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The recent data scandal involving 87 million people’s personal information collected and processed by Cambridge Analytica, one of Facebook’s many partners, acted as a powerful reminder to all of us: Social media is not free. We pay with a self-generated product – our data – and we cannot control for what and how this product is used for, once it has entered the digital market. This perspective on social media stands in stark contrast with the visionary understanding which dominated the early days of the internet, but a significant number of scandals and leaks (like Edward Snowden’s revelations about the National Security Agency in the US) prove the fear of our data being misused to be real. Powerful corporations, among which the GAFAs (Google, Apple, Facebook and Amazon), are now working hand in hand with governments: Under the banner of “fighting terrorism” and “state security” , they are effectively implementing mass surveillance programs. The recent scandals around Russian interventions in the Brexit vote and the US elections show how social media corporations are, in fact, ready to give away data to whatever public or private entity that has sufficient economic resources. Whereas the internet was imagined as a new utopia in its early days, a space full of creative opportunities, grass-root democratic access and free exchange of opinion, it is now appearing more and more as a violent space breeding sectarianism and divisions in our societies.
The dark side of the internet: social control and social cooling
A glance at what is going on abroad can give us a pretty good outlook on what could happen in South Africa if nothing is done to defend our liberties and rights on the internet ... Read more here.
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