I was concerned when the story broke last month about inappropriate subediting by RNZ staff of ‘wirecopy’ from international sources such as Reuters. The wire-tampering story broke with particular reference to stories about the war in Ukraine; and, at least for that story, it needs to be understood that Aotearoa New Zealand is an aligned party to that military conflict, so certain sensitivities will apply.

I was then concerned when RNZ chief executive Paul Thomson called the RNZ subedits “pro-Kremlin garbage”. For background see Mediawatch: Further fallout as RNZ takes out the ‘Kremlin garbage’, Evening Report, 18 June 2023. For a senior professional communicator, the RNZ CE set a particularly bad example.

Subsequently, RNZ has undertaken an audit of stories published on its website, so its possible to check out the bias of the sub-edits. It turns out that there is a clear anti-Washington rather than pro-Kremlin sub-editorial line. A number of the stories brought to light – and corrected – relate to Latin America; in addition to stories featuring Ukraine, China, Taiwan, Israel and Ireland. (I have heard it said that the sub-editor in question is not only pro-Kremlin, but also has a disposition towards anti-democratic regimes. I cannot agree; I would assess the sub-editor in question to be an old-fashioned democratic left-winger who, in Cold War times, might once have had some pro-Soviet sympathies.)

Before looking at specific themes of the sub-edits, I present the following quote (8’20”) from Mediawatch, RNZ’s Russiagate, 14 June 2023.

The programme features Hayden Donnell talking to RNZ’s Anna Thomas about the purpose of subediting a “pre-subbed” wired story from an international news agency: “It’s already gone through a pretty robust process at Reuters or AP or wherever you’re sourcing it from. Most of the time it’ll just require an editor formatting it to in-house style, maybe removing some Americanisms, cutting it to length, and plonking it on the website.”

And then: “What can [ie should] you edit with wirecopy? Even if you agree with this person’s edit, the heart of the issue is that you cannot take copy and make substantive changes to its meaning. But you can add context, you can delete sections for length, you can insert relevant local information or quotes. If you cannot make any changes at all, that’s untenable.” [I have sub-edited bits of this second quotation to shorten it, to remove repetition, and to make it more like written rather than spoken language.]

The problem is that even very small additions, deletions and substitutions can subtly alter the meaning of a text. That’s of course a problem here, and it is clear that there has been an intent to steer the meaning in an anti-Washington direction. By way of contrast, disinterested subediting will be like a ‘random walk’ [a statistical concept] meaning that, on average, altered meanings are unbiased. Subeditors who are close to an issue may display unconscious bias, whereas outsourced subeditors (including robotic subeditors) who are distant from the issues in a text may be unbiased but ‘noisy’; such subeditors will on average make more mistakes, and will struggle to appreciate nuance in a text.

While the problem subeditor in question was clearly inserting an anti-Washington bias, his defence may well have been that he [other media stories refer to ‘he’] was correcting a pro-Washington bias in the material he was working on. Certainly, in any Goodies versus Baddies narrative – inherent in war stories – academic or journalist disinterest is largely absent from most stories; these are narrational contexts where a person who is not overtly on one side is too easily characterised as being on the other side. As the question goes: ‘Which side are you on?‘.

Editorial biases are commonly worse than sub-editorial tampering. These in particular involve the decision whether or not to run a story. While these are often dictated by the fast-moving news cycle – meaning that stories about Covid19, for example, were biased towards the beginning of that pandemic, and created an ‘exceptionalism’ towards that disease at the expense of contextual discussion and other health risks – they also reflect self-censorship (partly but not only because of the fear of the wrath of authorities or other power-brokers).

Another form of bias arises in the need to create headlines which will draw readers to a story; a bias compounded by the fact today that most stories have ‘click-bait’ headlines (hyperlinks) which are even more sensational and less qualified than the actual headlines to the stories.

‘Loaded’ Language

Consider this story: Organization of American States head ‘one of worst in history’ – Ebrard. The changes made and then unmade are listed at the end of the story.  With respect to former Bolivian president Evo Morales, the mischievous subeditor replaced “resigned under pressure” with “resigned and fled under threat”. Both versions are essentially true, though the original (and restored) version may have understated the danger Morales faced; or perhaps the modified version overstated the danger.

