Another year, another series of blogs rounding up reasons for #PlatformAccountability from across the spectrum of political, cultural, and sociological discourse.

Throughout the past year, we’ve regularly published posts chock full of quotes and comments describing the grave harms and indignities perpetrated by massive internet platform companies such as Facebook and Google. There has been no shortage of wise words detailing the threats these platforms pose to creatives, children, people of color, the pillars of democracy, and anything and everyone in between.

The holidays are upon us, so what better time for a look back at some of the best quotes from our series.  Sadly, Facebook and Google have us feeling anything but jolly. Recapping their bad acts, and repeating the words describing them, feels like shoveling a bunch of coal into your stocking. Their malfeasance goes on and on, week in and week out, every day of the year. In fact, going through our blogs, it wasn’t hard to find a choice #PlatformAccountability quote from every month of 2019…

…which gave us the idea to twist that delightfully annoying yuletide carol we all know, like Facebook and Google have twisted fair elections and civil discourse. 

So, without further ado, CreativeFuture presents:

“The Twelve Months Without #PlatformAccountability”

Instead of a partridge in a pear tree… 

In the first month without #PlatformAccountability, Google and Facebook gave to us, A paranoia from no transparency…

January 16, 2019: “We can guess, but can’t know, why we were shown a friend’s Facebook post about a divorce, instead of another’s about a child’s birth. We can theorize, but won’t be told, why YouTube thinks we want to see a right-wing polemic about Islam in Europe after watching a video about travel destinations in France. Everything that takes place within the platform kingdoms is enabled by systems we’re told must be kept private in order to function. We’re living in worlds governed by trade secrets. No wonder they’re making us all paranoid.” – John Herrman, technology reporter for The New York Times

Instead of two turtle doves… 

In the second month without #PlatformAccountability, Google and Facebook gave to us, New abuser hubs…

February 22, 2019: “Within two clicks, I was able to enter into a rabbit hole of videos where children are being eroticized by pedophiles and child abusers… The content became more flagrantly sexualized the more I clicked, as the YouTube recommendation algorithm fed me more and more videos with hundreds of thousands, and sometimes millions, of views. Despite YouTube’s claims to be cleaning up this content, YouTube so far still continues to monetize videos that eroticize young children and that serve as hubs for pedophiles to network and trade information and links to more graphic child pornography.” – Haley Halverson, Vice President of Advocacy and Outreach at the National Center on Sexual Exploitation

Instead of three French hens… 

In the third month without #PlatformAccountability, Google and Facebook gave to us, Angry former friends…

March 15, 2019: “If you think about Facebook and Myanmar, it’s a little bit like manslaughter… The problem is, the way the business is set up, their response time was measured in months. When you have systems that are fully automated and your goal is to correct things after the fact, you are always going to lose the game. And so, the question is, how can you look at the algorithms and say, ‘I’m sorry, we’re going to have to sacrifice some of our profits in order to limit stuff like this’? These things affect people’s lives in a really traumatic way, and it’s not okay to say, ‘we didn’t intend it.’ You actually have to rethink the business model.” – Roger McNamee, Facebook investor and former mentor to Mark Zuckerberg

Instead of four calling birds…

In the fourth month without #PlatformAccountability, Google and Facebook gave to us, Appalling Zuckerberg…

April 23, 2019: “Any settlement with Facebook must hold Mr. Zuckerberg individually accountable or his flagrant, repeated violations of Americans’ privacy will continue… Given Mr. Zuckerberg’s deceptive statements, his personal control over Facebook, and his role in approving key decisions related to the sharing of user data, the FTC can and must hold Mr. Zuckerberg personally responsible for these continued violations.” – U.S. Sen. Ron Wyden (D, OR), in a letter to the Federal Trade Commission

Instead of fi-i-i-ive go-o-olden rings…

In the fifth month without #PlatformAccountability, Google and Facebook gave to us, Bli-i-ithe a-bro-gating…

May 26, 2019: “The only thing the [doctored Nancy Pelosi video] shows is how expert Facebook has become at blurring the lines between simple mistakes and deliberate deception, thereby abrogating its responsibility as the key distributor of news on the planet. Would a broadcast network air this? Never. Would a newspaper publish it? Not without serious repercussions. Would a marketing campaign like this ever pass muster? False advertising.” – Kara Swisher, co-founder, Recode

Instead of six geese-a-laying…

In the sixth month without #PlatformAccountability, Google and Facebook gave to us, Upticks in cheats-not-paying…

June 6, 2019: “We saw how popular the Fury vs. Wilder fight was across piracy networks just six months ago and how a significant part of the audience was coming in through YouTube. The Joshua vs. Ruiz fight has been the largest unauthorized audience that we’ve ever tracked across boxing and it’s staggering to see that 93 per cent of the audience watched via YouTube.” – Andy Chatterley, CEO of MUSO

