(Sullivan, 2017)
The unseen power of information control and manipulation – Facebook
In an excerpt from In Life on the Screen: Identity in
the Age of the Internet, the author writes of the internet as a “dizzyingly
free zone” where “one can say anything to anyone.” (Turkle, 1995) The overall tone of the writing is that
of optimism and excitement.
How has an
internet that began so free and diverse, in just 22 years led to the corporatisation,
depersonalisation and control of the internet that we experience today? It is through
global social networks such as Facebook which masquerade as safe places entirely
about the user where they can feel comfortable being open and honest, but are,
in fact, corporate machines, designed to collect as much information as possible
to better target their very deliberate advertising. It is the power imbalance within
the social network Facebook that will be the subject of this blog and the ones
to come.
One of the specific
liberties power takes is that of the ability to watch and then, control. In this
week’s reading, Turkle examines Jeremy Bentham’s idea of the panopticon, where
a prison inmate would struggle with the constant question of whether he was
being watched by a guard whom he could not see. The prison, in the Facebook
context, is the news feed and the guard is the gargantuan industry of targeted
advertising. The power of the guard is the ability to know the ins and outs of
the inmate’s life and one of the ways Facebook makes use of this knowledge is
through very specific targeting of relevant advertising material. Advertising that
is designed to persuade and control behaviour. Advertising that is there
because the focus of a multinational corporation is return on investment. Advertising
that is there, because it makes money.
It follows then,
that if personal information is readily available online, it could be quite as
easily used by corporations in the context of sales, as by governments, for the
propose of wider population analysis and social engineering. A recent four corners
investigation titled Weapons of Mass
Surveillance (Al-Maghafi, 2017) has further
bolstered the argument that information is power, and controlling that
information can lead to situations that are much less than ideal for citizens
who already suffer from a major power imbalance.
In the week
2 lecture presented by Dr Victoria Kuttainen the question was asked “who are
the new elites arising through the internet?” and after examination, it seems
that yet again, in this new online, social and societal network, the power of
the corporation and capitalistic pursuit for profit continues to perpetuate
through a known method of social control; Information control and manipulation.
The power
of Facebook and the online network is one that is both in your face and well
hidden. They exist in the gap between knowing
they’re there, and noticing they’re
there. Their true power, is in the ability to appear as though they have no
power, all the while watching, learning, and subtly, controlling.
References
Al-Maghafi, N. (2017, july 27). Weapons of mass
Surveillance. Four Corners. BBC.
Sullivan, J. (2017, May 1st ). Leaked document
reveals Facebook conducted research to target emotionally vulnerable and
insecure youth. Retrieved from News.com.au:
http://www.news.com.au/technology/online/social/leaked-document-reveals-facebook-conducted-research-to-target-emotionally-vulnerable-and-insecure-youth/news-story/d256f850be6b1c8a21aec6e32dae16fd
Turkle, S. (1995). Identity in the age of the
internet. In S. Turkle, Life on the screen (pp. 246-249). sydney:
Simon and Schuster.
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