The Tail Wagging the Dog: How Digital Profiling Threatens Our Personal Narrative

Not too long ago, our culture, personality and sense of self was slowly developed, over time, through our deeds, words, and how we interacted with one another on a human level. Over time, myths, legends, and folklore formed from all of these interactions.

But now there is a new force in the universe that threatens the delicate balance between who we are as people and how we see ourselves on a global scale — enter the Universal Digital Profile.

Whether you know it or not, if you are on social media or have used any web-based technology, you have a digital profile. This profile is constantly being updated and refined, creating a detailed, psycho-analytical profile of how you think, act and respond to myriad types of stimuli. This data is now being compiled and sold for marketing, tracking, and political purposes, often without your knowledge.

Kalev Leetaru of Forbes Magazine recently indicated:

“From Geofeedia to Cambridge Analytica, social media companies seem helpless to stop outside companies from repurposing the data of their users for surveillance and profiling against their terms of service, even as they themselves actively exploit their users for their own commercial profit and engage in their own sharing and profiling activities from special data partners to medical research. While the social media platforms continually reassure policymakers and the public that they have things under control, it seems not a month goes by without yet another company making headlines for its use of social media data for surveillance or profiling against the platforms’ terms of use.”

And yes, your phone, computer and Alexa are absolutely listening to you, gathering more data and information to add to your profile. This is scary stuff on a lot of fronts, especially if you are unaware that’s it’s happening. Imagine the power someone would have if they know how you think and act on a regular basis.

Imagine how companies, governments and other large organizations could control the global narrative and push their agendas by creating messages tailored to your personal profile? This is not a conspiracy theory or science fiction — it’s really happening, right now.

From a storytelling perspective, the implications are frightening. Stories are always a reflection of the people that create and share them. So, what happens when the some outside force taps into human interactions on a very personal level, manipulating the ideas, thoughts, and feelings of an entire society?

When this happens, we have lost control of our own narrative, our privacy, and our freedom. Suddenly, the story we’re telling isn’t our own any more.

Some people think that having a Universal Digital Profile is a good thing. Rand Hindi of TechCrunch noted:

“Having a single, transferable user profile would be very similar to what Facebook does with the Facebook Connect button, but with one huge difference: Facebook would have no say into which company can or cannot access the user profile, and what they can do with it. There would be no more personal data lock-in, and no more legal terms and condition shenanigans. As a user, I would decide who gets access to what and for what.

As this Universal Digital Profile (UDP) starts becoming mainstream, an entire new economy will emerge, from personal data clouds to personal identity aggregators or data monetization platforms. All those ideas that have been floating around for years but couldn’t be scaled due to a lack of interoperability will finally come to life.”

I wish I could be as optimistic, but history tells us that objects of power and control will eventually be used for power and control. That means that if we want to protect and continue to own our own story, we need to be vigilant, aware, and informed.

But most of all, we need to be human and never stop sharing our stories with each other in all the traditional forms — face-to-face, one-on-one, and in groups large and small. Perhaps, by maintaining our connectivity with each other organically, we can maintain the control and connectivity of our digital narrative that looms larger every day.

Humorist Peter Steiner once said, “On the internet, no one knows that you’re a dog.”

But now they do, and they know exactly which bone will make you beg.