Social media: a double edged Sword
As social media users we tend to forget that we are collectively the public, the strong, the oppressed, the feminists, the masculinist and the activists. However, we are also the tools of social media data colonialism, the martyrs of commodification and consumerism. Ironically, people tend to take pride in their social media accounts where they acquire recognition, exposure and information. Especially that social media had revolutionized the communication channels and news acquisition compared to the news and information conveyed from prior conventional journalism tools such as websites, bulletin boards, television and email lists. Radically, the innovation of social media platforms is masked by capitalist and political economy powers that are recruiting users as unpaid laborers for the political and corporate best interest.
Consumerism has been mainly employed by data colonialism to reshape the public sphere values, interests and ideologies. Couldry and Mejias (2018) explained how data colonialism portray a role in implicating social norms through mimicking historical practices of colonialism according the quantification abstract method of computing. The data collection of the users’ information is mainly retrieved from their activities of microblogs such as Facebook and Twitter. According to Fuchs (2013, pp 180), microblogging has become a universal tool of communicating globally with other people where the free feature of social media accounts allows people to create their public profile through which they interact, broadcast and socially aggregate their messages across the diverse users of the digital online world. Significantly, Fuchs (2013, pp 181) explain that the event of public exposure is mainly interrelated with the public sphere especially that it is parallel to its dimension from formulating public opinions, discussing issues, expressing interest and generating collective discussions.
As enticing as the public sphere conveyed on social media might be, the hidden political economy agenda portrays a role of manipulating the public sphere for consumeristic commodification of the users. For example, Lee (2016) explain that Facebook software algorithm powered by human intelligence is mainly directed towards generating incentives for diverse corporations where it offers a set of applications within a single application that outreaches for the benefit and interest of stakeholders diversified on the global internet platform. This is mainly empowered by the data relations that Couldry and Mejias (2018) highlighted as a tool of interrelating different online digital media platforms for the benefit and interest of consumerism, advertisement and political economy objectives. A notion that Boyd (2018) highlighted mainly through reflecting on the fact that google and Facebook are wedges driven to shape people interests and values through promoting itself as bias free while in fact these platforms are ranking orders of the cues and keywords that have been entered towards shaping the advertisement campaigns.
Although activities from regular people can be considered as minimal, the collective activity is essential for the capitalist structures. According to Fuchs (2013, pp 191), the capitalists’ structures doesn’t only intend to reshape the accumulation of information for the economic operation but also they intend for implementing cultural changes through offering visibility, reputation, recognition and attention accumulation to certain subjects over others. Significantly, Boyd (2018) explains these accumulation of information as tool of promoting sexism, racism, white supremacy and bourgeoisie reign over all other accounts that may serve the public interest.
In another words, neutrality and transparency are actually absent from the social media platfroms which are integrated as digital influence machines. A notion that has been addressed by Nadler, Crain & Donovan (2018, pp 9–13 stating the digital media influence is reshaping the public sphere through incorporating overlapping ideologies associated with the privacy exploitation, surveillance, automated decision making and targeting of the users through their own personal information and activities. A concept that can be clearly understood by any social media user who pays attention to the ad generated content based on his or her activity on search engines or other platforms.
The extent of the public sphere problem has political extensions, for instance, the fake new proliferating into our daily lives through automated trolls, bots and different technologies have submerged the submissive audience into oblivion, especially that most people don’t check for the reliability or credibility of the information they share or receive (CNN, 2019).
Considerably, social media platforms can be utilized for good purposes that fight against the practiced colonialism through advocating from indigenous platfroms for the freedom of speech, right of knowledge and neutrality of information. This concept has been practiced by journalists and bloggers who want to ensure transparency and objectivity for the users. Social media is a double edged sword, therefore, it is important to realize which side you are holding.