We also see, in that story, the clause “a presidential vote that the OAS said was rigged” was changed (and unchanged) to “a presidential vote that the OAS claimed was rigged”. This leads to the issue of the degree to which some synonyms are more ‘loaded’ or ‘accusative’ than others. (Note here that if the original story had used the word ‘claimed’, there would have been no issue; the question is the motive of the subeditor in making the change.)

Aside

A common sort of story takes the form ‘A abuses B’, where ‘to abuse’ means any action that is in some sense ‘bad’. Consider this story, about the November 1975 regime change in Australia (commonly known there as ‘The Dismissal’). The allegation is of Washington involvement in precipitating this particular political crisis.

This is an A abuses B story, where (in this case) ‘A’ is the American CIA, ‘abuses’ means ‘dismisses’, and ‘B’ means ‘the elected government of Australia’. The story at its most disinterested level is [passive voice] that ‘The Government was dismissed’. In the active voice, the most neutral version is that ‘sources said that the Dismissal was instigated by the CIA’. The next level would be ‘sources claimed that the Dismissal was instigated by the CIA’. Up another notch would be ‘The CIA allegedly instigated the Dismissal’, or [passive voice] ‘The CIA was accused of instigating the Dismissal’. Finally, the most overt form is the unqualified ‘The CIA instigated the Dismissal’.

In the various stories we read and hear, many which are in the ‘A abuses B’ form, we will encounter the full linguistic range from neutral (‘something bad happened’) to the presentation of an accusation as a fact. Actually, the way a story is narrated is ‘rhetoric’; and neutral rhetoric can be a way to intentionally downplay something, just as accusative rhetoric upplays that same story.

Back to the Main Narrative

We see this in this RNZ story, Two activists involved in land dispute killed in Brazil: police, in which the restored headline is in the passive voice and the word ‘said’ is only implied. The inappropriately sub-edited version is in the active voice with the abused named without ‘alleged’ as a qualification: ‘Death squad shoots dead two Brazilian land activists’.

This story Chile passes bill to boost taxes on rich, spur investment, small business shows that the subversive  RNZ sub-editor is coming from a somewhat conventional left-wing perspective, and not from an autocratic ‘far-right’ Russian perspective. People who are anti-inequality don’t usually regard Russia these days as an exemplar country.

This story for a while contained an inserted and unqualified allegation of a “2014 US-based coup”:Serbia accuses Ukraine and unnamed EU country of Air Serbia bomb hoaxes. It’s an example that shows the anti-Washington stance of the sub-editor. Indeed, articles like these are not the correct place to debate the extent of United States’ involvement (or otherwise) in the regime-change event in Ukraine in February 2014.

In this story we see the explicit anti-Washington subeditorial stance with respect to China over Taiwan, and also the more neutral word ‘says’ preferred by the subeditor over the word ‘worries’ with respect to Japan: South Korea’s president seeks closer Tokyo ties after latest North Korea missile launch. Yet this story’s subediting uses the rhetorical word ‘blunders’ with respect to China, not exactly an endorsement of Beijing.

Finally

I would regard Paul Thomson’s use of the rhetorical word ‘garbage’ to be more problematic than the sub-editors’ word ‘blunders’. Garbage is ‘waste’, not ‘lies’. Waste is a reality of life that should be regarded as normatively neutral, not wicked. In ecology and sustainable economics, waste is indeed a ‘good’, not a ‘bad’; an input as well as an output. It is not professional to oppose bad rhetoric with worse rhetoric.

And, I wonder if the mischievous subeditor has a point in interpreting much of the copy that came his way as having its own bias. If the generative AI chatbot ChatGPT was trained only on copy acceptable to today’s western authorities and power-brokers, would the bot’s outputs really be any more truthful than the ‘pro-Kremlin garbage’ that a frustrated socialist RNZ minion was (for a brief while) turning out?

*******

Keith Rankin (keith at rankin dot nz), trained as an economic historian, is a retired lecturer in Economics and Statistics. He lives in Auckland, New Zealand.

Accusations have surfaced alleging the current National Party leadership conspired to politically destroy Jami-Lee Ross – this after details of his affair with a fellow party MP became known to them. The allegations raise serious questions. Those questions include: what did National’s leader and deputy leader know and when did they find out?

