Hello
Well, the dark side of social media has been in the news again this week.
The BBC reported that, “Facebook has been conducting research that gathers highly personal data from paid volunteers, a report has revealed. TechCrunch said participants – including those aged 13-17 – have been paid up to $20 (£15.30)-a-month to open up their phone to deep analysis.
Facebook is said to have created an app that the report said could be in contradiction of Apple’s policies.”
Facebook appear to be denying any wrongdoing. That may or may not be the case, however what is not up for debate is the fact that social media companies do rely on understanding, amongst other things, habits, behaviours and demographics. There are also extraordinarily large amounts of money to be made, or lost, by employing sophisticated, or not, data mining tactics.
The capacity for social media to do both harm and good creates a dynamic tension and dynamic risk which millions of us may be affected by on a daily basis.
I think that the biggest issue is that any deleterious interactions in the virtual world can manifest in the physical world, with potentially tragic consequences.
From the BBC: “Ian Russell spoke out about how Instagram ‘helped’ to kill his 14-year-old daughter, Molly.
In 2017, Molly was found dead in her bedroom after showing ‘no obvious signs’ of mental health issues, but her family later found she had been looking at material on social media linked to anxiety, depression, self-harm and suicide.”
Absolutely horrendous.
This may be the tip of the iceberg: “Papyrus, a charity that works to prevent youth suicide, said it has been contacted by around 30 families in the past week who believe social media had a part to play in their children’s suicides.”
Let that sink in.
Responding to these concerns, Matt Hancock, the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care has written to corporate leaders at Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, Snapchat, Pinterest, Google and Apple.
Discussing the letter on the BBC’s Andrew Marr show Mark Hancock said: “If we think they need to do things they are refusing to do, then we can and we must legislate”. He ‘welcomed’ steps already taken by firms but said “more action is urgently needed”.
Good for him. However it’s far from just the Secretary of State’s responsibly to demand that safeguards are put in place with pretty much immediate effect, it is the responsibility of all of us to demand and expect that these safeguards are put in place yesterday.
Difficult as it may be for people with millions of followers and ‘fans’, who earn (often a substantial) living from these sites, if immediate and robust action is not taken, they have to lead the way. If these social media organisations cannot or will not eradicate this disturbing material, these ‘influencers’ should post no more content. That will hurt advertising revenue of course, but it’s a price worth paying.
Their followers or ‘fans’, although potentially starved of a video/photo/post ‘fix’, should encourage this abstinence too.
Remember these companies make extraordinary amounts of money. There’s nothing wrong with making a profit of course, however it’s worth bearing in mind that these profits can come at a potential cost to the ‘consumer’, with a possible loss of privacy, and that of course is not all that may be at stake.
It is alarming to note that children are spending even more time online, and that families and friends are spending less ‘face to face’ time together. That on its own is unhealthy, but combined with the insidious nature of some of the content posted on some of these sites, it is downright dangerous.
This is something that we must all be aware of, and that we must also be prepared to do something about, by boycotting any organisation which flaunts the basic rules of decency and safety, particularly so where children are involved.
However, we will probably not have to do that. Putting on the cynical hat for a moment, these companies will presumably move quickly, simply to nullify any negative publicity. Considering them from a more generous perspective, they must also have employees and leaders who do care and who do have a conscience, and who will do all they can to ensure that these nefarious activities are stamped out.
Unfortunately, the heady mixture of almost unbelievable amounts of money and a likely sprinkling of low empathy individuals, suggests that we should never take that for granted, because as one head of the hydra has been destroyed…
Reflexively presuming that others hold similar values to our own can leave us vulnerable.
Let’s hope that things are tightened up quickly and that further tragedies can be avoided.
Let’s also hope that we can encourage a cultural shift towards having more ‘old fashioned’ and ‘in the same room’, conversations.
In the interim, particularly when interacting with these technological monoliths, the mindset for all of us should be, caveat emptor.
Best wishes
Mike