Barack Obama was right. Russia is a pariah for good reasons, and all the worse for ‘having nothing that other countries want.’
Recent news of extensive Russian infiltration of American social media sites is hardly a surprise. We have known for some time that a country that has retreated from its once-blossoming democracy has been interested in sowing discord in ours. Authoritarian regimes tend to be lazy. It seems to have been easy to ‘play’ American social media to confuse and divide Americans. On the available evidence recently released in two Senate Intelligence Committee reports, the Putin government decided it would do its best to use hostile and divisive information to undermine the Clinton campaign in favor of Donald Trump’s. As is increasingly apparent, the President has an indecent soft spot for Russian money and power. By contrast, the former Secretary of State was always far more critical of Russian ambitions generally, and the annexation of Crimea in particular.
To be sure, it requires a selective memory for any American to criticize others for meddling in the politics of a foreign nation. We used to make it a habit in Latin America and sometimes the old Soviet Union. Even so, it’s a stunning act of hubris when the leader of a government that can’t even decide if they will tolerate rap music decides American elections are fair game. Russians exploited our personal and media freedoms to disperse bogus opinions that were ostensibly from Americans, many apparently aimed at alienating African American voters.
It’s an understatement to note that Russia looks desperate and weak to enforce authoritarianism values at home while exploiting the freedoms of other nations. Barack Obama was right. Russia is a pariah for good reasons and, to paraphrase him: all the worse for ‘having nothing that other countries want.’
The tech sector has always been slow to see the effects of their technologies on the lives of their users.
Aside from possible complicity for our own President, what makes all of this news of Russian interference worse is compelling evidence that major social media giants suppressed awareness of these planted ads, opinions and news stories. According to the Senate reports, a Kremlin-backed group uploaded over ten million tweets to Americans, 1100 videos and over 30 million Facebook posts. All appeared to be coming from Americans.
Facebook is an especially egregious case. Born as the plaything of privileged kids luxuriating in their own narcissism, the fast-growing company expanded under the thrall of being another tech money machine. It’s leaders failed to notice or did not care that Facebook was fast becoming a new kind of agora: a digital version of the town square cherished long ago by early Greek democracies. Along with Google, Youtube, Twitter and Instagram, it prospered on the illusion that it was functioning as just a “personal” form of media. It was meant to make it possible to observe others’ best versions of themselves. Yet the problem with this orientation was that their leaders were slow to notice that their house was on fire. They were abetting a colossal fraud on the American public. Apparently the self-presentation mirror is too alluring to be bothered by bigger ideas like fairness and democracy.
Social media executives tend to see themselves as being in the ‘common carrier’ business, providing channels but not content. Instead, we must begin to insist that they view themselves using the higher standards that apply to content providers. Perhaps they merit less regulation than broadcasters. But the days of making connections without noticing the social havoc they can create need to be over.
The tech sector has always been slow to see how the aggregation of people over time and space would have important consequences for the soundness of our Republic. Too many have been neither interested or motivated to function as corporate citizens, in the full sense of that phrase. As hapless tools of Russian disinformation, they have become a drag on the nation, doing too little too late to protect America’s fragile open society.
There’s no surprise in the fact that no human wants to take our call at banks, government offices, or the vast number of other services that have set up robotic phone routing systems.
Cultural observers have been noting for some time that we are at the beginning of a revolution in robotics. The prediction has it that machines will do what has previously been done by people, even in many service industries. In truth this transformation has been going on for a long time. Ask anyone who has tried to reach a service provider such as a utility or cable company. Robots now “answer” the phones in the nation’s largest customer service centers and many smaller businesses as well.
It is up to us to push buttons and envision menus to find approximations to the questions we need addressed. No live human really wants to greet us at our banks, government offices, or any other of the dozens of services that have set up routing systems that might save a little money. But it’s worth pausing to notice what we’ve lost.
At best, the human/automated system “interface” is often frustrating, time consuming and—could it be otherwise?—dehumanizing. Everyone has horror stories about the company that touts its customer service, but still manages to tie us up for the better part of a morning. Indeed, long phone queues are becoming the norm for many firms, especially those who have already sold their services to a customer.
Medical insurance companies seem to be the worst. Anyone who must reach them to clarify a payment or seek permission for a medical procedure will run the equivalent of a sports decathlon. Professionals who must deal with them as part of their work now equip themselves with phone headsets, antacids and other work that can done while they wait out a company with no financial incentive to deal with a claim. This is a new kind of political-style filibuster found in many businesses after a point-of-sale exchange is finished.
There are a few faceless giants for whom contact with another sentient creature is virtually impossible. Trouble with Google e-mail? You are on your own. Hit the “?” key and the best you can get is a link to little generic “help” essays that mostly end in useless cul-de-sacs. Google is a huge “service provider” without service. Apple’s iTunes can be as bad. Apple’s famous “closed system” philosophy is, well, not much help to those of us without Steve Job’s intuitions.
If we want a visual reference to these faceless giants, think of a downtown telephone exchange building in a large city, perhaps 12 stories high with no windows, no markings, and no welcoming access for pedestrians. (There’s a large one owned by A.T.&T. in Tribeca at 33 Thomas Street) If you have business inside, it will have to be conducted through a wire.
AT&T Long Lines building in lower Manhattan
A friend actually has a phone contact at super-giant Amazon.com. and can report that there are live people who can deal with a customer. But she guards this hard-won secret with her life.
There are positive stories as well. I am happy to report that the electronics maker Onkyo will connect a customer to an engineer who will troubleshoot a problem over the phone. They actually seem pleased to be able to help, even though the buyer may have purchased a modestly priced item. The same is true at my local Ford dealer. A person always responds to a call. That’s really no surprise. The owner is a gifted salesperson. Potential sales or repairs are not opportunities he wants to farm out to an electrical router.
An old switchboard or its electronic equivalent requires a human to connect us to another human. No integrated circuit is trying to be a person.
But it’s mostly true these days that someone who wants to experience customer service will probably be most satisfied calling 911 or eating in a restaurant. Save the emergency call for an emergency. As for restaurants, longtime owner Jeff Benjamin notes that he tries to hire people who have a “hospitality gene.” These are people who get genuine pleasure in making their customers happy. (Front of the House, 2015). Alas, with notable exceptions, the gene isn’t found in the management or customer service staff at a lot of businesses.
There’s a generational difference as well. My students don’t expect much help from other humans in service positions. In fact many prefer to raise questions about a product or order food without any direct human contact. They are “digital natives” used to the equipment and “apps” that are supposed to make life simpler and self-correcting. But here’s the requisite “I remember when.” In my student days soon after California became a state my duties included working in a dormitory with the responsibility ofrunning a modest switchboard. That meant that someone was in charge and on call to help if there was a problem. When they were in wide use, every staffed switchboard at an organization or business was its own local 911. An old switchboard or its electronic equivalent requires a human to connect us to another human. A live body is at the center of the network. No integrated circuit is trying to be a person. We surely lost something when operators and phone receptionists more clearly knitted people to each other.
