A writer should always indicate any possible conflict of interest so a reader can decide if the writer is biased. My wife and I own shares of FaceBook and SnapChat. I did not buy FaceBook near its initial public offering because I could not believe people would put personal information out for review by the world. That started to change when a Congressman informed people of his minute-to-minute morning routine in the bathroom! I did not understand its business platform possibilities at first.

FaceBook and other social media are being pilloried for allowing outside companies to collect information on their subscribers. The FaceBook problem may have started when Cambridge Analytica asked subscribers to voluntarily answer a questionnaire about their habits. What we know at this time is that questionnaires gave Cambridge and Steve Bannon (yes, that Steve Bannon) access to all the participants’ friends’ information. It’s called “mining” and it occurs every time we use a credit card, buy a subscription to something, belong to a charitable organization, or use a loyalty card. Your alumni organization sells your name and contact information.

Early mining occurred when I graduated high school. Supposedly, companies paid a nickel for each name and address of graduates. Today’s technology allows companies to form a very in depth profile of everyone through our involuntary dissemination of our personal habits. Social media mining just increases the profile perfection. Right or wrong we give out information about ourselves so companies can target ads or information to us. For instance the NRA won’t waste money trying to recruit me or my friends because of our memberships in other organizations.

My generation used to believe privacy was the cornerstone of our constitutional rights. But today we are the biggest population user of FaceBook. Times change and everything we do increases some company’s targeting of information to some siloed people by Breitbart, Fox and ads put Trump in the White House. Did the Russians use the information in their meddling or just get extremely lucky?