A sworn-to timeline of events is now essential so that the public interest can be satisfied. This must be a crucial element that is cemented in to the methodology of Simon Bridges’ inquiry into the culture of the National Party. Above all, it must be independent and publicly accessible.

The inquiry must examine the National leadership team’s actions and culture, test whether they acted in a proper and timely manner, and assess whether their actions considered a concern for the welfare and mental health of an MP they had previously supported, promoted, and embedded within their leadership team.

It follows that allegations suggesting a “hit job” was orchestrated from inside the National Party leadership must also be independently explored.

If the inquiry finds that either the leader, or deputy leader, was part of a destructive and inhumane attack on Jami-Lee Ross – while it was known that he was at high risk of being pushed over the edge, was ill, and verging on suicide – and that they acted without reasonable regard for his welfare, then it must be accepted by the National Party caucus, its membership and the public, that this National leadership team is at the very least morally bankrupt.

This inquiry ought to be conducted amidst a background whereby Ross declared his role in the destructive side of politics; following the orders of Sir John Key, Bill English, Paula Bennett and Simon Bridges. Ross was afterall a ‘numbers man’ for Bridges, and benefitted from the patronage that the Bridges-Bennett leadership team offered.

There are a number of ‘ifs’ in this analysis, but the public interest demands that they be considered.

The allegations have surfaced on the blog-site Whaleoil which is owned and edited by controversial writer Cameron Slater.

Some may dismiss the allegations on the basis of tribalism, or ignore the allegations because Slater was centrally involved in National’s so called Dirty Politics as revealed in 2014. But the nature of the allegations are as serious as they get in politics, and, if accurate played a part in the sudden deterioration of Jami-Lee Ross’ mental health, the sectioning of Ross for his own protection, and the erasion of credibility of a potential political opponent who was determined to continue as a critical member of New Zealand’s Parliament.

This analysis’ argument suggests any such bias, on behalf by Cameron Slater’s opponents, ought to be ethically and morally put aside until such a time as the truth and facts are tested. Such an inquiry, preferably judicial but essentially independent, must be robust and critical in its analysis.

To reiterate; numerous elements of this saga elevate the issues to a matter of serious public interest.

And it must be noted at this juncture, that the party’s leader Simon Bridges insists he has acted appropriately and denies taking part in any political “hit job”.

Let’s examine what Evening Report has learned from contacts close to events.

Alleged details of events between Saturday-Sunday October 20-21

There is a txt-chain of events that investigators can forensically examine that are central to understanding who was involved in the sectioning of Jami-Lee Ross.

If the txts are examined they will determine if it is fact that the National Party MP, with whom Jami-Lee Ross had a three-year affair, rang the Police and that as a consequence of that call the Police used mental health laws to take Jami-Lee Ross into custody and contain him within the mental health unit at Counties Manukau Health.

Txts will also show whether it is fact that the female MP then called Simon Bridges’ chief of staff at 9:15pm on Saturday October 20 informing him of the events. If so Bridges’ office was aware of an alleged suicide attempt. Investigators would then be able to assess whether a txt message from Jami-Lee Ross’ psychologist, who Evening Report understands messaged Jami-Lee Ross at 9:28pm on Saturday October 20, asking if he was ok, and that the psychologist had minutes prior received a txt message from Jamie Gray, Simon Bridges’ chief of staff.

It is a matter of public record that Simon Bridges appeared on NewsHub’s AM Show on Tuesday October 23, denying all knowledge of events on the Saturday night – that is until a wider grouping within the National Party became privy to what had happened to Jami-Lee Ross.

It appears reasonable to form an opinion that Bridges’ chief of staff would have informed the leader of such an event. If he didn’t, why didn’t he inform Bridges?

The sectioning of Jami-Lee Ross ended a week where many National Party MPs, and a wider network of those loyal to the party, appeared to be actively orchestrating a coordinated campaign to destroy the so-called rogue MP’s political chances and to discredit his claims of corruption within the National Party leadership. Had Jami-Lee Ross abused his position as the senior whip within the party? It certainly appears so. Did he abuse the power he was afforded? Media reports would suggest this was so. Did he have an affair with at least two women? Yes. But it appears that the public attacks began, not at the time when senior members of the party were informed of Ross’ actions, but, once Ross began to attack the leadership. This is significant.

