Social Media’s
Hidden Power Agents
What is going
on around here?
Hare (2016)
defines metadata as “data that provide information about other data.” Metadata
is all around social media, and they are being fed into gigantic data
processors that “summarizes basic information about data, making finding &
working with particular instances of data easier”
An innocent, naïve
social media user can be beset by a prolonged series of misfortunes when privacy
is surrendered. The University of Sydney (2020), while providing an 2015 sample
experiment with ABC journalist Brett Ockenden, pointed out that “there was much
debate on what metadata is, how it can be manipulated, and how it could be used
against Australian citizens.” The debate makes us wonder what happens when our
mobile phones get connected to the Internet. Well, as a soon as our smartphones
are connected, our information is given away freely. Through a basic analysis
of metadata generated by ourselves, anybody can get to know our workplace,
place of residence, way of commuting, frequency of moving out, parents’ place
of residence, flights taken recently, moments in which one was out of the country,
and even the people one is used to calling. We can go revisit the same question
again; who is listening to social media and for what purposed?
Is the
surrendering of our privacy and private details granting us greater access to
social media? It looks like we are now pawns in a divine social media drama. As
Jeremy Husinger
As a result of
not knowing what the gods of social media bestow on social media users, the
hidden power agents are ethcially questionable. Jeremy Husinger, quoted by The
University of Sydney (2020), says that “The way corporations acquire our
consent to perform activities that we are like to not even know about, nor
understand, is entirely questionable.” It seems to me that whoever these hidden
power agents are, they are just hollow individual who obey, as vassals, to a master
company that is probably profitting with users’ private data. I just wonder if
this is what the forefathers of social media had in mind when all these media
platforms were created to supposedly provide us with greater access to the
information society we live on.
As a simple
conclusion, a shudder passes through me when I just come to think that hidden
power agents can be using and manipulating my personal and sensitive data to
fulfill vested interests. Any social media user who becomes aware of this manipulation
process (where algorithms do their magic) can be appalled at his/her own
unawareness of how the gods of social media platforms rule from on high. But
this will only happen when the sudden realization of how they are herded by
master minds takes place; the fact is that no such epiphany regarding spiteful
activity in the media is common or present in social media users. And my final
thought is that there is no right to sulk about one’s surrendered privacy if
one carelessly and happily gives personal information to cunning and covetous
hidden power agends and social media listeners.
References
Hare, J. (2016, August 25). What Is Metadata and Why Is It as
Important as the Data Itself? Retrieved August 17, 2020, from
OpenDataSoft.Com:
https://www.opendatasoft.com/blog/2016/08/25/what-is-metadata-and-why-is-it-important-data
The University of Sydney. (2020). Social media's hidden
power agents. Retrieved August 17, 2020, from FutureLearn.Com:
https://www.futurelearn.com/courses/ethical-social-media/1/steps/824143
[8] Social Media’s Hidden Power Agents by Jonathan Acuña on Scribd
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