We Are Creating a Monster on the Internet

Facebook conducts psychological experiments on its users, without their knowledge. In 2012 it carried out a study, which found that, by sending people positive or negative messages, it can manipulate their behavior. It definitely makes Facebook, as well as other global social networks, earn even more money. If they can control their clients, they can also control voters.

Social media is a tool — just as a spade is; and with a spade, you can dig a garden or kill a human being.

The problem with social media lies in the fact that, being focused on profits, the companies are ducking responsibility for the consequences they themselves cause. The business model of Facebook and other social media shapes social, economic and civil relations. Politics and public institutions, including departments at all levels, have moved to social networks to keep in touch with citizens.

If it only wanted, Facebook, which has 1.32 billion users, could paralyze global communication, thereby leading to consequences difficult to foresee, probably comparable to those of terrorist attacks.

Facebook, Google and others have great knowledge about billions of users. They have built algorithms, which keep analyzing data with such precision that they know more about their users than the users know about themselves. By creating profiles on social networks, users automatically agree with the terms and conditions, which determine a business model that has nothing to do with social responsibility. These businesses can use any data for any purpose, and carry out secret studies on their users. Facebook even has its own team of researchers.

Social networks are normally registered outside Europe, so they are not bound by data or consumer protection acts, e.g., the prohibition of abusive clauses — which are disadvantageous to one party only, i.e., to the client — and prohibition of subliminal messages.

The client-supplier relationship doesn’t even exist. If you want to make a complaint — for example, you want a fake profile to be deleted — you have to send a special form into virtual space. The system will generate an automatic message in English, confirming that everything is OK. If you keep insisting on your request, you will eventually receive a response from students who work for a few cents in Sri Lanka or the Philippines. They will use Google Translate to translate the content of the profile accused of being fake, and will randomly decide whether to delete it or not — I wrote about this in the January 13 issue of “Wyborcza,” in the article “Facebook Doesn’t Care About Your Face.”

Facebook and other social giants have no face. Instead, they have algorithms and automated messages that allow them to maximize profits, and to minimize and anonymize responsibility.

Yet, clients have a choice. There are social networks such as Diaspora, which respect privacy and earn their money on selling services, not people — in the form of profiles. And then, there are local social networks, which conform to European standards. So far, however, the urge to be where everyone else is keeps winning over ethics and common sense. And so we are creating a monster.