An Opposition’s Role As The Public’s Advocate

As senior representatives of New Zealand’s Legislature, leader Simon Bridges and deputy leader Paula Bennett can arguably be regarded as the public’s advocates within Parliament. Their job is to keep the Executive Government on its toes, challenge its policy and rationale, to be Parliament’s keepers of the public’s interest.

As such, the public deserves to know if the leaders, as a team or individually, conspired to destroy the political chances of an MP and former colleague, who they considered to have gone rogue, and who they knew was suffering a crisis of mental health so serious that it could have ended in death.

It is in consideration of the public interest, that this editorial is written.

We now know as fact, Jami-Lee Ross had a three year affair with a South Island-based National MP.[name withheld]. Like him, she has two children and was married.

While the affair was going ‘well’, contacts inside the National Party have told Evening Report that Jami-Lee encouraged Bridges to promote his lover above her standing and reputation in caucus, well above some high profile MPs like National’s Chris Bishop who are respected among colleagues and media and seen to have been doing their job well. The promotion was seen to give leverage, to sure up the numbers to stabilise Bridges’ and Bennett’s leadership team at a time when they sensed support was delicate.

Meanwhile, Jami-Lee Ross continued to pull in big donations from wealthy Chinese residents in his Botany electorate. As a reward, Bridges embedded him into his inner core, the top three. Politically, this is really an unsound move by a political leader. With Ross being senior whip, he is supposed to be directed by the leader to pull MPs into line, to do the leader’s bidding, and to do this without necessarily knowing the deep and dark details underlying the leader’s moves.

In effect, with Jami-Lee Ross becoming a central figure, knowing all the details, the dirt, the strategy and tactics, it centralised too much power into the whip position and elevated a real danger of a whip using the position for his own gain. To reiterate, this appears a seriously stupid move of Bridges and Bennett to pull a whip in on their machinations. And, in a significant contact’s view, it appears they risked this because Jami-Lee was pulling in the donor money.

Jami-Lee Ross had been on the rise for a time. Former Prime Minister John Key promoted him to the whips office. Then PM Bill English secured Ross’s rise by maintaining and elevating his whip role. Bridges and Bennett further empowered Jami-Lee Ross by cementing him into the whip position, a move that suggested National’s power-politicians were well satisfied with his service.

It’s hard to tell how far back it was when Jami-Lee Ross began to record Bridges. And, at this juncture, it’s difficult to know if he recorded Bennett as well. The public is left to fathom whether it was when his affair with the National MP went sour and perhaps Ross sensed Bennett having become close to her.

In any event, when Jami-Lee Ross fell out with his colleague and lover, sources say Bennett played a crucial role in the analysis of his conduct, in particular women who had allegedly been burned by Ross. Two women, contacts inside National state, were staff of the National Party leader. The MP (whom Ross had a three-year affair with) and the two staff members are said by National Party contacts to be the subject of NewsRoom.co.nz’s investigation into Ross’ activities, an investigation that is believed to have spanned up to one year in duration. Evening Report raises this aspect as the public interest demands to consider whether it is reasonable to believe that two staffers in the leader’s office never told nor informed Bridges, or the chief of staff, that they were cooperating in a media investigation into the leader’s chief and senior whip?

Contacts state that Bennett gained the women’s confidence, received information so it could be prepared as part of a disciplinary process. Did Bennett choose to engage media with this information? If so, once media received the information, what involvement did the deputy leader have or continue to have, or engage with, the complainants and media?

Sources inside National state Bennett then seeded info about Jami-Lee Ross having had an affair. They point to her having hinted at behaviour unbecoming of a married member of Parliament during an interview before TV, radio and print journalists. Did she do this without Bridges knowing or being forewarned.

If true, in effect, this would have driven the narrative ahead of the leader. If so, it is reasonable to fathom that a senior politician would know Bridges would be forced to defend the character-attack campaign that appeared orchestrated and designed to destroy Ross. Amidst the firestorm, National MP Maggie Barry spoke out against Ross with significant indignation. This will have been digested by the public that National had expelled a human predator from its midst. It also gave the impression National’s female caucus members were unified. However, respected MP Nikki Kaye kept out of it. Why?

