining health of our democratic discourse. Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg acknowledged the massive data comprise in an apologetic media tour. For many, Zuckerberg's response has been seen as a small concession that does not address the much bigger problem. As Ethan Zuckerman notes in The Atlantic, “Zuckerberg’s statement fell short in a very specific way: He’s treating the Cambridge Analytica breach as a bad-actor problem when it’s actually a known bug.” And the 'bug' is this: Facebook relies on eroding users' privacy -- or, at least, their expectation of privacy -- to maintain its economic power.