Harvesting minds

Many of us have been aware of, and concerned about, social media being used to peddle fake news. That may seem a quaint misdemeanour by the time the world fully realises the extent and implications of the “Cambridge Analytica scandal” that led to about $40 billion being wiped from Facebook’s market cap over fears regarding the social media giant’s future. A psychologist and a corporate have apparently colluded to harvest data on 50 million Facebook users without the knowledge of most of them. They went on to create a model that used the data to build psychological profiles of the targeted audience, and directed custom-designed advertising at those individuals in order to alter their choices. In one specific case the service was sold to Republicans in the US elections; this has shaken the world the most over implications of how social media could be rigged to determine government formation. There is also suspicion the Brexit vote may have been influenced by these services.

Digital platforms — irrespective of government policies — are becoming an inescapable reality of existence in the modern world. A unique aspect of this world is the astounding gap between the abilities and comprehension of the companies offering the services and their users. This results in a very exploitative situation where most users end up “voluntarily” giving away information under legitimate circumstances. And this data is used to target products and ideas on unsuspecting individuals. But things start turning really ugly when even illegitimate means are used to mine data, and then it is sold to entities.

While there are reports that this same corporate is scouting for business in India ahead of the 2019 elections, Indians would be acutely conscious of how social media has already contributed to creating sharp and hostile political divides in the population. That is because social media companies tend to introduce you to threads that you are most likely to join, i.e., views that you already subscribe to. This leads to ghettoisation of minds or the formation of echo chambers. And it could only be the beginning of thought control via the net.