Instead of seven swans-a-swimming…

In the seventh month without #PlatformAccountability, Google and Facebook gave to us, Bureaucrats a-fuming…

July 24, 2019: “[Facebook’s $5 billion FTC fine] doesn’t fix the incentives causing these repeat privacy abuses. It doesn’t stop [Facebook] from engaging in surveillance or integrating platforms. There are no restrictions on data harvesting tactics — just paperwork… Mark Zuckerberg, Sheryl Sandberg, and other executives get blanket immunity for their role in the violations. This is wrong and sets a terrible precedent. The law doesn’t give them a special exemption.” – Rohit Chopra, FTC Commissioner

Instead of eight maids-a-milking…

In the eighth month without #PlatformAccountability, Google and Facebook gave to us, Disingenuous campaigning…

August 12, 2019: “There is nothing inherently wrong with the belief that America’s values are superior to those found in Shanghai and Shenzhen, or that American tech companies should act in the country’s best interest. But lawmakers should be appropriately wary of Silicon Valley’s charm campaign, and they should avoid conflating what’s good for Facebook, Google and other tech companies with what’s good for the nation. Tech executives might be whistling ‘I’m a Yankee Doodle Dandy,’ but they really just want to be left alone.” – Kevin Roose, New York Times

Instead of nine ladies dancing…

In the ninth month without #PlatformAccountability, Google and Facebook gave to us, A scary war advancing…

September 26, 2019: “Today, we are all actors in a global information war that is ubiquitous, difficult to comprehend and taking place at the speed of light. When I was at the State Department, there were hundreds of thousands of cyberattacks a day. The Pentagon says it thwarts more than a million malware attacks an hour. About 600,000 Facebook accounts are compromised every day. More than 25 million data records are lost or stolen from businesses each day. And all that doesn’t even take into account the rising tide of disinformation, which is impossible to measure. It is a war without limits and boundaries, and one we still don’t know how to fight.” – Richard Stengel, former TIME editor

Instead of ten lords-a-leaping…

In the tenth month without #PlatformAccountability, Google and Facebook gave to us, Moderators weeping…

October 31, 2019: “Thousands of people spend their workdays deciding whether posts violate Facebook’s content policies… In March 2018, one moderator in Tampa, Florida, actually died right at his desk. That man, Keith Utley, was employed by a firm called Cognizant, which reportedly signed a two-year, $200 million contract with Facebook to keep the platform free of objectionable content — and, in a huge blow to Facebook’s moderation strategy, it just announced it’ll cut ties with the social media company when that contract runs out.” – Kristin Houser, Futurism

Instead of eleven pipers piping…

In the eleventh month without #PlatformAccountability, Google and Facebook gave to us, The fake news problem ripening…

November 6, 2019: “An explosive new study reveals that political misinformation is running rampant on Facebook as the 2020 election approaches. In the first ten months of 2019, ‘[p]olitically relevant disinformation was found to have reached over 158 million estimated views, enough to reach every reported registered voter in the US at least once,’ according to the report… ‘Facebook’s measures have largely failed to reduce the spread of viral disinformation on the platform.’” – Popular Information, reporting on a study by Avaaz

Instead of twelve drummers drumming…

In the twelfth month without #PlatformAccountability, Google and Facebook gave to us, A new era coming…

December 4, 2019: “The legacy of social media will be a world thirsty for new kinds of public experiences. To rebuild the public sphere, we’ll need to use what we’ve learned from billion-dollar social experiments like Facebook, and marginalized communities like Black Twitter. We’ll have to carve out genuinely private spaces too, curated by people we know and trust. Perhaps the one part of Facebook we’ll want to hold on to in this future will be the indispensable phrase in its drop-down menu to describe relationships: ‘It’s complicated.’ Public life has been irrevocably changed by social media; now it’s time for something else. We need to stop handing off responsibility for maintaining public space to corporations and algorithms — and give it back to human beings. We may need to slow down, but we’ve created democracies out of chaos before. We can do it again.” – Annalee Newitz, author of The Future of Another Timeline

ALL TOGETHER NOW!

In the twelfth month without #PlatformAccountability, Google and Facebook gave to us,

A new era coming,

The fake news problem ripening,

Moderators weeping,

A scary war advancing,

Disingenuous campaigning,

Bureaucrats a-fuming,

Upticks in cheats-not-paying,

Bli-i-ithe a-bro-gating,

Appalling Zuckerberg,

Angry former friends,

New abuser hubs,

AND A PARANOIA FROM NO TRA-A-ANSP-A-A-RENCY-Y-Y-Y

Not too jolly, is it? But you got to have hope — if we at CreativeFuture didn’t, we couldn’t continue the fight for #PlatformAccountability.

Stand with us, and let’s keep on working together toward a better future – in 2020 and beyond. Sign our #PlatformAccountability petition and share it with friends. Ask them to sign it, too! And, please spread our message far and wide – together we can win.

#StandCreative