The title, ” Anti social media” tells it all. Whatever is ambiguous in the title is clarified in the byline; How Facebook disconnects us and undermines democracy.
Marc Zuckerberg’s stated aim is to make the world more open and connected rather to be obsessed with revenue and profits.
That was as per a letter written in 2012 at the time of IPO of the company. The letter ends with the words as follows:-
………Once again, Facebook exists to make the world more open and connected, and not just to build a company. We expect everyone at Facebook to focus every day on how to build real value for the world in everything they do……
Seven years down the line, exactly the opposite has happened. Facebook along with WhatsApp that was acquired by Facebook later is one of the main causes for the polarized world we live in today.
A media that would induce anti social behaviour should rightly be called anti-social media ..and we call it social media.
A blurb from the back cover of the book:-
If you want to build a machine that would distribute propaganda to millions of people, distract them from important issues, energize hatred and bigotry, erode social trust, undermine respectable journalism, foster doubts about science, engage in massive surveillance all at once, you would make something a lot like Facebook. Of course, none of that was part of the plan.
The author calls Zuckerberg a deeply thoughtful, sincere, idealistic, and concerned person, rather than a manipulative and uncaring corporate demon. He feels that Zuckerberg lacks the education to understand nuances and the ability to figure out how people would react to his products.
The book is full of stories of silicon valley start-ups involved in the process of feeding the beast called social media. Start-ups focus on a specific aspect of technology, grow into big companies or get swallowed by the big companies.
Those who have followed the Seattle start ups would be aware of this phenomenon. A small company called Keyhole , with 40 employees, that provided web served maps was struggling to stay afloat . It was bought up by Google and today you have Google Maps dominating the market.
It is the big guys who decide which start-ups would survive and what directions the world of technology should take. The big five today are Facebook, Alphabet (the holding company for Google), Microsoft, Amazon, and Apple.
An excerpt ..
………….If the five biggest technology companies in the world fulfill their wishes, they will sell us a series of devices, each promising to make our daily tasks a little bit more convenient.
These devices would monitor us without our direct interaction. They would capture our intentions and desires at those few moments when we are not staring at screens and typing on keyboards. Some of these devices sit on our counters. Others are embedded in our cars. Some are built into our thermostats and appliances. Others sit on our skin………………..
After the introduction, the author goes on to list the varied of roles played by social media in general and Facebook in particular.
Pleasure Machine.
It is a pleasure Machine. It consistently gives small doses of pleasure, as can be seen from people smiling or laughing caressing their mobile screen ; ask them after a few minutes as to what made them smile and it is most likely that they would have nothing to recall. It is just a series of stories flashing by to kill time, to kill boredom.
Surveillance Mach
This has become the major role of Facebook. The author says Sheryl Sandberg who brought the idea of targeted advertising from Google to Facebook, made a great impact on the way Facebook collected and compiled personal information. Ostensibly, the info was voluntarily given by the users so as to get the kind of contents they would like to receive or for the information of their ‘friends’. In reality people end up sharing all kinds of inputs that they are not even aware that they are sharing. Beware of the applications advising you to log through Facebook. Does anyone stop to wonder as to how a Mutual Fund Portal could be accessible through Google or Facebook. Obviously, they are sharing your details. Of course, the user voluntarily uses Facebook to login, elsewhere.
One unfortunate fall out of Social Media is what is called ‘Revenge porn‘ . It is something that happens when friends don’t remain friends .
Every activity of the user is monitored by the system, including the time one wakes up, her mode of travel, places visited , food habits, friends, enemies and frenimies, spending habits, opinions on major and minor issues ; the list is endless. what was called Panopticon in the pre-social media days is now called cryptopticon. Keep everyone under observation 24 x 7 through digital footprints or finger prints.
FB builds a rich personal dossier, probably including such stuff that even you are not aware.
Attention machine
Facebook scrambles the commercial and the social messages. All kinds of new media or entertainment media compete for attention of people in a world where the attention span is getting shorter and shorter.
The stories from SM also should make us cautious because they signal to other news and entertainment outlets that one should—or must—pander to Facebook to succeed in a shrinking market for advertising revenue and a crowded supply of attention-seeking destinations. Not only do the Guardian, El País, and Haaretz all compete with Huff Post, Breitbart, and the New York Times for space and frequency on Facebook News Feeds, they also compete with YouTube videos, games, music, podcasts, and hundreds of other diversions in daily life – all of them more and more precisely engineered to hook us and keep us coming back.
Nobody goes to Facebook to read news , but many end up doing exactly that.; that too one sided news, designed and delivered to the target audiences ,that is you.
Benevolent machine
Facebook started the Internet.org called free basics in India. Ostensibly, keeping with the Founder’s letter of 2012, quoted above, free bsics aimed at empowerment of people.
We believe building tools to help people share can bring a more honest and transparent dialogue around government that could lead to more direct empowerment of people, more accountability for officials and better solutions to some of the biggest problems of our time.
When the “Arab Spring” erupted in 2010, the western media cheered the social media . They looked at Facebook and WhatsApp as harbinger of democracy. As events unfolded , the so called ‘Arab Spring’ only ended up transferring power from one oppressor to the other.
When Donald Trump got elected , the same Social Media was accused as a tool for manipulation of electors’ minds . Kamala Harris , like many democrats, accuse the Russians for manipulating the electoral process. She also acknowledges the existence of fault lines in US Socio-economic system that could be exploited through social media.
Author’s conclusions are not very convincing. He suggests that the monster called Facebook be regulated by Govts. It is only a dictatorial govt like the communist China that can ban Facebook. But the void is filled by something like WeChat that is even more powerful and totally under control of the Govt.
It is not just ‘fascist govts’ that use Social media to manipulate, it is the so called liberals themselves who are guilty of spreading fake stories or disseminating their bias and prejudices.
When Obama campaign used the Net, the ‘liberal’ world applauded , but when Trump Campaign did that , they cried foul. Of course a point to note is that the golden period of blogs roughly “2002-2007” was way different from Facebook and Whatsapp era. To read or write , one needs to think. Forwarding is done better when one is on a “high” , may be LSD or may be anger or hatred.
In my mind, it is only individuals who can choose to stay away from Social Media to preserve their sanity, can make an impact. After all when one can avoid legally permitted addictions like tobacco and marijuana why can’t one avoid excessive activities on Social Media ?