Are social networks a bubble of ideological manipulation?
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п»ї<title>Are social networks a bubble of ideological manipulation?</title>
Social networks are too new a phenomenon to have accurately weighed the weight of their effects. What we do know, however, is that they have disturbing effects on our minds, emotions and lifestyles. It is also clear that they involve mechanisms of ideological manipulation not always visible in a superficial analysis.
For social networks -as the companies they are-, human behavior is a commodity. They have the capacity to study it, in order to know it, understand it and modify it. Mainly, to modify it. In addition to ideological manipulation geared towards the market and consumption, there are also ways of getting us to think politically and humanely in one way or another.
Many wonder whether social networks are exerting an ideological manipulation on us, capable of completely changing our view of reality. Judging by the evidence, the answer is yes. The mechanisms they employ are so subtle that it is impossible to detect them. That is the most dangerous thing, since they change our mind and we cooperate with them to do so. If we are not aware of what they are doing to us, how can we resist it?
"As long as we remember that we ourselves are the source of our value, our creativity, our sense of reality, then all our work with computers will be worthwhile and beautiful."
-Jaron Lanier
The ideological manipulation bubbleSocial networks make you, without realizing it, end up being part of a bubble. They construct an account of reality specially designed for you -they know your fears, needs, tastes, desires...-. In principle, you are the one who decides what you want to follow or what topics interest you. A robot is attentive to this and, based on this, it sends you one information or another.
Then it is the algorithms that decide for you. They indicate which contacts you will see most frequently and which posts you should come across when you browse. If one of your contacts does not appear in a prominent place in your network, it does not mean that their last publication was a long time ago. It simply means that the system has not selected their posts to appear in your daily updates.
Something similar happens with content. Don't think that the news or information you see is the most current or the most relevant. What appears to you is a careful selection based on your tastes and preferences. Also, of course, on how the market can capture you. In short, we are likely to end up believing that the world is that which appears in your networks, when it is not. You have access to a small bubble designed largely by the server that provides it to you.
Reasons to be cautiousHave you heard of Jaron Lanier? He is one of the great figures of Silicon Valley, the mecca of computer systems in the world. In fact, he is one of the most brilliant computer scientists who ever lived. He is also very critical of social networking. He used to believe that the Internet was the last bastion of democracy. Today, on the other hand, he sees the web, and social networks in particular, as a factory of absurd and tribal leaders on the one hand, and idiots on the other.
Lanier wrote a book that has become a best seller. Its name is Ten Reasons to Delete Your Social Networks Immediately. Each of the reasons corresponds to one of the chapters of his book and are as follows:
You lose the freedom to decide.
Networks are a form of madness in our times.
Social networks idiotize people.
Social networks manipulate the truth.
Social networks take away the relevance of what you say.
Social networks destroy the capacity for empathy.
Social networks make people unhappy.
Social networks seek to make you lose your economic dignity.
Social networks are preventing the authentic exercise of politics.
Social networks hate your soul.
Why do Lanier and other great thinkers, such as Zygmunt Bauman, argue that networks idiotize? Are they exaggerating? Unfortunately, everything seems to indicate that they are not. The Internet is not connecting us to each other, but to each other and to each other.
This means that it is fostering micro-dictatorships. Small spaces inhabited by virtual beings that act as confirmation for certain ideas. People have become more radical and stubborn with social networks. We have also become more simplistic. Let's think that we are smarter and better when we develop skills to relate to those who are different, not equals.
That staying in a bubble, believing it equals the world, idiotizes us. It reduces our outlook to a minimum. It induces us to believe that we are always right. In the end, we end up living as if reality were tiny and we were its masters. That is the main symptom of our contemporary ignorance and the main consequence of the ideological manipulation of the networks.
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