AUDITING A PACK OF LIES!

What could be a pack of lies in this day and age? Surprisingly, something that makes these times what they’re known for. And surprisingly it has the most robust capacity to influence us, even if most of it is a lie!

And that’s not it, its ability to influence means a lot of decision making in this era and age is based on it. Yet unfortunately most of it is a pack of lies! Clueless still? Well, it wouldn’t be a big reveal if you read on what follows, but intriguing? For sure!

It started off owing to a need and a want!

• The need to be heard, to express and to watch freely whatever one wishes to without fear of reprisal or being apprehended and without being gagged, controlled and manipulated.
• The want was surprisingly at times contrary to the need! It was being enticed to conspiracy theory and theorists, propaganda and the benefits it could pull off, proclaiming self-righteousness and others blurring the lines that distinct truth from falsehood.

However, the want of it all overpowered the need. Resultantly, the organized and detail-oriented approach through which content for media was produced, the journalistic integrity and ethos through which news was verified before being relayed to masses, the standard protocols through which facts were separated from opinions and false narratives before being reported became casualties!

Indeed, it is social media, the era of its advent, proliferation, all-encompassing outreach, becoming the mainstay for sharing and news, and taking the lion’s share in use of internet. The era will end with its eventual decline, which might not be in sight for now given the appetite for these unless the world emphasizes upon seeking only the truth.

But what is it that should bother us all and why do I insist on it being a pack of lies? Let’s delve into it through some of the vocabulary social media has introduced / re-emphasized and see how it churns out anything but fact. 

It’s not that social media is all crap, deceit, falsehood or blatant lie. But most of it indeed is. And the sheer volume of that amongst the total content it produces, makes it almost impossible to find the truth and that’s also because of the frequency with which this content is bombarded upon the mediums for its audience due to the rat race of being first and producing most content earning most subscribers. Thanks to AI, especially Generative AI, the possibilities are now endless with yet another set of terms and concepts unheard of before most aptly manifested by ‘Deepfakes’!

Thankfully, this ominous social media use is now getting a lot of traction with surveys being carried out on what is being produced, how it is being consumed and the effects it has on the mental and physical wellbeing of its audience of all ages and colors. While the results are deeply concerning, it is also comforting to know that the root causes are being unearthed side by side.

For instance, the recently published UNESCO’s survey report on digital content creators’ aka influencers’ points out that the majority of those surveyed (62%) admitted to not verifying the accuracy of information before sharing it with their audiences, while also reporting that 42% considered the number of likes or views alone as the most common indicator of credibility of sources. Insightful? Read on here.

Now what is more bothersome for us as internal auditors? Businesses use and reliance on social media of course! And the resultant creation of big data. Big Data doesn’t necessarily mean bigger challenges for auditors, but could the same be true about social media? Certainly not!

Because businesses could rely on the feedback they get from social media about their products or services. A lot of negative feedback might be coming from the entity’s competitors using tech rather than human experience-based feedback. On the other hand, a lot of positive feedback could also be irrelevant or fake. Basing a decision on the sheer magnitude (numbers) of these feedbacks would be disastrous.

Similarly, product / services development could also be undermined if driven by unverified social media-based market research.

And when businesses engage ‘mintfluencers’ for promotion of their products and services, it would be impossible to dissociate the perception of recommending for money.

So, let’s see some examples of how we can help.

Examples of Internal Audit’s review of the use of social media

• First comes the determination of the significance the entity’s management attaches to the use of social media, coupled with the knowledge of its industry, products and services, regulatory and other operating environment and stakeholder requirements. This determination will allow the auditor to assess how important it is for the entity to extract information from social media, its own content creation and decision-making based on the information. The audit approach and procedures will be tailored to that assessment.
• Next up is the review of control environment. This would entail review of governance mechanisms, social media issues escalation policies and protocols, response on and closure of reported issues code of ethics / conduct, policies governing use of social media including source identification and credibility assessment criteria, information and its preservation adequacy and sufficiency requirements, criteria for information analyses and evaluation, reviews and verification parameters, etc., reputational risk management policies and evaluation of the decisions made based on social media information.
• Next in line for review are the procedures developed to implement the policies. Such procedures would give out elaborate guidelines, responsibilities, control checkpoints around each aspect of the use of social media.
• Reviewing the adequacy of criteria for verifying subscriptions and identifications, validation of objectives of use of social media, identification of relevant content, comments, reviews, feedback and identification of correct metrics differentiating between views and votes, reposts and endorsements. Testing adherence to the criteria.
• Reviewing and testing compliance with information security protocols relevant to preservation of and access to social media data.
• Codifying and use of specific algorithms to prepare applications for testing identification and aggregation of genuine contributions, comments, reviews, votes from the totals. The algorithms will be based on reading similarities, relevance, identification of posters, dates and timing, posters verification, evidences attached etc.
• Reviewing criteria for identification, selection, recruitment, appointment and terms of reference for digital marketers, vloggers and influencers. Testing adherence to the criteria.
• Reviewing the protocols for social media data analyses and evaluation. Testing criteria’s compliance.
• Reviewing the protocols around preparation, verification and approval of content’s completeness, truthfulness and validity used for market research and promotions. Testing compliance.
• Procuring support from industry experts, like Google in identifying and reading authentic and relevant social media trends specific to entity’s business.

I recently came across yet another perturbing creation of the age of social media. This is Phone farm, which is a scamming scheme at best. Procuring several phones glued to as many social media handles connected at the back end with a single user / software posting or conducting repetitive actions rapidly to deceive the target entity. Basically, it further enhances the ability to perpetrate social media, especially digital marketing frauds.

For sure, technology like Artificial Intelligence can be harnessed for astounding beneficial uses but Artificial or Alternate Reality benefits none. Only truth is truth! And only an ethical approach towards the use of social media ensures that.

For instance, this blog site doesn’t log how many comments my blog posts garner and manipulates these to show up as views, (falsifying tally of comments as tally of views) something that could be easily done yielding benefits to me to help attract more authentic views.

But means to an end matter as much as the end itself. The comments are usually spam, views aren’t, and the content needs to be worth the number of views. The disparity between the two cannot remain elusive for long!

P.S. This blogpost is as organic as its author!