It must be pretty hard to be a senior executive at Google, Facebook or Twitter. Though their technologies are predominantly used in interesting and positive ways, increasingly they have become the communication platform for terrorists and many other illegal activities. In the rush to claim victory for having millions and millions of users and monetize that for billions and billions of dollars, these companies have put many important matters in the back burner – such as developing strong acceptable use policies, detection and containment of illegal activities.

Many of these issues are hard and cumbersome, but it is not clear whether these companies even feel it is their obligation to worry about them or whether we should even expect them to. The recent revelations that these platforms played an important role in the interference by Russia in the US elections is serious enough to ask hard questions about what are their obligations. They all tout the use of new technologies to improve user experience everyday, while hiding the fact that they are doing it primarily to boost their profits. I understand that they are in the business of making money, but why are they not using these new technologies also to detect and prevent illegal activities?

As someone who loves the application of new technologies, I thoroughly enjoy how far artificial intelligence has come and how accessible it is for programmers to build new systems that use this. It is awesome that the new iPhone and Pixel have face recognition and other image recognition technologies. I can’t wait to point it at people that I encounter in Founder’s parking lot and the phone flash their name and other important background that I can quickly scan and impress the person in front with factoids!

But…. I can’t believe that Facebook could not have used these technologies during 2016 to detect ads being bought by elements linked to Russia, including some allegedly bought using Russian currency. OK, it is easy to do Monday morning quarterbacking, but pattern recognition and anomaly/outlier detection are fundamental aspects of doing business in this space. Why did these not bubble up to the surface?

Even if they did, what would these companies do? Simply say that “this is the nature of the game. We are a global operation and everyone is following the acceptable use policies, so we can’t do much” or feel that “this is a real threat to a country and its election process. We need to alert the law enforcement”. No doubt that these are tough questions and no one wants to set a precedence in a rush that will come to bite them. But, I would think that there is a need to set thresholds – be it interference in a country’s election or a secret collusion by illegal elements on social media.

There have been times when overzealousness on the part of the companies have landed them in trouble. Here is one such example from Facebook. But, if the brightest minds that are working in these companies come together with policy makers, I can’t believe that we can’t find a middle ground. We need to start somewhere before things have gone too far, like now!

Of course, we need to have the right people at the table. I heard on NPR an interview with Sen. Amy Klobuchar from Minnesota where she said  “If a person or a group spends more than $10,000 on political ads on a big digital site, the company would have to reveal what audience was being targeted, also the contract information for the purchaser.” Now, this is what we will get if the right people are not at the table. In this day and age, it is so easy to create new personas and use umpteen fly by night credit or debit cards that a proposal like this has no chance of catching interference.

A system that detects fake news and ads that gives the impression to the buyer that they are reaching the masses, but really sends those messages to a “black hole”! That would be an ideal scenario where the companies make money and help a cause in the process 🙂