A life without advertisements

3

October

2021

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The main ignition behind a social media company’s profit lies in advertisements. Facebook, for example, has a digital weapon with its ad algorithm. An advertisement is personal to your preferences, curiosities, interests, and activity. Yet, even if users change their online presence for a month, the data collected is an accumulation of a long period of time. Thus, the ad algorithm bases its knowledge over your digital life span rather than your alternating choices.

Despite users attempt to steer away from personalized advertisements, the algorithm is too powerful. Not only does it base its knowledge on for instance, Facebook likes, friend groups, pages, posts engagement, but also it goes beyond the social media application. This means that you are tracked on websites you visit, purchases you make, additions to the shopping cart, videos you watch, time spent on an image or a post. The list is endless.

The algorithm slowly builds a virtual character of each person on the social media and decides what the user wants to see. If there is engagement and activity online, the algorithm keeps improving and feeding on information until it grows. The advertisements soon represent your interests, and the smallest interaction can make a difference.

People try to stop this and slow down the constant pop-up of new ads. However, the only actual escape from this digital prison is logging of the internet. Unfortunately, this is quite difficult in today’s world. Individuals consume and depend on electronic devices, applications, software, and socializing. Further, deleting and/or not interacting with the ad does not stop the algorithm from working, but rather, it incentivizes it to improve and further dissect the data.

The digital pattern of the algorithm might be opaque and invisible to both businesses and users. Nevertheless, in this scenario, there must be a way to limit the advertisement targeting. Can governments intervene and legislate social advertisements?

The next step is placing boundaries on the extent to which advertisements can be based on individual’s private life, as sometimes the advertisement is a trigger to a negative emotion. Thus, can governments and institutions gain control on this ad algorithm and set a red line where both parties (businesses and consumers) can benefit, but with certain constraints on ad topics and personal data usage?

References

Martin, K., 2021. Facebook under fire for burying research into mental health impact. Financial Times. Available at: https://www-ft-com.eur.idm.oclc.org/content/5f0402b7-812a-4314-aba1-cee242f9e161 [Accessed October 3, 2021].

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Are you in control?

25

September

2021

5/5 (1)

Privacy

Personal data is collected every second, with every click, every move, and each decision you make. In this regard, the Chinese Communist Party ‘CCP’ insists on obtaining control of all data that a business or any organization generates. This line of thought follows the belief that with data, the government can build a more productive economy and make efficient and constructive decisions, based on ‘hard science rather than intuition’ (Kynge, 2021).

Prior to this, individuals believed that they are in control of the data they share and generate, however, the nation is now advancing to a data-driven empire; and the more information it has, the more powerful it becomes. In China, Kynge (2021) reports that personal data is a mixture of online interactions, shopping behavior, types of transactions, habits and routines, usage and intensity, and the most frequent interactions. This digital profile is developing through the legal regulations of providing data to the government, surveillance cameras, smart cities, digital money and modernized and technologically developed systems all over the country (Ma, 2018).  

Change of System

Interestingly, China enforced a regulation that all information created in the country remains there. This results with multinationals establishing data centers to keep the Chinese customer’s data, which in turn, the government can access at any period they want. Tesla and Apple already issued a center for the products sold in China and is cooperating with this new law, in order to maintain the revenue stream and access a larger market.

However …

Will data prove to be a weapon or a shelter to authoritarian governance? How will digital sovereignty evolve over time? Will other countries follow the digital social card system to diminish tech giants’ power and gain more control?

After all, the danger of artificial intelligence and data collection is the asymmetric information the owner acquires.

References

Kynge, J., 2021. China and Big Tech: Xi’s blueprint for a digital dictatorship. Financial Times.

Ma, A., 2018. China is building a Vast civilian surveillance network – here are 10 ways it could be feeding its CREEPY ‘social credit system’. China is building a vast civilian surveillance network. Available at: https://www.businessinsider.nl/how-china-is-watching-its-citizens-in-a-modern-surveillance-state-2018-4?international=true&r=US [Accessed September 25, 2021].

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