Facebook and social media: double-edged sword or two-faced coin?

“I will complain about how the government is invading my privacy right after I am giving in my buying pattern and consumer preferences on Flipkart or Amazon, allowing mobile applications to trace my location and updating my dating profile to attract strangers on the internet.”

~ Some Creator O’Popular Memes

You can’t make the world more open and connected if it is breaking it apart incrementally. Having been built upon the network effect, the social media basically sustains itself on people joining because everyone else was joining. The flipside of the network effect, however, is that each additional user, by definition, has less control over the terms of engagement or the use of the information they generate.

  network effect(noun)

Economics

A phenomenon where increased numbers of people or participants improves the value of a good or service. The Internet, for example.

Mark Zuckerberg may have mastered the art of co-opting rival products as well as cajoling those who raise a hue and cry over his creation, but — truth is — he hasn’t understood (or, at least, is unwilling to acknowledge) the reality of what he has created. When social media was driven by images, Facebook bought Instagram. When instant messaging sky-rocketed, Facebook bought Whatsapp and when Snapchat seemed like a strong threat, it copied it. This tendency towards all-consuming growth is symptomatic of the information era.

“We’ve made a bunch of mistakes. Everyone needs complete control over who they share with at all times. Not one day goes by when I don’t think about what it means for us to be the stewards of this community and their trust.”  ~ Mark Zuckerberg

This might sound fitting at this current juncture but the surprising thing is that he had issued this statement when he was addressing a major privacy breach that began taking place about seven years ago. Facebook started as a means for people in elite schools to connect with one another, following which the Facebook login details became a way to log on to other Internet sites. From becoming the place to tell people that you were safe during a natural disaster to effectively becoming The Internet in countries like the Philippines, Facebook has effectively become the means to various ends. Because of how naked the Internet is, people have always been wary of putting up details online. But make people feel safe exhibiting themselves and people will share obsessively.

Donald Trump’s social media team was able to make Facebook one of its primary vehicles for fund-raising and having a constant news-feed presence. The campaign made sure that all their voter files, which included names, voting history and plausible information on voters, were updated on Facebook. Through the use of a tool called Lookalike Audiences...

... Facebook through its algorithm was able to identify which people had signed up for Trump newsletters or brought Trump accessories on a broad scale. This allowed the campaign managers to send ads to people who would be interested and follow the same. With Trump posting statements which defamed Hilary Clinton or abusing the media, these messages would get hundreds of thousands of likes and shares and the campaign funds would automatically follow. Another clever tactic that Facebook used was to base employee bonuses on whether the company hit its revenue and growth targets, which would make for an additional incentive to not worry about aspects that are otherwise good with user engagement.

All the data Facebook has for you, you have an option to download. These details include all messages and files that you’ve ever sent or been sent along with all contacts on your phones. Details of every time one logs onto Facebook, the device used, along with storage information on all applications that have ever been connected to your Facebook account are present.

Social naivety is at the core of the thin blurred lines between the extent of privacy and accountability. David Brin puts it very well:

“When it comes to privacy and accountability, people always demand the former for themselves and the latter for everyone else.”

Having been entangled in this social media interface network, it is for us to work out whether the paradox that we are trapped in is of our own making.