Social Media Dictatorship: (1) Enough is Enough..
In recent years, the practices of the Big Tech., especially those managing social media platforms, have exceeded all ethical boundaries without accountability. Their practices have become almost like definitions for new forms of crime.
Blatantly violating users’ privacy, tracking and spying on them, using deception, manipulation, and psychological tricks to push users towards addiction and spending as long time as possible on the platforms, without any consideration for the resulting effects on the individuals or the society as a whole. They even go as far as using their influential and dominant position to impose highly disturbing policies on users merely to reap more profits.
However, their most dangerous crime remains the falsification of awareness and the distortion of reality by imposing content censorship and enforcing specific political and intellectual agendas, using algorithms and artificial intelligence vaguely and shielding behind pretexts such as combating violence and hate speech. They suppress users' freedom of expression and censor any views that do not align with their – officially or unofficially – adopted political agendas, such as the elder brother in the novel 1984 would do, but even revives the European Church practice in the Middle Ages. They started to play the role of intellectual police that decides what is allowed to be said, and what is prohibited, blatantly violating the fundamental right of every individual to express their opinion freely.
In general, the fundamental solution to all of this is the birth of new platforms based on different, more ethical business models. The mere presence of new platforms within the current business models will make it impossible for those newborn to compete with the giants without slipping into the same practices, resulting eventually in more of the same criminal behavior. However, the birth and growth of such new business models is not something that can be achieved overnight. It would require many years to develop and mature, especially in the era we live in today. Of course, remaining silent all those years waiting for the maturity of such models, which have not even been born yet, is not feasible when the practices of these platforms are literally destroying the fabric of society, severing its bonds, and pushing it carelessly into the abyss.
At the same time, although useful, the timid legal efforts here and there trying to curb these criminal practices will always be powerless and unable to bring about radical change in the behavior of these platforms. They are hiding behind legal loopholes spreading from the far east to the far west, while there is no genuine political will worldwide to address this situation for reasons that need no elaboration, and perhaps are well-known to many. What is even worse is that some of these practices, such as content censorship, not only enjoy the support of influential political and economic entities, especially in the European Union and North America, but these platforms themselves are subject to pressure from these entities to apply more of this oppressive censorship. Over the past four years, we have seen many examples of the audacity of these practices in various occasions and issues. We all had noticed one way or another that there was a clear collusion to hide the truth and present the alternative scenario they wanted us to hear, depriving you and me of our authentic right to know the complete truth and decide for ourselves what is right, and what is wrong.
Whether your inclinations are right-wing, left-wing, or centrist, it is certain that you have been affected by some of that at some point. The reality is that we are all victims of these practices as users regardless of what ideology any of us may have adopted or belonged to.
So, is there a solution to stop these crimes that are taking place day after another while we as individuals and users stand watching helplessly, unable even to express our serious dissatisfaction with all of it?
Over the past few years, calls for boycotting some of these platforms have occasionally surfaced, here and there, but it is undeniably proven that this idea failed on the ground due to the profound infiltration of these platforms into our lives. That makes it literally impossible for many to completely do away with them, and keeps us hostages to the whims of the operators of these platforms and their desires and greediness.
Despite all that has been said, I argue that we as individuals and users still have the power to force these platforms to make fundamental changes in their practices. However, this requires a new perspective, an effective, realistic, and thoughtful strategy that does not rely on temporary and passing angry outbursts but on vision that takes into consideration the effect of time, the nature of people and users, and their capabilities, what they can actually do, and what they cannot bear to do. A strategy that aligns with what people need instead of being mere obstacles and restrictions causing them difficulties in their daily lives and ultimately pushing them to surrender.
But how can this be achieved?
That is what we will discuss next week, God willing.
