Tech Box: Social Media

Originally published 23rd of September 2015.

Facebook has more than a billion users now. Streams of personal history in data and text and photos; lives come and gone. Twitter has 300 million voices all speaking at once.

"How to monitor a billion people? Make visibility desirable."

Social media is a data-mining operation and marketing platform. It can tell who people are, which demographic they belong to, and what they want to see, and buy.

"Social media is the greatest tool for mass surveillance ever created. It is covered by outdated laws and it is international. Surveillance laws can be circumvented and challenged."

They're not meant to be private - what do people expect?

"They're not meant to be private - the people expect nothing."

Every account, every message, can be reviewed by an algorithm and called to the attention of an analyst: marketing or surveillance.

"It is what the people want. They want a platform that knows them. They want security services that can see the enemy. They want a hand on their shoulder."

It won't end with everyone online all of the time. There will be a holdout, but then we know who to watch. Watch the quiet ones.

Видео Tech Box: Social Media канала Georg Rockall-Schmidt