Social media for thought control?

Only four years ago social media were being hailed for the Arab spring. Online networks supposedly spurred political awakening and protests that toppled six corrupt, brutal autocracies in the Middle East. Today the same connectivity outlets are seen as threats to democracy. Their contents promote extremism, while their ubiquity can be used for thought control. Proofs are Russia’s Internet influence on the last US presidential election, and artificial-intelligence profiling of billions of Web users.

Last week Facebook, Google (YouTube), and Twitter finally confessed to US federal investigators. Hundreds of thousands of posts and ads from Russian provocateurs had been let in from early 2015 to mid-2017. The material reached 146 million Americans, 40 percent of the population. Presumably those had a hand in the balloting outcome. President Donald Trump’s campaign manager and deputy, both frequent visitors to Russia, were indicted for conspiracy against the US, money laundering, acting as unregistered foreign agent, false and misleading foreign agent registration statements, and non-reporting of foreign banks and financial accounts. The social media messages allegedly fomented fake news, hatred, and division. As one news analyst put it, “After Russia attacked America, Americans took to attacking each other.” Russia is believed to have propagandized in the recent French and German elections as well.

Social media subscribers elsewhere perhaps couldn’t care less about partisanship in the West. But the tech giants just the same can take control of much of their everyday lives. Facebook, Google, and Twitter know that average users touch their smartphones about 2,600 times a day (heavy users do it double that). Algorithms record their gender, age, social bracket, location, likes and dislikes, which are used to sell online ads. Based on direct responses and sales conversion, ads in turn are rated for effectivity of message and longevity. Artificial intelligence long has been used for innocuous features online. Like, one has but to play, say, The Beatles’ “Here Comes the Sun”, and iTunes, Spotify, or Pandora, will follow it up with hours of same genre music for driving, working, and partying pleasure. But AI can be used for devious purposes. With social media influencing most activities, critics fear that the tech giants eventually can steer users’ decisions. Through repeated messaging, what to buy, whom to like, where to go, why and how could soon be chosen for the un-alert or gullible.

Part of the issue is opacity. Social media networks insisted from inception that they be spared from regulations on mainstream print, radio, and television. Supposedly the bounds and purposes of the Internet are different, so must be unshackled. Social media supposedly are for individual’s free expressions. One can post an article, a composition, or an app for anybody’s appreciation. But while that may be true during the nascent stage, Facebook, Google, and Twitter have since become the world’s most valuable companies. Governments have started to rein them in. Britain and America, for instance, have laws that hold them responsible for child pornography if they fail to take down such posts and ads within a day of receipt of complaint. Germany imposes a fine of 50 million euros ($58 million) if they fail to review and remove if needed hateful posts, like Holocaust denial, within the same period.

The tech giants cannot but comply. They also think up ways to curb excessive or extremist posts. Searchers of violent materials, like how to kill the most number of people by driving through a crowd, are diverted to sites that preach peace, brotherly love, and value of life. Still, the social media are slow to react. Three weeks into the Marawi siege of May 2017, Facebook had taken down only seven of 61 sites that the Armed Forces of the Philippines averred were sympathetic to the Islamic State-inspired Maute jihadists. Only now are Facebook, Google, and Twitter agreeing to report their sources of ads. But they are reluctant to publicize how they use AI for such ads. An expert testified before the US Congress that online ads, with messages sharpened with AI, can be used to hook subscribers by the tens of millions, to the detriment of scrupulous competitors. That is no different from the way Russian propaganda were rewritten and rechanneled up to 64,000 times a day to suit specific US electoral locales.

The tech giants know that their reputations are at stake. While social media does strengthen democracy and individual choice, they also spawn undemocratic excesses. Bullying, bigotry, and trolls abound, along with child porn, copyright breaches, and terrorist propaganda. Facebook, Google, and Twitter no longer can claim that they are mere platforms and not publishers. Irresponsible content can turn away subscribers, and provoke ruinous generalized regulation.

In the end, users need to be discerning. Democracy is not to live exactly as one wants, but in consensus with what all others legitimately wish. The alternative is being coercive. That is what some become when they obsessively express themselves through posts and need to be liked by the most number of fellow subscribers. Unthinkingly or otherwise, they begin to form groups whose members feed on and intensify each other’s pet peeves, and exclude contrary views. Users must remain tolerant, for the Internet is for everyone.

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