Next, Bridges was forced to field political journalists’ questions about breaking the old convention that you keep affairs and family issues under the covers.

Bridges was then compelled to inform media that he had “told off” his deputy leader for giving credence that an affair had been ongoing between Ross and a Nat MP. This made Bridges look even weaker.

The future of National’s leadership

National Party contacts suggest Bridges is positioned where he will be forced to absorb the political fallout for what is seen by some as a character assassination campaign gone wrong. One contact states that once Bridges is rendered useless, and the issue dies down, Bennett herself will be well positioned to remove Bridges as leader in 2019.

It is reasonable to form an opinion that senior National MP Judith Collins will also be available if the leadership were to fall vacant. Her popularity is again on the rise.

At this juncture, for Bridges and Bennett, it appears wise for them to expect more National Party dirt to emerge before the end of the year. Evening Report’s sources say: “ample dirt lingers just below the surface.”

For a party that once stated it had no factions, it certainly seems its personality factions are now in all-out political warfare.

Judith Collins’ star has been rising since she returned to the front-bench in opposition. And it has been bolstered by a favourable Colmar Brunton Poll. It’s fair to suggest she has laid heavy hits on Labour’s Housing Minister Phil Twyford. As a consequence, her standing within the caucus has improved. On investigation, it is clear she has not had the loyalty of Jami-Lee Ross since he was promoted by John Key. He, along with Mark Mitchell, then supported Bill English for the leadership. Bennett and Mitchell are politically close. It does appear that moves by some media to connect Jami-Lee Ross’ revelations with a Judith Collins plan as not based on fact.

While there’s an expectation among interested public that Collins will be the next leader, she will need the support of what’s left of National’s social conservatives and those loyal to Nikki Kaye.

For Collins to succeed, she will have to be seen to inoculate the party from damaging information that may be in the possession of Jami-Lee Ross. All the while, she, like Bennett, needs Bridges to continue to fail as a leader.

It is fair to accept, the recordings and damaging information are now with Cam Slater and Simon Lusk. It is also reasonable to suggest that Bridges is a disappointment to some who once supported his bid for leadership. Cam Slater is clearly appalled at what he refers to as a “hit job”.

Slater is adamant that he is not motivated by an agenda, nor by a pitch by a fiscal conservative faction to gain leadership of the National party. Rather he said, he is motivated to help an old friend who the current leadership moved to destroy. He added on his blog-site, if the current leadership continues “to lie” he will continue to reveal the truth.

Meanwhile, Jami-Lee Ross is being reassured and cared for by a mutual friend of his and Slater’s who is a pastor with the Seventh Day Adventists.

Contacts say, with regard to Jami-Lee Ross and his National Party former lover and colleague, the three year affair was a relationship that in the end didn’t deliver what either banked on – despite promotions and connections and having benefitted politically from their association.

It’s fair to say, Jami-Lee Ross was out of his experiential depth and in part abusive from the point of view of how to handle political power, networks and consensual relationships.

Two other women who laid complaints about Ross, worked in the leader’s office.

Bridges is adamant he didn’t know about the abuse of power nor the complaints. Did Bennett know? At what point was she privy to the information?

One National Party contact said: “It defies reasonable belief that Bridges didn’t know.”

It is right that Bridges has initiated an inquiry into National’s culture. But that in itself falls short or what the public interest demands. Why? Because the inquiry reports back to Bridges, who as leader may well be one of the protagonists. Also, the report will not be released to the public which leaves it as a golden prize, the holy grail, for any journalist and, irrespective of who it damns or exonerates, will become a currency for any MP with leadership ambitions.

As it now stands, Bridges’ worst nightmare must be not knowing what Jami-Lee Ross recorded and at what point did he begin taping the National Party leader’s conversations.

If those recordings contain further embarrassing or damaging content and references, then he will be finished as leader. Bridges, as leader, even if he has a clear conscience, must be wracking his memory as to past conversations and comments while knowing the conversations may be in the hands of people with whom he has lost their trust.

And the question remains unanswered: Was Paula Bennett recorded as well?

If her actions are found by inquirers to have led an orchestrated political response to Jami-Lee Ross’ revelations, whether that be at the behest or otherwise of the current leader, then this will destroy any higher ambitions that she may have ever contemplated.

