When Twitter and Facebook blocked the accounts of former US President Donald Trump no one felt alarmed. One reason for this is the widespread satisfaction, globally, of blocking the racist rhetoric of a power-obsessed dictator. But the incident also exposed the growing power Big-Tec, and its ability to control people’s minds and choices.
When the latest events erupted in Palestine, the other side of the new electronic dictatorship was revealed. The platforms that blocked Trump’s hate speech also blocked the supportive discourse of Palestinian rights. But the question that has not yet been asked: What are the criteria used by the tech giants in determining what to publish and what not to publish. And if these social media platforms are the exclusive tools through which opinions are exchanged among 6 billion subscribers, is it acceptable that the “Council of Wise Men” that monitors the content is chosen by the commercial management of these platforms only, or is this global decision to be shared by billions of subscribers to global platforms?
In the world of traditional journalism, the decision to publish or not is taken by a professional editorial board based on universally shared journalistic values (objectivity, balance, accuracy, social responsibility…). Even if this newspaper refuses to publish your article, you can go to another media outlet. But in the current situation, there is no alternative to Facebook, Twitter or YouTube, despite all attempts to find alternatives free from the control of the multi-billionaires.
The influence of the big tech giants is not limited to controlling what you read, hear or watch. It controls the way you see the world; it defines the world that it wants you to see.
In the past, traditional media, including press, radio, and television, tried to fight the pressure of the big corporations and advertisers through measures such as preventing the concentration of media ownership in the hands of few people, restricting the state’s right to own media, in addition to developing professional and ethical standards. But “Facebook”, “Twitter” and “YouTube” control the choices of 6 billion people on this planet in an unprecedented concentration of public opinion-making platforms in the hands of only three people.
One of the most important challenges to freedoms of thought and speech is “algorithms”. An algorithm is a series of instructions telling a computer how to transform a set of facts about the world into useful information. . For example, search algorithms determine the data and words on which your search results appear, and other algorithms (for example, medical) determine the criteria on which medical information or medical opinions appear. No matter how large and varied the number of data and information available on the Internet, it only shows you what the algorithms choose for you based on the criteria and preferences set within them. Herein lies deception and control.
The first customers interested in algorithms are the big advertisers because their ads work better when the algorithms support the preferences that lead people to their products.
We live in a world where we come to know the “real world” through the “virtual world”. If you want a restaurant for a dinner with your wife, you will search for options through food applications. And if you are looking for a doctor, you will turn to a well-known medical app. But never think that these apps direct you to all the available restaurants or all the doctors out there. They operate on complex webs of codes, software, and algorithms associated with advertisements and large investors, and accordingly, you are directed to a very limited number of options even as you move from site to site and page to page.
The new “Big Brother”, algorithms, may want you to sit at home to consume more episodes of prepaid TV series, and buy more goods through online stores that pay millions of dollars for ads in cyberspace. Well… they can do this by increasing your exposure to negative news about road congestion, car accidents, pollution, and unpleasant weather.
Experts say that the dictatorship of algorithms and the autocracy of AI can only be countered by AI itself. That is, by leading a long-running civil struggle for more pluralistic AI and less ad-affected algorithms/contents.
Until then, what you see through social media is not the real world with all diversity and complicity, but the world that Big Brother of algorithms has chosen to offer you at the moment.
ICT, Datafication, Covid-19, Social Listening and AI Technology in Development
