
Is the Internet Polarising Us?
I was under the impression that Twitter and Facebook would be the mechanism through which truth was told around the world. Boy was I wrong. Back in 2011, when there was a revolution going on in Egypt, an experiment was conducted. Three people who identified themselves as, Conservative, Liberal and moderate were chosen. They were asked to do a single Google search from their own devices. They had to just type in “Egypt” and search. For the conservative, Muslim Brotherhood came up, for the liberal, Tahrir Square, and for the moderate, vacation spots along the Nile.
We live in a world where every bit of information that is being passed on to us digitally has been customised and catalogued based on our preferences. What we choose to believe, our biases, these characteristics are a part of an algorithm that throws selected information at us. This is a very, very dangerous situation, one that can likely bring peril. What is equally more dangerous are the ones who pay for these algorithms for their own benefits. We can look at the recently concluded American Elections which has been muddied with the allegations of Russians meddling in it digitally. We have created such an intricate network of connections, that we missed the degree to which people who are in power, people with special interests, foreign governments etc. can manipulate this and propagandise.
If we are getting all our information off algorithms being sent through a phone, it is simply reinforcing our biases, preferences, and what we choose to believe, and this pattern continues to develop and cement itself. In the experiment conducted in Egypt, whatever your biases were, that is where you were being sent, irrespective whether it was a fact or not, whether it was the correct story or not. What is more dangerous is that, this gets reinforced more and more over time. This is what is happening with Facebook pages, Twitter handles where more and more people are getting their news from.
At a certain point, you are essentially living in just a bubble. This is in part why everything around us, be it politics, friendships, topics are so polarised right now. What we get in our Newsfeed has been tailor-made for our biases, which can completely blind-side us, sometimes even from the truth. Big companies essentially exploit this to propagandise to reap profits. Data firm Cambridge Analytica was the firm hired by US President last year to analyse Big Data and sow the seeds for him.
Cambridge Analytics essentially analyses internet data of consumers- the trail of choices they leave online on search engines, email and shopping websites- to profile them so that political leaders can craft appropriate messaging that target specific groups or communities of voters in specific places. This worked wonders for Donald Trump who was considered an outsider before the Elections took off. Cambridge Analytica also influenced the Brexit vote reportedly. Multiple political parties are now rushing to them to do similar things for them. One of these parties is Indian National Congress, who want a campaign designed for Rahul Gandhi for India’s General Elections next year. Will he be able to oust PM Modi? Only time and ‘data’ will tell.
In essence, we need to stop being over-reliant on the streams of messages and news we receive from these digital sources, because they can no longer be deemed appropriate or authentic. It’s a solvable problem, but one that requires a lot of time to think, because digital media now seems like a tool that has turned against us.