It follows, that if the report concludes that the rot inside National extends to its current leadership, then it may well be that Judith Collins will become the leader of the National Party, unopposed.

Whatever the future holds for the National Party, it is in everyone’s interests that an independent judicial investigation into this National affair be conducted in a spirit of openness and propriety.

EDITOR’S NOTE: Evening Report invites any individual connected to this analysis to have a right of reply. Footnote: Interview between the author and Jami-Lee Ross on his role as a new National Party MP (August 13 2012):

Facebook has had a bad few weeks. The social media giant had to apologise for failing to protect the personal data of millions of users from being accessed by data mining company Cambridge Analytica.

Outrage is brewing over its admission to spying on people via their Android phones. Its stock price plummeted, while millions deleted their accounts in disgust.

Facebook has also faced scrutiny over its failure to prevent the spread of “fake news” on its platforms, including via an apparent orchestrated Russian propaganda effort to influence the 2016 US presidential election.

Facebook’s actions – or inactions – facilitated breaches of privacy and human rights associated with democratic governance. But it might be that its business model – and those of its social media peers generally – is simply incompatible with human rights.

The good
In some ways, social media has been a boon for human rights – most obviously for freedom of speech.

Previously, the so-called “marketplace of ideas” was technically available to all (in “free” countries), but was in reality dominated by the elites.

While all could equally exercise the right to free speech, we lacked equal voice. Gatekeepers, especially in the form of the mainstream media, largely controlled the conversation.

But today, anybody with internet access can broadcast information and opinions to the whole world. While not all will be listened to, social media is expanding the boundaries of what is said and received in public.

The marketplace of ideas must effectively be bigger and broader, and more diverse.

Social media enhances the effectiveness of non-mainstream political movements, public assemblies and demonstrations, especially in countries that exercise tight controls over civil and political rights, or have very poor news sources.

Social media played a major role in co-ordinating the massive protests that brought down dictatorships in Tunisia and Egypt, as well as large revolts in Spain, Greece, Israel, South Korea, and the Occupy movement.

More recently, it has facilitated the rapid growth of the #MeToo and #neveragain movements, among others.

READ MORE: #MeToo is not enough: it has yet to shift the power imbalances that would bring about gender equality

The bad and the ugly
But the social media “free speech” machines can create human rights difficulties. Those newly empowered voices are not necessarily desirable voices.

The United Nations recently found that Facebook had been a major platform for spreading hatred against the Rohingya in Myanmar, which in turn led to ethnic cleansing and crimes against humanity.

Video sharing site YouTube seems to automatically guide viewers to the fringiest versions of what they might be searching for. A search on vegetarianism might lead to veganism; jogging to ultra-marathons; Donald Trump’s popularity to white supremacist rants; and Hillary Clinton to 9/11 “trutherism”.

YouTube, via its algorithm’s natural and probably unintended impacts, “may be one of the most powerful radicalising instruments of the 21st century”, with all the attendant human rights abuses that might follow.

The business model and human rights
Human rights abuses might be embedded in the business model that has evolved for social media companies in their second decade.

Essentially, those models are based on the collection and use for marketing purposes of their users’ data. And the data they have is extraordinary in its profiling capacities, and in the consequent unprecedented knowledge base and potential power it grants to these private actors.

Indirect political influence is commonly exercised, even in the most credible democracies, by private bodies such as major corporations. This power can be partially constrained by “anti-trust laws” that promote competition and prevent undue market dominance.

Anti-trust measures could, for example, be used to hive off Instagram from Facebook, or YouTube from Google. But these companies’ power essentially arises from the sheer number of their users: in late 2017, Facebook was reported as having more than 2.2 billion active users. Anti-trust measures do not seek to cap the number of a company’s customers, as opposed to its acquisitions.

Power through knowledge
In 2010, Facebook conducted an experiment by randomly deploying a non-partisan “I voted” button into 61 million feeds during the US mid-term elections. That simple action led to 340,000 more votes, or about 0.14 percent of the US voting population. This number can swing an election. A bigger sample would lead to even more votes.

So Facebook knows how to deploy the button to sway an election, which would clearly be lamentable.

However, the mere possession of that knowledge makes Facebook a political player. It now knows that button’s the political impact, the types of people it is likely to motivate, and the party that’s favoured by its deployment and non-deployment, and at what times of day.

It might seem inherently incompatible with democracy for that knowledge to be vested in a private body. Yet the retention of such data is the essence of Facebook’s ability to make money and run a viable business.

Microtargeting
A study has shown that a computer knows more about a person’s personality than their friends or flatmates from an analysis of 70 “likes”, and more than their family from 150 likes. From 300 likes it can outperform one’s spouse.

This enables the micro-targeting of people for marketing messages – whether those messages market a product, a political party or a cause. This is Facebook’s product, from which it generates billions of dollars. It enables extremely effective advertising and the manipulation of its users.

This is so even without Cambridge Analytica’s underhanded methods.

Advertising is manipulative: that is its point. Yet it is a long bow to label all advertising as a breach of human rights.

Advertising is available to all with the means to pay. Social media micro-targeting has become another battleground where money is used to attract customers and, in the political arena, influence and mobilise voters.

While the influence of money in politics is pervasive – and probably inherently undemocratic – it seems unlikely that spending money to deploy social media to boost an electoral message is any more a breach of human rights than other overt political uses of money.

Yet the extraordinary scale and precision of its manipulative reach might justify differential treatment of social media compared to other advertising, as its manipulative political effects arguably undermine democratic choices.

As with mass data collection, perhaps it may eventually be concluded that that reach is simply incompatible with democratic and human rights.

‘Fake news’
Finally, there is the issue of the spread of misinformation.

While paid advertising may not breach human rights, “fake news” distorts and poisons democratic debate. It is one thing for millions of voters to be influenced by precisely targeted social media messages, but another for maliciously false messages to influence and manipulate millions – whether paid for or not.

In a Declaration on Fake News, several UN and regional human rights experts said fake news interfered with the right to know and receive information – part of the general right to freedom of expression.

Its mass dissemination may also distort rights to participate in public affairs. Russia and Cambridge Analytica (assuming allegations in both cases to be true) have demonstrated how social media can be “weaponised” in unanticipated ways.

Yet it is difficult to know how social media companies should deal with fake news. The suppression of fake news is the suppression of speech – a human right in itself.

The preferred solution outlined in the Declaration on Fake News is to develop technology and digital literacy to enable readers to more easily identify fake news.

The human rights community seems to be trusting that the proliferation of fake news in the marketplace of ideas can be corrected with better ideas rather than censorship.

However, one cannot be complacent in assuming that “better speech” triumphs over fake news. A recent study concluded fake news on social media:

… diffused significantly farther, faster, deeper, and more broadly than the truth in all categories of information.

Also, internet “bots” apparently spread true and false news at the same rate, which indicates that:

… false news spreads more than the truth because humans, not robots, are more likely to spread it.

The depressing truth may be that human nature is attracted to fake stories over the more mundane true ones, often because they satisfy predetermined biases, prejudices and desires. And social media now facilitates their wildfire spread to an unprecedented degree.

Perhaps social media’s purpose – the posting and sharing of speech – cannot help but generate a distorted and tainted marketplace of fake ideas that undermine political debate and choices, and perhaps human rights.

What next?
It is premature to assert the very collection of massive amounts of data is irreconcilable with the right to privacy (and even rights relating to democratic governance).

Similarly, it is premature to decide that micro-targeting manipulates the political sphere beyond the bounds of democratic human rights.

Finally, it may be that better speech and corrective technology will help to undo fake news’ negative impacts: it is premature to assume that such solutions won’t work.

However, by the time such conclusions may be reached, it may be too late to do much about it. It may be an example where government regulation and international human rights law – and even business acumen and expertise – lags too far behind technological developments to appreciate their human rights dangers.

At the very least, we must now seriously question the business models that have emerged from the dominant social media platforms.

Maybe the internet should be rewired from the grassroots, rather than be led by digital oligarchs’ business needs.

Dr Sarah Joseph is director of the Castan Centre for Human Rights Law, Monash University, in Melbourne, Australia.This article was first published by The Conversation and has been republished by Asia Pacific Report under a Creative Commons licence.

Article by AsiaPacificReport.nz